In Hollywood Cartoons, Michael Barrier takes us on a glorious guided tour of American animation in the 1930s, '40s, and '50s, to meet the legendary artists and entrepreneurs who created Bugs Bunny, Betty Boop, Mickey Mouse, Wile E. Coyote, Donald Duck, Tom and Jerry, and many other cartoon favorites.
Beginning with black-and-white silent cartoons such as Winsor McCay's "Gertie the Dinosaur," Barrier offers an insightful account of animation's first flowering, taking us inside early New York studios and such Hollywood giants as Disney, Warner Bros., and MGM. Barrier excels at illuminating the creative side of animation--revealing how stories are put together, how animators develop a character, how technical innovations enhance the "realism" of cartoons. Here too are colorful portraits of the giants of the field, from Walt and Roy Disney and their animators (including Ub Iwerks, Bill Tytla, and Ward Kimball), to Dave and Max Fleischer, Tex Avery, Bob Clampett, Chuck Jones, and Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera. And along the way, Barrier gives us an inside look at the making of such groundbreaking cartoons as "Out of the Inkwell" (with KoKo the Clown), "Steamboat Willie" (the first successful sound cartoon), "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," and "Bambi."The years from the Depression through World War Two witnessed a golden age of American animation. Based on hundreds of interviews with veteran animators, Hollywood Cartoons gives us the definitive inside look at this colorful era and at the creative process behind these marvelous cartoons.
Title: Hollywood Cartoons: American Animation in Its Golden Age
Author: Michael Barrier
Published: November 6, 1999
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Pages: 672
Genre: Non-fiction- Entertainment/Reference
I have been reading Hollywood Cartoons: American Animation in its Golden Age by Michael Barrier on and off for a little over a month now. I can see the incredulous looks I just got. Yes I know I usually read a book in a day but this is a nonfiction book and I read those a bit differently than I would regular fiction. You see, I’ve looked up just about every person, place, thing, cartoon, and movie mentioned in the book. More than half of the cartoons that are discussed or referenced are available on the internet in various places and I have quite a few on DVD as well. 
I had a lot of fun revisiting the classic animated Disney movies and watching cartoons that I had never seen before. I strongly recommend this wonderful book!
First Paragraph: This is a book about American studio animation in its "golden age"- the cartoon,, most of them only seven or eight minutes long, that were commonly part of theater programs in the thirties, forties, and fifties. When I was a child in the late forties and early fifties, I usually saw such a film once a week as part of a Saturday matinee at a neighborhood theater. On rare occasions, short cartoons might take up a whole matinee, and- great event- every year or two my parents took me in the evening to a new Walt Disney animated feature. I knew many cartoon characters only from their comic-book appearances, and it was in comic books that even so familiar character as Bugs Bunny seemed most "real" because I saw him there so much more often.
The Big Cartoon Database and The Encyclopedia of Disney Shorts are great sites about cartoons. Many of which are mentioned in the book.
Disney- The Old Mill:
Disney-Merbabies:
MGM-Peace on Earth:
First Superman Cartoon:
WB Merrie Melodies-Old Glory:
Columbia-Fox and Grapes:
Tom and Jerry-Sufferin' Cats:
MGM-Red Hot Ridin' Hood:
Droopy-Wild n' Woolfy:
Bugs Bunny-Rabbit Fire:
UPA-Rooty Toot Toot:
Happy Harmonies-To Spring:
Source: Library loan, hardcover
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I think the costumes and special effects are great for their time period but they don’t really hold up to the test of time very well. You can tell which animals are fake and the "fictional" animals (Pink sea snail, Luna moth, and the Pushmi-Pullyu) are nearly laughable they are so dated. I actually envy my younger self when I watch this film. I never believed that those creatures actually existed, but they looked real enough to me then that it was possible for me to get caught up in the make-believe. Even with all its faults, it's still a wonderful and fun family film. 
My biggest complaint is that Agony and Ecstasy is way too long but it is a good history-based piece that was nominated for five Oscars, including unsurprisingly Best Art Direction, Set-Direction and Best Cinematography. The movie leaves you wanting to learn more about Michelangelo and his works (I would love to see the Sistine Chapel ceiling in person one day) so it’s not a complete waste of time but I still will probably never watch it again.
One of the true Disney masterpieces... the poignant animated Classic about Dumbo, a baby elephant born with oversized ears. Snubbed and ridiculed by all the other circus folks, he is befriended by a jocular mouse named Timothy. With luck, determination and an amazing amount of courage, Dumbo learns to soar as the high-flying star of the circus. Delightful, enchanting and touching. Dumbo remains one of the most popular, loveliest films from the mast of animated entertainment.
