Cartoon in the Classroom

Abstract

THE FIRST words I heard at the Disney studio were, how does the horse get in the bubble? Screwy, yes, but significant-significant enough to indicate a future usefulness for this wacky and wonderful cartoon industry that may rank with the greatest things it has done in the past. For that theatrical phrase dissolves into a parallel of some promise to the field of education, namely, how does the verb get in the sentence? The cartoon, of course, has been a powerful educative force ever since artists roughed out their stuff with sledge and chisel. The spot cartoon, political or humorous, has always been a form of frozen animation, distilling a whole sequence of action or character into a single significant moment. The comic strip added an element of progression in the making of a point. But the comparatively recent development of filmed animation, and the still more recent embellishment of sound, have brought into being a truly new teaching tool-a tool which, when the medium is properly used and its philosophy is understood, can clarify and make rememberable many vital things which hitherto have been difficult to impart by traditional methods. The educative possibilities of liveaction film are reasonably apparent, and, regardless of one's opinion of the existing library, pretty well explored; those of cartoon animation are not so