The Circus

The opening titles list the director of this short as "Dave" (in quotes). Dave Fleischer was the director on most of the "Out of the Inkwell" films produced by (and featuring) his brother Max Fleischer, but it's curious that this film credits its director in such an idiosyncratic way. One theory is that, given the plot of the film (in which the Clown stages his own cartoon directly from inside the film projector), the "Dave" in the credits is a reference to the Inkwell Clown himself. At this stage in the series, the Clown had not yet been officially dubbed Ko-Ko, and it's possible that Max was toying around with the idea of naming him after his brother, who had inspired the creation of the cartoon character and also provided the live-action reference for the rotoscoped animation. (Dave Fleischer had worked as a clown on Coney Island.) Alternately, the credit could simply be an informal nod to Dave Fleischer, the real-life director of the short. Either way the director credit calls attention to itself. While it's unclear today what the Fleischers' intentions were at the time, at least one contemporary review began calling the clown character "Dave" (perhaps out of confusion).

Original prints show the Goldwyn-Bray Pictograph titles, crediting the director as "Dave" (in quotes).

Followed by The Ouija Board (1920)