Invisible Ink

The more I see of these "Koko the clown" silent cartoons, the more I shake my head in amazement how good they were, especially for something in the very early days of film- making.

Every time artist Max Fleischer tips his fountain pen in his magic inkwell (my description), he loses the tip. It turns out his pal "Koko The Clown," who resides inside, is playing with him and stealing the tips. Max finally yanks him out and tells him, "Come on, let me finish my drawing. Go back where you came from." Koko gives him a hard time, jumping on his favorite place - the canvas - and refusing to go away, even when Max erases him. He always finds a way to come back through the canvas. You have to see this "skits" to appreciate them. They are very inventive and different from most things people saw from the "talkies" to the present. There is no sound, not even sound-effects, but the creativity in these stories is so good that it still keeps your attention.

Later, Max uses "invisible ink" to try to torment Koko, and drawn him back inside the inkwell, but the clown always has the last laugh and turns the tables on the artist. Both these main characters are "rascals," as Max calls Koko. Great stuff!

This was one of the "From the vault" extra features from disc 3 on the "Popeye The Sailor Man Volume One DVD set Don't pass it up.

I have seen quite a few Koko cartoons and it's a darn shame that he's pretty much forgotten today. I am sure most of it is because he was mostly a silent film star...and very few people would even consider seeing any silent film...even a short one.

Koko was created by the Fleischer brothers--the same folks who later created the Popeye and Betty Boop cartoons. Using their own invention, the Rotoscope, Max Fleischer animated and appeared in the films while his brother, Dave, was the actor who acted out Koko's movements...and using that machine, Max traced over film footage of Dave to create these wonderful shorts.

In "Invisible Ink", Koko is his usual self...in other words, he's a bit of a jerk...but a likable jerk! It begins with Max trying to make a cartoon. And, like they did in the good old days, he's using an inkwell...but Koko is hiding inside and doesn't want to cooperate. Eventually, Max tries to trick Koko into coming out...and Koko then decides to use the same strategy to trick Max. It's all very clever and exactly the sort of wonderful combination of animation and real life footage that made the cartoons so popular back in the day.

Dave Fleischer was responsible for many gems. Ones that were amusing and charming, though over-cuteness did come through in some efforts and the stories were always pretty thin, with appealing characters, outstanding music and visuals that were inventive and with innovative animation techniques.

Ko-Ko similarly was an always amiable character to watch and among the better recurring characters in Fleischer's early work. Likewise, his series of Out of the Inkwell cartoons were among the best early efforts of Fleischer and silent cartoons in general. Fleischer may not be at his very finest and there are other cartoons of his that fit the word gem more. 'Invisible Ink' is still great though and for me one of the best Ko-Ko cartoons.

Sure, there is not much special or anything much for that matter to the story, which is generally best to be forgotten.

Everything else though is done so brilliantly that any issues had with the story don't stay for long.

One expects the animation to be primitive and very low quality. While Fleischer became more refined and inventive later certainly, the animation is surprisingly pretty good with some nice visual wackiness and wit.

'Invisible Ink' is lively in pace and the bizarre and wild nature of the humour is done very imaginatively and never less than fun to watch. The interplay with Max is a delight, the crew were clearly having a ball doing this, and Ko-Ko as always is amiable and amusing.

Altogether, great and one of Ko-Ko's best. 9/10 Bethany Cox