Here's one of the original series of Screen Songs from the Fleischer brothers. It begins with a cat and a mouse fighting in a music shop. Then a lady cat in a bonnet comes in and the cat sings the title song to her in a yowling voice.
It's not as elaborate as the series would become in the 1930s, but it does contain the bouncing ball. Unfortunately for the Fleischers and their partners in the Red Seal movie chain -- three dozen theaters scattered from the East coast as far as Ohio, all equipped with the DeForest sound system, the chain went bankrupt in 1926, the year before THE JAZZ SINGER arrived and kicked off the talkies craze that finally stuck. In 1928, the Weiss Brothers bought up the original series from 1924 through 1926 and reissued them. The copy I saw looks like it was derived from their prints. The year after that, Paramount cut a deal with the Fleischers for a new series of Screen songs and other cartoons.
Sometimes you get a good idea and execute welll...... but it's just too early.
