Indoor Sports (1920)

Year Published: 1920

Creator: International Film Service

Description:

Based on the newspaper comic panels of Thomas "Tad" Dorgan, this animated cartoon is one of a short series produced in 1920 by William Randolph Hearst's International Film Service. Tad's comic strips alternated between "Indoor Sports" (gags inside the office, drugstore, or pool hall) and "Outdoor Sports" (taking shots at sports figures and their fans). Dorgan himself is credited with creating the many popular slang expressions used in his comic strips, many of which are still in use today (phrases like "hardboiled," "dumbbell," and "drugstore cowboy," to name but a few). His other comic strips included Johnny Wise, Daffydills, and Judge Rummy. The "Indoor Sports" strips were published by Hearst's International Feature Syndicate, which led to their being adapted to the movie screen by Hearst's own animation studio. Dorgan himself had little to do with the screen adaptations. This particular short was animated by Paul D. Robinson, a budding cartoonist who would go on to fame and fortune as the creator of Etta Kett, a popular comic strip for Hearst's King Features which ran almost 50 years, from 1925 to 1974.

Preservation note:
Both subjects were preserved in the early 1980s from nitrate prints which remain in good, if today more shrunken, condition. UCLA has preserved two additional "Indoor Sports" subjects; this is the only one of the three that is a relatively complete subject, with main and end titles intact. For its more recent preservation efforts, UCLA frequently restores missing title cards by copying them from other sources, when a title is generic, or re-creating them to a semblance of what they should have looked like originally.

Music © Michael D. Mortilla (BMI); MIDILifeCrisis.com.

Complete Record: Based on the newspaper comic panels of Thomas "Tad" Dorgan, this animated cartoon is one of a short series produced in 1920 by William Randolph Hearst's International Film Service. Tad's comic strips alternated between "Indoor Sports" (gags inside the office, drugstore, or pool hall) and "Outdoor Sports" (taking shots at sports figures and their fans). Dorgan himself is credited with creating the many popular slang expressions used in his comic strips, many of which are still in use today (phrases like "hardboiled," "dumbbell," and "drugstore cowboy," to name but a few). His other comic strips included Johnny Wise, Daffydills, and Judge Rummy. The "Indoor Sports" strips were published by Hearst's International Feature Syndicate, which led to their being adapted to the movie screen by Hearst's own animation studio. Dorgan himself had little to do with the screen adaptations. This particular short was animated by Paul D. Robinson, a budding cartoonist who would go on to fame and fortune as the creator of Etta Kett, a popular comic strip for Hearst's King Features which ran almost 50 years, from 1925 to 1974. Preservation note: Both subjects were preserved in the early 1980s from nitrate prints which remain in good, if today more shrunken, condition. UCLA has preserved two additional "Indoor Sports" subjects; this is the only one of the three that is a relatively complete subject, with main and end titles intact. For its more recent preservation efforts, UCLA frequently restores missing title cards by copying them from other sources, when a title is generic, or re-creating them to a semblance of what they should have looked like originally. Music © Michael D. Mortilla (BMI); MIDILifeCrisis.com.