Out of the Inkwell Films

Max and Dave Fliescher are eating hot dogs in their animation studio and begin drawing. The hot dog becomes a "real" dog, and it and Ko-Ko the Clown alarmingly end up inside a Gas Chamber.

Koko The Clown continually interrupts an animator, who turns his attention to trapping the clown.

Dave Fleischer sends Koko to Mars.

When a Native American artist sells a selection of his background drawings and original characters to Fleischer, Koko gives the new arrivals a cold reception.

The Inkwell Clown goes for a balloon ride. Later, Max's studio is filled with so many balloons that it floats away.

A man with a huge hooked nose enters the Fleischer studios to have his bust sculpted. Meanwhile, across the studio, Max is animating Koko. When he's called over to consult on the too-accurate bust, Koko gets mischievous and creates his own drawings. He then escapes and crawls inside the clay bust, eventually wriggling off like an inchworm. He gets into a fight with the man being modelled, both of them flinging wads of clay.

Koko the Clown discovers a machine that can make cartoons.

“Tramp, Tramp, Tramp the Boys Are Marching” features a song that dates back to the Civil War, one which was still familiar to audiences of the 1920s. The cartoon begins as Koko the Clown emerges from an inkwell-- an iconic image for animation buffs --and then steps over to a chalkboard to draw an orchestra. The band, “Koko's Glee Club,” marches to a nearby cinema (accompanied by a dog who beats cymbals with his tail) where they lead the audience in the title song.

A Dave Fleischer Cartoon

"The Einstein Theory of Relativity" is the short version (587 m) of the lost American long version (1219 m) of Hanns Walter Kornblum's original German feature "Die Grundlagen der Einsteinschen Relativitäts-Theorie" from 1922 that is also lost.

An "Out of the Inkwell" short featuring Ko-Ko the Clown, this time as a fireman.

Max has a toothache, and it's up to The Clown and a bespectacled rabbit to pull out the aching tooth.

Max is too rushed to do a thorough job of drawing Koko this morning. Max is going fishing. However, to amuse the clown, he draws a fishing pole and a pond before he goes.

In this one, Max has run low on ink, so Ko-Ko finishes drawing himself and then heads over to the camera room, where he creates his own characters, a mechanical dancing Dresden doll with whom he falls in love and a couple of automaton musicians. He gets rid of the musicians, but, alas, the projectionist gets oil onto Ko-Ko's soon-to-be bride, melting her.

This fascinating series features Max himself, filmed in live action, sitting at a drawing board and concocting adventures for his star performer Ko-Ko the Clown. Max is supposedly the guy in charge, and he takes sadistic glee in putting Ko-Ko through various forms of hell, but the clown usually fights back and sometimes gets the best of his Uncle Max. FADEAWAY elevates this charged relationship to new heights (or depths?) of nightmarish surrealism; it's also one of the most enjoyable Inkwell cartoons I've seen to date, packing lots of imaginative, unpredictable twists and turns into an eight minute running time.

Koko the clown is sent to the nut house by Max.

Max and Koko The Clown bet who can blow the biggest soap bubble.

An "Out of the Inkwell" cartoon featuring Ko-Ko the Clown.

Max Fleischer is going to a shooting gallery, so he practices on Koko and Fitz, sending them both to Paradise in this slightly erratic but funny cartoon.