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1940 textbook predicts animated Penguins
March 9, 2010 3:00 am
I had a wonderful time in the City of Orange yesterday, guest speaking at Bill Kroyer’s class at Dodge College of Film and Media Arts. While there, I visited a few antique shops in town and came across this vintage public school reader, In The City and On The Farm (1940). What caught my attention in the book was a 3-page chapter (thumbnails below, click to enlarge) about going to the movies to see a cartoon – Papa Penguin. It’s rare enough to find any acknowledgement of animated films in American culture at the time, even rarer in an elementary school text book. And this one sort-of predicts the spate of Penguin films to come (Happy Feet, Surf’s Up, et al). The third page even illustrates, via film strip, how the cartoon tells its story through pictures – just like a storyboard. I bought it (cheap) and decided to share – enjoy!
6 comments posted in Books, Cartoon Culture 
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That’s a pretty cool find Jerry! Thanks for Sharing!
Jerry, maybe the authors were predicting the future — or maybe they had fond memories of “Peculiar Penguins” and were inspired to create their own penguin story. Sorry, I can’t resist plugging a Silly Symphony.
And we musn’t forget Pablo the cold-blooded penguin in “The Three Caballeros”. He’s MY favorite.
If we’re going to recall pre-Happy Feet penguins, what about Max Fleischer’s “Peeping Penguins”? Or Walter Lantz’s Chilly Willy? Chilly Willy was the cutest cartoon penguin, IMHO.
Not even Criswell himself could have predicted animated penguins!
Actually, they were predicting the advent in Linux, but there was no better way to describe it in the popular culture of the time than a “penguin movie”.