Tuesday 22 December 2015

Bill Hanna's Christmas Mouse

You’re familiar with the animation career of Bill Hanna, I’m sure. You can see him in the centre of this photo of the management and some of the staff at the Harman-Ising studio published in the Motion Picture Herald on July 27, 1935; Rudy Ising is on the left and Hugh Harman on the right (photo courtesy of Devon Baxter). Hanna bolted from Harman-Ising for MGM in 1937 (for reasons he didn’t wish to discuss with animation historian Mike Barrier) and then opened his own studio with Joe Barbera and backing from director George Sidney and Columbia Pictures’ Screen Gems division 20 years later.

While Barbera had at least one side project while at MGM—he and Harvey Eisenberg worked on comic books in the late ‘40s—Hanna did something outside the studio as well. He worked on a Christmas film-strip for a religious company.

Cathedral Films was set up in Los Angeles in 1938 by the Rev. James K. Friedrich, creating religious films of varying lengths. It was also in the film-strip business, with drawings on individual frames rolled through a projector. The company sold Christian-based stories on strips accompanied by a record with narration and other sounds. Stan Freberg even supplied animal voices for a series of Cathedral film-strips in 1955. These films and film-strips were designed for use by churches and Sunday schools, though the company sold its library of around 40 films to television in 1952.

Hanna was employed on only one of the strips that I can discover, a Christmas story called “Christopher Mouse.” Assisting him with the drawings was MGM layout artist Gene Hazelton, who later was in charge of the Yogi Bear and Flintstones comic strips which Hanna-Barbera had syndicated in newspapers. The Hollywood Reporter of Oct. 20, 1949 mentioned “Bud Stefan, the soda jerk on the Fibber McGee show, narrated a 35 mm. color film strip for children called ‘Christopher Mouse’; William Hanna wrote it. All profits will go to St. Michael of the Angels Episcopal Church in Studio City.”



The strip with 75 frames by Hazelton was apparently copyrighted in 1950 but several newspapers from 1949 reported churches showing it. The soundtrack, such as it was, ran 14 minutes and was available on two 78s or one 33 1/3 album. The film was printed on Eastman stock so it would likely have turned beet red over time. One catalogue on the internet sums up Hanna’s storyline:

CHRISTOPHER MOUSE is the story of a little mouse who goes with his grandfather to a nearby town where a Carnival was being held. He enjoys everything in the Carnival a ride on a merry-go-round, on the train, etc. In fact, he and his grandfather enjoy themselves so much they forget it is getting late and when they start to look for a place to sleep they can find none. Eventually the grandfather remembers Farmer Brown's barn and they trudge out to the barn and get ready to go to sleep in the hay loft. Christopher doesn't like the rough straw as it irritates him when he lies on it. His grandfather, seeing his plight, begins to tell him the story of a little mouse many, many years ago who used to live in the hay loft of a barn and had a wonderful straw bed. One night some strangers came to the barn, a little baby was born, and there was no clean straw on the ground. The mouse's mother gathered all the straw she could to keep the ground dry and in order to get enough the little mouse had to give his own bed of straw. Then a little baby was born who was the Christ Child. The Wise Men came from the East to see the babe and after the telling of the story to Christopher, he went sound to sleep without another murmur.
How Hanna hooked up with Cathedral is a little mystery. It could have been through his reputation winning Oscars with Tom and Jerry. There was a tenuous connection with MGM; in 1940, Cathedral Films moved into the old Metro building at 6260 Romaine Street.

In the mid-1980s, Hanna-Barbera jumped into the religious film business with a series of home videos of stories based on Biblical events. One of the cartoons was entitled “The Nativity.” Joe Barbera was particularly enthusiastic about the series. But it was Bill Hanna who, almost 40 years earlier, explored the subject through charming little characters using technology that’s pretty quaint today.

18 comments:

  1. While the classic film strips were a big part of my life in public school, I never saw the Cathedral Films series in Sunday School. I do remember seeing the H-B " Greatest Adventures " series at a church I attended a few years back. Vincent Price, James Whitmore, James Earl Jones and others.......quite a roster.

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  2. Wow... That's the first picture of Bill Hanna in which he doesn't have white hair that I've ever seen! I had no idea about his Cathedral Films short. Is there any chance any watchable copies of this film survive? I would love to see it. Where did you get the screenshots?

    Merry Christmas, Yowp.

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    1. It's not a film, but a filmstrip - more like a slide show than a movie, with individual frames shown one at a time, used mainly in schools and churches.

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    2. Oh... I see. Well, that answers my questions, then. Of course, upon rereading Yowp's post, it is clear this was not an animated cartoon. I guess the first time I read it I didn't do so as carefully as I should have, and, not being familiar with filmstrips, didn't pick up on the distinction. Thanks for the clarification.

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    3. Sergio, yes, rnigma has it right. This was not a cartoon. It was a filmstrip. The two frames I've posted are the only ones I've found on line.

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    4. I have the entire filmstrip in a tin canister. I bought it at a yard sale. I have never watched it. This post is all the info I have ever found about it. Any idea of its worth?

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    5. Unknown, Do you have the Christopher Mouse Film Strip?

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  3. How did I miss this article last year?!?!? This is the missing puzzle piece I've been looking for all along! THANK YOU!!! This ties up the entire connection between "Peace On Earth" and "Good Will To Men" just as tidy as can be expected when dealing with animation from this era! I am forever in your debt!

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  4. I own a faded version of Christopher Mouse. Any idea where I could get a version in better shape? Robert

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  5. I'm digitising some film strips and collating info on the publishers. Mainly UK based. But Cathedral Films Inc appear to have been affiliated with Dawn Trust Film Strips of Aylesbury, UK. Run by the Rev Brian Hession - more info here: https://vintageminicinefilm.blogspot.com/

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  6. My church has the set in the box. Gonna check on it tomorrow. I think there is another title also.

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    1. Karla, Love to know if you do have a non-faded set. Robert

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    2. Karla, did you find the set at your church?

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  7. So, here's a digital version of Christopher Mouse. The source had faded terribly. Still looking for a cleaner version. Blessings. https://youtu.be/CkjXjpnLPTk

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  8. I have the filmstrip from Sunday school days as my Dad used it each Christmas at home and at Sunday School. Our family loved watching it.

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  9. Kenneth Suit's book, "James Friedrich and Cathedral Films: The Independent Religious Cinema of the Evangelist of Hollywood, 1939-1966", provides some info on the film strip:

    "In Friedrich's 'other' occupation as an Episcopal priest, he was not the Assistant Rector at the St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church in Studio City, California. One of the members at the church was Bill Hanna, of Hanna and Barbera animation fame, then basking in the glory of his fifth Academy Award for a Tom and Jerry cartoon. As a personal favor for his pastor, Hanna created a Christmas cartoon filmstrip for Fredrich called Christopher Mouse in 1949 that proved to be quite popular."

    In 1963 "Christopher Mouse" and another filmstrip, "When the Littlest Camel Knelt", was converted to motion picture film on 16mm by photographing the drawings and adding camera moves and animation effects (courtesy of a company called Technamation), using the same soundtrack as the filmstrip . Bill Hanna wasn't pleased about that:

    “Evidently Hanna felt that reissuing his filmstrip as a motion picture was a violation of copyright and so in 1968, two years after Friedrich’s death, both the film and the filmstrip became the subject of a lawsuit by Hanna and St. Michael and All Angels Church against Cathedral Films. Hanna and the church claimed sole ownership of Christopher Mouse and that Cathedral and not paid complete royalties on the material. Cathedral countered that the ownership of the film had never been firmly established and that they owned no money to Hanna or the church. The suit was settled by compromise in 1969 when it was agreed that the church own the film, and that Cathedral would backpay royalties for the previous two years.”

    Steve Stanchfield found the 16mm version and transferred it - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RVAnW20F5o

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    1. Charles, thanks for posting this history about CM. The film you posted is the first time I've seen the actual colors of the film strip. Our version is faded terribly and it's pinkish mostly.

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