Scrappy Goes GIF

The animated GIF file format wasn’t invented until 1987. But if it had existed in the 1930s, boy, would animators have loved it. They were already creating hypnotic little loops of animation and repeating them–mostly, perhaps, for economy’s sake, though it often accentuated comic rhythm. They just had no way to distribute those loops on their own as mini-entertainments.

Today we do. So I was moved to create a few GIFs from moments in The Beer Parade (1933), one of the most memorable of all Scrappy cartoons. I snagged from from a YouTube version of the cartoon which an anonymous benefactor appears to have videotaped off the screen at the 2005 Scrappy screening in LA, which explains the silhouetted heads at the bottom.

As far as I know, these may be the world’s first Scrappy GIFs. Feel free to copy them and spread the boozy merriment near and far.