Bonzo No. 5
- 1925
Charley's cat-astrophic teatime hijinks leave him with a burning message to share
As if strangers, matches, and rivers weren't dangerous enough, now teapots are out to get you. Crafting a safety message for children young enough to need reminding not to pull tablecloths is a tricky business. The technique of using Charley as a surrogate for the child being hurt himself was apparently popular with psychiatrists employed by the Home Office.
Animated public information filler. A boy and his cat Charley are playing around the house. Charley gets very interested by the food on the table and pulls the tablecloth, causing the hot water from the teapot to spill all over him. He tells the boy, who tells the audience what he has learnt.
Would you know Mickey was a mouse if you didn’t know his surname? Many of the most famous animated characters are drawn from the animal kingdom, but they rarely behave quite as nature intended. Anthropomorphism has a long history in storytelling - going back to Aesop and beyond - and animation has imported it into film. But whether it's Bonzo the Dog or Charley the Cat, these characters are really studies in human nature.