Flip Flap
About Flip Flap
Flip-Flap, a young seal, mopes in a city zoo tank while his parents play. One night he slips out and swims for the North Pole. Local seals take him in, and he meets a girl named Sealia. Hunters catch her and ship her to the zoo. He turns back, and the two end up in the same tank.
Cast & crew
More about Flip Flap
Famous Studios made the short for Paramount's Noveltoons series. Bee Lewi had already published the character in the May–June 1946 issue of Calling All Kids; Joe Stultz and Larry Riley added Sealia, and that romance replaced the magazine ending. The titles carry a "By Arrangement With" line for the magazine's publishers.
Themes
Making
As a teenager Steve Stanchfield bought a near-mint 16mm Kodachrome of the short from collector Dennis Atkinson. That print, for years the copy people could actually see, later supplied the Thunderbean disc.
Look
Hand-drawn cels, framed at 1.37:1, with backgrounds by Robert Little.
Technique
The short was photographed on 35mm in Polacolor, the only Noveltoon to use that process.
Music
Winston Sharples wrote the score. The track is mono.
Preservation
The British Film Institute holds an original Polacolor nitrate print. Paramount's 1948 copyright was not renewed, and the film entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 1977.
Notes
- Myron Waldman is the first animator on the credits. At Famous Studios that slot was the animation director, while Izzy Sparber took the supervisor credit as director.
- William B. Pattengill also animated.
- Story credit is shared by Bee Lewi, Mickey Klar Marks, Joe Stultz, and Larry Riley. Lewi and Marks did not team on another film.
- Voices include Mae Questel, Gwen Davies, Jackson Beck, and Sid Raymond.
- Steve Stanchfield identifies the tank as the seal pool at the Central Park Zoo, a short walk from the studio's Manhattan office.
Scenes
- At night Flip-Flap leaves the tank while his parents sleep and heads north.
- Arctic seals sign him into the Slippery Seal Social Club.
- Hunters net Sealia and send her to the zoo.
- He swims back and finds her in the tank.
Influenced by
- Bee Lewi's May–June 1946 Calling All Kids story
Also available
- Thunderbean Animation Blu-ray Noveltoons Original Classics (2019)
- Internet Archive (noveltoons-bluray)
