Stork Exchange

1927 Animation 7 minutes Directed by Ben Harrison

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About Stork Exchange

Krazy Kat sees a stork carrying a baby, turns the car into an airplane, and follows. The stork leaves the infant on a roof and flies on to a nursery in the clouds, where babies are washed and lined up for delivery. At lunch a stork tells Krazy to watch them. A telephone order comes in. Krazy picks a baby and takes off. The infant will not wear the diaper, which ends up on Krazy, and then shoves Krazy down a chimney. The couple in the house hug the diapered cat, thinking the order has arrived. Krazy pulls the diaper off to explain. The properly diapered baby comes down the chimney, and the couple is satisfied.

Cast & crew

More about Stork Exchange

Ben Harrison and Manny Gould directed. Charles Mintz produced it for Winkler Pictures. Dave Tendlar animated. Paramount-Famous-Lasky released it on December 17, 1927. The running time of the surviving print is 7 minutes 21 seconds. It is one of the first shorts to use Gould and Harrison's redesign of George Herriman's Krazy Kat.

Themes

Making

Mintz was releasing Herriman's character through Paramount while Gould and Harrison replaced the earlier Krazy design. This short is one of the first with their version.

Music

Silent.

Preservation

Thought lost for decades. A print was identified in 2004 in the British Film Institute archive, with three other Krazy Kat shorts.

Notes

  • The short was thought lost.
  • In 1948 Margaret J. Winkler, who had produced the 1925–1929 Krazy Kat films, stored the library and planned to destroy it because the nitrate was unstable.
  • A print of this short and three other Krazy cartoons turned up in 2004 at the British Film Institute.
  • After the series moved to Columbia, the 1931 short The Stork Market reused the delivery-service idea, with Krazy's spaniel girlfriend added.
  • The picture is black and white and silent.

Scenes

  • Krazy converts the car into a plane and tails the stork to the nursery above the city.
  • The baby refuses the diaper, so Krazy wears it, and is pushed down the chimney.
  • The wife kisses the diapered cat until the real infant drops into the fireplace.

Influenced by

  • George Herriman's Krazy Kat

Influenced

  • The Stork Market (1931)