I would like to introduce you to this unjustly unknown Canadian animator who possesses a unique style, a fusion between New York style and the elegance of French art, the whole being strongly influenced by impressionism.

Born in Montreal in 1874, Raoul Barré initially trained in France where he became a caricaturist and painter. He was a contemporary and opponent of Emile Cohl in the field of political cartoons. Then in 1913, he left to settle in New York as a press cartoonist where he drew many comic strips. In 1914, he founded one of the first animation studios with his friend Bill Nolan, the Barre Studio, where he produced the Animated Grouch Chasers, the Phables and Mutt and Jeff series. There he developed the animation peg system, holding all the animation sheets in registration with each other, which is still used today.
However, he had to give up animation in 1918 following a quarrel with his new partner Charles Bowers.

Fortunately, he was recalled by a former employee, Pat Sullivan, producer of Felix the Cat. The cartoons Barré produced for Sullivan are considered the best he ever made, as well as the best Felix cartoons ever made ! But he must return to Montreal because of his illness and it is here that he develops the most innovative projects of his career.

He had the idea to create the first Canadian animation series and founded an animation studio in Montreal in 1930. This new series should have narrated the adventures of Microbus I, king of the microbes, who ends up taking on the role of Noah to save his people from the Apocalypse. The biblical references don't seem to stop there since the sketches of this short film also present a version of Jonah and the whale. This project should have been carried out in partnership with Pat Sullivan's studio since it was planned to send Canadian animators there so that they could learn the techniques of animation, in exchange for which they would have had to work for free on the Felix the cat cartoons. It was even envisaged that Otto Messmer would travel to Montreal to work on the series, which may seem surprising but it should not be forgotten that he was the fastest animator of his time and that he possessed skills that could have been very useful for the series, it was actually very clever of Barré.

Unfortunately, all of this never came to pass as his illness worsened and he died in 1932.
It's really a pity because the sketches of the project show character designs and sceneries totally unseen in the history of animation !

Thank you for reading, you want to know more about Raoul Barré, I advise you to buy the DVD "Discovering Raoul Barre: A Creative Mind, A Brand New Century" distributed by the National Film Board of Canada, which in addition to the documentary and films, have an excerpt of Microbus 1st unfinished.

Nicely written, but which Felixes did he work on? Surely if you believe this much of his genius (I do too, but I see him more as an important, historic animator than one of the best) you would be able to say

Nicely written, but which Felixes did he work on? Surely if you believe this much of his genius (I do too, but I see him more as an important, historic animator than one of the best) you would be able to say

I totally forgot to mention the Félix cartoons that Raoul Barré did for Sullivan, thank you for reminding me.

Barre worked on Dines and Pines where he animated all the nightmarish scenes Felix is drawn into, you can note the remarkable French impressionist influenced backgrounds that are characteristic of his work. He is also credited for fully animating all of the chicken antagonist scenes in The Oily Bird. In general, you can notice his participation in the backgrounds which are much more imaginative than in Bill Nolan's previous Felix films, plus Felix interacts much more often with his environment.

Barre worked on Dines and Pines where he animated all the nightmarish scenes Felix is drawn into, you can note the remarkable French impressionist influenced backgrounds that are characteristic of his work. He is also credited for fully animating all of the chicken antagonist scenes in The Oily Bird. In general, you can notice his participation in the backgrounds which are much more imaginative than in Bill Nolan's previous Felix films, plus Felix interacts much more often with his environment.

Not exactly. From what I gathered on Barré’s work on the series, he was good and distinctive, but since the shorts were almost always dominated by Messmer’s work, he didn’t do anything extensive. On PINES AND DINES, Barré animates the scenes of Felix eating the Jumping Beans, and the scene of Santa turning into a monster, not all of the nightmare scenes, as you say. He also doesn’t appear to animate anything in OILY BIRD, I’m not sure where exactly that comes from, but if you can find proof outside the cartoon and not sourced from internet “I heard it here so it must be true”, I can believe it. Barré also contributed to PEDIGREEDY and I’ve heard he did some scenes in ICY EYES too but I’ve never seen that one. He likely worked on others I’m forgetting too

Barre worked on Dines and Pines where he animated all the nightmarish scenes Felix is drawn into, you can note the remarkable French impressionist influenced backgrounds that are characteristic of his work. He is also credited for fully animating all of the chicken antagonist scenes in The Oily Bird. In general, you can notice his participation in the backgrounds which are much more imaginative than in Bill Nolan's previous Felix films, plus Felix interacts much more often with his environment.

Not exactly. From what I gathered on Barré’s work on the series, he was good and distinctive, but since the shorts were almost always dominated by Messmer’s work, he didn’t do anything extensive. On PINES AND DINES, Barré animates the scenes of Felix eating the Jumping Beans, and the scene of Santa turning into a monster, not all of the nightmare scenes, as you say. He also doesn’t appear to animate anything in OILY BIRD, I’m not sure where exactly that comes from, but if you can find proof outside the cartoon and not sourced from internet “I heard it here so it must be true”, I can believe it. Barré also contributed to PEDIGREEDY and I’ve heard he did some scenes in ICY EYES too but I’ve never seen that one. He likely worked on others I’m forgetting too

For Dines and Pines, I wanted to say that Barré drew all the sets and backgrounds but the characters are globally animated by Messmer, even if I suspect that Barré designed some of the characters because Messmer would never have drawn them in this way.

For The Oily Bird, Barré actually animated all the scenes of the chicken as Marco de Blois notes, he also showed several original celluloid to confirm his claims.

I've been under the impression all these years that any shots in which Felix looks incredibly weird and crude in the 1927-ish shorts, it's Barré animating the feline. It's reminiscent of the strange surrealistic characters appearing in Dines and Pines.

Yes Tommy, that's my impression too. I actually think his movement is a bit more precise in Barre's animation than in the others, but it is a bit crude

A big thank you to you for making me discover the work of this animator !

I knew Raoul Barré, as the director of Mutt and Jeff, but I didn't know that he had started animating with the great Bill Nolan, no less !

Yes Tommy, that's my impression too. I actually think his movement is a bit more precise in Barre's animation than in the others, but it is a bit crude

Funny, I always thought Felix moves weirdly in those shots, too. Maybe it's the strange design that throws me off. It's almost as if Felix is loitering outside of a methadone clinic.

He definitely looks more feral. The much smaller eyes don't help. Barre moves him more like this, focusing the acting on this rather than in emotion and thought process. The Santa scene in DINES AND PINES shows this off pretty well

I've seen some pictures of the Microbus cartoon project you mentioned and indeed it looks really good. There are a lot of good ideas and I sincerely think that if the series could have been produced it would have been a real success, especially if the talented Otto Messmer had worked on it. On the other hand, the French animators could have brought new ideas to the Felix series at a time when it desperately needed them.

In any case, it was a nice project that could have resulted in a series with a very original style mixing New York and Canadian influences, so it's a shame that it failed.

I've been under the impression all these years that any shots in which Felix looks incredibly weird and crude in the 1927-ish shorts, it's Barré animating the feline. It's reminiscent of the strange surrealistic characters appearing in Dines and Pines.

Hello Mr. Stathes, it's a pleasure to see that a specialist like you is visiting my subject.

I recently learned that Raoul Barré worked for Bray through your company's website, The Bray Animation Project, and I would like to know if you have any more information about these two cartoons made by Barré.

http://brayanimation.weebly.com/other-series.html 

I've seen some pictures of the Microbus cartoon project you mentioned and indeed it looks really good. There are a lot of good ideas and I sincerely think that if the series could have been produced it would have been a real success, especially if the talented Otto Messmer had worked on it. On the other hand, the French animators could have brought new ideas to the Felix series at a time when it desperately needed them.

In any case, it was a nice project that could have resulted in a series with a very original style mixing New York and Canadian influences, so it's a shame that it failed.

Thank you very much for your enthusiasm, Raoul Barré's efforts for his Microbus project are indeed very interesting, we will never regret enough his abandonment.

And since you seem to be interested in the sketches of the project, let me post some of them here :








Note the reference to Charlie Chaplin and Gertie the dinosaur on the far right of the second image.

I've been under the impression all these years that any shots in which Felix looks incredibly weird and crude in the 1927-ish shorts, it's Barré animating the feline. It's reminiscent of the strange surrealistic characters appearing in Dines and Pines.

Hello Mr. Stathes, it's a pleasure to see that a specialist like you is visiting my subject.

I recently learned that Raoul Barré worked for Bray through your company's website, The Bray Animation Project, and I would like to know if you have any more information about these two cartoons made by Barré.

http://brayanimation.weebly.com/other-series.html 

It's my pleasure. I'm afraid not, except for being familiar with the poster for one of the films.
https://www.imdb.com/tit...1670322176/?ref_=tt_ov_i 

I do have a piece of artwork from the Bray Studios, ca1915, showing a cherub-like cupid. It's got a body and a facial design that is nearly identical to the animated characters in Barré's 1915 shorts made for Edison. It doesn't seem to correspond with the two Bray films credited to Barré, though he was most likely animating on other shorts for the studio as well...

I've been under the impression all these years that any shots in which Felix looks incredibly weird and crude in the 1927-ish shorts, it's Barré animating the feline. It's reminiscent of the strange surrealistic characters appearing in Dines and Pines.

Hello Mr. Stathes, it's a pleasure to see that a specialist like you is visiting my subject.

I recently learned that Raoul Barré worked for Bray through your company's website, The Bray Animation Project, and I would like to know if you have any more information about these two cartoons made by Barré.

http://brayanimation.weebly.com/other-series.html 

It's my pleasure. I'm afraid not, except for being familiar with the poster for one of the films.
https://www.imdb.com/tit...1670322176/?ref_=tt_ov_i 

I do have a piece of artwork from the Bray Studios, ca1915, showing a cherub-like cupid. It's got a body and a facial design that is nearly identical to the animated characters in Barré's 1915 shorts made for Edison. It doesn't seem to correspond with the two Bray films credited to Barré, though he was most likely animating on other shorts for the studio as well...

Interesting.
Did you publish this image of cupid on the internet ? If not, I'd love to see it, with your permission of course.

Coming back to Raoul Barré, I find it strange that one of the two films dates from 1919 since by that time Barré had lost control of his company to Charles Bowers. Moreover, between 1918 and 1919, he had also been forcibly committed to a mental institution because Bowers had stolen money from him and Barré had threatened him with death in retaliation.

This would mean that Bray hired Barré in his business after his release from the hospital for a brief period of time, although this remains to be confirmed as it could very well be a dating error.

The story of Barre going to a hospital seems to be false. It seems that is what Bowers (a man who lied on every account he could) told the Mutt and Jeff staff, but Barre left the partnership by October 1918. His two known films were likely done on freelance while he wasn’t running or working at a studio (he probably did more than 2 Bray cartoons, that we don’t know about or haven’t pinned down to him). Bowers really was EXTORTING money, keep in mind, he probably didn’t have the power to do something about it

The story of Barre going to a hospital seems to be false. It seems that is what Bowers (a man who lied on every account he could) told the Mutt and Jeff staff, but Barre left the partnership by October 1918. His two known films were likely done on freelance while he wasn’t running or working at a studio (he probably did more than 2 Bray cartoons, that we don’t know about or haven’t pinned down to him). Bowers really was EXTORTING money, keep in mind, he probably didn’t have the power to do something about it

Barré was indeed committed to a mental institution, the conscription form issued to Barré by the U.S. Army on September 12, 1918 attests that he was a patient at the Central Islip State Hospital. The form adds that he refuses to sign it and that he is disqualified because he is insane.

https://www.asylumprojects.org/i...ral_Islip_State_Hospital 

However, you are right about Bowers, he was a liar and a fraud and his accusation of attempted murder by Barré is probably a fabrication since no one has been able to confirm it.