Happy New Year, Everyone! We're thrilled to start 2015 with the first post in a new regular series on this blog: "Max and me" featuring personal remembrances and family stories from Ginny Mahoney, Max Fleischer's granddaughter.  Ginny is also the daughter of Seymour Kneitel who met his wife-to-be, Ruth Fleischer, while working at Fleischer Studios as an animator.  Seymour later went on to run Famous Studios, where Ginny spent many summers inking and painting animation cels, and eventually working as a designer and director of exhibits for the Smithsonian. As the Fleischer family historian and archivist, we're thrilled that she will be lending her talents, skills and her personal insights with us through this series.

Max and me in Miami, Florida Circa 1940. Collection: V. Mahoney

Max and me by Ginny Mahoney

As a child, I – like all of Max’s children and grandchildren – knew him as ‘PopMax.’ My brothers and I had no idea he was world-famous for the characters he created and so wonderfully brought to the screen. To us, Koko the Clown and our beloved Betty Boop were so much a part of our lives that they seemed like members of the family!

Answer:  From her very first film in August 1930 (Dizzy Dishes) to her last film in November 1939 (Rhythm on the Reservation)- in those nine short years- Betty was in about 110 films. She became so wildly popular that by 1933 she was averaging a new film every month. In fact she became so popular that her films were sometimes announced on the theater marquee together with the feature!

"To cut a long and depressing story short, Max and Dave found it impossible to work for Weiss and quit the company. Shortly after they resigned, Weiss declared bankruptcy and disappeared. 

 "Max and Dave were well and truly in deep trouble. They had barely enough money to hire one or two animators but not enough to rent studio space. Things were what can best be described as bleak— until, one night, my father came home looking somehow strange. I suppose I’d never before seen him with an expression of shock on his face. He came into the kitchen and said to my mother: “Essie, sit down. I’ve got something to tell you.” She sat down, looking puzzled and a little scared. My father seemed to be fighting back some inner emotion. Then, quietly, he told her the news. A dear friend of his, Frank Goldman, one of the owners of Carpenter-Goldman, a film- processing laboratory based in Long Island City, had heard of the fix Max was in and had offered him space in his company’s quarters for free— and for as long as he wanted it. 

"My mother sat there dumbfounded for a moment, then slowly put her hands to her mouth and started to cry. My father stood there, his lower lip trembling, his eyes blinking as they filled with tears. She got up and embraced him. He was now laughing and crying at the same time, and so was she. It was a tableau that has never faded from my mind. I was thirteen at the time and old enough to recognize that my father’s reaction was not simply one of relief but one of being tremendously touched by the friendship of Frank Goldman."  

Photo of Fleischer Studios staff, taken outside Goldman-Carpenter Labs, Long Island City, where the studio was located for about a year in 1929. Front row l. to r.: possibly Sid Wallick, Edith Vernick, George Cannata, Seymour Kneitel, Max Fleischer, Charles Shettler, Sid Marcus. Al Eugster behind Vernick (with hat and cigar). Behind Cannata and S. Kneitel is Abner Kneitel. Wearing a white hat (on left) is Rudy Zamora. In distance behind Seymour is Joe Fleischer (wearing suspenders), William Henning is man with his hand on the window. 1929.