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Felix the Cat is a cartoon character created in the silent-film era. His black body, white eyes, and giant grin, coupled with the surrealism of the situations in which his cartoons place him, combined to make Felix one of the most recognizable cartoon characters in the world. Felix was the first character from animation to attain a level of popularity sufficient to draw movie audiences based solely on his star power. Felix's origins remain disputed. Australian cartoonist and film entrepreneur Pat Sullivan and American animator Otto Messmer said that they created Felix. Some historians argue that Messmer ghosted for Sullivan. What is certain is that Felix emerged from Sullivan's studio, and cartoons featuring the character enjoyed unprecedented success and popularity in the 1920s. From 1922, Felix enjoyed sudden, enormous popularity in international popular culture. Felix's success was fading by the late 1920s with the arrival of sound cartoons. In 1929, Sullivan decided to finally make the transition and began distributing Felix sound cartoons through Copley Pictures. The sound Felix shorts proved to be a failure and the operation ended in 1930 with Sullivan himself passing away in 1933. Felix saw a brief three cartoon resurrection in 1936 by the Van Beuren Studios. Television would prove the cat's savior. Felix cartoons began airing on American TV in 1953. Joe Oriolo introduced a redesigned Felix in a new animated series for TV. The cat has since starred in other television programs and in a feature film.
