Animating Dracula (Part One) - The Count's First Cartoon

Dracula is a monster who casts a long shadow over our culture, and as a lover of cartoons, I thought it would be fun and interesting to spend the next few weeks exploring some of the times our antihero has been animated for both big and small screen. Most recently we have seen the popular Count of the Hotel Transylvania series, which is doing plenty to introduce the character to a whole new generation, but Dracula’s first time in cartoons goes back a lot further.

Of course, the first licenced version of Dracula for the stage took place right here in Derby, and that had a direct influence on the first licenced movie of the character, the 1931 feature directed by Tod Browning and starring Bela Lugosi in the iconic role. This gave the clearest visual impression of the character thus far to audiences and would see adaptations begin to sprout forth.

The first version of Dracula in animation is widely acknowledged to be a Mickey Mouse short, ‘Mickey’s Gala Premier’, produced in 1933. While running only seven minutes, the short packs in not just a slew of Disney’s most popular characters, but also a host of actors and cast members from acclaimed films of the time. Before Mickey and co enter the scene we see The Keystone Cops working security for the event, and equally notable comedy stars such as Laurel and Hardy, The Marx Brothers, Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin either waltz or sneak their way in. We also see more dramatic performers such as George Arliss, Jean Harlow, Clark Gable, Edward G Robinson and Mae West, along with popular singer Jimmy Durante.

The whole short is pretty meta, as the crowd gathers in Grauman’s Chinese Theatre to watch Mickey on the cinema screen, ‘Gallopin’ Romance’. We see the crowd bobbing along rhythmically to the music in a scene that has been reused and remixed in a lot of horror edits and music videos: some of these early cartoons have a uniquely creepy quality. Of course, Mickey’s ‘movie within a movie’ is a huge hit, and in one shot we see Dracula (looking distinctly Lugosi-esque), Frankenstein’s monster and The Wolfman enjoying every second of what they are seeing. 

Of course, it’s all too good to be true, and Mickey finds himself being woken up from this wonderful dream by Pluto licking his face. So we end up with a movie within a movie within a dream – certainly much more meta than I would ever have expected.

This cameo would start to open the floodgates, as would the many Dracula and Dracula-related movies that would come in the 30s and 40s, the likes of Dracula’s Daughter, Son of Dracula, House of Dracula and more. As the image of Dracula born in Derby took over, it became all the more natural to bring the cape and the fearsome stare to cartoons even more – and we’ll be looking at more next time around…