# Koko the Clown
**Koko the Clown** (sometimes spelled Ko-Ko) is an animated cartoon character created by Max and Dave Fleischer, the star of the *Out of the Inkwell* series and probably the first cartoon character animated with the rotoscope, a device that let animators trace live-action film frame by frame[1](https://fleischerstudios.com/koko) • [2](https://www.new.filmpreservation.org/preserved-films/screening-room/koko-s-queen-1926). He debuted as an unnamed "little clown" in 1916, received his name in 1923, and remained a [Fleischer Studios](https://www.edgepedia.org/fleischer-studios) star into the sound era, appearing most famously in the 1933 [Betty Boop](https://www.edgepedia.org/betty-boop) cartoon *[Snow White](https://www.edgepedia.org/snow-white-1933-film)*[1](https://fleischerstudios.com/koko).
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Created by | Max and Dave Fleischer; first appeared in a one-minute 1916 test film of the Rotoscope[1](https://fleischerstudios.com/koko) • [3](https://www.toonopedia.com/koko.htm) |
| Animation method | Rotoscoping: live-action footage of Dave Fleischer in a clown suit traced frame by frame[1](https://fleischerstudios.com/koko) |
| Series | *Out of the Inkwell*, produced at Bray Studios from 1918 and at the Fleischers' own Out of the Inkwell, Inc. from 1921[1](https://fleischerstudios.com/koko) • [4](https://fleischerstudios.com/inkwell) |
| Named | 1923, after animator Dick Huemer joined; earlier called "the Little Clown," "Fleischer's Clown," and the "Yama Yama Clown"[1](https://fleischerstudios.com/koko) |
| Signature film | *Snow White* (1933), in which Koko lip-syncs Cab Calloway's "St. James Infirmary"[1](https://fleischerstudios.com/koko) |
| Registry honor | *KoKo's Earth Control* (1928) was selected for the National Film Registry in 2024[5](https://www.loc.gov/static/portals/about/documents/gazette/Gazette_48_122024_web.pdf) |
## Origins in the Rotoscope
[Max Fleischer](https://www.edgepedia.org/max-fleischer), then art editor for *Popular Science* magazine, filed a patent application in 1915 for a device he called the Rotoscope, intended to fix the jerky, jumpy movement of early animated films by letting animators use live-action film as a guide for drawing characters[1](https://fleischerstudios.com/koko). With his brothers he built a prototype in his living room, converting an old hand-cranked Moy projector into its main component; his wife Essie contributed $150 of household savings[6](https://fleischerstudios.com/rotoscope). The first rotoscoped film ran about one minute, took nearly a year to complete, and required roughly 2,500 individual drawings[6](https://fleischerstudios.com/rotoscope).
The star of that test film was the impish "little clown" modeled on Dave Fleischer, who had worked as a clown at [Coney Island](https://www.edgepedia.org/coney-island)'s Steeplechase Amusement Park and owned his own costume, a loose black suit with large pom-poms, white gloves, and a peaked hat whose sharp contrast suited black-and-white film[1](https://fleischerstudios.com/koko). Max chose a pantomime clown deliberately: in the silent era, a character who communicated through action and expression needed no title cards and could be understood by any audience[1](https://fleischerstudios.com/koko).
## The Bray years and *Out of the Inkwell*
Studios found the early Rotoscope impractical for fast production, but in 1916 the animation pioneer J.R. Bray, who had worked with Max at *The Brooklyn Eagle*, hired him to make films featuring the clown while refining the invention[1](https://fleischerstudios.com/koko). When America entered World War I, Max was sent to Oklahoma to make military training films, and the clown films paused until he returned to Bray's home office in 1918[6](https://fleischerstudios.com/rotoscope).
The series he called *Out of the Inkwell* reached theaters as early as 1919, and after 1920 modifications to the Rotoscope made the process less labor-intensive, the clown became a national sensation[1](https://fleischerstudios.com/koko). Each cartoon opened with the clown emerging from an inkwell on the animator's desk, and Max himself played the on-screen foil whose drawings rebelled against him[3](https://www.toonopedia.com/koko.htm). A *New York Times* profile of February 22, 1920 praised the character's smooth, human movement: he "walks, dances and leaps as a human being, as a particularly easy-limbed human being might"[6](https://fleischerstudios.com/rotoscope).
By 1921 the character was popular enough that Max and Dave left Bray to found their own studio, [Out of the Inkwell](https://www.edgepedia.org/out-of-the-inkwell), Inc., the company that became Fleischer Studios in 1929[1](https://fleischerstudios.com/koko) • [4](https://fleischerstudios.com/inkwell).
## Naming, design, and the Bouncing Ball
The clown went unnamed for years, billed as "the Little Clown," "Fleischer's Clown," or the "Yama Yama Clown," the last a nod to Bessie McCoy's costume in the song *The Yama Yama Man*, which Dave's outfit resembled[1](https://fleischerstudios.com/koko). In 1923, after the Fleischers hired the animator Dick Huemer, the character acquired both a dog sidekick, Fitz, and a name: Ko-Ko, later often written Koko[1](https://fleischerstudios.com/koko). Film historian [Leonard Maltin](https://www.edgepedia.org/leonard-maltin), the veteran film critic and author of *Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons*, lists titles from this period including *Jumping Beans* (1922), *KoKo at the Circus* (1926), and *KoKo's Earth Control* (1928)[7](https://silentfilm.org/koko/).
In September 1924 the Fleischers introduced the "Bouncing Ball," a visual beat indicator for audience sing-alongs, in the *Ko-ko Song Car-Tunes*; Koko held up lyric cards and urged viewers to "join in and sing"[1](https://fleischerstudios.com/koko). In 1926 the studio teamed with Lee DeForest, who had invented a process for recording sound directly on film, producing some of the very first sound cartoons[1](https://fleischerstudios.com/koko).
## The sound era and *Snow White*
Koko's last silent film, *Chemical Koko*, appeared in 1929, and with sound he initially seemed a relic; Bimbo, a singing dog, replaced Fitz in the new *Talkartoons* series[1](https://fleischerstudios.com/koko). Koko returned to the screen in 1931 as a talking supporting character alongside Bimbo and Betty Boop, appearing in their films until his final Fleischer appearance in the 1934 Betty Boop cartoon *Ha! Ha! Ha!*[1](https://fleischerstudios.com/koko).
His best-remembered role came in *Snow White* (March 31, 1933), a Betty Boop cartoon in which Koko lip-syncs [Cab Calloway](https://www.edgepedia.org/cab-calloway)'s "St. James Infirmary" while morphing into objects mentioned in the song; the rotoscoping traced Calloway's own dance movements[3](https://www.toonopedia.com/koko.htm) • [1](https://fleischerstudios.com/koko). The Fleischer Studios history notes that longtime animator Roland ("Doc") Crandall animated the entire film alone, as an honor for his contributions to the studio[1](https://fleischerstudios.com/koko). The film is regarded as one of the most surreal cartoons of the Golden Age of Animation[1](https://fleischerstudios.com/koko).
## Later appearances and legacy
After 1934 Koko surfaced only occasionally. He appeared as a toy in [Famous Studios](https://www.edgepedia.org/famous-studios)' *Toys Will Be Toys* (1949); in 1955 Paramount sold the old Fleischer cartoons to television; and in the early 1960s former Fleischer animators Hal Seegar and Myron Waldman worked with Max Fleischer on a new made-for-TV *Out of the Inkwell* series of one hundred episodes, starring Koko with a girlfriend, Kokette, a sidekick, Kokonut, and a villain, Mean Moe, with the voice provided by the character actor [Larry Storch](https://www.edgepedia.org/larry-storch)[1](https://fleischerstudios.com/koko) • [3](https://www.toonopedia.com/koko.htm). Koko also appeared in the 1989 television special *Betty Boop's Hollywood Mystery*[1](https://fleischerstudios.com/koko).
The character's historical standing has been reinforced by preservation work. *KoKo's Earth Control* (1928), in which Koko and Fitz seize the levers controlling Earth, was named to the [National Film Registry](https://www.edgepedia.org/national-film-registry) in 2024[5](https://www.loc.gov/static/portals/about/documents/gazette/Gazette_48_122024_web.pdf). The Max Fleischer Cartoons Restoration Project, launched in 2021 by Max's granddaughter Jane Fleischer Reid and producer Mauricio Alvarado with [The Film Foundation](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-film-foundation), is restoring and digitizing the Fleischer library, including Koko cartoons[8](https://sagharborcinema.org/preservation/fleischer-studios-cartoons/), and nine Fleischer shorts were restored in a program funded by the Seth MacFarlane Foundation with the UCLA Film & Television Archive[9](https://cinema.ucla.edu/events/back-from-the-ink-restored-animated-shorts-2025-04-11/). The National Film Preservation Foundation describes Koko as probably the first cartoon character created with a rotoscope[2](https://www.new.filmpreservation.org/preserved-films/screening-room/koko-s-queen-1926), and the technique he debuted, tracing live action to produce lifelike animated movement, remains in use in animation today[6](https://fleischerstudios.com/rotoscope).
## References
1. [Koko The Clown, Fleischer Studios](https://fleischerstudios.com/koko)
2. [Koko's Queen (1926), National Film Preservation Foundation](https://www.new.filmpreservation.org/preserved-films/screening-room/koko-s-queen-1926)
3. [Koko the Clown (Out of the Inkwell), Don Markstein's Toonopedia](https://www.toonopedia.com/koko.htm)
4. [Celebrating a Century: The Out of the Inkwell Years, Fleischer Studios](https://fleischerstudios.com/inkwell)
5. [National Film Registry 2024, Library of Congress Gazette Vol. 48 No. 12](https://www.loc.gov/static/portals/about/documents/gazette/Gazette_48_122024_web.pdf)
6. [The Rotoscope: 100 Years of Rotoscoping, Fleischer Studios](https://fleischerstudios.com/rotoscope)
7. [Koko! by Leonard Maltin, San Francisco Silent Film Festival](https://silentfilm.org/koko/)
8. [Fleischer Studios Cartoons, Sag Harbor Cinema Preservation](https://sagharborcinema.org/preservation/fleischer-studios-cartoons/)
9. [Back From the Ink: Restored Animated Shorts, UCLA Film & Television Archive](https://cinema.ucla.edu/events/back-from-the-ink-restored-animated-shorts-2025-04-11/)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Early and silent cinema › Silent-era animation*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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