Wild Minds. Reid Mitenbuler

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      Dave Fleischer as “The Clown,” which would later inspire the Fleischers’ character Koko.

      The other Fleischer brothers were again enlisted to help make a cartoon of the new character. They climbed up to Max’s roof, rigged up a white sheet as a background, and filmed a minute’s worth of Dave dancing around in the suit. Then they spent roughly a month tracing the images using the rotoscope, followed by five months of inking and photographing the separate images.

      J. A. Berst at Pathé was pleased when he saw the final cartoon. He immediately agreed to give them space in his Fort Lee studio, as well as build them three more rotoscopes. The brothers were excited, but within a few days Berst voiced second thoughts. Like many others, he wasn’t convinced that animated cartoons would ever be more than just a novelty. Growing increasingly skeptical, he pressed Max to explain how his cartoons would fit in with the studio’s newsreels, comedies, and serials.

      Fleischer tried to reassure him by pitching an idea he thought was a surefire success. Instead of featuring a clown, they would instead feature Teddy Roosevelt, much as John Bray had done with his Colonel Heeza Liar series. Fleischer’s version, however, had a twist: he wanted to add the plot from “Chanticleer and the Fox,” a story from Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales about a proud rooster who believed the sun rose and set based on his crowing. After hearing the pitch, Berst agreed.

      Dave sat dumbfounded when Max later explained everything to him. What was wrong with the clown? Max’s plan to involve a Chaucer story illuminated a difference between the brothers’ sensibilities. Max sometimes wanted to go highbrow when Dave wanted to keep their material simple. Nor did Dave see how the Canterbury Tales angle connected with Teddy Roosevelt and the Colonel Heeza Liar series—it seemed disjointed. But Max persisted, telling Dave that he had already discussed it with Berst, and that Berst was comfortable with doing a political satire. Besides, Max continued, adding the rooster storyline might be a good way to flatter studio owner Charles Pathé, who had adopted a rooster as the studio’s mascot. Max didn’t think a funny rooster could miss.

      After Dave finally agreed to Max’s vision, the brothers got to work—filming the action, then rotoscoping and animating it. Dave played the rooster and Joe played Teddy Roosevelt, running around the set whipping a lasso over his head until he finally caught the bird, tied it up, and began pumping angry rounds of hot lead into its feathery body. The moment Charles Pathé saw this truly bizarre cartoon—this adaptation of Chaucer ending with the murder of his studio mascot by a crazed Teddy Roosevelt—the Fleischer brothers were fired.

      That evening, the brothers glumly rode the slow ferry from Fort Lee back to Brooklyn, sitting apart as if they were strangers. The boat was nearly empty and mostly quiet, save for the engine’s low growl and the light slap of waves against its hull. Joe was first to break the silence. “That would happen to us!” he joked, trying to lighten the mood. His laughter spread to Dave, who looked over at Max, hoping to cheer him up.

      “What the hell are you two laughing at?” Max snapped back, livid over how his idea had cratered.

      After the unfortunate rooster incident, Max Fleischer hit the pavement, calling on any film studio willing to meet him. He visited waiting room after waiting room, carrying under his arm the clown cartoon that had helped get him the first animation job with Pathé. Most of the meetings ended with “No thanks,” a polite handshake, and the click of a door behind his back.

      Fleischer eventually found himself in the most intimidating studio of all: Famous Players–Lasky, which was then in the process of integrating forces with Paramount Pictures Corporation. He stood in the cavernous waiting room, all marble and mahogany, of studio president Adolph Zukor, a man who communicated primarily through stares and frowns and was nicknamed “Creepy,” a reference to the way an Indian warrior might “creep” up behind you and slit your throat. Zukor had originally arrived in America penniless from Hungary in 1891, then built a company worth nearly $50 million before the movies even had sound. Waiting in Zukor’s intimidating lobby, Fleischer nervously shifted his weight from leg to leg. He didn’t have an appointment and was hoping to cold-pitch Zukor as he stepped out of his door.