Seven minutes

From the first talking Mickeys to the demise of Warners and MGM theatrical production, Seven Minutes provides an enthralling social history and aesthetic appreciation of the animated cartoon's controlled anarchy. Norman M. Klein follows the scrambling graphics and upside down ballet of Fleischer's Betty Boop, Popeye and Superman, the Wolfie cartoons by Tex Avery and the Bugs, Daffy, Tweety and Roadrunner cartoons from Warners.

He traces the development of the art at Disney, the forces that led to full animation, the whiteness of Snow White and Mickey Mouse becoming a logo. Reviewing the graphics, scripts and marketing of each era, Klein discovers the links between cartoon and live action movies, newspapers, popular illustration, and the entertainment architecture coming out of Disneyland. He shows that the cartoon was a perverse juggling act, repeatedly invaded by economic and political pressures: by marketing for sound, by licensing characters to stave off bankruptcies, by Prohibition, the Great Depression, the Second World War and the first wave of television.