Rubber Hose: The Impact of Art
In today’s art, we have come to learn many forms of art styles. We have seen: Cubism, Pop art, Impressionism, and Realism to name a few. However, there is one popular art form that has resurfaced after so long, that being of Rubber Hose art.
Today’s blog on this form of art, is going to discuss how it started to raise a popularity here and in the 1920s. The art style started a century go with various characters that would be iconic: Popeye the Sailor, Betty Boop, Mickey Mouse, Felix the Cat, Oswald Rabbit, and more that would be from the 1920s to mid 1930s here. The art form consisted of rubbery like limbs on characters and giving them whacky adventures to go on each episode. There was no straight line of events happening, every episode has the main character meeting their villain or side villain for five to ten minutes and the hero walking victorious or even just a happy ending.
Take the damsel in distress cliché, Popeye the sailor rarely did much of it, but you know the formula: Popeye and Bluto like Olive Oyl, both fight for her, Bluto gets jealous, Bluto kidnaps Olive, Popeye and Bluto fight, Popeye wins the fight after eating spinach, Bluto is defeated and Popeye leaves with Olive. It was a formula that would lead to a cult classic and be referenced years later. Who knew a popular character of the 1920s-1930s would even continue? In fact, a lot of characters would impact those of women.
Who could forget the interesting character Betty Boop? This iconic dancing and charming female toon won the hearts of many as there was merchandise to be sold of her as well. You could not enter a few stores and pick up a Betty Boop figurine and t-shirt here. Yet the question remains: Why is she so important? Well, in all retrospect she was the first strong female like Rosie the Riveter here. Betty Boop did not take no nonsense as she sometimes fought back. If you don’t believe me, go look up Betty Boop on YouTube and see her fight the Old Man of the Mountain or The Devil himself. After one century, what brought back the style of Rubber hose?
Well, I believe two games have done that: Bendy and the Ink Machine (BATIM) and Cuphead. Both games use the art of Rubber Hose, in one way or another. Cuphead uses the same feeling that studios back then use. They made the backgrounds from scratch or on paper, Studio MDH perfected the craft of Rubber Hose. While on the other hand, Bendy gave viewers the other side of the studio where it wasn’t all pretty. Both created a revival that artist is using their skills to perfect this style as well here.
The impact of the Rubber hose and its 100 years is still going on. It has created a world of impacting artist’s styles and showing how animators before computers made the world of animation something great to see. It will remain a great platform of art to always see and to continue for awhile longer.
Photo Credit: Fleischer Studios (Betty Boop), Studio MDHR (Cuphead), Joey Drew Studios (Bendy)
