Why do many cartoon characters wear white gloves?

In the past, when it came to drawing a cartoon character, the one thing they couldn’t do without in terms of clothing was a pair of fancy white gloves. Whether it’s a cat, a mouse, or whatever Goofus is (officially designated as “Canis Goofus”), the whistling, strutting, dying cartoon hero wouldn’t be caught without wearing a pair of pure white gloves – but why? In a world where troubled ducks wore a sailor’s hat and a T-shirt but nothing covering their lower half, why were gloves so necessary? Characters who first appeared at the forefront of animation?

The truth is that clear gloves were added to the likes of Mickey Mouse as a byproduct of inspiration and necessity. Not only was it in keeping with a shameful form of entertainment from the time, but it was also a corner-cutting way of creating characters that would eventually go on to reach iconic status in the years that followed. Next time you look at Mickey pulling on his gloves before going on an adventure, know that they were there because artists found them easy to draw and were partly inspired by blackface. OK.

According to Nicholas Sammond’s book The Birth of an Industry (trans FoxThe author explained that the cartoon characters were associated with the vaudeville shows and blackface minstrel shows of that era. Once you know this, it becomes an amazing discovery that you cannot ignore.

“They weren’t,” Sammond explains He loves Minstrels, they are He was Minstrels.” The worst characters were in loose, baggy clothes, they had painted faces, and most importantly, they wore white gloves. As for Walt Disney’s creation, Mickey Mouse, he did not wear them at first, as they were absent from his first public appearance in The revolutionary “Willie Steamer”. It would be a year until in the animated short, “The Osprey House” Mickey would slip on what would become mandatory with the other characters. Even after vaudeville was phased out, the gloves worn by cartoon characters no longer existed.

And it wasn’t just coming from the Disney camp. Besides Mickey and Goofy keeping their fingerprints for any fun antics they got into, Bugs Bunny also wore gloves and has been doing so ever since. Although it may have been a sign of the times, it was also a simple technique for animators. Sure, each character may have a different face, but whether big or small, hero or villain, one glove truly fits all for a long period of time.

Animation is more detailed in terms of character creation now, but it was a very common practice for decades to see characters with three fingers and one thumb on each hand – gloved for simplicity. Cutting out one of the numbers to make cartoon characters made the task easier and was a tactic that was applied for years afterward. “The Simpsons,” “Family Guy,” and several other long-running shows followed suit, where the main group of heroes only had four numbers on each hand, and some The most beautiful animated films that did not come from Disney Apply the same rule.

Over the years, plenty of cartoons have had meta moments that beg the question not only why people have three fingers (the Lord in “The Simpsons” had four fingers in particular), but why some still wear gloves to this day. Even on “The Looney Tunes Show,” an episode called “Rebel With A Glove” sees Bugs Bunny adjusting to life without the titular item, which makes for a strange scene. At least now for the majority of anime, the gloves are off and some anime characters get the gift of an extra number of added details.