Additional Information about the Theatrical Cartoon Der Great Bear Hunt

Silent cartoon.

Rudolph Dirks's comic about the immigrant German Katzenjammer family (first published 1897) had been made into live-action films in 1912. This animated version is labeled "Original" because its producer, W.R. Hearst's International Film Service, had won a suit against Dirks (a former Hearst newspaper cartoonist), forcing him to rename his strip after the mischievous Katzenjammer children, "Hans und Fritz." Future Hollywood director Gregory La Cava (My Man Godfrey, Stage Door) supervised this film and the earlier Hearst shorts in this presentation. Anti-German sentiment brought The Katzenjammer Kids film series to a halt later in 1918.

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