Bouncing ball

"For the Mac OS program, see Bouncing Ball Simulation System. For the extinct computer virus, see Bouncing Ball (computer virus)."

The bouncing ball is a device used in films to visually indicate the rhythm of a song, helping audiences to sing along with live or prerecorded music. As the song's lyrics are displayed on the screen (usually one line at a time), an animated ball bounces across the top of the words, landing on each syllable when it is to be sung.

The bouncing ball was invented at Fleischer Studios for the "Song Car-Tunes" series of animated cartoons (both Max and Dave Fleischer later claimed to have devised the idea). It was introduced in September 1925 with the film "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean". [cite book | title = Masters of Animation | author = John Grant | publisher = Watson–Guptill | isbn = 0823030415 | year = 2001 | url = http://books.google.com/books?id=fILQxHvuEHYC&pg=PA82&dq=famous-bouncing-ball&ei=JjbaRrX2CJfopQLL4emSCw&sig=WZsFqAI28wS2Efi4u0G45aUA5kY ] In these earliest films using the device, the bouncing ball itself was not animated. The effect was created by filming a long stick with a luminescent ball on the tip, which was physically "bounced" across a screen of printed words by a studio employee. The movement was captured on high-contrast film that rendered the stick invisible. [Maltin, Leonard. "Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons" (New York: Plume Books, 1980), 89.] It would usually appear as white-on-black, though sometimes the ball and lyrics would be superimposed over (darkened) still drawings or photographs. Later versions of the bouncing ball have used cel animation or digital effects. Some modern video editing programs achieve the same effect as the bouncing ball by highlighting each displayed syllable as it is sung.

The "Follow the Bouncing Ball" sing-a-long cartoons continued to be popular theater short subjects into the 1940s. In the United States, younger generations of children continued to be familiar with them from television rebroadcast of the old cartoons into the 1970s.

The bouncing ball has been used in many films and television programs over the years. High-profile modern use of the bouncing ball include its most prominent and extensive use on television was in Mitch Miller's "Sing Along with Mitch" program (1961–1964). It was revived in the "The Simpsons" episode "22 Short Films About Springfield", in which it accompanies Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel's theme song.

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