Felix the Cat is a character from cartoon created in the silent-film era. He has white eyes, black body, and giant grin, mixed with the surrealism of the situations in which his cartoons place him, Felix became one of the most recognizable characters in the cartoon world.
The origins of Felix remain disputed. Australian cartoonist and film entrepreneur Pat Sullivan and American animator Otto Messmer said that they created Felix. Some historians argue whit that. What is certain is that Felix emerged from Sullivan's studio, and cartoons featuring the character enjoyed unprecedented success and popularity in the 1920s.
Felix enjoyed enormous popularity, from 1922, in international popular culture. He got his own comic strip which was drawn by Messmer and his image soon adorned different kind of merchandise from ceramics, toys, postcards and much more. There were several manufacturers who made stuffed Felix toys. Some jazz bands such as Paul Whiteman's played songs about Felix. The most popular song of 1923 was "Felix Kept On Walking".
Felix's success was fading by the late 1920s with the arrival of sound cartoons. These new shorts, particularly those of Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse, had made the silent offerings of Sullivan and Messmer, who were then unwilling to move to sound production, seem outdated.
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