Charles Bowers

Charles Raymond Bowers (June 6, 1887 – November 24, 1946) was an American cartoonist, slapstick comedian, and Broadway performer born in Cresco, Iowa, the son of Dr. Charles E. Bowers and Mary I. Bowers. His career spanned silent film, early sound pictures, animation, children's books, and the stage.

Bowers began his professional life as a cartoonist, working on the Mutt and Jeff animated series at the Barré Studio, where he eventually became one of the principal directors of those shorts. By the late 1920s he had transitioned into starring in his own slapstick comedy films for R-C Pictures and Educational Pictures. These productions blended live action with animation through a technique he developed known as the Bowers Process, and many of them featured elaborate Rube Goldberg-style contraptions. Among his most recognized films from this period are Now You Tell One, which includes a sequence of elephants marching into the U.S. Capitol, and There It Is, a surreal mystery featuring a character called the Fuzz-Faced Phantom and a housefly detective named MacGregor. He also completed a stint working with Walter Lantz during the 1930s.

As the sound era arrived, Bowers made several talking pictures, including It's a Bird and Wild Oysters. His Broadway career placed him on the New York stage in 1937, when he appeared in the revue The Show Is On. During the 1930s he resided for eight years in Wayne, New Jersey, where he drew cartoons for the Jersey Journal. When severe arthritis limited his ability to work, his wife continued producing the cartoons under his direction. In his later years he also wrote and illustrated children's books.

Despite enthusiastic reviews from figures such as André Breton during his active years, Bowers was largely absent from histories of the silent film era for decades following his death. His surviving films, numbering fifteen at the time of an initial rediscovery, were released in 2004 on a two-DVD set by Image Entertainment and Lobster Films of France. In July 2019, Flicker Alley released a Blu-ray collection of seventeen of his films titled The Extraordinary World of Charley Bowers. He was known to French audiences by the nickname Bricolo, and his comic approach drew comparisons to the styles of Harry Langdon and Buster Keaton.

Bowers died on November 24, 1946, in Paterson, New Jersey, following a prolonged illness.