WARNING: The following contains spoilers for The Cuphead Show! Season 1, now streaming on Netflix.
Netflix just released the first season of The Cuphead Show!, a 12-episode animated series based on the popular video game, Cuphead: Don’t Deal With the Devil. The game itself is famous for its 2-D animated style, a style that carries over into the animation of the Netflix show. While much of the material in the show is pulled from the game, the producers of the show have included several references and Easter eggs to “old school” and famous cartoons.
Gloves for Hands
Almost every character in The Cuphead Show! wears gloves, which is a staple of older cartoon character design. During the early days of animation, art was drawn by hand, making it difficult for cartoonists to repetitively draw angles or smaller, moving items like hands, so they used gloves as an easy alternative. The characters in both the game and the Netflix adaptation feature the signature gloves seen on icons like Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny.
Dancing Skeletons
The dancing skeletons in Episode 6 are a spooky homage to “The Skeleton Dance,” a famous Silly Symphony animated short created by Walt Disney in 1929. Scenes from the short have been turned into popular GIFs and images on the internet, making it immediately recognizable even for those who haven’t seen the original animation.
Disney Moments
For the eagle-eyed fans, a few episodes have more subtle references to Disney. In the first episode, Cuphead plays a Skee-Ball game with holes that seem to be formed in the shape of a certain mouse’s head and ears. In Episode 9, as Mugman is trying to find Cuphead’s invisible sweater, he’s going through clothes in his closet, and we are able to catch a glimpse of the classic red shorts, black shirt and gloves that Mickey is famous for.
Felix the Cat
Felix the Cat was a popular cartoon and comic strip character from the 1920s that has come in and out it popularity in the decades since its creation. Each of the characters in The Cuphead Show! is a different type of item or species, ranging from an early 1900s telephone to vegetables. In Episodes 1 and 5, one of the background characters is a black and white cat, very closely resembling Felix. Although just seen for a few moments, the resemblance is pretty clear for anyone familiar with the character.
Title Cards
A throwback to films from Hollywood’s early era, “classic” cartoons often used title cards to announce the show and title of each episode. Looney Tunes episodes are a popular example of this. The Cuphead Show! not only uses these title cards, but also references the Art Deco and retro designs of the early cartoon era with various font choices, design embellishments and flourishes.
Big Band Music
Before talking sound became readily available and popularized in film, music was used to accentuate the dramatic or comedic feeling of scenes. Much of the music in the show is big band style (a type of Jazz that uses many musicians) both as a reference to the music used within the game as well as the music style used in early cartoons.
Cab Calloway
Speaking of big band, famous jazz singer Cab Calloway is noted as being the inspiration behind several Betty Boop characters, specifically a walrus in the episode “Minnie the Moocher.” His real-life dance movements were recorded on video and traced by cartoonists to get a fluidity to their animations that hadn’t been there before. Introduced in Episode 5, King Dice not only wears a suit reminiscent of Calloway’s style, but has a very similar dance style as the singer/cartoon, and the music that introduces him is a version of “Minnie the Moocher” as well.
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