The Sidewalks of New York (film)

The Sidewalks of New York (1925 and 1929) are two cartoon short films made by animation pioneers Max Fleischer and Dave Fleischer, both films using the 1894 song "The Sidewalks of New York".[1]

Both films feature the "Follow the Bouncing Ball" gimmick, and are also known under the title "East Side, West Side", the informal title of the original song. The Fleischer brothers, Lee DeForest, Hugo Riesenfeld, and Edwin Miles Fadiman formed Red Seal Pictures to release the Song Car-Tunes series, which started in May 1924 with the release of Oh Mabel.

The first film, released in 1925, was made for the Song Car-Tunes series and was filmed in the DeForest Phonofilm sound-on-film process. The Song Car-Tunes series eventually totaled 36 films, of which 19 were made in sound using Phonofilm.

The film was re-released by the Fleischers on February 5, 1929 through Paramount Pictures with a new soundtrack recorded in RCA Photophone. This second film was the first entry in the Fleischers' new series Screen Songs.