What About Thad?

John K. is posting his layouts from the unmade Ren & Stimpy epic The Wilderness Adventure, to illustrate his process of ‘maintaining guts’ of the storyboard. So I thought this would be an opportune time to share the whole unmade journey in board form. (I’m missing page 89, unfortunately, but there’s no loss of continuity).

As he writes, this was boarded in the Summer of 1990, before production on the series started. It looks to be primarily the work of John K. and Jim Smith, but there’s definitely a lot of Bob Camp in it and some Lynne Naylor too. Though it was rejected three times as is, a lot of the material found life in other cartoons, Man’s Best Friend most notably. The mosquito scene was used in The Great Outdoors – in fact, the board for that cartoon uses the exact same drawings as seen here. There was talk of using it to start off or be part of that fascinating fiasco, Adult Party Cartoon, but it never materialized.

Aside from the incredibly appealing drawing and staging, there’s a beautiful dynamic between George Liquor and his pets, only making me wish there were slews of R&S cartoons like it. ome of this material is funnier than much of what actually made it into that historic cartoon series. Maybe a naked fight between G.L. and a bear or Ren leaving his master to die seemed a little raw, but there’s at least that wonderful reassurance that this is just a cartoon and none of this is real – hell, the stuffed heads are revealed to still be living animals.

I’ve spent some much needed time looking over Frank Young’s blog/shrine to comic book auteur John Stanley, and it got me thinking again about what an underrated talent Stanley was and still is. His intelligent work with child characters predates Peanuts by several years and is far darker and more profound than anything Charles Schulz did with his strip in fifty years. His obscurer handling of animated characters like Woody Woodpecker and Tom Cat are gems well worth discovering, and reprinting, if there’s a market for that sort of compilation. While I’m not crazy about his work in the “teen scene” comics in the 1960s, it still remains some of the most interesting work a comic writer/artist did in his later years.

By no means limit yourself to my few recommendations linked below. Spend endless hours reveling in the goodness that is John Stanley!

Bongo and Bop: “A Breather” (1961): Bill Williams’s art makes both the stories highlighted here worth reading, but the shorter one is a truly brilliant piece of cynic comedy.
Johnny Mole (1944): To reiterate my comment: a big hulky man who abuses a child and pays hush money is overcome with remorse and disgust at his abuse and freespending, all while the kid enjoys it? In 1944?!
Tubby: “The Gourmet” (1948): I consider this Stanley’s greatest story.
The First Little Lulu Comic (1945): These are neat little gems, but they’ve never been reprinted with the original artwork, which Frank’s provided.
“Tom Cat” (1948): This one is just perverted. Read. Now.

I wanted an excuse to talk about Walter Lantz cartoons so I could coincide with Michael Sporn’s tribute to the studio, and I finally have one. Someone’s uploaded a lot of great animation and layout drawings from the 1940s Lantz cartoons here, and there’s a few consecutive drawings from Alex Lovy’s Ace in the Hole, the cartoon highlighted in Michael’s post. I’ve reproduced them here.

I’m really not confident enough to give the scene a positive ID, but if I had to make an educated guess, it’s probably Laverne Harding, one of Lantz’s most important (and long-standing) animators. She tended to always have a better handling of lipsync than the other animators, and usually was able to give even the dullest character designs (and the Lantz cartoons had lots of them!) an appealing vigor.

This isn’t a very good cartoon overall (it comes off as unoriginal when placed aside the Donald Duck cartoons with him in the army dealing with Sergeant Black Pete), but like Michael, I have fond memories of seeing this one very young, albeit in a very different way. (I do love his comments about watching and studying these things on film, but I’d rather wait until I can actually scan my prints to talk about my own film experiences.)

This was one of only four (!) cartoons on a $14.95 VHS tape released to commemorate Woody’s 50th “birthday” in 1990. Generally speaking, hunting down these VHS tapes was one of the only ways to see any good Lantz cartoons for years in the United States. The Program Exchange had their syndicated Woody package, but these shows consisted almost entirely of those eye-twitching Paul J. Smith cartoons. (For some reason, though, whenever I saw a Lantz cartoon on TV, it was a really good one. As in, the only Chilly Willys I ever managed to catch were Tex Avery’s.)

I’m not sure what Universal was trying to accomplish, although logic less cynical than that behind Warners’ plans to kill their own characters is probably the villain here. My high school biology teacher made a remark that Woody was probably as extinct as the ivory-billed woodpecker he was modeled after. Things sure have changed when you can buy 75 Lantz cartoons on DVD for less than $30 now and they’re posted all over YouTube.

Another addition to the treasures piling up on Mike Barrier’s site is his and Milt Gray’s 1976 interview with Milt Kahl. Be forewarned that this is not for those who like dwelling in the land of softness, where everybody working in animation were friends and liked each others’ work. (I’d personally like to hear more substantiation of what I heard on the scuttlebutt level of Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston always tattling to Walt, “Well you know what Milt just said,” resulting in Kahl getting stuck with all those lame, formulaic assignments. But all of the books are so sold on the Nine Old Men myth that they wouldn’t dare suggest that there was backstabbing going on amongst them.)

As I wrote on Mike’s site, there’s a certain irony to Kahl’s criticism of the exaggeration and caricature in the work of Ward Kimball (“a Chuck Jones with talent”) – Kahl’s own richest and most underrated work tends to fall in the same category. Song of the South (he rightfully takes credit for the animated segments’ success) is one of the few Disney works that’s equal to the best of Warner animation, his work in Pecos Bills and Ichabod is the ‘real’ human animation style done right, and he did do the best animation of Alice in the woefully underrated Alice in Wonderland (the animated film equivalent of pot-flavored frosting), as showcased in Michael Sporn’s postings here and here. There’s nothing inherently wrong with Kahl’s “Illusion of Life” work. Certainly it works extremely well in Pinocchio and Bambi, but the style overtook the whole studio and the price paid is about 60 years worth of Disney films that can’t be taken seriously. (Not that the fans and students have a problem with it, as Tangled’s gargantuan success proves.)

Tiger Trouble, one of the “feature guys” shorts of the 40s, is another example of Kahl at his best. The opening with Goofy eating his pipe is just as successful a scene as any: Goofy’s fear is extremely caricatured but believable, the act of the pipe eating is not just hilarious but comes off as something natural, and every drawing is unique and funny. What more could you ask for? This also gets my vote for the best tiger in a cartoon ever. (Kinney and Jack Hannah reused the character with relative success in later Goofy and Donald Duck cartoons.) Certainly better than Shere Khan in every way.

That name’s been in countless Terrytoons and was actually spelt out in one of the last of the “classic” studio’s shorts. Every studio did a parody of the TV series “Dragnet”, and Police Dogged was Terry’s CinemaScope, Jim Tyer-filled answer to the craze. This is a transfer of a Technicolor Scope print I have of the title, so the original aspect ratio is preserved. (Note that since Fox distributed the Terrytoons, the actual CinemaScope logo is used.)

When viewing the CinemaScope cartoons of this period, it becomes pretty obvious most of the studios (MGM and Terry in particular) didn’t really embrace the widescreen format. There’s no discernible changes or improvements to the animated cinematography – things just get a little more spread out. (See Ranger Woodlore’s comment in Grand Canyonscope for a shockingly self-aware comment on this, for a Charle Nichols cartoon anyway.)

(Special thanks to Tom Stathes for transferring, and to Jerry Beck for giving the coolest bonus I ever received on a job.)

I’ve been urging Mike Barrier to post his excellent interview with Warner director/”Senior Animator” Bob McKimson for some time, and he finally did. Click here to read it.

Just to break up the monotony of Looney Tunes, here’s a pseudo-Looney Tune…

These Blackie vs. Wolfie shorts are some of the rarer gems of 1940s cartoonery. The shorts are obviously inspired by Bugs Bunny, but they still manage to have their own identity – the characters are always trying to kill each other, but they’re almost suburbanites in being on first-name terms with each other. Lamb in a Jam and Sheep Shape are even better than this one, but I don’t have presentable copies of either now, unfortunately. I posted about the first, and best, of the cartoons, No Mutton fer Nuttin’, here.

The animation by Dave Tendlar’s crew (his star animator was powerhouse Marty Taras) is full of vigor, echoing some of Bob Clampett’s work in that every miniscule action has a mind of its own. The scenes with the ‘ear-drum’ and Wolfie inhaling the ‘mint julep’ are at least as good as any animation done at Warners at the time. There’s even some well-acted footage of Wolfie dying of sunstroke in the desert (this looks like it could be Morey Reden’s work, though it might not be).

What most people don’t understand about Famous Studios is that while there were several units operating with a lead animator, those leaders didn’t direct in the fashion that the Warner or MGM directors would (the ‘idealized’ director system, which almost never, ever happens in animation, anywhere). Rather, head hacks Seymour Kneitel and Izzy Sparber would have final approval over everything, and almost always water everything down to a meandering 1-2-3 pace (Tendlar and Tom Johnson still managed to get the best results possible out of this system). Animation veteran (and treasure) Howard Beckerman told me there was no shortage of talent at Famous and some of them could have become high-profile directors if it weren’t for these management politics. The Paramount suits sure didn’t get in the way – they just cared if the pictures were clean, not if they were any good.

Regardless, the best of the 1940s Famous Studios cartoons remain the most underrated and neglected of animation’s golden age (along with Shamus Culhane’s work at Lantz). There’s a lingering stigma to reject them because they require a bit more work to get into, but trust me, find the right ones, like this one, and you’ll be rewarded.

Much Ado About Mutton was the last of the Sheep-Wolf cartoons, and the Blackie character axed permanently. (Wolfie would live on to harass other small creatures and be occasionally scared shitless by Casper the Friendly Ghost.) Here is a Tendlar model sheet of the character done for this particular cartoon (courtesy of Bob Jaques).

This was the first time in a long while that I went out of my way to look at an early Chuck Jones cartoon, so bear with me. Jones’ cartoons in his fake-Disney period all blend together in my mind, and I’d be fine with never seeing them again. This particular cartoon, Dog Gone Modern isn’t bad, but it’s not good either. It’s probably better than most cartoons released in 1939, and is better-acted and animated than most of the Disney cartoons it’s imitating (though it has no excuse not to, seeing as Jones had both Bob McKimson and Ken Harris in his unit at the time).

Jones’ drawing and acting style is already evident here, so even in his second cartoon the characters are making coy, wry expressions. But in having this style, the director is setting us up for jokes that don’t happen. The smaller dog slyly pushes a button after being warned not to – and a table just drops out, frightening him. That’s the gag? That there’s no payoff? He just runs off like a dog? To be blunt, that ‘Imitation of Life’ shit’s just not funny, no matter how many books say it is.

Another problem is the movement and timing aren’t funny. 1939 was not a good year overall for the Schlesinger studio, but at least the Avery and Clampett pictures were brisk and snappy in their execution. The robot (how the hell do you think up a design like that?) in particular is rather floaty in its animation in some scenes. What little looseness present here started to disappear as he got deeper into the fake Disney mire. You can clearly see Jones had the tools to make much faster pictures, but he was very conscientiously ignoring the opportunity, probably trying to grab Walt Disney’s attention by making Norm Ferguson clones and get a job offer.

The offer never came, so fast forward eight years later, when Jones was eight times the director he once was, and well into a long period when he was incapable of not making a great cartoon (even objectively, it’s at least a period of ten years). Jones’ cartoons were as crazy and innovative as any of the Avery or Clampett cartoons, just in a different way. (i.e. Jones the psychopath to Clampett the sociopath).

Same director, same animators, and same story as Dog Gone Modern, but House Hunting Mice shows how much Jones (and Warner cartoons in general) had grown and learned from his contemporaries over the years. The actual drawing and animation is not only beautiful, but funny too, not an easy combination. The writing and gags are sharp, with the mice in a literal battle of wits with the modern home, using the home to fight itself as much as it’s fighting them.

Hubie and Bertie are great personalities, unlike the other mice that infest animation. Hubie is an apt caricature of the Dead End Kids, whereas Bertie borderlines between naive and mentally retarded, as exemplified in his hilarious entrance. A shame Jones decided to axe the characters; it may have been a powerplay, as the actual characters had more of Mike Maltese in them than Jones, just as the Three Bears did. (Though with the bears, those cartoons actually were getting terrible reviews, so there might have been some legitimacy to pull the plug in that case.)

The robot is a great example of how even a noncharacter can be given life if it’s just moved well enough; it’s actually a menace to the mice, and the humor of the situation is improved from the dilemma in Modern, where it’s not just the cheese that’s considered waste, but Bertie too. It’s easily the best robot ever animated, and it doesn’t even have a face. (The hell with Wall-E – again.)

Let me point out before others do – House Hunting Mice probably has the best usage of Raymond Scott’s Powerhouse ever. I’m not comfortable enough with making identifications on the whole cartoon, but I can say with certainty that Ken Harris animated the opening and closing scenes, and Ben Washam did the whole sequence involving Hubie getting ‘mangled’ in the laundry.

Incidentally, I hope you noticed the original titles (sourced from my 16mm film collection) are on this copy. I guess you’ll just have to look at my blog for restorations of real Warner cartoons, since it’s not happening on home video.

Jon Cooke sent me this link to a TVShowsonDVD (which has an accuracy rating rivaling Wikipedia) page announcing the contents of the Looney Tunes Superstar Road Runner & Coyote release coming in May, and I had to agree with him that it’s the worst line-up from that series possible. Actually, it sounded like something a cyber-prankster (i.e. me) would come up with. I asked Jerry Beck, and he confirmed that the announcement is accurate.

We all know Warner Home Video’s definition of “classic”, as used for their animation library, is nebulous at best, but it’s obscene to pass off three 3-minute Flash cartoons the Kids WB website put online eight years ago as the genuine article. But this is also a chance for them to air out some of those absolutely charming Road Runner cartoons farmed out to Rudy Larriva at Format Films; unlike the Gene Deitch Tom & Jerry cartoons, which if interpreted correctly may explain certain aspects of the schizophrenic experience, these home-made in the U.S.A. cartoons are kind of the equivalent of taking the formula for a chocolate malt and turning it into a stimulant for syphilis and marketing it to school children.

Yes, these releases are intended for the Wal-Mart and Target crowd (well, I think they are, even though I’ve never encountered these Super Star releases in any actual store). But the original Chuck Jones entries were probably my favorite cartoons as a kid (and in some ways still are), and I definitely knew my time was wasted when one of these imposters aired on Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon. I tell you, if I got a collection like this when I was seven, I’d be pretty disappointed.

Not a whole lot is known about the life and times of Dan Gordon, but much of what’s identifiable as his work is fairly phenomenal in its execution. The brilliant, unconventional Popeye cartoons (like this one) bearing his name as “director” may be the only time a Golden Age Paramount short actually properly credited who was at the helm of the cartoon. His comic book work is very much the same as that directorial work, with seemingly normal stories abruptly taking a sharp right turn into lunacy; he never seems concerned that the plot is making any logical sense, only that the audience (and himself) are entertained by the hijinks. He ended up, after a hiatus from animation work altogether, doing ’story sketches’ for Hanna-Barbera, probably the last place such a mindset would be appreciated.

This Superkatt story from Giggle Comics #71 (1950) is a nice example of his working process. Fortunately (?), the All Comics Group didn’t mind the comics getting as anarchic and meta as the theatrical shorts, something obviously kept at bay in the funny animal books of Western. He’s developing an interesting drawing style here; some of the side characters in particular are easily the closest thing to classic MAD Magazine I’ve seen outside of that title (save the work by Kurtzman, Martin, etc. al did themselves outside the title).

Sherm Cohen did a great bio of Gordon awhile back, Doug Gray has posted several Superkatt stories, and John K. has a nice write-up on Gordon’s skills here.