Mini History Lesson

Profiles in History is having an auction entitled Icons of Animation on December 17. While the majority of items are out of my price range (maybe all of them actually), you can download a catalog of the auction for free.

Even if you're not in the market to buy, the catalog is a mini history lesson by itself. It contains art from Disney, MGM, Warner Bros, Fleischer and Hanna Barbera. There is work by Bill Tytla, Fred Moore, Carl Barks, Bob Clampett, Virgil Ross, Irv Wyner, Mary Blair, Preston Blair, Gustav Tenggren, Charles Schulz, etc. There are worse ways to spend time than by paging through the download and admiring so much beautiful stuff.

(link via Disney History)

Invitation to the Dance

Most animation fans are familiar with the sequence in Anchors Aweigh where Gene Kelly dances with Jerry, the mouse from Tom and Jerry cartoons. Fewer fans have seen Invitation to the Dance, a feature spearheaded by star Gene Kelly which consists entirely of three dance sequences. The last sequence is "Sinbad the Sailor" and features Kelly dancing with animated characters produced by Hanna Barbera while they were still at MGM.

The film will be showing on Turner Classic Movies early in the morning of Tuesday Sept. 20 at 12:15 a.m. Eastern Time. Or if you prefer, late Monday night. In any case, TCM only runs the film every few years, so you might want to catch it if you're interested.

Below is an excerpt from the animated sequence.

Animated Leo the Lion

Here's an oddity. The trailer for MGM's 1935 feature No More Ladies starts and ends with an animated Leo the Lion. According to Steve Stanchfield of Thunderbean Animation, the animator is Bill Nolan, a veteran of the silent era whose previous job was at the Lantz studio in the early '30s. The voice, of course, is by Billy Bletcher, who voiced the Big Bad Wolf in Disney's The Three Little Pigs and also did cartoon voices for Warner Bros. (Little Red Riding Rabbit).

(Link via The Golden Age Cartoon Forum.)

Chuck Jones Reminder

This Tuesday, March 24, Turner Classic Movies will be running four and a half hours saluting the work of animation director Chuck Jones. The complete schedule is here.

Highlights include the TV premiere of the documentary Chuck Jones: Memories of Childhood, as well as such noted cartoons as What's Opera Doc?, Duck Amuck, One Froggy Evening. The evening will also include early works, such as Jones directorial debut The Night Watchman, as well as Prest-O Change-O and Elmer's Candid Camera, two early steps in the evolution of Bugs Bunny. TCM will also screen The Phantom Tollbooth, Jones' feature, based on the book by Norton Juster, made for MGM.

The entire program will be repeated twice during the evening, followed by 1001 Arabian Nights, a UPA feature starring Mr. Magoo and directed by veteran Disney director Jack Kinney.

A Letter From Preston Blair

This 1932 photo was taken in front of the Charles Mintz studio. Standing, left to right: Harry Love, Preston Blair, Allen Rose. Kneeling: Al Eugster.

Preston Blair is a name that should be known to everyone in the animation business, if only because he wrote one of the first books on how to animate. That book has remained in print for around 60 years, which speaks to its usefulness.

Even if you're not in the animation business, you've undoubtedly seen some of Blair's work. He animated on "The Dance of the Hours" and "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" in Fantasia, did some owl animation in Bambi, and worked for Tex Avery at MGM, where his most famous animation is of Red, the girl who prompted sexual fireworks from Avery's wolf character.

Tex Avery
Uploaded by Texwolf

This letter was in response to my questions about his time at MGM. The hand-written comment at the end of the third paragraph says "against Harman Ising." Click the pages to enlarge.

Gus Arriola (1917-2008)

Gus Arriola, best known for the comic strip Gordo, has died at the age of 90. Arriola, like many artists during the Great Depression, spent time in the animation industry as it was one of the few places an artist could earn a steady living.

Arriola started at the Mintz studio as an inbetweener. When MGM started their in-house studio in 1937, Arriola moved over and started working his way up the ladder. He was more interested in the story department than in animating and he first worked on story for Hugh Harman on cartoons like The Lonesome Stranger (1940) and Abdul the Bulbul Ameer (1941). In addition to story sketches, Arriola also did character designs. Moving over to the Rudy Ising unit, Arriola worked on Dance of the Weed (1941), Bats in the Belfry (1942), and The First Swallow (1942).

An Arriola design from Abdul the Bulbul Ameer

An Arriola design from Dance of the Weed

In 1941, he sold Gordo as a comic strip and continued it until 1985. Gordo was notable for its Mexican locale and Arriola's interest in promoting Mexican culture. He was an excellent designer whose daily strips were crisply drawn with judiciously placed black areas. The Gordo Sunday strips showed off Arriola's flair for colour.

In 2000, Robert C. Harvey and Gus Arriola collaborated on Accidental Ambassador Gordo, a generously illustrated biography of Arriola.

More About Jack Zander

Tom Sito has posted his memories of Jack Zander here. It turns out the photo I used in my previous entry was actually one of Tom with Jack, though I didn't know it. You can see a larger version of the entire photo here.

Before I ever worked for Jack, I wrote him while researching an article about MGM cartoons. Here's what he replied:

6-24-76

Dear Mark

Thanks for your letter. Yes I did work with Harman and Ising. Started with them in 1931 as an animator (I was never an inbetweener!). $40 per week. Worked on Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies and "Bosko" both for Hugh and Rudy. I left H + I in 1933 to come to N.Y. and work for Van Beuren Corp. making Toonerville Trolley etc. Van Beuren closed in 1936. I worked for Paul Terry for about a year.

Had a call from Max Maxwell who said they were starting a cartoon dept. at MGM and could I help him with people. I rounded up Dan Gordon, Ray Kelly, Joe Barbera and Mike Meyers and we went to Calif. in the fall of 1937.

Bob Allen and Bill Hanna had left H + I to start MGM. They were the two directors and Max Maxwell was the production manager. Fred Quimby was the "Boss."

The first pictures were terrible. So during the next few years MGM hired everyone they could think of to make it work, including Milt Gross, Harry Herschfeld, High and Rudy, each of which lasted for a year or less. Finally in 1940 Hanna and Barbera hit on Tom and Jerry which was an immediate success. At that time I was animating the mouse which I did for 2 yrs. Tex Avery ran his other unit very successfully.

Animators there were Pete Burness, Emery Hawkins, Bill Littlejohn, Ken Muse, Irv Spence, J.Z. and others in and out.

Hugh and Rudy left and business went on as usual. I don't recall what they left to do, but Quimby (who knew nothing about the business) was generally unsatisfied with their efforts.

When Bob Allen and Bill Hanna left H + I they took the key men with them in 1937 leaving H + I very high and dry.

Friz Freleng was also a director at MGM. His brother was a "gag man."

Heck Allen, Bob's brother, was also a "gag man."

In 1942 I enlisted and came to N.Y. to work in the Signal Corps.

There's lots more info. Too bad you can't drop in for a short talk.

Thanks for your interest.

Jack Zander