Saturday, January 20, 2007
Dan Haskett Sesame Street Work
This is a Sesame Street spot created by Dan Haskett. Dan is one of the most natural animators I've ever met and it's a shame that he rarely has the opportunity to animate his own thing. It seems like most of the credits I see for Dan are in the area of character design, and while he's excellent at it, nobody moves his designs as well as he does.
When I started out in the '70's in New York, Dan Haskett was miles ahead of the rest of us, and we all knew it. We all wanted to be Dan when we grew up.
Here's another piece Dan did for Sesame Street. There's a four second blackout near the start, but the piece resumes. There's some very expressive dialogue animation here.
Dan may have done other Sesame Street spots, though I can't remember for sure. If anyone knows and can find them online, please let me know and I'll link to them.
Do you know when the cat piece was done?
ReplyDeleteI believe that these pieces were done in the '80's, but I can't narrow it down more closely than that.
ReplyDeleteBefore the Warner cartoons came into my life (that was around age 6), my obsession was the Jim Henson products. Part of the joy of watching Sesame Street outside Oscar the Grouch, Cookie Monster, and Bert & Ernie, were some of the wonderful animated shorts on the program.
ReplyDeleteI'm grateful that I now know the names of the animators of some of my favorites. The cat one I remember quite fondly, mainly because of how beautifully animated it was!
Great ! Thank you, Mark for posting this animation by Dan Haskett. I love Dan's animation and I agree, it seems like too seldom that we get to see him go to town with some pure animation . If anyone ought to have a blog or a website it should be Mr. Haskett.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, do you know if the animation pencil test of Mickey Mouse posted at this link (scroll down) :
ReplyDeletehttp://tinyurl.com/2qw7uf
is by Dan Haskett? I think it is. It looks like his style of drawing and I have a vague memory of someone showing me those drawings (a xeroxed copy of the scene) a long time ago and saying that it was a Dan Haskett scene. I wish I had got a copy of that scene .
Hi David. There's some fantastic stuff on that web page. I think that the Tom animation is by Ken Muse, though I've emailed Thad to see if he agrees.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, I have no idea if the Mickey animation is by Dan. It's really brief. If Mickey was standing in one place and on screen longer, it might be easier to identify whether Dan did it or not.
How oddly wonderful to not only come across this blog right now, but to find myself on it. I can't thank you enough, Mark, for posting these pieces...and for your very kind comments. I hope life's been great to you. Thanks for having a good heart, and for continuing to be one of our medium's most erudite journalists.
ReplyDeleteHi Dan. Nice to hear from you and thanks for the compliments. I'd give up the whole "erudite" journalism thing if I could become one of animation's most "erudite" film makers, but the fates don't want to cooperate.
ReplyDeleteMy email is markmayerson(at)rogers(dot)com. Drop me a line if you want. I'd love to hear what you've been up to lately.