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)

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.

Preston Blair's Sorcerer's Apprentice

This comes from an issue of Cartoonist PROfiles, though I don't know which one. Space has always been at a premium here, and I've torn articles out of magazines for years in order to keep my files under control. I've been good lately at noting the titles and issue numbers of articles, but I neglected to do it for this piece. If anybody knows the issue number, please comment.

Blair claimed in the accompanying text that this was the first scene animated for The Sorcerer's Apprentice. He also mentions that the assistant for this scene was Ken Muse and that live action of a UCLA athlete was filmed for reference. Blair states that the athlete had long hair and he used it as a guide for the follow through on Mickey's robe.

I wonder if these images are tracings Blair did of his originals, as some of the figures overlap. However they were assembled, they're lovely to look at.

Preston Blair and The Honeymooners

The Honeymooners inspired several animated cartoons. Bob McKimson did a couple with the characters as mice at Warner's in the '50's (The Honey-mousers; Cheese It, The Cat). Of course, The Honeymooners inspired The Flintstones. Preston Blair, who produced one episode of The Flintstones for Hanna-Barbera (episode P.38; anybody know the title?) later tried to interest the networks in an animated version of The Honeymooners using caricatures of the stars. Unfortunately, nothing ever came of it.

These drawings were originally printed in Cartoonist PROfiles #41, published in March, 1979.