Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- I hope I’m not sounding like a shill, but I don’t really mind. I believe in the product, and I’m going to broadcast my enthusiasm until you’ve got tears in your eyes.

Amid Amidi’s book Cartoon Modern is the best book on animation I’ve encountered since Michael Barrier’s Hollywood Cartoons.

When Barrier’s book came out, I was depressed and could find no inspiration in anything animated. As a matter of fact, I didn’t want to see any more animated films. I read his book and found the charge I was looking for. I reread the book and found more. Just getting some trustworthy version of some of the pioneers and artists who pushed their way through the medium did it for me. I found new life in the work I did after that. I reread that book at least once a year – just for the pleasure.

(An Eyvind Earle study for Sleeping Beauty.) . . . (All images enlarge by clicking.)

Cartoon Modern has had a similar effect. The story, here, isn’t about the pioneers who built a business and an artform; it’s about the artists who rebelled from that business to advance the art. Their story is every bit as thrilling and certainly as much of an inspiration. This is especially so in that I grew up while these guys developed the look they advanced. In some small way I was taught – through their cartoons – that modern art was good. Also, as a small business animator, how could I not associate with these guys?

This book is filled with glorious illustrations as only such a story could be told. We are talking about people who found a way to update the art and break the mold of the 19th Century.
I’ve recklessly copied a couple of the stills from the book to illustrate how magnificent Amid’s photo research is to illustrate his text. It involved more than going to one archive and having them open their wares to you.

(Paul Julian’s painting for UPA’s “The Telltale Heart.”)

Amid had to go to many artists who shared the wealth. That, let me tell you, is a trying job. None of the difficulty is apparent here. Just the love. Love of the material and the medium.

Amid Amidi has a lot in common with Michael Barrier.
They’re both fine writers, articulate and intelligent. Both are in love with the medium, and neither is afraid to call a spade a spade or a bad cartoon a bad cartoon. You don’t always have to agree with them, just agree to listen.

For this quality, as a writer, you have to have more than a little responsibility.

Your sense of taste has to be impeccable and your audience has to trust you.

(Cel set-up from “Rooty Toot Toot.”)

Amid gained my trust and my affection for his writing years ago – thank heaven for the internet! Animation Blast, Cartoon Modern (the website), and Cartoon Brew have all informed me in a deep and solid way.

My delight in this book couldn’t be more sincere.

I haven’t completely finished reading it, and I do have a couple of quibbles. But that would have been the case of any book. However, this book is all about taste, and I’m so pleased to be in the hands of such a fine writer and historian – it’s a great feeling.

- I’m saddened to learn of Ed Benedict‘s death. Cartoon Brew gives a number of resources to view some of the man’s work and learn about some of his accomplishments. It’s worth a visit to get a sample of his accomplishments. Though I didn’t know him, I’ve been enormously affected by his work.

– Last week I made reference to Aurelius Battaglia’s UPA short, The Invisible Moustache of Raoul Dufy. The film was produced in 1955 and celebrates the life and art of Raoul Dufy.
It was part of the first season of The Gerald McBoing Boing Show, a short lived series on CBS, Sundays at 5:30. This show featured three short films (most done especially for the TV show) with a wrap-around bit featuring Gerald. The Invisible Moustache of Raoul Dufy was one of these shorts.
(Click to enlarge any image.)

Walking in Paris, about 20 years ago, I stumbled upon Dufy’s immense mural La fée électricité, which was commissioned by the Compagnie Parisienne de Distribution d’Electricité. It was in the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. Only on seeing this enormous work was I able to really grasp the notion of the film, which I’d seen as a child. I was taken with the technical expertise Dufy utilized to paint the work so quickly. He used a special painting medium created by a chemist and a projection system that allowed him to paint directly over images of his sketches. For the viewer, it’s the immense size of the piece that is so monumental. The colors literally glow around you in the somewhat darkened room.

The film, on the otherhand, seems to exist only in grayed colors. I have a 16mm print which came new, and the colors seemed faded. The vhs copy I have is no better. The delicate script is still quite lovely, but one is always wishing Dufy’s colors could come through.

I’ve posted a number of frame grabs to give an indication of the film, but I urge you to view the reconstructed mural the next time you’re in Paris. (Perhaps a side-trip from Annecy.)

This is an out take storyboard drawing from Fuddy Duddy Buddy by John Hubley.

– There’s been a lot made about UPA these past few weeks because of the upcoming show in Hollywood at The Egyptian Theater (today). Rightly so, they did some great work in their early years.

But we have to remember that once they reached their pinnacle during the early fifties, they sort of STOPPED and kept running in place. After teaching the world that 20th century graphics worked in animation – unlike the model set by Disney et. al. – they stopped in their Steinberg phase. Magoo kept puddle jumping, and after the first McBoing Boing, they broke little ground with the character.

It took till the late fifties for me to catch up to them, so I’m glad they ran in place for awhile. I loved Magoo’s Christmas Carol, regardless how limited its animation was. I even watched the Dick Tracy show as a kid and was happy that it looked different than Little Audrey and Popeye. But if we look seriously at the history of animation, we have to say that ART stopped happening at UPA after Unicorn In The Garden, The Telltale Heart and Madeline.

– Dave Hilberman and Zach Schwartz had left the studio because of a control issue in the studio. John Hubley eventually was forced out for fhis political beliefs and another attempt to control the studio.

Hilberman and Schwartz started Tempo, a commercial production studio in NYC, in 1947 and continued working until McCarthyism hit and closed their studio. Hubley eventually started Storyboard, also to produce commercials. However, Hubley started work on Finian’s Rainbow, an animated feature that, from the look of the remaining art and soundtrack tapes, was certainly a push forward for the ART of animation. That, too, was ultimately killed by Joseph McCarthy’s attempt to destroy civil liberties.

Hubley moved to NY and began working in the style of the new art, abstract expressionism. UPA continued turning out cartoons in the style that they been stuck in for the rest of their history. They no longer were moving the ART forward, but were exploiting their reputation for the commercial interests.

In their initial days, UPA was the studio that changed the world of animation. The films they did in those days are the ones celebrated at events like today’s. It’s wonderful that those films are still alive and being seen. It’s too bad the studio didn’t go further; maybe they’d still be around.

- Today’s NYDaily News has an article about animation features by lead resident critic, Jack Mathews. Talk about art!

– One of the favorite artifacts I own is this employee pin given out to those at UPA back in the fifties. It was given to me by Lu Guarnier, and I have it framed alongside a studio ballpoint pen which also has the UPA logo on it. A bit of the yellow is chipping away, but I’m trying to preserve it.

These bits and pieces of another time and place are the real treasures in my collection. If you enlarge the image, you’ll get an indication of just how tiny this pin is.

(Click on the image to enlarge it.)

- Go from here to Cartoon Modern to check out the wonderful character design of John Hubley‘s for Rooty Toot Toot. This show coming up on Sunday in Hollywood has prompted some fantastic UPA artwork.

- Jenny Lerew has a wonderful series on Fred Moore on her blog. The photos are wonderful, and her research is enlightening. I was never the biggest fan of Moore’s work, but I’m getting a new appreciation thanks to Jenny’s comments. Perhaps it’s worth a good reinvestigation. I always found Lampwick in Pinocchio his best work; I’ll have to take another look.

I like seeing some of these old studio photos. The pictures Amid Amidi has posted on his Cartoon Modern site – particularly the earlier of the two – are just out of this world. None of them tops the photo of Walt Disney Jenny posted back on Jan 15.

– Thanks to Tom Sito‘s blog, I know today is Ub Iwerks’ birthday. An aries. Nice piece of information.

(Click any image to enlarge to a readable size.)

- This is my second attempt at posting this LIFE Magazine story on Rooty Toot Toot from a March, 1952 issue. They obviously enjoyed the UPA films back then, and luckily for us they posted it on something concrete – like paper.

Next Sunday, March 26th there will be a UPA program to be held at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood. The films scheduled include:

Bobe Cannon’s “Gerald McBoing-Boing”, John Hubley’s “Rooty Toot Toot”, Ted Parmelee’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” and Pete Burness’s “When Magoo Flew”, as well as shorts produced for “The Gerald McBoing-Boing Show”, “Deerfoot Dan” and “Blues Pattern”.

There will also be a preview of a forthcoming documentary THE BOING THAT SHOOK THE WORLD.

In between the films there will be two panels hosted by Jerry Beck. His guests will be: UPA animators and designers including Bill Melendez, Alan Zaslove, Willis Pyle, Fred Crippen, and Sam Clayberger. There will also be contemporary artists: Mark Kausler (BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, THE LION KING), Lou Romano (production designer of Pixar’s THE INCREDIBLES) and author/historian Amid Amidi.

It sounds like an amazing show that I only wish I could attend. I’ll have to satisfy myself with those amazing studio photos posted by Amid on the Cartoon Modern site.

Sunday, March 26 – 6:00 PM
The Egyptian Theater
6712 Hollywood Boulevard
Hollywood, CA 90028

Where did I leave off ?

On Monday, a couple of hours after I posted a story about Rooty Toot Toot, my site went down and took the SPLOG with it. It’s been a tough couple of days trying to deal with the “upgrade” of my Web Host. They got the site back yesterday, and it’s taken till now to get this much of my blog back. (I guess I was given a “downgrade.”) It looks like my last two weeks worth of material has disappeared into their database . . . or maybe it’ll show up in a couple of hours. Who knows? (You can’t trust computers, these danged things!)

As soon as I get my “Image Browser” back, I’ll reconstruct last Monday’s UPA posting and try to go on from there. If the last two weeks were lost, I’ll try to recover some of what I posted this coming weekend.

In the meantime, on a lighter note, there’s a funny bit about a custody battle in Sweden fighting over a Donald Duck comic book. Go to the end of today’s “Arts, Briefly ” NYTimes article.

A couple of things yesterday turned me toward the past.

- Three celebrities died over the weekend. I only had an actual communication with one of them. ABEL’S ISLAND was in the throes of new production. Tim Curry had been recorded and edited in London, and I was riding the high of his voice. We were about to record Heidi Stallings as Amanda, Abel’s wife and had one principal voice left to cast and record.

Darren McGavin was performing in a local off-Broadway production. His voice would be perfect for Gower, the frog, the only one to see Abel during his castaway year.

I searched high and low for an agent. I looked through all the guides. I called Actor’s Equity, SAG, NABET. No one had any link to him. Finally, in desperation I called the theater management and explained my position asking if they could kindly relay the message to Mr. McGavin’s agent or manager. It took a couple of days, and I received a call from Darren McGavin, himself. He was furious with me and took out his anger on the phone. The tone of the call was to ask how dare I go through the back door and insult him like this! I tried to be positive, I tried to be courteous, I tried to explain my low position. Eventually, he asked me to send him the script and he would consider it.

However, the bad footing I’d made could not be repaired, and I wanted no bad vibes to enter my film. Gower could have not a tad of anger in his existence. Lionel Jeffries, a brilliant character actor and director, was playing on Broadway opposite Peter O’Toole’s Henry Higgins. Lionel Jeffries voiced Gower brilliantly.

I’m truly sorry I did not get to work with Darren McGavin; I thought him a brilliant actor and a part of my mind’s ether. I’m sorry to see him gone.

- T. Bosustow visited yesterday and I reviewed any thoughts or comments I had about UPA’s films and personalities with him. The session remained with me, and thoughts of UPA were present all day. Rooty Toot Toot kept replaying in my mind to the point where I have to search it out and watch it today.

That film was an enormous influence on me.
I think it’s one of the top five animated films of all time and should be seen over and over by animators as a reminder of what their goals should be while working in this business.

If John Hubley had not had his company, Storyboard Productions, he still would have entered the animation pantheon because of this film.

Fortunately, those in LA will have an opportunity to see it projected on a big screen on March 26th at the Egyptian Theater.

My favorite photo of John Hubley.
(Click on images to enlarge.)

- To GOOGLE Rooty Toot Toot brings you to a small chatty comment on political radio broadcaster Wendy Wilde’s blog. There’s a short poem by Walt Kelly quoted there. It relates to the Blacklist permeating the entertainment business at the time of writing. (Maybe the film relates to this as well. Maybe both relate to what’s going on in the political air today.)

The rooty toot toot of the very minute,
The booty boot boot of the band,
The cutey cute cute of the less than astute,
Shivers and shudders the land.

I thank Kathryn Eagan for posting this poem on that site so I would get to see it.

- Here’s another storyboard drawing by John Hubley from the UPA film, “Fuddy Duddy Buddy.”

I wasn’t able to remember if this gag was actually in the film. The only copy I have of it is an old vhs tape and had to search for it. However, I was able to scan through it to find that it was cut.

It’s funny; I hadn’t seen the film in at least 15 years, but the two scenes I did remember were the character (Click on images to enlarge them.) of the hotel detective and the animation of
Magoo playing tennis with the walrus.
The detective is a good memorable character, but the only time we see him in the chair is with him, newspaper in hand, peering through cut slits. Magoo and he aren’t in the same scene.

I guess there was once the thought that Magoo and friend would thumb their noses at the detective. Not a bad idea to have lost the gag.

- Amid Amidi at Cartoon Modern has posted some actual stills from Man Alive!, the short featured in the Life Magazine article posted below. A chance to see a storyboard drawing at Blackwing Diaries, what the final film actually looks like at Cartoon Modern, and some publicity posted below. The film must have gotten a bit of attention in its day.

- And to think a cartoonist created so much chaos! The New York Times has a good article today about visual media and the uprise it has created in the past. They remind us of the stir Chris Ofili‘s painting, Holy Virgin Mary, made at NYC’s Brooklyn Museum. The lines to get to see it were longer than the protests Mayor Giuliani tried to stir up. I’d also once posted Daumier‘s Gargantua, a charicature of Louis XIV. It created protests loud enough to have Daumier jailed for months. Is it actually the charicature of Muhammad that’s created such protests?

A couple of weeks ago, Jenny Lerew, posted a storyboard drawing from the UPA short MAN ALIVE! on her site Blackwing Diaries. I just came across an old clipping I had from a 1952 Life Magazine. Sorry that it’s so yellowed and beaten up, but you can still make it out. The pictures were spread out over five pages, and were obviously printed with a limited palette. I didn’t try to adjust for the yellowed paper.

Click on the images to enlarge them.