Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- I was disturbed to learn of the death last week of Muriel Spark. She was a novelist whose work I enjoyed enormously. I’ll miss her writing, and will be forced to reread some of her past books that I loved. I encourage any out there who haven’t read her novels, try one.

- Sitting over my desk is a poster advertising the art exhibit, Klee and America at the Neue Gallery in NY through May 22. I’m such a Klee addict that it’s always a temptation for me to run up to the gallery to see the show again.

However, as I mentioned in a past posting, it surprised me that it cost $15 to enter the gallery to see the show. There’s also a good and enjoyable show of paintings by Schiele and Klimt on another floor.

The other problem with any Klee show is that the paintings are small, and a lot of people show up. So you have to work to move in and out around those hogging the pictures listening to their audio lectures.

That poster does stare at me often, and it is a great show.

Klee’s “Affected Places”
(Click on the images to enlarge.)

These two images aren’t part of the show; they’re depicted in a book on Klee I own. The gallery has a book representing the exhibit, but the colors are completely off on some of the better paintings. There are a couple of images that have a subtlety in the coloring that you almost miss objects hidden there. In person they’re stunning little jewels, and it’s hard to walk away from them. Lost in the book.

Klee also has a wonderful sense of humor. The titles for his paintings often pull a smile, but become serious when you actually muse on them. He was a brilliant guy. His love of music competed for his love of painting, and he was equally dextrous in both.

Klee’s “Legend of the Nile”

Go. Despite the cost, despite the crowds, despite the inconvenience, I encourage everyone in the NY area to go. It’s a beauty of a show.

Maybe I’ll go back this weekend. It’s inspirational like there’s no tomorrow.

- A reminder to NY audiences that the Film Forum will be hosting a series entitled: Cartoons: No Laughing Matter from May 10 – May 23.

The program includes New York premieres of films by:

Lisa Crafts (The Flooded Playground)
George Griffin (It Pains Me to Say This)
Andy & Carolyn London (The Back Brace)
Suzan Pitt (El Doctor )
Chris Shepherd & David Shrigley (Who I Am and What I Want)
Debra Solomon (Everybody’s Pregnant)
Suzie Templeton (Dog)
JJ Villard (Son of Satan).

On the opening night, at the 8pm showing, there will be a Q&A with some of the film makers.

– The Cartoon Network concern seems to be building. Yesterday’s post on Cartoon Brew appropriately called the reason for the problem, as if it weren’t obvious.

MONEY. That’s what makes the world go ’round.

When the Network started up, Ted Turner sought an outlet to capitalize on the Hanna-Barbera library he’d bought. He brought in Betty Cohen from TNT to run it, and she brought in Linda Simensky to program shows. Within a relatively short time, for a new cable network, they rose to the number one basic cable station in the US.
Programming cartoons – #1 !

Then Turner made the mistake of his career; he sold out to Time Warner. Idiots that they are, Time-Warner opened the goose that layed the golden egg. Gone were the people who made the Network a success; in were the new cool/hip people with their anime-all-the-time bent. They could get lots of cartoons from Japan for a song and dump it on the kids. Cheap programming brought no audiences.
(They forgot to buy Hello Kitty.)

The new classics that brought us live-action.

How to get cheaper programming? Cartoons difficult; live-action easy. The Cartoon Network is now showing Dumb and Dumber (I guess Dumber and Dumberer was too expensive!) and Saved by the Bell. Unfortunately they won’t be saved by any bell. These live-action shows will tank, and the elite Cartoon Network will become obso-lete before long.

No, I don’t think I’m being pessimistic; just realistic. Human Nature and Greed has a way of turning in on itself. Still and all, it’s entertaining to watch.

- Back in the good old days, animators used to worry about knowing a lot about life to be able to properly caricature it in their animation. Art Babbitt took piano lessons, dance lessons, horseback riding lessons all as a way of bettering himself and understanding things that he needed to put into his artwork.

This wasn’t just a casual thing. The noted Firehouse 5 Plus 2 grew out of these animators who played music. With Ward Kimball on trombone, Danny Alguire on cornet, Frank Thomas on piano, Dick Thomas and/or Harper Goff on banjo, and Erd Penner on tuba this group routinely played Dixieland music for themselves and were able to manage a nice sideline – outside of animation.

– These days animators are only interested in other animation. Not too much time is spent at art museums, reading or concerts, never mind playing the piano. Yet, a lot of time is spent covering every poor animation wiggle. It ends up being a case of theft with everyone stealing from everyone else. “Homage” is an overused word, and every Ren & Stimpy wannabe tries to imitate Tex Avery’s snapping/popping style of animation. Whole films are looking like ripped off scenes from other films, and too little is looking original.

It’s bad enough in TV animation, but it’s slipped over to theatrical films, too. Every character ends up moving like every other character.

Bad animation is bad animation – even if it’s cgi. Sorry, guess I’m just turning into an old grouch.

(Click on any of the images to enlarge them.)

Back in 1972, Fritz the Cat premiered. For me, just getting a start in the film business, it was out of nowhere. I didn’t know it was coming, and I was taken aback by its arrival. It wasn’t so much that it was a sexually daring film – the puerile sex in the film was more embarrassing than sexual – it was the vigorous down & dirty way the film was pulled together. This always got me charged and inspired me to want to do something immediate.

Bakshi had spent a lot of time in the New York animation industry. He obviously rose quickly through Terrytoons and then Paramount. (Is it odd that he witnessed the end of two long-time studios in the City?) He then went to make The Marvel Superheroes and Rocket Robin Hood in Canada. Steve Krantz (Judith Krantz’s then-husband), one of the uncredited producers, worked with Bakshi to acquire the rights to Fritz The Cat (much to R. Crumb‘s displeasure) and to get it financed, and they set up a studio in NYC.

I recommend reading Michael Barrier’s Funnyworld article about Fritz The Cat for an in depth telling of its difficulties getting to the screen and an insightful look at the film.

What Bakshi did by setting up Fritz The Cat in New York was to make a film that utilized the talents of a lot of the Paramount and Terrytoons guys who were put out of work. It plays like a who’s who of New York animators. Guys like Jim Tyer, Nick Tafuri, Cosmo Anzilotti and Marty Taras made the industry in this city. Now they were being stretched beyond their mettle.

A number of the animators had a big problem with the racy work they were animating. The story of Jim Tyer is that he, a very devout Catholic, quietly bore with the material until one day he just slammed down his work and, cursing all the way, walked off the job.

The extremes on this page are part of a scene that Marty Taras animated. By the look of some of the other animation drawings I have, I’d say Marty had no problem with the racy material.

He was an animator who figured large in the New York community. He spent much of his time at Terrytoons and Paramount. He was closely associated with Baby Huey at Paramount working on many of the shorts – in the same way Johnny Gentilella was associated with Popeye. In fact, Marty was sometimes, lovingly called Baby Huey (partially because of his shape.)

He had a very clean, rounded line not unlike that of Connie Rasinski, who reigned over Terry’s for more than thirty years. His animation also moved in a perfectly rounded, smooth way, but never had any real depth of character. Though it always felt like Marty had done it.

I’ve worked with Marty on a number of jobs, usually as his assistant, but I rarely had communication with him. He’d bring in the work, we’d have a couple of small pleasantries to exchange and he’d leave. Anytime I brought up the job, there’d be little in it for Marty to talk about. He kept to himself when I knew him.

Just his neatly assembled pack of animation drawings with his easily cleaned-up artwork. No violent strokes of the pencil (a la Grim Natwick) ripping through the paper with strong, bold, violent numbers. No, Marty was clean and round and neat. Everything exact and in place.

– Thad Komorowski whose site Golden Age Cartoons has been invaluable for some time, has just put up a piece about Marty Taras with an interesting, older picture of him, at his new blog Identifying Animators and Their Scenes.

– This is the final model I have from Heap Hep Injuns a 1950 Paramount cartoon. Tom Johnson drew this image, prior to animating it, and Izzy Sparber directed the film. I’d heard some stories about I. Klein regarding this film, though he’s not credited, so I suspect he may have had something to do with model approvals, as well. Actually, he may have been the “Izzy” referred to on the pan posted yesterday.

(click on image to enlarge.)

I was never a big fan of the Paramount cartoons. Growing up in New York, we’d always get Paramount or Terrytoons shorts playing with features in the theaters. Only rarely did a Warners cartoon or a Disney short show up. (I don’t think I saw a Tom & Jerry cartoon until I was 17 when they started jamming the local TV kidshows with them.)

Saturdays there was always the placard outside the theater advertising “Ten Color Cartoons”. A haughty child, I naturally wanted to know why they didn’t show B&W cartoons – that’s what we saw on television, and I usually liked them more. I must have been insufferable for my siblings to put up with me.

The starburst at the beginning of the Mighty Mouse cartoons always got an enormous cheer in the local theaters. I don’t remember ever hearing that for Popeye or Harveytoons.

In celebration of the new season of baseball I have a couple of model sheets from a Paramount cartoon.

A story writer, Larry Riley, gave me these drawings back in 1972, but he never told me the film’s title.

Thanks to Thad Komorowski and Bob Jaques we know they’re from Heap Hep Injuns (1950). (see comments)

(Click images to enlarge.)

Larry Riley was a wild guy. On my first commercial job at Phil Kimmelman & Ass. he and I were the inbetweeners working side-by-side on some of the Multiplication Rock series. Larry had had a long and busy career in animation. He had been an asst. animator at Fleischer‘s, a story writer at Paramount, an animator at many studios. He ended up doing anything – including inbetweening at Kimmelman’s for the salary. The stories Larry told me kept me laughing from start to finish. There was no doubt he had been a writer for years. In a not very exciting job, it made it a pure pleasure to go to work every day to hear those hilarious stories. I can’t see Lucky 7 without thinking of laughing. It wasn’t the stories per se that were funny, it was his take on it.

Larry told me of his years at Fleischer’s in Florida where he was an assistant. He and Ellsworth Barthen shared a room, and, according to Larry, had lined one of the walls of their room with empty vodka bottles. Now, I’ve heard of frats doing this with beer cans, but doing it with vodka bottles requires some serious drinking. One of the many times I got to work with Ellsworth, I asked him about the story, and he reluctantly backed it up telling me what a wild guy Larry was.

Larry also told of a 3D process he’d developed for Paramount in the 50′s when the movies were all going 3D. I believe there were two Paramount shorts done in this process: Popeye: The Ace of Space and Casper: Boo Man. Larry offered to give me the camera on which he shot these films – he had it stored in his basement. He was afraid it would get thrown out when he died. I didn’t have room for it, and it probably did go in the garbage.

My regret; I still hear the sadness in Larry’s voice.

(Forgive the racist pictures, but I guess they’re a product of their times.
The animator who drew these is Tom Johnson (he signs the bottom one) and they were approved by the director Isadore (Izzy) Sparber per the top one.
The drawings are deteriorating, obviously. The one above uses a lot of glue to hold it together, and that’s eating away at the paper.)

– Continuing the saga of Vlasic Pickles, the agency approved the stork, Edgar Buchanan and the plan of action.

We’d already finished the first commercial which was on the air. (Represented by the two set-ups posted here. The style was done with acrylic paints – out of a tube – on top of the cel. Ink with Sharpie on cel; paint dark colors – ON TOP of cel – up to and over ink line; after drying paint again with lighter tones, and again. Imagine kids & a gun in a spot today!)

(Click on images to enlarge.)

Phil Duncan did a great job animating it. I inbetweened, and the Agency loved it and approved it to color.

All this time, John and Faith were busy preparing the start of Everybody Rides the Carousel. It was to be three half-hour shows (Eventually CBS changed their mind and asked the shows, still in production, to be reconfigured to make a 90 min film) and was in preproduction. I did the spots on my own with John checking in. Faith wanted nothing to do with a commercial and was somewhat furious that a commercial was ongoing.

Within weeks the spot was in color and two junior exec. agency guys, John and I stood around the Hubley moviola. (It was a great machine with four sound heads and a picture head that was the size of a sheet of animation paper. Pegs were actually attached to enable rotoscoping!)

The two agency guys were buttoned up with good suits and briefcases. They stood behind John and me, and I operated the moviola.
We screened the spot the first time. I turned around and these two guys had come undone. Their ties were loose and astray; they were visibly sweating. I swear this all happened within the course of 30 secs.

John smiled and optimistically asked how they liked it. They looked at each other, and couldn’t answer. I don’t think they were able to form a decision or say what they actually thought. Eventually, they left with the spot in their briefcase and would get back. It wasn’t good.

They did get back. I was asked to pack up all the elements and ship them back to W.B. Doner. The spot was thrown out of the studio by John who refused to change it. (Hubley’s stork.)
He liked what was done, and apparently had a rider in his contract
which covered him – somehow.

The spot showed up at Jack Zander’s studio, Zander’s Animation Parlour. They used the Groucho impersonation and slicked it up a lot. Vlasic is still using that stork, and that was John’s last commercial endeavor.

(Note: Thanks to Mark Mayerson’s comment, yesterday, we know that Pat Harrington was the Groucho impersonator later used for the stork’s voice.)

– Years ago I worked at the Hubley studio on a pair of commercials for Vlasic pickles. One of the two spots made it to the air.

This is from the spot that never made it.

Vlasic had a commercial they wanted, and because of the agency’s long time relationship with the Hubleys, they came to him to try to develop the character. (The agency was W.B. Doner, the agency that had done so well with Hubley’s Maypo commercials.)
(Click on image to enlarge.)

The agency came with two already-recorded voices: one was a Groucho Marx impersonator (I’m not 100% sure, but I think it may have been Frank Gorshin); the other was character actor, Edgar Buchanan. John wanted Edgar Buchanan – it was a much richer voice, lots of cowboy appeal.

John designed the character to look like one of those stationmasters in cowboy films. The guy who gives out tickets and does morse code when he has to. The stork had a vest and a blue, boxy, stationmaster-type cap cocked off to the side. It was a great character.

Phil Duncan was the animator. A brilliant character guy who had done everything from Thumper to George of the Jungle. I loved cleaning up and inbetwwening his work. It was all fun and vibrating with life.

This pictured piece of art fell out of one of Phil’s packages. It was a thumbnail plan of the action. Phil would do these things which usually stretched around the edges of his final drawings. In a nutshell, you could see the scene and how he worked it out. Lovely stuff.

I felt this drawing was as beautiful as the original animation drawings.

- The reviews for The Wild are much more positive than I would have expected given the pre-reviews. All of them mention the similarity to Madagascar, but they it gives them the chance to talk about the differences. Ice Age 2 dethroned? Here’s the NYTimes, The NY Daily News, the LATimes, Roger Ebert, and Emru Townsend.

– Everyone out there interested in insightful animation should have tuned into the last two episodes of South Park. It’s an absolutely brilliant take on The Family Guy, The Simpsons, and South Park, itself. No wonder this show won a Peabody – they deserved it. This show, particularly these episodes, feature some of the best writing on television. Hilarious and insightful.

The controversy surrounding the show revolves around censorship on television. An episode of The Family Guy, which plans on showing an image of Mohammad, has all of America burying their heads in the sand to avoid facing the censorship issue. Kyle and Cartman set out to save the day in a struggle of our civil rights in the US. Bart Simpson also gets involved.

Comedy Central actually did censor the image of Mohammad from South Park, and the creators, Stone and Parker, are livid with the censorship they’ve had to face. The episode aired intact in Europe. For more about it: NYTimes, or The Telegraph.

- The following is a continuation of the production drafts for Pinocchio. Hopefully, these are of interest to enough people out there. I have to admit it doesn’t make for the most attractive visuals, but what ho.