Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

A Few of my Favorite Things

photo by Mate Hidvegi

Predominantly, I’ve been completely absorbed by two things. Tissa David‘s memorial is just about organized. The rough cut of the film program has been assembled, and I’ll hand it off to my favorite editor, Paul Carrillo, who will add some rhythm and grace. Tissa deserves that much from me.
I need to thank Candy Kugel for offering her facility to put this together. It was a lot of work. Thanks also to Rick Broas for doing so much of the technical work that I have no facility to handle. He does and did it with a lot of patience and positive energy.

Other than that I am wholly focused on the introduction to POE, my feature film trying to find a start. I’m completely entrenched in these scenes and work them over and over trying to find the right way to give them birth. I love it and look forward to getting financing soon to really get it under way.

A lot, other than that, has had to do with scanning and planning for this Splog. Today I put together a gem of a piece. We found some incredibly rare pieces among Vinnie Cafarelli‘s archive of material. Some Fleischer and Famous leftovers were found and prove amazing. Look forward to that this coming Wednesday.

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Signe’s Rocks

Signe Baumane has one of my favorite blogs on the internet, and I’ve been writing about it for years. She is such a unique and individual writer, and there’s a lot to be gained from reading what she has to offer. Every Tuesday she writes about her film in production, about her depression (the subject of the film), about her life and about art & animation in general. It’s always a good read.

Signe is primarily an animation artist who’s done some half dozen films and is now working on her magnum opus, a feature length animated film called Rocks In My Pockets. This week, on her blog she wrote about a trailer just completed and she posts that trailer. The film combines 3 dimensional backgrounds for many sections under the 2D animation. It has a great look and has me patiently waiting to see more and more until I can finally see the whole film. The trailer doesn’t include any of the 3D backgrounds, which I’m sorry to report. That is such a good look with constructed backdrops that have a distinct style that makes the film look very rich. I feel like she might be underselling it with only the 2D art. You can see samples of the look on some of her past posts (e.g: here and here and you can read about the set design and construction here).

Anyway, here’s her trailer:

WORK IN PROGRESS TRAILER from Signe Baumane on Vimeo.

You can read her blog about the making of the trailer here.

Signe is financing the film on a wing and a prayer. She often writes about the problems of fund-raising on the blog. She’s built a “Donate” button into her website in case you want to send her $10 or $1000 (or anything above, below or inbetween those amounts) to help out. I heartily recommend you do this if you can spare a couple of dollars. You’ll be supporting the arts and a project well worth investing in. A movie ABOUT something. Go to her website, Rocks In My Pocket here.

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Events

- This was a busy week. Something was happening almost every day, to the point where I was punking out of some of them.

Sunday there was a party at Amid Amidi‘s office space in honor of Priit Pärn visiting
from Estonia. I hadn’t met Priit in the past at any festival. Id only seen about four or five of his films, but I have to admit that I’m not that big a fan. His work is somewhat chaotic and not really “character” animation. Stylistically, he never pulls me in and the substance is a bit too dense for me to the point of impenetrable. I always give the blame for such to myself for not being able to figure out what the filmmaker is trying to say, but when it happens with every one of the filmmaker’s films, I heed the warningand usually back away. That, I’m ashamed to say, is the case with me and Mr. Pärn’s films.

It was a pleasure meeting him, though. He’s truly a sweet man, and was very affable. I hadn’t heard in years from another Estonian, Rein Raamat, and was able to ask Priit if he knew what had happened to the older man. I knew he’d retired years back, but there’s only been silence, and I was afraid he’d died. No, it turns out he’s just retired. You could sense the discomfort there was in talking about the older man. Priit Pärn felt as though he were backing away while answering my questions. I imagine that’ll be the case when someone asks what had happened to me as I go off into the sunset drooling over my favorite Disney collectible.

The party Amid threw was great. A great crowd of people kept it entertaining, to say the least. John Canemaker & Joe Kennedy, George Griffin, Debbie Solomon, Candy Kugel, Emily Hubley with husband, Will Rosenthal, Leah Shore, Richard O’Connor, Liesje Kraai, and,of course, Celia Bullwinkle. There were, naturally enough, plenty of others, but these are they who pop into my mind as I write away.

Many thanks to Amid for hosting the fine event.

On Tuesday, The Princess Bride got a grand resuscitation from the New York Film
Festival as it honored Rob Reiner’s live action fairy tale. Actually it was an Academy reconstructed print, which is why I was invited. I’m not a fan of the film and had a hard time sitting through it again, but the Q&A was everything that night. On stage was director, Rob Reiner, writer, William Goldman, actors Cary Elwes, Robin Wright, Billy Crystal, Wally Shawn, Mandy Patinkin, Chris Sarandon, and Carol Kane. Rob Reiner was affable but slowly trned into a ham then a pig as he started to answer questions even when others were called upon to respond. He was oblivious to the audience laughing AT him at a couple of points. Billy Crystal, on the other hand, was truly funny. He kept everything moving smoothly with a great sense of humor. Mandy Patinkin was gracious honoring André the Giant the Giant who’d died in 1993. The hot spot was Cary Elwes who had a charming sense of humor with a number of funny bits.

The afterparty was a bust. Loud, overcrowded and irritating it didn’t take long for me to leave. They sent us away with a Goody Bag that included a book of the script filled with scrap from the film lots of stills, artwork of the sets and plenty of information if you’re a fan. They also gave us a T-shirt and as well as a Blue Ray copy of the movie. (I still don’t have a player) I was pleased to give away the bag to someone who really appreciated it.

Wednesday was the height of the week – a TV night. The Yankees were playing for the championship of the AL East. If they won they got it; if the lost and Baltimore won they were just a team with a one-game playoff to go on Thursday. Yankees won, Baltimore lost.

Then the highlight of the night. The first Presidential debate aired from Colorado. Romney got the chance to look Presidential as he stood alongside the real President. The format went out the window as Romney ignored Jim Lehrer and fought him time after time after time. Obama curled up into a ball and didn’t fight for what he believed in. Romeny just kept lying and changing his opinion on everything. He’s been politicking on a tax cut for the rich these past 9 months, now he says that that’s not what he’s doing. I give up. Obama just stood there with his head down taking notes, for some reason. I got so frustrated by his performance that I was about ready to change the channel.

At least the Yankees knew how to win.

Thursday saw two films: The Paperboy starred Matthew McConaughey, Zac Efron, John Cusack, and Nicole Kidman. Lee Daniels directed his second film. (Precious was his first two years ago.) This film was a mess and tried so hard to be an artfilm. Trashy characters mix with each other until half of them are dead. Macy Gray was one of the only spots of dignity in it.
and
The Eye of the Storm is an Australian film starring Geoffrey Rush, Judy Davis, and Charlotte Rampling. It was directed by the pro, Fred Schepisi. This was a very well acted film. Judy Davis was near brilliant even though the script wasn’t as strong as it might have been. I really found enjoyment with the interplay of the characters and the actors who inhabited them.

I saw Bill Plympton at this screening and invited myself to his loft to say hello to his newborn baby boy. I’ll try to make it there this week.

Lots of screenings and parties and whatnot are on the schedule for the next week or so. I’m amazed with how much the Academy has been involved in the New York Film Festival this year. I’m also pleased with it.

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Frankenweenie Reception

Frankenweenie opened in NY yesterday, though I won’t get to see it until next Thursday (and will review it after I see it.) The film received some of the best reviews this year for an animated feature. Nationally, Rotten Tomatoes gives it an 85% rating.

Elizabeth Weitzman in the NYDaily News gave it four **** stars and called it a “Frankenweenie Delight.” The lst lines of the review are: “Despite the gently macabre tone, there are no gratuitous scares or elbow-nudging ironies. Just a witty, warm appreciation of cinema, science and the creativity of childhood.
___________________________________________What a rare and welcome treat.”

A.O. Scott in the NYTimes praises the film lightly but pulls back at each bit of praise. “The delights of “Frankenweenie” are abundant and real. Its opening scenes are beguiling in their strangeness, and its climax is wild and hilarious. But the movie, a Walt Disney release, also feels tame and compromised, a tissue of safe pop-culture allusions rather than an inspired, audacious engagement with older movies.”

Lou Lumenick in the NYPost gives it 3½ stars and fine praise. “‘Frankenweenie’’ is Tim Burton’s best film in years. With this expanded, beautifully realized and highly entertaining animated version of his famous 1984 live-action short about a young loner and his resurrected dog, Burton, whose films have gotten progressively more overblown and overproduced, goes back to ghoulish basics. It’s an endearingly modest and affectionate tribute to the classic 1930s monsters and their influence on daydreaming kids like Burton who grew up in suburbia four decades later.”

The Village Voice‘s Chris Packham has only high tribute to the film. “Frankenweenie Awakens the Pleasures of Reanimation” “Frankenweenie . . . is tight and brief, hitting all the marks you’d expect from an animated kid’s film, and enlivened by Burton’s visual style. The man should make more small movies like this one.”

One wonders what will happen to Adam Sandler‘s successful feature, Hotel Transylvania. (Interesting that I instinctively tought of this as Adam Sandler’s film and not Genndy Tartakovsky‘s film.) Will Frankenweenie kill this or vice versa? We’ll know by Sunday.

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Hubley Films

- There will be an extensive program of Hubley films screened at The Museum of Arts and Design on Friday, Oct. 19th. The films to be screened are a large mix of those done by John, Faith and Emily Hubley. They include:

Adventures of an Asterisk
1957, Dir. John & Faith Hubley
The Hat
1964, Dir. John & Faith Hubley
Eggs
1971, Dir. John & Faith Hubley
Cockaboody
1973, Dir. John & Faith Hubley
The Tender Game
1958, Dir. John & Faith Hubley
Time of the Angels
1989, Faith Hubley
Her Grandmother’s Gift
1995, Dir. Emily Hubley
Witch Madness
2000, dir. Faith Hubley
Pigeon Within
2000, dir. Emily Hubley
Northern Ice Golden Sun
2001, Dir. Faith Hubley
Set Set Spike
2002, Dir. Emily Hubley
And/or
2012, Dir. Emily Hubley

details:
The Museum of Arts and Design
2 Columbus Circle, New York, NY 10019 on
Friday, October 19, 2012 – 7:00 pm
$10 general / $5 members and students

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New Savannah

A photo by Bill Benzon which seems to work exquisitely on his site.

- Bill Benzon continues with some of the most intellectual theses and conversations on his blog, the New Savannah. Recently, I directed you to a lengthy piece about Dumbo which Mr.Benzon had reworked into a PDF which was available for the clicking.

Lately, he has written about many big concept ideas such as the lack of cartoon animals as a stand-in for humans in modern animation. Where’d the Animals Go? discusses this subject in earnest. From South Park to UP to the Simpsons to Brave, humans dominate. Animals are animals, as in How to Train Your Dragon.

He’s written about Cuteness (the Infant Schema). An analysis of Tweety and other big-headed, big eyed, sweet characters.

He’s written about Ratatouille and the discussion of man, vermin and food. This has stretched on to three nice-sized posts. In fact this is the heart of this film, and it’s quite adroit of Bill Benzon to go directly to that place to discuss the subject. This, it seems to me, is what he often does.

It’s also what makes his blog a regular read for me. (I also love many of the photos he posts along the way.) This is a site unlike any other. Intelligent conversation about cartoons. No, it’s not about how many lines Bugs Bunny ahs on the back of his gloves from cartoon to cartoon, but it talks about the abstract. Considering that all cartoons and cartoon characters are abstractions, it’s interesting that there are no others like this blog.

I’ve had a rare few of my films given the intellectual approach in reviews. A scholar of Hans Christian Andersen‘s tales delved deeply into a number of my updated Andersen tales and he gave them a quite positive review in his two books on the subject. These were done without my knowledge; I learned of them only when a reviewer’s copy arrived in the mail compliments of the author. I have to say these are the reviews I most treasure. The analysis of the thoughts that went into the films. Someday, perhaps, Bill Benzon may take some interest in my work. (hint, hint)

- When I was a kid in 1957, I was all hopped up on the start of a new series coming to TV. Every kid in America was. Zorro was promoted endlessly on the Disneyland Show and on Mickey Mouse Club. When it finally came time for the show to premiere, I was in trouble. I had caught the Asiatic Flu, troublesome in those days, and was violently sick. I wasn’t allowed to leave my bed. I was so upset at the idea of missing Zorro, that I was probably getting myself sicker. My father carried me out of my bed into the living room to watch the premiere, and I was ecstatic. The show was great (but probably not as great as the one that had built n my mind), and all was right with the world.

Naturally, I owned the comic book when that came out. Now here comes that very same comic via email. Bill Peckmann sent me scans and added a lot of additional material as well. I hope you enjoy it. Here’s Bill:

What happens when you take a cartoonist who excels in designing and staging in black ink and give him the assignment of illustrating a western capped crusader dressed in black, you get the classic comic book series “Walt Disney Presents Zorro”, that’s what!

We lucky fans of Alex Toth always felt it was a match made in heaven, but Alex had a slightly different take on it, which you will read further into the post.

Here is a small scrapbook of “Zorro” art that spans over 40 years.

We start with the first Zorro (origin) story from Dell printed in 1957. The first half of the story is the original color comic book, the second half of the story is a black and white reprint version taken from Eclipse Books’ “The Complete Collection of Zorro” printed in 1988. Editor Dean Mullaney was able to get Alex to add new gray toning to the pages and do two new beautiful covers!

Magazine cover

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The two new covers done in 1988, Alex at the top of his game.

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This illustration is from Manuel Auad’s “Alex Toth” book.

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This is taken from Manuel Auad’s “Alex Toth” book.

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Alex’s thoughts on “Zorro” taken from Dean Mullaney’s Eclipse book.

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Marvel Comics brought Zorro out of retirement in 1991
and Alex did three covers for that venture.

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There was always need for a Zorro sketch here and there
and Alex always obliged!

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- Last week I started posting parts of Eugene Salandra‘s notebook which he did while taking an animation class conducted by Tissa David at the Ink Tank. (Part 1) There was enough of a request for more that I can’t help but to post away. The material was so clear and evident and enormously helpful.

I pick the book up exactly where we left off. It’s wonderful for me to go through this even as a refresher course, trying to kick some of those bad habits. (What I take from this week’s lessons is that when you’ve gone as extreme as you can, go a step more. But don’t make it cartoony – unless that’s the effect you’re trying for.)There’s plenty of advice in there.

Animate away folks.

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I repeat these first two pages.

(Click any image to enlarge.)

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To be continued next Thursday.

- In searching through the archives of work at Buzzco, where Vince Cafarelli‘s collection is housed, I came upon some MTV artwork. Some of you may remember that MTV had some wild art bumpers when they first started out. Buzzco did the lion’s share of these early logos. Candy Kugel did the artwork for them, and Vince Cafarelli wasn’t involved. These were done when Perpetual Motion was breaking up and Buzzco was coming into being. Buzz Potamkin would pull Candy into another room and give her the new assignment so that no one at Perpertual knew what she was up to. Once the split happened, Buzzco kept the account.The colors have deteriorated a bit in some of these. I’ve done some minor photoshop adjustments to brighten the colors a bit.

But first let me show some rough sketches for the very first promo for MTV in 1982. This came before the MTV campaign, “I want my MTV.” I vaguely remember this, but am not sure of it. I wasn’t a confirmed MTV watcher in those early days.

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Drawing by Candy Kugel

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Drawing by Fred Mogubgub

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Drawing by Fred Mogubgub

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Drawing by Fred Mogubgub

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Drawing by Candy Kugel

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Drawing by Candy Kugel

Here are eight of the color pieces. I’ll display two versions of each setup: the full artwork first, then the screen-sized art following so that you can see the proper framing.

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David Bowie

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Madonna

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John (Cougar) Mellencamp

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Madonna again (she was popular)

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Hall & Oates

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The famous Moonwalk

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Joe Elliott of Def Leppard

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- I spent some time rereading some material about Emanuele Luzzati and Giulio Gianini. I went back into my archives and found a lot of frame grabs and a bit of info about them at the time of their individual deaths. Ive put three of those posts together and am posting that today as sort of a retrospective piece.

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Luzzati
Jan. 26th, 2007

Emanuele Luzzati has died. He was the brilliant Italian designer, who worked with Giulio Gianini in creating some wonderful animated cut-out films.

Their films adapted operatic overtures in reworking the operas themselves. The two were nominated for the Oscar for “The Thieving Magpie,” done in 1965 an interpretation of Rossini’s opera and again in 1973 for “Pulcinella.”

Luzzati died Jan. 26th, 2007 on the way home from work. He collapsed just outside his home. He hadn’t been ill prior to this. He spoke on the phone with Giulio Gianini, who has been very ill for some time, that very morning.

Luzzati designed sets and costumes for stage productions and operas, including the 1963 production he designed for Mozart’s “The Magic Flute.” Fifteen years later he turned the opera into an animated feature that remains one of his most famous works.

He’s illustrated and written quite a few books. See this list on Amazon.

(Above: an image from his children’s book, Cinderella.)

The only Obituary I’ve seen for him was this one for the AP. It does give rather complete details of his life and work. AP Obituary.

– I received a call from The Guardian in London. The newspaper was doing an obituary for Emanele Luzzati, and they couldn’t find any illustrations to color their report. They’d found some on my blog and wanted to know if they could use them.
(Go here to see all Luzzati/Gianini posts.)

Of course, I directed them to Luzzati‘s distributor who could give the clearances they needed.
But I found it all depressing.

This was one of the world’s greatest designers of Operas and Animation. His brilliant animated version of The Magic Flute is a feature that should be in theaters now. Unfortunately, it never made it to theaters (at least, not in the US), and his designs for the opera are equally as stunning.

Years of amazing art he’s produced, and there’s so little – even on-line – that could be readily found for his obituary. I find it confusing. This was the original reason I had for putting so much attention on his work, and the call from the paper pushes me back to do another post. Unfortunately, all I have are frame grabs.

Here is Pulcinella. It is a short that was nominated for the Oscar in 1973. Another cut-out animated film, Frank Film by Frank and Caroline Mouris won the award. The Legend of John Henry by Sam Weiss, produced by Nick Busustow was also nominated.

Like other Luzzati/Gianini films, the score is taken from an opera overture, Rossini’s The Turk in Italy.

The animated film is an abbreviated, caricatured version of the opera.

Pulcinella (Punch, as in Punch & Judy) is the principal character who dreams himself into a wild nightmare of a dream that leads us through an abstract world. It’s nice to see how the animators/designers play off the puppet character as well as the opera.

I’m just going to post the images without detailing the story. I like it better that way.
There are some 90 images, so it takes some attention to graphics.

(Click any image on the page to enlarge.)

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Gianini
May 18th, 2009

– I’ve been something of a fan of the films of Luzzati and Gianini. I’d met Emanuelle Luzzati at a function thrown at the Italian Embassy in New York, years ago. I bought a book by him, and the artist drew a beautiful pen and ink drawing in the frontispiece of the book.

In 1988, I met Giulio Gianini in Italy during a stay of a couple of pleasant days with an assistant of his at the festival in Treviso, Italy.

Mr. Gianini died this past Saturday, and I wanted to offer a bit of a memorial. Emanuelle Luzzati died January, 2007 and to memorialize that I posted some illustrations and information about the duo with a lot of frame grabs from a number of the Luzzati/Gianini films. It took a few posts, and I left off without wanting to overplay all of the art at my availability.
Luzzati & friend

The Thieving Magpie was the first of their films to receive an Oscar nomination, and it was the first of the frame-grab posts I showcased. I’d like to post it again in honor of Mr. Gianini. He was sick for several years and in particularly bad condition. His death wasn’t a surprise, but it is still an enormous loss.

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(Click any image to enlarge.)

La Gazza Ladra (The Thieving Magpie) is a Rossini opera about a young maidservant who, accused of stealing a silver spoon, is sentenced to death for her crime.
At the eleventh hour, the real culprit is found to be a magpie.
A cartoon, if ever there was one. With great music!

The film tells a tale wherein a king and his hunters, on a bird hunt, are beaten
by a magpie who steals their gems and ultimately destroys their village.

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Luzzati who spent many years designing operas and ballets,
brought his knowledge to animation as the pair adapted several operas often utilizing the overtures of the operas they were adapting.

6 7 The film was nominated in 1964 along with
Clay, and the Origin of the Species by Eliot Noyes
and the winner, Chuck Jones’ Dot and the Line.
The Sound of Music won the Best Picture Oscar, that year.

8 9 The use of cut-out animation wasn’t mainstream at the time.
This is years before Terry Gilliam made it somewhat fashionable. All of the
Luzzati-Gianini films were totally inventive and creative within the form they established.
Gianini’s animation was as dreamlike as Luzzati’s exciting designs. The films
look to be designed somewhere between Chagall, Kirchner and
stained-glass windows; the sensibilities are all Luzzati and Gianini.

Today we have Flash animation which does just about the same thing as cut-out animation, but the form used today is flat and vulgar and cartoony. It might be useful for practitioners of Flash to take a good look at what these two brilliant designer/animators did with a similar form under more complex and arduous methods. Ulltimately, it’s all related.

You can get a bit more information about Gianini and Luzzati from the website of the Luzzati Museum in Genova.

- On Tuesday, October 23rd a memorial service for Tissa David will be held at the Lighthouse Academy Theater at 111 East 59th Street. It will begin punctually at 7pm. Seats will be available on a first-come first-served basis. To continue celebration of Tissa’s work, here’s an article that appeared in Cartoonist Profiles Magazine, No.33, March 1977. No writer’s name is credited.

We thank Mike Hutner. of Twentieth Century-Fox, for the production notes about this new full-length animated film, RAGGEDY ANN & ANDY, which is having its world-premiere in New York on March 20th.

Raggedy Ann is a caricature of a rag doll, with stringy red hair, button eyes and a painted triangular nose.

Harold Geneen is the Chairman of the Board of the ITT Corporation, an industrial empire which includes hotel chains, construction companies, the Bobbs-Mcrrill book publishing house and a car rental lirm which tries harder.

It was hardly destined that they would be linked in one of the year’s most ambitious entertainment ventures. But the proof is on 35mm Panavision film, in the form of “Raggedy Ann and Andy,” the feature-length animated musical from 20th Century Fox.

The genesis of the full-length am mated musical—one of the few such projects attempted during the past few decades without the Disney insignia—is a story which has its own touches of fantasy. In addition to ITT’s Board Chairman, the principals include:
• A team of Broadway theatre-owners and producers, who never before made a movie, lei alone an animated feature.
• An Emmy-winning composer, one of whose songs was a hit for both “Kermit the Frog” and Frank Sinatra.
• An Academy Award winning director who thought he was out of the picture until he look part in an all-night jam session at his Soho studio.
• Several legendary cartoonists, including the originator of “Betty Boop” and the man who gave Disney—and the rest of America—the beloved “Goofy.”

How they came to join forces really begins in Silvermine, Conn, in the early 1900′s. when newspaper cartoonist John Gruelle took a few minutes away from his drawing board to help his daughter fix a discarded rag doll. The toy was named “Raggedy Ann” by combining characters from two poems by James Whitcomb Riley — The Rag Man and Orphan Annie.

When Marcella Gruelle became desperately ill, her father sat by her bedside, making up stories about the doll’s adventures after everyone in the house was asleep. Marcella died on March 21st, 1916. after which her father determined to share with the world the stories he had not had time to tell her.

By the early 1970′s. Raggedy Ann was part of American folklore, a character whose exploits had sold some 80 million books and hundreds of millions of toys and games. That was when Lester Osterman. a former stockbroker who brought Sammy Davis Jr. to Broadway in “Mr. Wonderful.” and Richard Horner an ex-actor who had appeared in the Oberammergau “Passion Play” became involved. The producers of such Broadway successes as “Butley” and “Hadrian the Seventh,” they had just completed a live-action television special for the Hallmark Hall of Fame, based on the children’s classic. “The Littlest Angel.” Now they were searching for a similar property . . . for the same showcase.

A casual lunch with a merchandiser of children’s toys proved crucial. “Would you believe that after all these years. ‘Raggedy Ann’ is -.till one of the biggest sellers?” inquired the friend rhetorically. Within a few days. Osterman and Horner were on the doorstep of the Bobbs-Merrill Company, which publishes the “Raggedy Ann” stories, requesting development rights to the character.

An equally informal meeting with Joe Raposo. Emmy-winning composer-conductor of “Sesame Street,” brought music to the project. Horner and Osterman found themselves seated with Raposo at a Friars’ Roast for Johnny Carson. Somewhere between the broiled chicken and dessert, Raposo agreed lo score the “Raggedy Ann” tales.

Animators Tissa David and Art Babbitt with director Dick Williams.

Next to join the troupe were writers Max Wilk and Pat Thackeray. True to Gruelle’s imagination, they created a fantasy world in which toys spring joyously to life. When Raggedy Ann discovers that the pixieish French doll, Babette, has been kidnapped by a pirate known as Captain Contagious, they set out to free her. That takes them into the “deep dark woods”, inhabited by such personalities as the “Looney King,” “the camel with the wrinkled knees” (one of Gruelle’s personal favorites) and the “Greedy,” a kind of confectionery version of the La Brea Tarpits. “We thought we were writing a live television special,” recalls Ms. Thackeray. “So much so that we began casting Raggedy Ann in our minds, alternating between personalities like Liza Minnelli and Goldie Hawn.”

But Raposo was having second thoughts. “It won’t work,” he finally admiitted. “Put a red fright wig and a painted mouth on an actress— any actress—and do you know what you’ll have? A circus clown.”

The obvious alternative was a full-length animated musical cartoon. Which is like saying the obvious alternative to your reliable family car is to go out and buy a Rolls Royce. There is a reason, as director Richard Williams would later point out, why animated features are almost exclusively the province of the Disney organization. “And even Disney turns out several live comedies and nature films for every animated movie.” Williams notes.

To create 90 minutes or more of full animation (as opposed to the jittery short-cuts of television cartooning) requires more than one million preliminary and final drawings. From inception to “answer print” lakes three years or more. “And the cost,” adds Williams, “is tremendous.”

“Since the Hallmark people had discussed a live musical, they were perfectly justified in walking away from a more costly animated feature,” says Horner. The producers now had a cartoon without a cartoonist, a television special without a sponsor, and a project without investors. But it was no time to think small. Why settle for a television special? Why not make “Raggedy Ann and Andy” as a movie?

It was back to Bobbs-Merrill with the suggestion that Osierman-Horner and the publishing house become partners in the proposed film. That, the publishing executives said, was up to their parent company, ITT. A meeting was arranged with Board Chairman Geneen. which developed into a corporate backers audition.
Pat Thackeray later described the “incredible afternoon” to author and critic John Canemaker, whose book, “The Animated ‘Raggedy Ann and Andy’-The Story Behind Ihe Movie,” will be published at the same time as the 20th Century Fox release.

“Geneen came into the room, asking questions, his mind like a laser,” she said. “He remembered a stage version of ‘Raggedy Ann’ he’d enjoyed as a youngster, in the I920′s. We made our presentation. Then, as we were going down in the elevator, a guard told me, ‘I don’t know who you are but you’ve got it made.’
“I asked why.

“The guard said, ‘Because the old man stuck his head out of the door and asked what I thought of the music coming from his office. I said it sounded pretty good to me. That wasn’t just good, Harry,’ he said, ‘that was terrific.’”

With financial backing assured, the next problem was simple. Who would draw the million-plus pictures which would make up the finished movie? And who would piece them all together with wit and style?

Firsl choice was Richard Williams, the Canadian-born, London based head of his own animation studio who had won an Academy Award for “A Christmas Carol” and a host of admirers for the “Return of the Pink Panther.” Despite a commitment to his own project, “The Thief and the Cobbler” Williams listened to Raposo’s score, and said yes.

“But my business manager said ‘no,’” Williams recalled. “Or to put it more accurately. he priced my services so high, there was no way the picture could have come in on budget.” What happened to the business manager? “He’s not with me anymore,” Williams replied with British sang-froid.

Tissa David’s rag doll

Osterman and Horner began negotiations with a New York cartoon “factory” which specialized in limited animation for television. Within a short period (according to Canemaker), the newcomers had virtually thrown away the Wilk-Thackeray script, replacing Gruelle’s characters with a “Love Fairy” and a “Cookie Giant.” Outraged. Raposo walked out of a story conference (“before 1 threw up from all that treacle,” he recalls) and caught a plane to London to make a last-ditch attempt at hiring Williams.

Discovering a shared taste in jazz, the two men opened a bottle of Scotch and during an impromptu jam session, past misunderstandings vanished in a vapor of 12-year-old malt and good will. The animated movie finally had an animator.

It was Williams who formulated the approach to the picture. “Disney’s contribution to animation is colossal,” he said. “The technique of bringing a cartoon character to life would slill be in the dark ages without Disnev. But to copy the ‘look’ of his films would have been disastrous.

“Instead, 1 said, ‘let’s be as rich and lush as Disney in a totally different style … in the style of Johnny Gruelle.’”

A remarkable team of animators was assembled in New York and Hollywood lo carry out that mission. Included were several men and women who can legitimately be termed ‘living legends’ in the field of motion picture cartooning.

There was Grim Natwick, a spry octogenarian, who had designed the first of the “Betty Boop” pictures for producer Max Fleischer in the thirties and animated the majority of Snow White’s scenes for Disney. Another Disney veteran was Art Babbitt, the co-creator of “Goofy” and the dancing mushrooms in “Fantasia,” whose verbal donnybrooks with Disney during the I940′s had been peppery Hollywood gossip.

85 year old animator Grim Natwick
with young animator Crystal Russell

To draw the “Greedy,” a ‘monster’ made of whipped cream, cherry banana taffy, chocolate fudge and other sugary delights. Emory Hawkins—a veteran of Disney as well as the MOM and Warner Brothers cartoon studios -was summoned from his New Mexico ranch. “Raggedy Ann” herself was drawn by Tissa David, a Transylvanian-born artist who had worked with Natwick at UPA Productions during the heyday of “Mr. Magoo” and “Gerald McBoing Boing.”

From Canada came Gerald Potterton, head of his own animation studio. whose credits include the Peabody Award winning “Pinter People” and key sequences in the Beatles’ “Yellow Submarine.” The design of the vital storyboards and layouts which gave the picture its graphics stamp was up to Cornelius “Corny” Cole, both an animator and a renowned painter.

The musical routines for the “Twin Penny Dolls,” whose movements are perfectly synchronized with each other, were drawn by Gerry Chiniquy. who looks like Gene Kelly and specializes in “dance animation.” During a ten year period at the Warner Brothers Studios, whenever Bugs Bunny or Daffy Duck were called on to trip the light fantastic, Chiniquy got the nod.

Soon, the sketches began mounting—at the unit’s bustling New York headquarters (which are wag dubbed “Raggedy Ann East”), a California studio and director Williams’ home base in London. Williams’ job was clearly defined.

“I was in charge of catching airplanes,” he laughed. Spending ten days to two weeks in each city, Williams would check the work of dozens of illustrators, pencil in his own suggestions, hold story conferences, review preliminary sound-track recordings, analyze the “Leica Reel” (a rough compilation of the motion picture in progress, pieced together as new drawings and backgrounds were added “like a jigsaw puzzle”), then rush to the airport.

“I became one of the world’s great authorities on jet lag,” he added.

Choosing the voices of Captain Contagious, Suzy Pincushion, the zany “Gazooks” and other denizens of Raggedy Ann’s fantasy world became a crucial problem. Tradition says the voices for a feature-length cartoon should be box-office names whose unseen presence will enhance the picture’s publicity and promotion. Raposo and Williams chose to defy tradition, backed by co-producer Horner. “We were treating the picture as a big, lavish Broadway musical—in the form of an animated cartoon—so we looked to Broadwav for vocally gifted actors,” said Raposo. Casting sessions were held in a New York studio, where hundreds of performers went through their paces.

“I knew the long hours were getting to me when 1 walked through the hall, outside the studio, and saw a man reading our script, who really looked like a camel,” said Williams. Ironically, the actor was dour-faced Fred Stuthman, who eventually did provide the voice for the “Camel With the Wrinkled Knees.”

Another actor’s reaction set the whimsical tone of the casting sessions.

“You want me to play what?” said Joe Silver, veteran of such movies as “The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz”, in utter disbelief.

“An enormous pit of taffy, filled with gum-drops and maraschino cherries and covered with chocolate sauce,” answered casting director Howard Feuer.

“Is this a gag?” asked Silver. He was quickly persuaded it was not and even more quicklv rose to the chocolate covered challenge.

Emory Hawkins Taffy Pit

Virtually all of the “Raggedy Ann and Andy” voices are better known to their peers than to the general public. Included are Didi Conn of the television series, “The Practice.” whose voice has been likened to that of a “sexy frog” as Raggedy Ann: Mark Baker, co-star of Leonard Bernstein’s “Candide” as Andy: Allan Sues from “Laugh-In.” Arnold Stang, Mason Adams and George S. Irving. The “sockworm” is vocally portrayed by a man with more impressive credentials in another phase of show business—Sheldon Harnick, lyricist of “Fiddler on the Roof.”

Only one performer is seen on film, during an introductory sequence about Marcella Gruelle. Casting the role, director Williams, recalls, was a thorny problem. “I needed a little girl on whom 1 could impose a 12 hour work day, to stay within schedule.” Rather than face some other lot’s outraged parents, he elected his own six-year-old daughter, Claire. “My presence made it a kind of game for her.” he adds.

Meanwhile, the pressure at Raggedy Ann East. Raggedy Ann West and the London base was mounting. Williams and his associates had promised a finished movie to Bobbs-Merrill in time for the film to be launched nationally by Easter, 1977. The million-plus drawings had been completed, and now the inkers, opaquers, “in betweeners,” and other technical craftsmen, vital to an animated movie, were working double and triple shifts, to meet the deadline.

The only rule, Williams paradoxically demanded as he fired memos to the tripartite staff (“usually dictated somewhere over Kansas,”) was that there must be no compromise in quality. Typical of the fine detail necessary to achieve “full animation” was an incident which occurred in the office of veteran supervisor Marlene Robinson. An “inbetweener”-responsible for linking the animators’ drawings, frame by frame—was frustrated. Several strands of Raggedy Ann’s hair refused to move in rhythm with the rest of the character.

The next hour was devoted to re-drawing the wisps of hair, over and over, until there was perfect synchronization.

“It seems like such a little thing,” Ms. Robinson said afterward. “But blown up to Panavision size, anything which distracts the eye of the moviegoer—shapes that vary, colors that fade, even a recalcitrant strand of hair, is enough to destroy the ‘illusion.’”

Babbitt’s “Camel with the wrinkled knees”

In another room, Cosmo Pepe, working with complex equipment designed by cameraman Al Rezek, was transferring the drawings onto sheets of transparent celluloid—by shooting 13.000 volts of electricity through them-prior to putting them through a Xerox enlarger. “We developed a special toner, for the enlargements, to Dick Williams’ specifications,” Pepe revealed. “The toning is vitally important: it affects the way the characters stand out on the big screen. The formula for this toner is as closely guarded as a three star chefs award winning recipe.”

By the lime “Raggedy Ann and Andy” was completed, and ready for release by 20lh Century Fox more than five years had passed from the date on which Osterman and Horner first solicited the rights from Bobbs-Merrill. More than two years had been spent in production.

Richard Williams summed up the feelings of everyone involved by quoting Johnny Gruelle. “It does pay to do more work than you are paid for, after all,” Gruelle once told an interviewer. “Someone, somewhere, sometime will see it and appreciate it.”

John Canemaker sent me some information, worth getting out there

- Jeanette Thomas, the wife of Frank Thomas, passed away in California on Saturday evening, September 29. The couple were married for 58 years and the parents of four children. Mrs. Thomas, the former Jeanette Armentrout of Greeley, Colorado, appears in two films directed by her son Theodore Thomas, Frank and Ollie (1995) and Walt & El Grupo (2008).

Excerpted from Walt Disney’s Nine Old Men and the Art of Animation (Disney Editions, 2001):

Just before the war, at a party thrown by his brother Larry on the Stanford campus, [Frank] Thomas met a young woman named Jeanette Armentrout. Tall and elegant, with beautiful, intelligent blue eyes, Ms. Armentrout was visiting from Greeley, Colorado, taking summer classes at Stanford. She and Frank later went on a picnic, but, said Jeanette recently, “before I could get very interested, school was out for the summer and I returned to Colorado.” She held a teaching certificate and began teaching at Colorado State. Strong and independent, Jeanette was always grateful for the “experience in earning my own living.”

In 1945, after the war, she took a job teaching in a high school in Redwood City, California, near Palo Alto. “She started writing to me at that point,” said Thomas, who was smitten after their initial meeting and had “written letters to her all along.” Now that Ms. Armentrout was suddenly “in the back yard” (that is, in California) their letters became mutually more specific. “It took me three and a half years, and a war, and teaching, to realize that he was pretty special,” said Jeanette.

She invited him to visit her in Redwood City; he sent her a musical piece he wrote titled “Concerto by Me.” When he played it for friends, they said it sounded like a proposal. “I said it’s okay with me if she takes it like that,” said Thomas. “Oooooh!’” said the friends. “Good things happened pretty fast after that,” he recalled. On a three-day pass, master sergeant Thomas stretched the fifty-mile limit allowed soldiers to 200 miles to see Jeanette. “So we proposed to each other and decided what we were going to do.” Thomas was discharged from the service on January 23, 1946 and the couple were married in Colorado on February 16.
. . . Jeanette Thomas recognized how “terrifically stimulating and restoring” the [Firehouse Five Plus Two] band was for her husband. “He loves an audience,” she said. “He’s a ham, that’s why he’s a good animator.” She saw his professional piano playing as “an ego booster” that gave him a release from “the frustration that he had to keep bottled up during the week.” He did not bring home the stresses of the studio; at dinner each evening with his family, his constant sense of humor came to the fore putting a funny spin on the day’s events. In general, according to his wife, Thomas is “one of the least mercurial artists that I’ve ever known.”

- I rather enjoyed the pictures of the Wall Street area that were posted two weeks ago. Steve Fisher has sent me some more of them, and I can’t resist. I post them here with the courtesy of Steve who snapped them.

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Fraunces Tavern – America’s oldest operating restaurant.
George used to eat here.

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New York Stock Exchange

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Generally, every week Steve also sends me about a dozen photos of birds.
I usually have no interest in these so you can imagine all the pictures you haven’t seen.
However, there were two pics he sent me this week that just took my breath so I have to post them and a couple of others that belong together.

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Bluejays

More Bluejays

Even more Bluejays

Shy Bluejay
(Keep looking, you’ll find him.)

Mockingbird

Egos

There’s been a relatively short conversation going on at the comment section of my blog for an older piece I’d repeated this past week. The discussion has been about Eyvind Earle. The first few visitors who commented all wanted to express their dislike of this film (particularly the story) and Eyvind Earle’s design work, in particular. “Scott’s” dislike of Mr. Earle’s work extends to his personal attitude while working on the film. He, according to “Scott”, was thick headed and wouldn’t listen to any requested changes to his designs, allowing his ego to take charge of the work. (I’m not sure that I see that on the screen, nor did I really feel that when I met the man when I got to spend an afternoon with him as I accompanied Mike Barrier on an interview. I admit it is possible though.)

In fact, I think the ego is essential in breaking new waves and advancing the art form. Adam Abraham in his book When Magoo Flew writes about the ego of John Hubley in running his productions at UPA. If he wanted a specific blue, that’s all that he would settle for. The report is that he was oppressively insistent on it being his way only. I worked for Hubley for years and never got to see that side of the man. Oh, there was a well deserved and big ego there, but it never got in the way of the art being created.

Rooty Toot Toot

We’ve seen Bill Peet complain about Bill Tytla‘s use of his (Peet’s) drawings while working on Dumbo. According to what I’ve read, Peet complains that Tytla took full credit for the sequence of baby Dumbo running in and around his mother’s legs, when Peet felt it was his scene, his key drawings that made the scene the perfect piece that it was.

Chuck Jones, while working briefly for Disney (on Sleeping Beauty), told Walt that he had to leave the studio. When Disney asked what job Jones really wanted at the studio, Jones said, “Yours.” He felt that only Disney’s job was suitable for him. Talk about ego. The ego was even larger than that when you realize that it was Jones, hmself, that told me that story – however real it actuall was. The egos of Jones and Clampett and even Freleng vie over who created what character.

Egos are necessary in an industry of craftspeople and artisans, especially when an artist is trying to get something brilliant out of them. Thomas, Johnston, and even Kahl were brilliant actors with amazing abilities of draftsmanship. But the film, the bigger picture, needed a direction which Earle gave it. Just look at the wretched Reitherman films to see what Thomas, Johnston and Kahl turned out without the strong, smart director who was also an artist. Tytla took animation to another level, he was truly an artist, himself, but look at the miserable little films he directed when he left Disney’s studio. Even the support system of that studio wouldn’t have helped Leprechauns Gold or Snap Happy. (Mind you, I love Snap Happy, but it has no relation to art.)

Here’s a small piece David Parfitt wrote:

Tytla was a tough guy who used abusive language and irritated his fellow animators. Ken Anderson (Disney Legend for Animation and Imagineering) went to Walt Disney to express frustration at the way Tytla treated his coworkers. Walt Disney replied, “What do you think of Chernabog, the God of evil, in ‘Fantasia’? What do you think of Stromboli in ‘Pinocchio’?” Anderson (the art director for both films) replied, “They are some of the most powerful and vicious villains we’ve ever done.” Walt Disney looked at Anderson and said, “Where do you think all that anger comes from?” Vladimir Tytla was a maverick who needed to release anger and energy to manifest some of the most powerful imagery ever produced by the Disney Studios. A maverick is difficult for a company to grapple with because of their abrasiveness and the way they go against the way things typically run. Yet out of the agitation and irritation often comes a new direction that could secure a company’s future.

Sleeping Beauty changed the Disney studio forever. The animators and artists there, with the exception of Ward Kimball and a few others, fought against the use of 20th century graphics in their films, yet UPA’s influence slowly crept into the mix. Finally when Walt Disney, himself, chose Eyvind Earle and put full support behind him to design this film as he saw fit. The animators all fought Earle and continued to bad mouth him to the end of their days. Yet Earle’s style, as well as Tom Oreb‘s great character designs for that film, are frequently copied by the new generations of artists. The backgrounds and some of the character design are stolen directly from Sleeping Beauty. Even though the SB art is a play on 15th Century manuscripts and art, it was used for the Pocahontas forests.

Painting Sleeping Beauty

Pocahontas

Nothing at Disney, with the possible exception of Bedknobs and Broomsticks went back to the past to illustrate their films henceforth. Until, of course, today’s new artists in animation who just steal from other past films. Bluth‘s Small One or is virtually without style. Tim Burton is possibly the only exception I can see of this current view of the state of animation. The regurgitated past of other artists who deservedly had egos aglow. We go on. Perhaps someone like Genndy Tartakovsky will bring some of the panasche he brought to Samurai Jack.

Samurai Jack

By the way, there’s a good interview with Tartakovsky on this week’s on-line version of the Village Voice.

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Books

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- There are a couple of books I’d like to write about.

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- Let me mention Didier Ghez‘ latest volume of his interview series, Walt’s People.
Just released is Walt’s People – Vol. 12. Just the idea of 12 volumes of any book in print, is quite extraordinary, and amazing feat for Didier Ghez to pull off.

I own about a half dozen of this series and have read all of them at least twice. Most of the interviews are exceptional, some are smart, and the rest are just very good. In all there are those interviews that give us some real insight into the process and history of the making of animated films by the professionals who did it. Les Clark, Larry Clemmons, Charlie Downs, Al Eugster, Sammy Fain, Milt Kahl, Burny Mattinson, Paul Murry, and Mel Shaw are among the many who are interviewed in depth for this new volume. Some of our greatest historians (Robin Allan, Michael Barrier, Albert Becattini, John Canemaker, John Culhane, Pete Docter, Chris Finch, J.B. Kaufman, Jim Korkis, Dave Smith, and Charles Solomon among others) conduct the interviews.

It’s just another great volume in the series. You should own them all; I should own them all, to be honest, and I will.

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Ganesha’s Sweet Tooth

- As previously reviewed on this blog, Sanjay Patel will see his first children’s book, Ganesha’s Sweet Tooth released this week by Chronicle Books. I have a sore spot for Mr. Patel’s work. He’s an artist who works by day at Pixar and is an artist, with his own very defined style, working extensively after hours.

I’ve reviewed many of his books and have a real fondness for The Ramayana. Were I you, looking to explore this artist’s work, I’d buy Ganesha’s Sweet Tooth. Once you have it and want more – you will – go for The Ramayana. It’s a brilliant masterwork.

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Snow White x 2

- Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, if you’re an animation fan, you know that the brilliant historian, J.B. Kaufman, has not one but TWO books on Snow White about to appear on the market.

The Fairest One of All: The Making of Walt Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: The Art and Creation of Walt Disney’s Classic Animated Film
are the two titles by Kaufman that focus in great depth on that film and its development. This is to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the feature, and will coincide with a display that will appear soon at the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco.

Both books come from the Walt Disney Family Foundation in conjunction with the Walt Disney Family Museum. I’ve seen the Art of Creation book, and was completely taken with it. I will most definitely own both books. The film means much to me, and I want to own anything Kaufman writes. It’s a no-brainer – double my pleasure.

By the way, part of the reason I’m looking forward to reading these two books is to compare it with Michael Barrier‘s amazing writing on this period at Disney’s studio. In Hollywood Cartoons, there’s a large part of the book dedicated to the development andcreation of this particular film. Then in The Animated Man: A Life of Walt Disney Barrier tells the same information but from a different perspective entirely. This biography of Disney is wholly involved with Walt Disney, the man and artist. It’s a unique turn that we only see in the poorly written Diane Disney Miller book, The Story of Walt Disney. As Walt’s young daughter she could see the story no other way than from his perspective. While waiting for the Kaufman books to come out, read either of Barrier’s books for the best, to date, version of the Snow White story. It’s strong writing.

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It’s appropriate that I was invited to a 10am screening of Snow White at Lincoln Center this morning. It’s part of the NY Film Festival’s 50th anniversary celebration. Eric Goldberg introduced the film with a brief and smart little talk about the animation. Talking about The Old Mill as a test run for the Multiplane Camera, talking about the Three Little Pigs first offering characters that looked alike but had characterization defined by their animation (as did the dwarfs), talking about The Goddess of Spring being an enormous failure for Ham Luske who succeeded animating Snow White. It was nice to say hello to Eric prior to the film. We haven’t seen each other in about five years. It was nice also to see the film projected. I saw the movie on tv/dvd only a couple of weeks ago, but it’s a very different experience on the big screen. The digital transfer was glorious, merciless and disastrous. The ink lines were so sharp that you could actually feel how deeply the crow quills cut into the cels. However there were many points where individual frames had slight digital distortion to hurt the ink lines, and the magic mirror actually had the detritus of digital compression across the center of the mirror. Someone should have been there to supervise the transfer.

Paperman played prior to Snow White. It was animated cgi, then flattened and lines were added atop the flattened drawings. I can’t for the life of me understand why it wasn’t just animated by hand. It would have cut the cost in half and had more life to it. Sorry, I don’t think it worth the Oscar. Though you never know it may be the best film, this year.

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Tales of the Night

- Michel Ocelot has received another excellent review from the NYTimes. Tales of the Nightis reviewed by Andy Webster in the Times, and is Ocelot’s latest feature length animated film – his first in 3D – and the reviews are sensational. It’s screening as part of the Children’s International Film Festival and plays at New York’s IFC Theater through next Tuesday. This is a silhouette film in brilliant color.

His films are beautiful and deserve to be seen in a theater. I’d heartily recommend getting to the theater if you have the chance. Hopefully the distributor will submit this one for Oscar consideration. Though the look is 2D, the graphics are done via cgi as was the case with his past films, including Azur & Asmar, Kirikou et les betes sauvages, Princes and Princesses, and Kirikou and the Sorceress.
Some amazing animation is coming out of France these days.

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More Reviews

Now to the bigger release for the smaller film department:

Adam Sandler‘s second animated feature, Hotel Transylvania, opened to mostly poor reviews by 2nd string reviewers.

NYTimes sent Neil Genzlinger to give his negative review. The most positive line is: “The movie loses its originality as it rolls toward its predictable conclusion, but it’s still lovely to look at.”

Someone named Sara Stewart reviews the film for the NYPost and gives it a middling 2½ stars. “Director Genndy Tartakovsky (“The Powerpuff Girls,” “Samurai Jack”) is a natural fit for this kid-and-parent-friendly flick. The animator’s wit and attention to detail enliven a collection of well-known ghosts and ghouls. (Though Tartakovsky’s more traditional TV-cartoon style is still superior, as evidenced by his playful closing credits.)”

Joe Neumaier, the 2nd rate first stringer of the NYDaily news gave it a mostly positive 3 star review. “This being a Sandler movie, the humor skews toward the infantile (fart jokes, peeing baby werewolves). But the sleek visuals are rich and glossy, placing the characters, who look like Halloween door decorations, in baroque hallways or secret passageways.”

I enjoy the reviews in The Onion, and their review for this film by Tasha Robinson doesn’t disappoint. A C+: “Tartakovsky gets a long way on wild design and visually daring sequences. His work has always been adventurous, experimental, and conceptually creative, and he hasn’t lost any of his energy or capacity for staging a memorable setpiece.”

Whatever happened to the feature length version of Samurai Jack that J.J. Abrams was going to produce wth Tartakovsky directing?

Alex Toth worked at Hanna Barbera in their story department. Bill Peckmann told me he had some boards from Toth’s stay there, and I asked him to send them on. The board presented here is far from complete. It’s missing many pages and whole segments. But the images, as might be expected are terrific. So look for the drawing and forget the storytelling.

Here are some comments from Bill:

I’ve come across some Toth storyboards (copies) from his Hanna-Barbera days. One incomplete set is really neat. This is a live action board that Alex did for Hanna-Barbera in 1978. Unfortunately all we have are these Xeroxed 28 random panels from the original board. (I wonder if that still exists anywhere?) At least it gives us a rare peek at how Alex handled a live action film assignment instead of his H-B Saturday morning cartoon fare. With this sparse sampling of pages, the continuity will not make much sense but the individual panels are a pleasure to look at.

The title of movie that Alex did this live action storyboard for, it’s a 1979 film called “C.H.O.M.P.S.”
Here is it’s listing in HALLIWELL’S FILM GUIDE.

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And here is the board:

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