Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

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- Mike Lynch has a valuable post which features a book of gags written by Roy Williams, the excellent Disney storyman who appeared on the original Mickey Mouse Club as “Roy.” The cartoons have a lot of style and feel a bit like VIP’s (Virgil Partch) cartoons of the same period and a bit like Ward Kimball’s cartoon sketches. The gags are definitely Roy’s.

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___________front cover______________________________dedication

John Hubley once told me a story about Roy that’s probably been told a million times over. On Roy’s first day to present a storyboard to Walt, Harry Reeves, the supervisor, suggested that Roy might want to take something to resolve his nervousness. He recommended a quart of sauerkraut juice. (Do they bottle such a thing?) Roy ran to a store, bought some and swallowed the entire bottle, as prescribed. During the presentation, Roy suddenly had to excuse himself, and he raced out of the room, running down the hall to the Men’s room. Harry Reeves had expected such a thing and locked the bathroom on poor Roy. Disaster!

Now Harry had just bought himself a brand new white car with an all white interior. One day when he left work as he got in and sat behind the wheel, he noticed something on the back seat. It was a wash basin filled with water mixed with black ink. The black liquid filled the basin to the rim. Of course, it was easy for Roy to fill the tub, but it was hard to remove the liquid without destroying the white interior.

Jeff Pepper had a nice post about Roy and the Mickey Mouse Club on his site, 2719 Hyperion Avenue

There’s more on the Original Mickey Mouse Club site. (That’s where the caricature atop this post came from.).

- I’ve treasured all the recent memorials for Ollie Johnston on the various blogs. A number of them stand out for me, and it’s been interesting to read them. They certainly
inform more about the man than the official obituaries in newspapers, such as the NYTimes, have done. For the most part the papers have relied on an impersonal obit from the Associated Press to cover them. Even Bob Thomas‘ obituary was printed iin the Chicago Tribune and The Washington Post, was enhanced with material from the AP. Variety‘s obit is their own, but feels like the AP piece. Charles Solomon‘s obit in the LA Times is certainly the exception in that it’s obviously informed and quite a bit more personal.

Cartoon Brew has been the key source for some fine writing. Brad Bird‘s comments on that site are exceptional, so too John Canemaker‘s.

Jenny Lerew‘s Blackwing Diaries was one of the first blogs to attend to Ollie’s passing, and she wrote some appropriate and fine comments.
A couple of other, personal posts, on their own sites, are excellent. I think particularly of Floyd Norman‘s, Michael Barrier‘s, and Pete Emslie‘s posts. Brian Sibley also wrote a nice piece, and Jaime Weidman offered an article about Johnston from 1956. Hans Perk‘s approach is to share some amazing photographs with us, and Didier Ghez offers some sound clips and other links.

Mark Mayerson took a very different tact on his site. His initial post was to give notice and direct us to other writings. Then, like the excellent historian he is, Mark took notice of the fact that Ollie was the last of the “Nine Old Men” than he discussed the fact that Disney tried to undercut the “individual” abilities of his animators by pegging them as one.

I’ve even had several people, obviously without their own blogs, write me to share their thoughts. Jonathan Annand‘s email was touching.

It’s so obvious that, for some reason, this master animator and his work touched many people who want to come together as a community to mourn his death and celebrate his life. It’s an occasion I certainly appreciate highly and share in enormously.

- Tom Sito’s new series, As the Wrench Turns, the animated version of Tom and Ray Magliozzi’s NPR radio show, “Car Talk,” got a bit of attention from the NYTimes yesterday. Apppropriately, it was found in the Automobile section “Wheels” on line.

The show debuts Wednesday, July 9th at 8:00PM on your local PBS station. Finally, an animated tv show worth looking out for. It sounds like it may be animated.

______“Click and Clack” with Tom & Pat

__________Here’s PBS‘ press release.
__________The Car Talk site has a lot of stills you can click through.

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- Finally, Karl Cohen led me to this article in Millimeter‘s current issue.

It details information about the live action eyes in Madame Tutli Putli and how they were achieved. This is a must read for all those effects fans out there and for all those who love this short film.

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