Animation &Frame Grabs &walk cycle 27 Dec 2010 07:41 am
Tyer Run
- Since NY has been buried in snow, I thought I’d post this run cycle Jim Tyer animated for a “Heckle & Jeckle” cartoon called Sno Fun. The copy of the film is a bit soft, so the images aren’t the greatest. However, it was an interesting exercise for me. Tyer doesn’t really do cycles. He keeps the thing going constantly changing bits and parts of the character’s body. Things keep in motion and distort, distort, distort.
1
2 
3
4 
5
6 
7
8 
9
10
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Here’s a QT of the cycle with a mix of one’s and two’s.
on 27 Dec 2010 at 8:24 am 1.richard o'connor said …
Did he do his own inbetweens?
The rear arm (the character’s left) business in 4 through 6 is distracting, like the assistant didn’t know what to do.
on 27 Dec 2010 at 8:56 am 2.Michael said …
The assistants were always at a loss with Tyer. I asked several of them about his work. They all complained saying it was tough to get the character back on model. Johnny “Gent” once said that Tyer couldn’t keep on model. As for follow through on the arm, what can I say?
on 27 Dec 2010 at 12:15 pm 3.Tom Minton said …
Some of the other Terrytoon animators groused that Tyer didn’t respect the house characters. But Paul Terry and Bill Weiss after him both gladly took Tyer’s massive, quickly turned out footage over on model drawing. Tyer told a young Ralph Bakshi, “Don’t worry kid, everything moves!” Not even limited animation could stop Jim Tyer, as his very limited Beetle Bailey cartoons of the early 1960′s attest. The weirdness comes through even with a minuscule cell count.
on 27 Dec 2010 at 1:54 pm 4.the Gee said …
OK. Everything that’s been written by you three sounds familiar up to the part where there were Beetle Bailey cartoons in the early 60s…that’s unfamiliar.
I’ll look it up when I can because I have an odd affinity for the earlier versions of that comic strip. But, in meantime, if anyone has any examples that could be shared, specifically of Tyer’s work, that’d be cool to see.
on 27 Dec 2010 at 2:21 pm 5.Michael said …
In the early 60s, King Features Syndicate produced new Popeyes, new Krazy Kat cartoons and new Beetle Bailey cartoons. Studios were split between NY & LA ddoing the KK & BB cartoons. The Popeyes were split between LA and Gene Deitch in Czechoslovakia.
on 27 Dec 2010 at 3:02 pm 6.Mark Mayerson said …
King Features also did Snuffy Smith cartoons at the time.
on 27 Dec 2010 at 7:09 pm 7.Charles Brubaker said …
Just a correction: Tyer didn’t animate any of the “Beetle Bailey” cartoons. He did, however, animate several of the “Snuffy Smith” cartoons that was being made at the same time.
As for how the production were split:
“Popeye” was, as Michael said, split between LA and NY, plus Gene Deitch in Prague. Deitch in turn subcontracted several to Halas & Batchelor in England.
“Beetle Bailey” was divided up into NY and Australia. In addition, one was made in LA at TV Spots.
“Krazy Kat” was mainly Prague under Deitch, but a handful was done in Australia. In addition, Paramount did two and Jack Kinney did one.
“Snuffy Smith” was almost completely Paramount in NY. Jack Kinney in LA did one.
on 27 Dec 2010 at 8:39 pm 8.Michael said …
Thanks for the breakdown, Charles. I also remember all of these cartoons well and couldn’t remember Tyer’s work on Beetle Bailey, but I’m always ready to admit I was wrong. Your info seems accurate.
on 28 Dec 2010 at 8:46 am 9.Stephen said …
Michael,
I’ve been following your blog for a while and fascinating it is too in its insights, discussions and revelations.
I was wondering if you might be interested in a series of reviews I wrote for a top 50 animated works ‘countdown’ at a blog called Wonders in the Dark:
http://en.wordpress.com/tag/genre-countdown-animation
I’m not an expert by any means but I took my research and watching very seriously. In the animated media are worlds of limitless creativity, worlds still left sadly in the shadow of the mainstream.
I wish you a continued happy Christmas
on 28 Dec 2010 at 11:19 pm 10.The Gee said …
OK. I did find a site which had some framegrabs from the DVD releases for the Beetle Bailey cartoons. So, I did look through those.
And, I am probably not stating anything surprising in saying the shorts, including at least one of Tyer’s Snuffy Smith work can be viewed online. I’ll give you one guess where that might be.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCvmtUUYnWQ
(I’m not sure if we can link here or not. So, if not, remove it, I guess.)
The Tyer one has a different vibe to the gags. The premise is wacky but not any wackier than the others or from what I’ve seen from a lot of early TV animation from that time. But, the animation is very limited looking in spots and relies on a lot of action/zip lines for fast motions.
The Beetle Baileys have an odd combo of TV sitcom pacing mixed with comic strip timing. It shows up in the Snuffy Smith ones I watched, too. Both series seem to take advantage of and sometimes acknowledge the TV aspect. For instance, there is a moment in one of the Bailey cartoons where the Sarge does an Ed Sullivan impersonation.
Interesting stuff.
on 29 Dec 2010 at 11:02 pm 11.The Gee said …
And, it should be noted for those who may read this and haven’t watched the cartoon I linked to:
That distortion does show up.
Plus there is a scene where he is the main character is bouncing which works (in my opinion) but he obviously got away with that. You just have to see it. I didn’t thumb through it to see if there are various poses but it doesn’t look like there are.
Oh well.
on 29 Dec 2010 at 11:04 pm 12.Tom Minton said …
Sorry about that – it must have been a Snuffy Smith Tyer I saw around 1981 rather than a Beetle Bailey cartoon. Looking at the example cited in The Gee’s post above, Tyer’s style is unmistakable, despite the limited animation and low budget.
on 30 Dec 2010 at 12:39 am 13.Charles Brubaker said …
Tyer also animated on the equally low-budget “Felix the Cat” cartoons produced by Joe Oriolo and his style is easy to spot. Same can be said for his work on Hal Seeger’s shows (Batfink, Milton the Monster…)
on 30 Dec 2010 at 12:59 pm 14.the Gee said …
Wow.
speaking of those Felix cartoons, I just bookmarked this last week:
http://www.hulu.com/felix-the-cat
There’s a few full episodes. I haven’t been able to watch any of them yet though. But, now I want to and partially to look a bit closer. It is such a clean and sparse cartoon. Everything is really simple layout… to the point, ya know.
on 30 Dec 2010 at 2:17 pm 15.Michael said …
Believe me watching those FELIX cartoons is a waste of your life and brain power. There’s nothing to be gained from it. They are horrible. (Even if Jim Tyer worked on it. He probably did; he had to pay the rent, too.)
on 30 Dec 2010 at 5:52 pm 16.The Gee said …
Ha.
OK. I’ll take your word on that. I should say that I have watched bits from that series previously(there are some on Archive.org) and it seemed to be serialized into short bits. Even those shorter segments seemed to plod along, not unlike the “Ruff N Ready” series.
I’m guessing it was shown in the context of one of those Captain Kangaroo-like shows where the host would throw to the cartoons before and after live action segments. But that is just a guess because I haven’t seen very many of those and its been years since I have.
on 08 Feb 2012 at 11:40 am 17.Nicholas Pozega said …
Hey, what’s wrong with the Oriolo Felix cartoons? They’re good clean fun!
Anyway, thanks for posting these walk cycles! They’re so fun to watch!
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