I can’t say much about the recently deceased Bill Littlejohn, other than the fact that I love what I’ve seen and can identify as his work, and that I wish I actually got to know him. Whenever any animation veteran passes, we’re all painfully reminded about how little we actually know about the bygone Golden Age and how we all still had the opportunity to speak to these people if we made the effort.
Littlejohn’s late 30s, early 40s studio work was at MGM, where he was part of a high-profile team of animators like Jack Zander, Irv Spence, and Pete Burness. His greatest triumph in those days can be found in Hugh Harman’s A Rainy Day with the Bear Family (1940). Mike Kazaleh tells me that Littlejohn was the guy who had to animate Papa Bear on the roof fleeing from the tidal wave of shingles, work equal to any feature-level animation Disney was doing the same year. Littlejohn actually earned one screen credit at MGM, on the Tom & Jerry Fine Feathered Friend (1942); the copyright synopsis tells us as much. It was actually dropped from the 1949 reissue, while the credits of other animators no longer at the studio remained intact, so it makes me wonder if someone at Metro was spiteful of Littlejohn’s stance as a union leader.
Thanks for pointing out some of his animation. I have to admit I know very little of Bill Littlejohn other than the name, but judging by that scene the world has obviously lost a very fine animator. Seems like there’s no one left from the golden age these days.
Credit goes to Mike, who has more classical animator knowledge in his brain than just about anyone I know.
Another great artist from the Golden Age….lost. It seems like so many great artists that we have taken for granted have been slipping away from us this year. I’m very glad though, that blogs like yours and Cartoon Brew are honoring these passed away heroes of animation’s past.
Thanks for posting that Hugh Harman cartoon by the way. I hadn’t seen it a long while, so it was great to see just how incredible a lot of the animation in that film really was, and still is today.
Holy shit! That was a great cartoon. I’m stunned I’ve never seen it. Thanks for sharing Thad. Too bad the quality is crap, I’d love to see that remastered.
Usually the Happy Harmonies drive me up a wall with their blandness, but the Barney Bear entries like this one are definite exceptions. Did Littlejohn work on other Barney cartoons during this period? IMO “Bear and the Beavers” is the best of the series.
Holy crap! When I was ten, I found that cartoon whilst channel-surfing, and the storm scene? After the scene finished, I noticed that my jaw was hanging open. This is LONG before I had a nerdery of animation, or appreciated the technical aspects, but I knew I was looking at a Passion of the Christ. I will forever owe him that. Fact, I’ve been searching for a quicktime or a print of that cartoon for YEARS so I can study that shit frame by frame.
That was Littlejohn? It blows my mind to think he was still alive all this time. (I’m too used to everyone being DEAD, man. 0.e)