I was thrilled to read that my favorite Famous Studios series is getting its own DVD release, but I thought the cover art was a little bland, classic Harvey Comics cover it may be. I did some asking around, and I not only managed to get the real cover art, but the back cover too! Contents are subject to change, but I sure hope not, this sounds like the release of a lifetime as is.
Filed under classic animation, crap
In his posting of John Stanley’s comics with the Famous Studios characters, Frank lamented that Cilly Goose, one of the studio’s “most accomplished and atmospheric one-shot” cartoons, isn’t available online anymore. So I’m reposting it.
This was one of the last Famous cartoons done in Miami, the credit for Abner Kneitel being indicative of this, since he didn’t return to New York. (I believe some of Kneitel’s animation can be seen when Cilly is showing her egg to the sow, and when she’s being tortured by the mob. The style is very similar to the animation Bob Jaques identified as Kneitel’s in the Jim Tyer-directed Popeye classic Too Weak to Work.) Though it’s obvious the boys were prepping for the move back, with the riff on NYC’s luxurious mayoral tours.
Cilly Goose is a cartoon that tries a lot of different stylistic approaches at once. The Fleischer studio perfected the idea of “appropriate length” with their Popeye two-reelers, in which they learned how long the characters and stories could be before the audience became disengaged. (Rank heresy it may be to say, the list of animated cartoons that warrant a length greater than thirty minutes is miniscule.) That quality is also present in this short. It’s certainly not worthy of a true two-reeler length, but it’s still material that can go on a bit longer than the average six minutes.
The Fleischer drawing style still hadn’t been discarded at this point, the bunny who looks like he stepped out of a 1930 Talkartoon being the prime example. There’s also a Chuck Jones influence here, with an emphasis on pantomime and strong, held character poses for acting. The staging and set-up is especially brilliant when Cilly enters the Square Garden to meet her fate, where she becomes a living, breathing being with her dreams about to be shattered and her fears realized. Ditto for the angry mob at the end, a nightmarish depiction of human greed and the shameless exploitation of animals.
The result is a cartoon that is as good as anybody’s, but it ended up swept under the rug due to years of guilt-by-association and garbage film prints.
Filed under classic animation
There’s a nice two-part interview with animation layout giant Bob Givens at the TAG Blog. Click here and here.
I’ve been meaning to post some of my own various conversations with New York animation superstar Howard Beckerman, but it’ll take some time to make them audible (due mainly to recording ineptness). If there’s any immediate interest, let me know.
Filed under classic animation, people
The above item is pictured in the Profiles in History Hollywood Auction booklet, available here. Aside from obviously being paired with an unrelated background, Mike Kazaleh tells me he suspects it was done by one of the MGM assistant animators rather than one of the regular suspects (Harvey Eisenberg, Ken Muse, Dick Bickenbach) for personal amusement. It is doubtful the word “boob” would be used in 1940s publicity material, regardless of where the booklet states it’s from.
There’s lots of great artwork pictured from most of the classic studios, so grab the PDF while you can. I was planning a self-righteous rant about how the practice of animation art dealing is little more than shysters ransacking widows to make obscene profits on artwork they don’t even know the origins of, save the occasional upstanding practitioner (the excellent Howard Lowery comes to mind immediately), but thought better of it.
(Via Mark Mayerson).
Filed under classic animation
