Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

I guess the big news today comes from a report in Variety that Chris Sanders who left (or was ousted) at Disney, a couple of months ago, has arrived at Dreamworks to direct “Crood Awakenings.” (You can’t invent a title like that, can you?) It’s a caveman story that was being developed with Aardman in mind – before Aardman broke with Dreamworks.
It’s all too incestuous. He’s directed one solid movie but makes the lead on the front page of Variety. Slow story day.
Let’s hope a good film develops out of it, but the title doesn’t give me a lot of hope. Check out the Reuters headline: “Lilo” director shooting “Crood” cartoon.

– Here’s an I. Klein article published in the Dec. 73 issue of Cartoonist Profiles. Ostensibly, it tells how Izzy klein created Mighty Mouse without getting credit for it. However, more pertinent and interesting to me, and the reason I’m posting it, is that the article details how the Terry story team worked. (Not together, is the answer to that one.) It’s a wonder that their stories are so good.

Without the bangup sound effects their films just wouldn’t have been as good.

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I find it interesting that this story by Klein details how he created a super bug which Terry pushed to become a super mouse. It obviously took Terry a bit of time to mull the idea over before putting it into action.
Of course, the way Klein tells it there seems to be no doubt that he came up with the core idea, but he had no hand in developing it – even beyond its origin as a bug. He says that in this article.

Yet, if you look anywhere on the interenet, it’s Klein that gets all credit for the creation of Mighty Mouse. We talked once before about sloppy and slippery history appearing on the internet, and this seems to be another good case of it. Klein was a true talent whose work I respected enormously and who, as a person, was very genial and warm.
I also take on face value this story he tells. To be honest, I don’t much care who created Mighty Mouse (though I loved that character as a kid and still have a fondness for the shorts), but I find the heart of this article by Klein to be about the workings of the Terry story department, such that it was. It’s an interesting article that has a lot more than meets-the-eye within it.

To continue this theme to a more modern era, check out today’s ASIFA Hollywood Animation Blog. Stephen Worth has posted a Yogi Bear storyboard by Warren Foster, the former Warner Bros. story writer.

– In the early 1990′s we produced a little mimeographed magazine about animation, particularly animation within our studio. It was called Sporn-O-Graphics. About 1000 copies were sent out to a lot of people on our mailing list, no requests, no fees. We just sent them to whomever we wanted. We produced five issues of this publication, though only four were ever sent out.

Since there are a couple of interesting bits in them, I’ve decided to post a couple of those interviews/articles on this site. For some of the pieces it’s re-releasing information; for others it’s fun looking back on some quaint, dated material.
In issue #4 we had two interviews:
Dante Barbetta is a first rate animator who worked at Paramount, NYIT and a lot of the commercial studios in NY. Some of his last animation was done for us on a couple of our half-hour shows.
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Denise Gonzalez, who put together this issue of Sporn-O-Graphics, interviews Dante. I wish this article had been more in-depth considering the wealth of knowledge Dante houses, but it’s good to give him any attention we can.
John Canemaker, the Oscar winning film maker, teacher and noted animation historian, is interviewed by Sue Perotto (a great animator and animation director, in her own right), John’s former student. The article focuses on the changing technology, and obviously is now dated, (it was done pre Toy Story) but I enjoyed rereading it and think you might as well.

This is Dante Barbetta ‘s interview:
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This is the John Canemaker interview:
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- Here is the third and final installment in the Charles Bowers article by noted animator, I.Klein. This final article appeared in the Sept. ’75 issue of Cartoonist Profiles magazine.
I want to thank Mark Mayerson for volunteering to post the article when it seemed that I wasn’t going to be able to locate it. (As long as the information gets out there, I’m happy.)

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Rob Farr has an overview of Charles Bowers‘ life and career on his site, Mug Shots, which is a home page of all the forgotten silent film comics. (Don’t forget that Boweers, teamed with Harol L. Muller, made many silent comedies. Farr includes extensive quotes of news articles and reviews about Bowers.

Tomorrow morning I’ll post the next couple of Pinocchio boards “Pinocchio Comes To Life.”

– So when we last left I. Klein yesterday, he was telling us about Charles Bowers. Bowers was a silent film animation pioneer and entrepeneur. He’s done enough that I think he deserves a little more attention by historians, but there isn’t much interest in and information about the silent film animators. Other than Winsor McCay, not too many early pioneers have been the focus of attention. Even someone as important as J.R. Bray remains a silent shadow in the corner of animation history overshadowed by the likes of Disney and the Fleischers.

As a matter of fact, other than specific biographies (such as a book I have on Lotte Reineger or John Canemaker‘s books on McCay and Otto Messmer) I can only think of two books which focus on silent film animation. There’s the excellent book, Before Mickey by Donald Crafton, and there’s Walt In Wonderland by Russell Merritt and J. B. Kaufman. Both are must-haves for animation lovers.

Here then is the continuation of I.Klein’s article for Cartoonist Profiles’ June 1975 issue:

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– Charles Bowers was an animation pioneer and entrepeneur. He is often mentioned in animation histories but is given short mention in the same publications. The brilliant book, Before Mickey by Donald Crafton, often mentions Bowers by name and company (Celebrated Film Corporation), but it doesn’t really go into what he did.

In fact, he supervised the Mutt and Jeff series for Pathe-Freres and Bud Fisher and was instrumental in trying to get The Katenjammer Kids animated (until law suits from Hearst developed). He invented a new camera for live action and became a moderately successful silent-screen comedian. He also did a couple of puppet animated shorts in 1939 & 1940 which were released by the Fleischers.
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Additioinally, he was an animator for Loucks & Norling on a World’s Fair film about petroleum done in 3-D (stereo vision), a story writer for Walter Lantz, a published cartoonist, a children’s book author/illustrator, a high-wire walker and at one time a bronco buster. Perhaps his problem was that his energies were too spread out trying to do many different things. Had he been more focussed on a single métier, he might have had more success. (Just a guess.) His is in some ways a typical animation biography.

In March and June of 1975, Cartoonist Profiles published a two-part article by animator, Izzy Klein. Klein witnessed Bowers’ work and writes about it in a very affable style.

Cartoonist Profiles magazine stopped publishing in 2005 when editor Jud Hurd died. I’ve decided to post the two parts of this article: Part 1 here, today. Part 2 later this week.

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