Photos &repeated posts 17 Aug 2008 08:29 am
PhotoSunday – Rerun Raggedy Sunday
This is a recap of some photos that are worth viewing again. This was originally posted November 12, 2006.
- Having recently pored over some of the artwork from Raggedy Ann & Andy (the NY contingent of the 1977 feature film), I wondered if I had any photos that I could post. There weren’t many that I could find quickly, but the few I did find are here.
The first two stills were taken for the John Canemaker book, “The Animated Raggedy Ann & Andy.” I think only one of the two appears in the book.
(Click any image to enlarge.)
Obviously, that’s Dick Williams with me looking over his shoulder. Oddly I remember being in this position often during the film. It’s probably the first image I have of the production when I look back on it. Dick and I had a lot of conversations (about the film) with him “going” and me listening.
When I did actually grab time to do some drawing, this is my desk. It sat in a corner of a room – across from Jim Logan and Judy Levitow. There were about ten other assistants in my room, and there were about seven rooms filled with assistants on the floor. I had to spend time going through all of them making sure everybody was happy.
This slightly out of focus picture shows Dick Williams (R) talking with Kevin Petrilak (L) and Tom Sito. That’s Lester Pegues Jr. in the background. Boy were we young then!
These guys were in the “taffy pit,” meaning they spent most of their time assisting Emery Hawkins who animated the bulk of the sequence. Toward the end of the film, lots of other animators got thrown into the nightmarish sequence to try to help finish it. Once Emery’s art finished, I think the heart swoops out of that section of the film.
This photo isn’t from Raggedy Ann & Andy, but it just might have been. That’s the brilliant checker, Judy Price showing me the mechanics that don’t work on a scene on R.O.Blechman‘s Simple Gifts. This is the one-hour PBS special that I supervised after my Raggedy years. However, Judy was a principal on Raggedy Ann, and we spent a lot of time together.
Ida Greenberg was the Supervisor of all of Raggedy Ann’s Ink & Paint and Checking. She and I worked together on quite a few productions. I pulled her onto any films I worked on after Raggedy Ann. She was a dynamo and a good person to have backing you up.
I’m sorry I don’t have a photo of her from that period.
This is one of my favorite photos. Me (L), Jim Logan, Tom Sito (R). Jim was the first assistant hired after me – I’m not sure I was an assistant animator when they hired me, but I was being geared for something. The two of us built the studio up from scratch. We figured out how to get the desks, build the dividers, set up the rooms and order the equipment.
To top it all, Jim kept me laughing for the entire time I was there. I can’t think of too many others I clicked with on an animation production as I did with him. He made me look forward to going into work every day.
We frequently had lunch out, he and I, and I think this is at one of those lunches when Tom joined us. It looks to me like the chinese restaurant next door to the building on 45th Street. Often enough, Jim and I would just go there for a happy hour cocktail before leaving for the night.
I should have realized how important that period was for me and have taken more pictures. Oh well.
on 17 Aug 2008 at 5:39 pm 1.Bill Perkins said …
Hi Mike. Great too see photo’s like this. I got a particular chuckle when i saw the “Ottawa 76″ poster in your office. Just like there are photo’s from the “Golden Age” of animation there are in all likelihood, far fewer of the time from the mid to late seventies when young animators were, for the first time in a very long time, again entering the business. I remember those times with a lot of personal affection. When I first went to Sheridan College (Fall 1974) it was the first time I encountered other persons, of my same age, interested in the same stuff…it was completely intoxicating. Late night film screenings, discussions about the merits of this over that, meeting people who had some knowledge of what had come before.. it was terrific. What I particularly miss was the thrill of discovery. At that time there was still not a lot of material available on animation history (which lagged behind an interest in Live action Film history) and when you did find something, my personal touchstone being John Canemaker’s review of Greg Fords “Hollywood Cartoon” retrospective in a issue of Filmmakers Newsletter, it was like finding the Rosetta Stone. The key to understanding all that had come before. I read and re-read that article I can’t remember how many times and still have it to this day. Other big things were Jay Cock’s article on Chuck Jones in Time magazine, the “Film Comment” issue on the Hollywood Cartoon and of course Funnyworld. The other thing was meeting persons that worked during the Golden Age or later, Like Jim Logan. We were all young, enthusiastic and doing what we wanted to do for a living. it was all and all, quite a time.
Thanks for the post and the trip down memory lane.
on 17 Aug 2008 at 6:22 pm 2.Tom Minton said …
Michael, are you certain that’s Tom Sito in the first color photo? I recognize him in the second but I don’t in the initial one. What about it Tom? Is that blurry guy you?
on 21 Aug 2008 at 1:29 pm 3.Jenny Lerew said …
MY God! Minton–that IS Tom Sito! Wow, babyface!
on 21 Aug 2008 at 1:31 pm 4.Jenny Lerew said …
And Michael–I feel I’ve known you for years based solely on that first Raggedy Ann photo…talk about dogeared-my copy was actually chewn on by a cockatiel about 25 years ago. Good grief.
on 22 Aug 2008 at 1:24 am 5.Eddie Fitzgerald said …
Ditto what Bill and Jenny said. When I got my copy I read it three times from cover to cover because it was the best glimpse into the working of a real animation studio that I’d seen up til that time. Maybe it’s still the best.