Articles on Animation &Bill Peckmann &Layout & Design 04 Mar 2010 09:04 am

Kurtzman on Ses St

- In the old days, before Sesame Street stooped to working with softward developers to get low to free budget animation for their shows, there was an era of dignity on Sesame Corner. Animators were seen as artists and treated that way. Lots of Independent film makers were employed to create design and execute brilliant little animated pieces for the show. They created the hidden gems that made the show glow and helped support the excellent muppetwork of Jim Henson and gang.

The magazine Squa Tront, issue No. 5, features an article about 8 Sesame Street films that were designed and planned by Harvey Kurtzman for Phil Kimmelman and Associates. Thanks to Bill Peckmann, here’s that article.

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(Click any image to enlarge.)

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An image Harvey Kurtzman drew for his Sesame Street film, “Boat”.


His drawing for the Sesame Street film, “Nelly”.

12 Responses to “Kurtzman on Ses St”

  1. on 04 Mar 2010 at 9:39 am 1.Stephen Macquignon said …

    I had Harvey Kurtzman for a teacher at SVA it was a joy to learn from him, thanks for posting some of his artwork

  2. on 04 Mar 2010 at 10:56 am 2.Teodor said …

    Another thanks from me.

    I agree with the first sentence.

  3. on 04 Mar 2010 at 11:16 am 3.Bill said …

    Check out Harvey’s book on Amazon, nine 5 Star reviews say it all. If you haven’t ever seen his early comic book work you are in for a real treat.

  4. on 04 Mar 2010 at 11:17 am 4.richard o'connor said …

    While I don’t like to go on about “how bad things are…”, I can’t think of many television venues today that would produce work by the likes of Kurtzman (pretending that there still is likes of Kurtzman).

  5. on 04 Mar 2010 at 10:10 pm 5.Eric Noble said …

    I would love to see those animations from “Sesame Street”. I love Harvey Kurtzman’s artwork. These are absolutely beautiful. Thank you Michael for posting these.

  6. on 05 Mar 2010 at 12:43 am 6.Elliot Cowan said …

    You’ll find The Boat here.
    I remembered it well having not seen it in 30 odd years.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYXnRVi841g

  7. on 05 Mar 2010 at 9:08 am 7.Tom Carr said …

    Kurtzman’s “Pot-Shot Pete” would have made a fantastic animated TV show, rivaling “Rocky & Bullwinkle” for sheer, off-the-wall craziness.

    But who would have dared to produce or sponsor anything like that on 60′s network television, in the buttoned-down “Mad Men” era?

    As much as I love the Kurtzman-Will Elder Mad and Playboy collborations, Harvey’s solo work is even better. I’ll go as far as to say that he was the greatest pen-and-ink artist, technically, since George Herriman.

    Potrzebie!

  8. on 11 Mar 2010 at 7:15 pm 8.Rooniman said …

    Kurtzman does it again! Thanks for sharing!

  9. on 10 Jul 2013 at 1:24 pm 9.scooby doo where are you said …

    so much wonderful info on here, : D.

  10. on 26 Apr 2014 at 6:28 am 10.Alton Musselman said …

    Pretty! This was an extremely wonderful post. Many thanks for providing this information.|

  11. on 02 Aug 2016 at 11:17 pm 11.An Award-Winning Biography about Harvey Kurtzman Tells the Story of MAD Magazine – Kstati said …

    […] TIME, Look and The New York Times Magazine. He did three award-winning animated mini-films for Sesame Street and became a beloved teacher at the School of Visual Arts in NYC. In 1988, the comics industry […]

  12. on 02 Oct 2017 at 9:58 am 12.Jed Alexander said …

    Thanks for this! This makes me feel so much better about Kurtzman’s post Humbug career. Thank goodness it wasn’t all Little Annie Fanny.

    @Richard O’Connor: unless you’re Canadian. Maybe not for TV, but the actual government subsidizes animation and has for I don’t know how long (which you may or may not already know) but that can’t be more awesome.

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