Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

– Mark Mayerson started it. He posted a well-deserved praise for the dvd collections that have been released by Steve Stanchfield through his Thunderbean Animation.

Steve’s been doing a fabulous job of packaging some great shorts that would certainly be otherwise ignored. His Cubby Bear dvd is outstanding. Harman-Ising did several of these films immediately after leaving the Schlesinger studio, just prior to taking over MGM. Without Steve’s dedication, they’d be all but invisible in the home market.

Mark’s comments focused on the new Little King collection from Thunderbean. Otto Soglow‘s silent comic strip character was nicely adapted to animation via the Van Beuren studio, and the results are well collected here.

I have an interest in the work done at this New York studio that I think is more than just nostalgic. Amadee Van Beuren was one of the founders of the Fables Corporation and ultimately bought out the other investors after already setting up the Van Beuren Corporation in 1928. He rolled Fables Corp into Van Beuren and fired a number of its employess including Paul Terry and Frank Moser (They ended up forming a company that became known as Paul Terry-toons.) Van Beuren was able to get a theatrical release for his shorts via RKO.

The principal product was a series of Tom and Jerry cartoons. Not the cat & mouse but the tall & short guys. These weren’t very successful, so by 1933, there was a series of Amos and Andy cartoons. Adapted from the radio show by Gosden and Correll, the series suffered when the creators couldn’t come up with enough material to keep the shorts in production. The Little King series wasn’t well received, and RKO looked for a way to ramp up Amadee Van Beuren’s decision making. They needed stars.

Burt Gillette originally came from New York, went to work for Disney directing some of their great shorts – including The Three Little Pigs and Flowers and Trees before ending up at Van Beuren directing the studio. Mark Mayerson records a good summary of his career.

A number of other important animation personnel passed through the studio on the way to something bigger. Jack Zander, Joe Barbera, Carl Urbano, Bill Littlejohn, Johnny Gentilella, Izzy Klein, Tom Palmer, Frank Tashlin, Pete Burness, Marty Taras, Dan Gordon and Shamus Culhane all had short stays.

The company had no real star to feature in their shorts. They offered Molly Moo Cow in a couple of amiable but not great films; the Toonerville Trolley travelled in from the comic strips with a couple of successful films; Felix the Cat was reworked and bastardized for a limited couple of shorts. There was also a series set in “Parrotville,” and an odder group of cartoons you’ll be hard pressed to find.

The failed shorts that wholly grabbed my interest, when I was younger, was the start of a series they did featuring characters from Greek and Roman mythology. It never got very far; they did only two of them.

It’s A Greek Life (1936) starred a shoe repairing centaur, two ducks and Mercury who comes to get his winged shoes repaired. Oddly, a film called “The Greek Life” has a group of characters with clichéd Italian accents. The film was directed by Dan Gordon. Winston Sharples was obviously going to move from here to become Paramount’s in-house animation composer.

Here are some frame grabs:

You can watch a podcast of this short on-line at The Animation Station.

Another short, Cupid Always Gets His Man, directed by Gilette and Tom Palmer, features a training depot and way station for Cupids out to get their “Man”. In this case is a caricature of W.C.Fields and Edna Mae Oliver (not as well drawn as the Disney caricatures in Mickey’s Gala Premier also directed by Gillette.)

On DVD they’re part of Cartoons That Time Forgot from Image.

For those of you who enjoy reading the third string movie reviewers of your local newspapers, today’s a good day. Someone had to review Alvin and the Chipmunks.
In New York the NYDaily News had Elizabeth Weitzman:
“‘Chipmunks’ drive us to rodent rage”
the NYTimes had Andy Webster:
“Hollywood continues its tired milking of old television properties with “Alvin and the Chipmunks”
First stringer, Lou Leminick, of the NYPost said:
UPDATED ALVIN A GYP-MUNK
“For adults, it’s like being hit over the head with a mallet every 10 seconds for 90 minutes. Two days later, I still had a headache.”

I’m starting to get overwhelmed with all this information about Popeye flying at me from the internet. The release of the dvd (which I still haven’t seen but will soon) has prompted every animation site to offer the new and unusual in the Popeye canon.

Of course, I’m just a guilty having posted some of Jack Zander’s drawings from a breakfast drink commercial.
Part 1 and Part 2

By the way, thanks to Ken Priebe for locating a copy of a sister commercial (which Jerry Beck posted at Cartoon Brew). The drawings I offered were Jack Zander’s, but I’m pretty sure the Popeye in this other commercial was not animated by him.

I’d thought it was for Tang, but am surprised to learn the spot was for “Start,” a now-defunct competitor. (I guess having the astronauts drink Tang enabled that drink to monopolize the marketplace.) ____________________________________ (Click image to enlarge.)

- I would like to call attention to one young animation site that has a particularly useful bit of Popeye info: Understanding Animation has posted two parts of a three part history of Popeye. It’s quite a dense bit of information he’s written, very detailed. Like many a blog, it could have used an editor to correct some of the grammar. It’s hard to get the gyst of some of the sentences. There’s also a bit too much praise for John K. in a piece about Popeye, but there’s a lot of reading here.
Part 1 is about the comic strip character and Segar’s creation.
Part 2 is about the Fleischer cartoons and the subsequent developments that made Popeye a star.

This is well worth the read. I look forward to Part 3.

– The site that keeps me in awe every time I visit is Hans Bacher‘s beautiful Animated Treasures 1.

Hans recovers stunning backgrounds from animated films and recreates them using photoshop. (Today he offers a demo.) The Background from The Nutcracker Suite, pictured to the left, is a product of Hans’ fine recreation.

However, it isn’t the how it’s the beauty of the artwork featured. Hans seems to favor the watercolor backgrounds of the thirties and forties (Bless him!) rather than the opaque work of the fifties. His taste is impeccable, and his eye is flawless.

I can’t wait to get my hands on his book, Dream Worlds.

Rob Richards has just developed his own similar site, Animation Backgrounds. It’s excellent to see more of the Disney background work, but so far my taste runs toward Hans’ eye for artwork. I guess my preference is for the watercolor backgrounds of Hoppity than the fine work done in Mary Poppins or The Jungle Book. I love having both sites available to me; there’s a lot to be learned from both of them and the artwork they feature.

– Continuing my posting of the animation keys from the Popeye Tang commercial done at Zander’s Animation Parlour back in the early 70′s. Jack Zander cast himself to animate the spot since he hadn’t worked with these characters before. (His studio did the animation for The Man Who Hated Laughter for King Features Syndicate via Hal Seeger Prods. back in 1972, but Jack didn’t animate on it.)

(Click on any image to enlarge.)

On Saturday past, I put up the Popeye portion of this scene. Here are the Olive Oyl drawings. Jack has a bit more fun with her, and his drawings are much more loose.

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– AWN currently has on its site an excellent Joe Strike interview with Jack Zander about his career.

Since the Popeye dvd is ready to hit the market (check out the beautiful frame grabs Jerry Beck has posted on Cartoon Brew), I thought this might be a good time for me to post some of the drawings I have from what is probably the last piece of animation Jack did professtionally.

This is from a Tang commercial done at Zander’s Animation Parlour. Instead of doling out the animation, Jack was intrigued with the idea of animating the character. He hadn’t animated Popeye before. (Note, Zander’s Animation Parlour had co-produced The Man Who Hated Laughter for Hal Seeger and King Feature‘s, but Jack hadn’t animated on that Special. So he gave himself the job. Jim Logan, the assistant on the job, gave me the extremes. Here are some from one of the scenes. I’ll post Olive (also in this scene) at another time.

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(Click any image to enlarge.)

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Do you think the assistant asked for a straight on model of Popeye’s face to do the inbetweens?

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I think Jack might have been a bit out of practice when he did this spot. It looks a bit stiff.

By the way, this drawing is an example of how Jack drew
Popeye, straight on. I’m not sure anyone else used this pose.

- Attached are three drawings of the Esso Tiger (Exxon was called Esso, once upon a time) drawn by Armin Schafer, who animated the spot.

There was a discussion on Mark Mayerson’s blog about Schafer. He’s listed on Alberto Beccatini‘s site, as an animator on Disney’s The Country Cousin (1936), but there was some difficulty locating him, otherwise.

The comments page on Mark Mayerson‘s site reveals quite a bit of speculation about Armin Schafer‘s career, the spelling of his name, and even whether he exists. Finally, Tim Cohea aka Sogturtle answered the question:

. . .he was an assistant animator from AT LEAST Jan. 1938 until he was canned in Fall 1941. As such the REASON why we don’t see his name turning up as animator except on a couple of shorts (including this one) is because he was just an assistant… But that Riley graciously gave him some actual scenes to animate in “Mickey’s Birthday Party”, shortly before Shafer was fired. Armin shows as never being employed at Walt’s after that, which is why he’s not in the 1946 studio phone directory. Later on he turned up at John Sutherland’s as a full animator.

Armin Schafer, it turns out, was an animator for years working at Trans Film, then for Jack Zander at Pelican then Zander’s Animation Parlour. Described as “a big man” by Tissa David, he was very close with a number of NY animators. Tissa told me a story about him and Phil Eastman (P.D.Eastman, Tony Eastman‘s father.)

I’m sure he worked for a short time on Tubby The Tuba done at NYInstitute of Technology in the early 70′s. Johnny Gent (Gentilella) supervised the animation on that film – though he doesn’t get enough credit on it. However, Schafer’s name is not in the credits (nor are many of the people that worked on that bad movie.)

These are Schafer‘s Esso drawings.

(Click on any image to enlarge.)

Anyone with more information on this animator, please feel free to comment.

Additional Note:
There’s an article in today’s NY Daily News about a new series for Nickelodeon co-created by Amy Poehler of Sat Nite Live fame. It seems Nick is generating some publicity about their new shows in production.

About Jack Zander.
It’s amazing how little there is on the internet about him, as well.
I came across an interview in a 2002 copy of the New York Times that I found interesting and thought I’d post here. I couldn’t link to the archives since most people probably don’t subscribe. This is a copy of it.

– Continuing the saga of Vlasic Pickles, the agency approved the stork, Edgar Buchanan and the plan of action.

We’d already finished the first commercial which was on the air. (Represented by the two set-ups posted here. The style was done with acrylic paints – out of a tube – on top of the cel. Ink with Sharpie on cel; paint dark colors – ON TOP of cel – up to and over ink line; after drying paint again with lighter tones, and again. Imagine kids & a gun in a spot today!)

(Click on images to enlarge.)

Phil Duncan did a great job animating it. I inbetweened, and the Agency loved it and approved it to color.

All this time, John and Faith were busy preparing the start of Everybody Rides the Carousel. It was to be three half-hour shows (Eventually CBS changed their mind and asked the shows, still in production, to be reconfigured to make a 90 min film) and was in preproduction. I did the spots on my own with John checking in. Faith wanted nothing to do with a commercial and was somewhat furious that a commercial was ongoing.

Within weeks the spot was in color and two junior exec. agency guys, John and I stood around the Hubley moviola. (It was a great machine with four sound heads and a picture head that was the size of a sheet of animation paper. Pegs were actually attached to enable rotoscoping!)

The two agency guys were buttoned up with good suits and briefcases. They stood behind John and me, and I operated the moviola.
We screened the spot the first time. I turned around and these two guys had come undone. Their ties were loose and astray; they were visibly sweating. I swear this all happened within the course of 30 secs.

John smiled and optimistically asked how they liked it. They looked at each other, and couldn’t answer. I don’t think they were able to form a decision or say what they actually thought. Eventually, they left with the spot in their briefcase and would get back. It wasn’t good.

They did get back. I was asked to pack up all the elements and ship them back to W.B. Doner. The spot was thrown out of the studio by John who refused to change it. (Hubley’s stork.)
He liked what was done, and apparently had a rider in his contract
which covered him – somehow.

The spot showed up at Jack Zander’s studio, Zander’s Animation Parlour. They used the Groucho impersonation and slicked it up a lot. Vlasic is still using that stork, and that was John’s last commercial endeavor.

(Note: Thanks to Mark Mayerson’s comment, yesterday, we know that Pat Harrington was the Groucho impersonator later used for the stork’s voice.)