Animation Artifacts &Bill Peckmann &Chuck Jones &Models 27 Jan 2010 09:47 am
Assorted Models
- As I’ve said in the past, I just love model sheets. And here are a stash of them on loan from Bill Peckmann‘s collection. Some good, some not-so-good, and some great.
Let’s start off with something great.
Bert and Harry Piels in a photostat
from the UPA studio.
Here’s a head model for the Piels brothers
drawn in red colerase on animation bond.
Here’s a B&W fading photostat of an announcement
for the Gerald McBoing Boing Show direct from UPA.
The following are some models from Chuck Jones’ not-so-good tv film
A Connecticut Rabbit in King Arthur’s Court.
Bugs
Daffy
Elmer
Yosemite Sam
Here’s a HAPPY NEW YEAR card from 1978.
Finally the bottom of the barrel of a couple of models
from Chuck Jones’ RAGGEDY ANN & ANDY in
The Great Christmas Caper.
The characters never looked worse.
In his later years, Chuck reworked the WB characters into something
godawful, and here he takes Raggedy Ann and Andy way over that
cute/corny/ugly line. Too bad he didn’t pull Corny Cole into it.
on 27 Jan 2010 at 11:08 am 1.richard o'connor said …
Ann has that Grinch smile.
on 27 Jan 2010 at 12:36 pm 2.Ray Kosarin said …
It’s really sad—and maybe one of those elephant-in-the-living-room truths—how shoddily, in his TV work, Chuck Jones handled the same WB characters he’d directed so brilliantly at Warner.
Whether it’s having to write the films without Michael Maltese, or working with younger animators who, without the chops and familiar working relationship of Ken Harris or Ben Washam, were stuck mimicking his later, and weaker, drawings, these shows simply didn’t have the same grip on what made his WB shorts so funny and good.
The characters mug the camera with the same befuddled expressions that made sense—and were hilarious—in cartoons he made 25 years earlier, but it’s as if CJ, like his many imitators, had slipped into aping his own work, without quite knowing any more what made it so good.
on 27 Jan 2010 at 12:43 pm 3.Mark Mayerson said …
Any clue who drew the Piels model sheets?
on 27 Jan 2010 at 1:49 pm 4.David Nethery said …
Those Piels brothers model sheets are wonderful . Thanks for posting .
I love Chuck Jones’s work at Schlesinger/Warner’s , but I remain completely flabbergasted at the direction he took those characters in his later years.
With those Raggedy Ann tv specials they should have just used the Tissa David model sheets of Ann and Andy; no reason to redesign them. I think the two Raggedy Ann specials that Jones directed were from 1978 and 1979, so just a year after the Raggedy Ann feature film had been in theaters.
If Bobbs-Merrill was trying to keep the characters alive in the public eye it probably would have been better to use consistent model sheets. I guess Jones felt he had to put his stamp on them.
on 27 Jan 2010 at 3:27 pm 5.Paul Spector said …
I’m pretty sure the Piels ads were intiated at Young and Rubican by a young-ish Ed Graham, later to produce the Linus The Lionhearted Show toward the mid-sixties.
on 27 Jan 2010 at 3:42 pm 6.Pilsner Panther said …
It should be mentioned that Bert and Harry Piel were voiced by one of the greatest of all radio comedy teams, Bob & Ray. Even they couldn’t help the brewery stay in business, though. In fact, this Wikipedia article suggests that their commercials may have contributed to its demise:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piels_Beer
The brand has been brought back, though only in limited marketing areas. Also, Piels was “the first beer in space,” a fact that itself sounds like an absurdist Bob & Ray gag!
on 27 Jan 2010 at 6:16 pm 7.Tim Hodge said …
I have a cel of Porky from “Connecticut Rabbit”. Interestingly enough, he has four fingers and a thumb in this particular drawing, rather than the usual three. Quality control was definitely slipping. Or at least attention to detail was.
on 30 Jan 2010 at 10:18 pm 8.Jenny said …
I have no idea how many “younger animators” lacking chops Chuck Jones worked with in the period these Raggedy Ann drawings were done-personally I’d guess zero-but even if there were any it’s Chuck’s idiosyncratic drawing issues are self-evident-no assistants or followup people green or otherwise could have helped or hindered. For such a brilliant artist to have also done these was strange to see at the time. Thankfully now he can (and will) be remembered for his best work, but the fact that he ever saw his way to doing these sorts of things this way-the Tom & Jerrys and especially the very strange latter-day WB characters-is just…weird and inexplicable.
on 30 Apr 2010 at 12:27 am 9.Trevor Young said …
To be honest, Chuck Jones’s designs on Raggedy Ann and Andy are way better than the original designs from other animated medias. If only both of Chuck Jones’ holiday specials featuring these two lovable characters return to DVD. They don’t make these in VHS anymore. Won’t someone get them on DVD somehow?