Fred Brunish

Here's some screenshots of one my favorite background artists, Fred Brunish. He worked at Walter Lantz Studios from 1946 until 1952. He passed away on June 25, 1952 from cirrhosis of the liver at age 49. His bright, colorful paintings for Dick Lundy's cartoons are welcome contrast compared to Shamus Culhane's cartoons. Many of which contain flat colors and even colored paper backgrounds (though I think they make his cartoons look very unique.) In addition to painting great cartoon backgrounds Fred was also a California landscape painter. The last two pics are of a couple of his landscape paintings. I wish I had better quality pics to share, when that Woody set comes out be sure that I'll be doing another post of his great backgrounds.

Baby Huey and Katnip

This ends my streak of consecutive posts featuring Walter Lantz's characters. The Masked Stinker was kind enough to send me some model sheets that I had been looking for and encouraged me to share them so here's a couple of them. I've been trying to absorb the Harveytoons DVD set but with four double-sided discs there's a lot to watch. I'm a big fan of Famous Studio's cartoons, mostly from the late 40's to mid 50's, so this set is a nice treat. Even some of the Modern Madcaps on the set aren't too bad. Thanks again to the Masked Stinker for sharing these.

Drunkards Timed To Music

Here's some clips of drunken cartoon characters timed to music. All four of these Lantz clips were directed by Dick Lundy, one of my absolute favorite directors. I love cartoons that are timed to music but these clips are particularly fun, at least I think they are. I love how they stumble about only to gather themselves or fall or spin right on the beat. I would think this would've been a nice challenge for the animators. One of my goals is to animate an entire short set to music, but I've got a lot of learning and practice to do before I try my hand at that. Oh, be sure to check out Fred Brunish's great backgrounds in the "Pixie Picnic" scene. So bright and cheery. I'm working on picking some screen caps for a Fred Brunish post. Enjoy the clips.

The Bandmaster-Drunkard

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Pixie Picnic-Drunkard

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Musical Moments-Drunkard

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Sliphorn King Of Polaroo-Drunkard

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Andy Panda - Playful Pelican Model Sheet

I found this model sheet from Dick Lundy's short "Playful Pelican" on my hard drive. Honestly, I didn't even remember having this one otherwise I would've posted it with the others. I'm glad I found it, I was just thinking to myself the other day that I wanted to get a hold of one with this particular design. Sorry it's not the highest resolution, this is definetly one I found online somewhere.

The Boogie Woogie Man

Here's another cartoon that I posted that was taken off of Youtube a while back. It's of poor quality but it's the only copy I have. Another great Culhane short.

The Boogie Woogie Man

Uploaded by klangley

Pied Piper of Basin Street

I had originally posted this one back in May but it was taken off of Youtube and I've finally got around to posting it again. Mark Mayerson did a series of posts regarding this great cartoon, including animator identifications. His analysis of this cartoon is well worth reading. I wish I had tons of Lantz stuff to share as I really love their output from the 1940s but I'll keep sharing whatever I can.

Pied Piper of Basin Street
Animation in Pied Piper of Basin Street
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Pied Piper of Basin Street

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Woody Woodpecker

I'm keeping the Lantz model sheets going with their biggest star. Here's Woody and the various designs he went through in the 1940's. It's a shame that Universal has no interest in promoting Woody. He's without a doubt one of the greatest cartoon characters created. I remember coming home from school and the first thing I would do would be to flip on the TV and watch Popeye and then Woody, all the way through high school. Woody was one of the biggest cartoon stars of the 40's, how many big bands recorded the "Woody Woodpecker Song"? I've got more versions of it that I care to listen to. The cartoons by directed by Shamus Culhane and Dick Lundy are my personal favorites. Dick Lundy's are particularly pleasing to the eye and some great animators worked on those cartoons. Check out Thad's blog, he's the only person who seems to focus much attention on the cartoons made at Lantz.

Lantz Stars

I probably should have included this pic in the last post.