Friday, February 29, 2008

Jack Kinney - "Motor Mania"


Jack Kinney has made my list of favorite directors. (Thanks for getting me into his work Thad) He seems to be the one at Disney who was best at making cartoons along the rowdy Warner Bros. style. His shorts aren't sweet and sugary like his contemporaries were making at Disney. Just check out "Duck Pimples" "Hockey Homicide" and this great short "Motor Mania". Goofy's just a road raging dick throughout. Also, the backgrounds by Claude Coats are great. I'd love to own one of those.

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Tex's 100th Birthday


Tex Avery is by far my favorite director, no other director's shorts make me laugh like Tex's. I don't think any other director was as influential as he was. Not even Chuck Jones. I won't try and persuade anyone that Tex is the all time greatest. But for me there's no one better. I wanted to do something really special for Tex's centennial but PC troubles kept me from really putting together a great tribute. But I did manage to finish up a clip reel of scenes from his MGM shorts. (Which for me, are the all time greatest cartoons.) I've spent many hours watching these shorts in chronological order and each one gets funnier and funnier. I think one gets sucked into Tex's "world" when viewing them that way. Anyway, Happy Birthday to the greatest cartoon director of all time.


Tex at the drawing board with Fred Quimby

Tex and Fred Quimby

Tex at Schlesinger's. Tex is second from the left, seated next to a rather large Frank Tashlin.

The Termite Terrace Crew

Tex and musical director extraordinaire, Scott Bradley. (Even though Tex didn't think so)





Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Tex Avery - "Red Hot Rangers"

I just noticed the other day that it's been two years (this Wednesday) since I started this blog. It doesn't seem like I've been blogging that long. I originally started this blog to post drawings and clips from a short that I was working on. I was inspired by Wil Branca and Nick Cross' production blogs, but quickly realized that I need to really work on improving my drawing ability and practice animating before I would have been happy with any of the work I was doing. (I'm still working at it) I started posting model sheets from some classic shorts to just post something in between my crap. Thanks to links early on from Thad, John K., Amid, Mark Mayerson, and the Animation Archive blog (thanks guys!!) people actually started reading this blog, or at least looking at the pictures since I say very little. It's been great "meeting" fellow bloggers like Thad, Ryan, David, Benj, Pedro, Greg, Craig D, Kasey and plenty of others. Thanks for all the drawing advice that I've been given and all the historical information that's been tossed around here. Even relatives of Jim Tyer and Robert Gentle have visited, very cool. This whole blogging thing has been much more enjoyable than I thought it would be. Thanks everyone!!

Here, enjoy another one of Tex Avery's MGM classics.

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Thursday, February 07, 2008

Freleng - "Jack-Wabbit And The Beanstalk"


I don't recall if I've bothered to post any Freleng shorts or not but it's certainly not because I don't enjoy them. I do favor his early to mid 40s shorts over his later work, especially his Bugs Bunny shorts like "Fresh Hare", "Little Red Riding Rabbit" and the one I'm posting, "Jack-Wabbit And The Beanstalk". And Friz' "Yankee Doodle Daffy" has always been one of my favorite Daffy shorts.

I love this model sheet of the Giant, though I can't recall who drew it. I forgot that I had scanned it otherwise I would've posted it some time ago.

Wednesday, February 06, 2008

A G-G-G-Ghost ?!?

Here's a great take from the 1952 Casper short "Spunky Skunky". Yes, that's right I said Casper. What can I say, my boys love Casper so we watch the cartoons quite often. And I'm a sucker for most Famous cartoons. Even when it's the same story over and over.




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