Ed Love - "Screwball Squirrel" Pencil Test

Here's Ed Love's pencil test of the phone booth scene from Tex Avery's "Screwball Squirrel". This was filmed for the 1988 documentary "Tex Avery: King of Cartoons". I added the dialog over the pencil test to match the finished scene. Plus a scan of some Ed Love's drawings from the scene. 

 

 

 

Mr. Magoo - Kangaroo Courting Model Sheets

Here are two model sheets from the 1954 Mr. Magoo short, "Kangaroo Courting" by Alexander Ignatiev along with the a clip of the corresponding scenes. I don't know much about Ignatiev, other than he bounced around as an assistant animator, animator and layout artist for Warner Bros., Disney, Lantz, and Hanna-Barbera and studied at the Chouinard Art Institute. 

They'll Flip for Chuck Amuck

Ahead of the 1990 release of Chuck Jones' autobiography, "Chuck Amuck: The Life and Times of an Animated Cartoonist", a promotional flipbook was made with animation of both Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck by Jones himself. I finally took some time and scanned the drawings to create GIFs of each animation.

Spider-Man "67" Title Storyboards

  The 1967 Spider-Man cartoon has always been one of my favorite cartoons. I'm sure it's mostly out of nostalgia. It was obviously done on the cheap. I remember waking up early as a kid just to catch it before heading to school. I guess it went out of syndication in the New York area sometime in the early 80s. Probably around the time the the 1981 "Spider-Man" cartoons aired. Followed by "Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends" soon after. The show's first season was produced by GrantRay-Lawrence Animation, which was founded by MGM animators Grant Simmons (a personal favorite of mine for his work in Tex Avery's unit), Ray Patterson and producer Robert Lawrence. The show may have one of the best themes songs ever written. Here are the storyboards for the opening title sequence. There are only a few changes to the finished version compared to the boards. I don't know who to credit with the storyboards. They were reprinted in James Ballman's "Spider-Man on TV! Book One: The 1967 Cartoon".  Hopefully the accompanying video doesn't get removed. 

"The Mouse On 57th Street" Backgrounds

I was rewacthing Chuck Jones' "The Mouse On 57th Street" recently and was drawn (no pun intended) to the backgrounds. Great use of perspective, particularly for the scenes that focused on the mouse. Lots of upshots emphasizing how big the city is compared to our little drunken mouse friend. Layouts were done by Owen Fitzgerald and Maurice Noble and painted by Phil DeGuard. I assume Fitzgerald mostly did character layout. A few poses throughout the short reminded me of his posing in his Bob Hope comics. Though I have nothing docmenting that as a fact. I find this to be one of the more enjoyable of Jones' later Warner Bros. shorts.

    

Grinch Model Sheet

A quick holiday themed post. Here's a model sheet of the Grinch by Chuck Jones as reprinted in his book "Chuck Reducks-Drawing From The Fun Side Of Life". Happy Holidays to all you cartoon lovers out there.

Daffy Dilly "It's shocking"

One of my favorite things about hand drawn animation is the crazy frames in between key poses or drawings done to create an effect. Things like smears, mulitples and whatever the hell you call what Jim Tyer is doing most of the time. A great example is Daffy getting electrocuted by his own hand buzzer in Chuck Jones' underrated short, "Daffy Dilly". If I recall correctly, the scene was animated by Lloyd Vaughan, or was it Phil Monroe? I'm sure someone with a keener eye can say for sure who drew the scene. Anyway, enjoy those crazy frames.