Betty Boop

I was cleaning up my hard drive and came across these two Betty Boop model sheets so I figured I'd share them. I think I found these originally on the Drawing Board's Model Sheets thread some time ago. Fleischer's Betty Boop and Popeye cartoons are some of the best and most entertaining cartoons ever. If haven't already, check out the link on the sidebar to the Fleischer Popeye Tribute page. It's a great site. I've also uploaded Betty Boop and Grampy in A Song A Day. I love Grampy, he's always up for a song, and finding new ways to play music.

All The Cats Join In

I love cartoons and I love jazz so naturally I get all goofy when their brought together. Here's some screen grabs from All The Cats Join In, which was part of Disney's Make Mine Music. I love every aspect of this cartoon from the dance scenes to the draw as needed backgrounds, the music and of course Fred Moore! I have a very brief dance scene in my own Goober cartoon that I've been working on here and there and I've come to realize how hard animating a character dancing is, at least for me it is. Just look at these drawings from this cartoon, everyone of them is great.

Fred Moore's scene of the girl on the phone is fantastic, just look.

Bob Clampett's Tokyo Woes

Here's a cartoon made around 1945 by Bob Clampett for the U.S. Navy. It's star Mr.Hook who was created by Hank Ketcham while at Lantz studios. This cartoon is included on the Cartoon For Victory DVD. Pick it up if you can, there's some Private SNAFU on there including Clampett's Booby Traps. John K. provides commentary on 4 cartoons. I've never heard anyone talk so enthusiastically about cartoons as him, especially when it's a Clampett cartoon. It's a lot of fun to listen to, he's sounds like he's gonna jump out of his seat. Here's some screen grabs of a scene animated by Manny Gould, according to John on the commentary. I love the broad gestures, there's always a limb or two flailing about. These drawings are hilarious.

A Hare Breadth Finish

Here's a Terrytoon from 1955, A Hare Breadth Finish. It's based on the old tortoise and the hare story. I believe this cartoon was made while Gene Deitch was heading up Terrytoons studios. There's some great stories of his time at Terrytoons here. Stories of how cheap Paul Terry was when he owned the studio. Here's a quote from article


What kind of a guy was he, to have such a low standard of work, and such low regard for the people who worked for him? The animators told me that in the early days he used to go around the studio, from animator to animator, carrying a ruler. He would measure each animator's stack of drawings, and when the pile was high enough, he'd say, "That's enough, put a The End sign on it!"

I don't know much about this cartoon and who worked on it other than I saw some Jim Tyer animation here and there and that Connie Rasinski directed it. Rasinski directed a lot Heckle and Jeckle, Mighty Mouse and later Deputy Dawg.




Gene Deitch's How To Succed In Animation can be found at http://genedeitch.awn.com/index.php3

5/23/06-Thanks to Mark Mayerson for pointing out that the copyright date for this cartoon is 1955, which was before Gene Deitch's time at Terrytoons. Either way check out How to Succeed In Animation it' a good read.

More Dick Lundy

I've been going back lately and watching more Dick Lundy cartoons and he's fast becoming one of my favorite directors. The pace of his cartoons at MGM is much slower than Tom and Jerry and Tex Avery but he seems to still load up on the gags. Plus, he had some great animators working for him, Michael Lah and Walt Clinton from Tex' unit. Coincidentally, Mark Mayerson has posted a letter from Dick Lundy on his blog that he used for a history of MGM cartoons article he wrote. Check it out here. Here's two of my favorite Dick Lundy cartoons, Woody Woodpecker in Drooler's Delight and Barney Bear in Sleepy Time Squirrel.

Character Sketches

Just a couple of rough character sketches for an idea I have. I'm still working on the character designs though. I like the girl's big round forehead.

More Tex Avery At Lantz Studios

Here's another of Tex' cartoons from his time at Walter Lantz' studio. 1955's The Legend Of Rockabye Point. This cartoon is pretty much a combination of two of his MGM shorts, Rock-a-bye Bear and Deputy Droopy. Also, here's a scan of some story sketches by Tex from Rockabye Point.

Homesteader Droopy

Homesteader Droopy was released in 1954 and like everything else I post about it was directed by Tex Avery. The Wolf steals the show once again, this time with great dialogue. There's definetly some funny gags but everything out of the Wolf's mouth gets me rollin'. I dug up a model sheet that I had on my hard drive, I don't remember where I found it. Maybe Cartoon Network's site, they used to have a bunch of model sheets there but they were all low resolution pics. Anyway here's another one of my favorites.

Homesteader Droopy

Uploaded by klangley