Friday, December 28, 2007

Bob McKimson - "One Meat Brawl"


Here's the only appearance of Grover Groundhog voiced by Stan Freberg. I've been watching McKimson shorts a lot lately and having just received the new Looney Tunes set as a gift, I was pleasantly surprised by the short McKimson feature on it.


Monday, December 24, 2007

Merry Christmas


Here's a little Christmas gift for everyone, Tex Avery's "One Ham's Family". I can't recall the last time I saw this one on TV, even when they actually showed classics, so hopefully it's a nice treat for those who haven't seen it in a long time. Sorry the quality isn't that great. I had a bitch of a time encoding if for some reason. The Tom and Jerry pic is from an old cover of Rexall magazine. Happy Holidays!



Sunday, December 23, 2007

David Hand - "Ginger Nutt's Christmas Circus"


I'm quite fond of David Hand's Animaland series. While the characters and stories may not be very imaginative, I think they're technically wonderful cartoons. The backgrounds and animation alone make them worth watching, great music score too.

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Art Davis - "Odor Of The Day"


This is one of the very few Pepe Le Pew cartoons that I enjoy. Of course he's only really Pepe in that he's a skunk and stinky. Other than that he doesn't exhibit any of Pepe's personality traits. Thank god he's not trying to get laid in this one. That would've made for a pretty creepy cartoon. Oh, like Davis' other shorts there's some pretty cool camera angles and some of the gags are really well timed. Well, I think they are. Sorry for the lack of posts lately, for those who care, it's quite hectic around here during the holidays. So much to do. I'll be sure to post some Christmas themed cartoons over the next week.

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Bob Clampett - "Horton Hatches TheEgg"

I love Bob Clampett's take on Dr. Suess' "Horton Hatches The Egg". He stays faithful to the original story and only adds to it whether through song (The Hut-Sut Song) or just funny gags.



Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Tex Avery - "Bad Luck Blackie"

It's been a while since I posted anything from Tex Avery so here's "Bad Luck Blackie" and some model sheets to go along with it. So many great gags in this one. And who doesn't love the dog's laugh? Enjoy.



Tuesday, November 27, 2007

A Foolish Fable - "Dig That Dog"

I'm not terribly fond of a lot of the cartoons made by Lantz when he reopened the studio in 1950. I guess 1956 is probably my cut off point. Anything after that is of little interest to me. This cartoon was made in 1954, shortly before the arrival of Tex Avery and was written and directed by two of Tex's former co-workers at MGM, Ray Patterson and Grant Simmons. Some of the expressions and incidental character designs are very reminiscent of MGM characters. "Dig That Dog" was produced by Patterson and Simmons own studio Grantray-Lawrence for Lantz.

Saturday, November 24, 2007

Preston Blair Swipes

I was reading a Speedy Rabbit comic, in fact it's the only issue of Speedy Rabbit and I noticed that the characters and some of the poses looked really familiar. It wasn't 'til I came to the Rudolf The Pup page that I realized that everything was swiped from Preston Blair's Animation 1 book. Which I thought was strange as the issue was drawn by Ben Brown, who if I'm not mistaken, drew the Richie Rich comics. Anyway, I thought it was amusing since I've spent so much time practicing from that book and that so many of the drawings in it pop up as small business logos or mascots for school teams. Here's some scans from the issue with the corresponding drawings from Blair's book.

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Art Davis - "Holiday For Drumsticks"


Happy Thanksgiving all! I hope everyone enjoys the holiday. Let's all give thanks to Art Davis and company for making this great Daffy cartoon, "Holiday For Drumsticks". Is Phil DeGuard not one of the greatest background painters ever? I love his paintings on Davis' shorts.


Monday, November 19, 2007

Famous Studios - "The Voice Of The Turkey"


Here's a Thanksgiving themed cartoon, the 1950 short "The Voice Of The Turkey". I really love Famous Studios cartoons. I know a large percentage of them rely heavily on the same story formulas for each character but I've always loved the animation, the backgrounds, music and voice acting. The backgrounds in this short are really great and were painted by Tom Ford, one of my favorites from any studio.

Tom Ford's backgrounds


Monday, November 12, 2007

Shamus Culhane - "Jungle Jive"


Here's a clip from "Jungle Jive", directed by Shamus Culhane. I'm very fond of the Lantz Swing Symphonies series even though they're not loaded with a ton of gags. I particularly love the ones that Culhane made with Art Heinemann as his layout/color stylist. The simplified, flat colored backgrounds are unlike what was being done in most other cartoons at the time.

Friday, November 09, 2007

Barney Bear - "Heir Bear"


Another fine Dick Lundy short with the usual great animation by Grant Simmons, Michael Lah and Walter Clinton.

Wednesday, November 07, 2007

George Lichty - "Grin And Bear It"

Here's some great panels by George Lichty.

Tuesday, November 06, 2007

Jim Tyer - "Sno Fun"

I haven't had much time to put together a post this weekend so here's a clip of Jim Tyer's scenes from the Heckle and Jeckle short "Sno Fun" to hold you over. His inventiveness never ceases to amaze me.

Friday, November 02, 2007

Baby Huey - "Git Along Lil' Duckie"


I mentioned in the Three Bears post my love for overgrown cartoon morons. Well, here's a cartoon of another of my favorites, Baby Huey. Marty Taras animates the beginning scene of Huey and his mother, ain't he great? Plus there's some great backgrounds by Robert Connavale.

New Animation ID URL

Just in case anyone is having trouble finding Thad's Animation ID blog, he changed the URL.

http://thad-k.blogspot.com/

Monday, October 29, 2007

Chuck Jones - "Bear For Punishment"

This may well be one of the funniest Chuck Jones cartoons ever. Big overgrown morons like Junyer, Baby Huey and Tex Avery's "Lenny types" always crack me up. Junior steals the show, but Mama Bear's dance routine is pretty great too. I believe Ken Harris animated that scene. I posted this model sheet before but I don't think I mentioned that it was drawn by the super awesome Art Heinemann.


Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Another Clampett Goody

Here's a cool clip from an idea Clampett had to merge live-action and animation.

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Clampett Goodies

Here's a couple of extras from the Beany and Cecil DVD. I'm surprised how much it goes for now, I've seen it for upwards of 100 bucks. Glad I picked it up when I saw it for $10 when it came out. Here's some stop motion animation from 1938 and Bob's test footage for his proposed John Carter Of Mars theatricals.



Monday, October 22, 2007

Bob McKimson - "A Ham In A Role"


I love McKimson's late 40s and early 50s shorts, they're always good for beatings. The dog in this cartoon really cracks me up especially in Emery Hawkin's scenes.