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.

Dig That Dog

Uploaded by klangley

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.

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.

Holiday For Drumsticks

Uploaded by klangley

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

The Voice Of The Turkey

Uploaded by klangley

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.

Jungle Jive-Shamus Culhane

Uploaded by klangley

Barney Bear - "Heir Bear"

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

Heir Bear - Dick Lundy

Uploaded by klangley

George Lichty - "Grin And Bear It"

Here's some great panels by George Lichty.

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.

Jim Tyer- Sno Fun

Uploaded by klangley

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.

Git Along Lil Duckie

Uploaded by klangley

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/