MGM Backgrounds

Here's some backgrounds from one of my favorite Tex Avery cartoons, Red Hot Riding Hood and one of the most charming Tom and Jerry shorts, Mouse In Manhattan. Johnny Johnson painted the Red Hot Riding Hood backgrounds. I'm not sure if he did the Mouse In Manhattan ones though. I can't find background credits for it, not online or in any books. Anybody know? Either way they are beautiful. The paintings of Manhattan are great, especially the one with the skyline.

Sketches

Here's some sketches I did from Preston Blair's Animation that was posted on the Animation Archive blog. I'm going to back and start from just pages 1 and 2 though. Solid construction is a definite weakness of mine, so I gotta put in more time practicing. It'll only help to improve my own cartoon, which if I remember correctly was the reason I started this blog. Though I am enjoying sharing cartoons and art just as much, if not more. I've hit a wall working on a quick scene. I have a couple of ways I want to do it and can't decide. I find if I just think about what I want to do for awhile it's easier to actually draw it.

Golfing Cartoons

I realized that after posting Heckle and Jeckle in Goony Golfers that I have a couple of more cartoons that take place on the Golfcourse. Tom and Jerry in Tee For Two, one of my all time favorites. I love Irv Spence's scene when Tom tries to drive while standing between two tree branches. And Woody Woodpecker in Woodpecker In The Rough. If you haven't seen Goony Golfer's check it out here. It's one of Heckle and Jeckle's funniest. If Golf were as fun as these cartoons maybe I'd give it a shot.

Tee For Two

Woodpecker In The Rough

Preston Blair's Animation 1st Edition

Recently, Stephen Worth posted the 1st edition of Preston Blair's animation book on the Animation Archive Project Blog. This first edition uses MGM characters as opposed to the generic characters used in later printings. After sketching from it I noticed some of the drawings are directly lifted from different MGM model sheets. So I figured I'd post the pages of the book that contain drawings lifted from the model sheet and the actual model sheet with the same drawing.

Page 14 has drawings from 3 different model sheets.

Page 15 contains drawings from the model sheets for "Screwy Truant" and "Hick Chick".

Page 19 has drawings from this Jerry model sheet.

Page 12 is very similar to this model sheet from Tom and Jerry.

The Wolf's take is from this "Swing Shift Cinderella" model sheet.

Marc Deckter compares the original printing with his own copy on his blog Duck Walk. Over at the Inspiration Grab-Bag, Clark Snyde posted screen grabs from the cartoons that Preston Blair animated which were used as examples in the book.

Terrytoons Two-fer Tuesday!!

Here's a couple of Terrytoons, starting with Mighty Mouse in Mother Goose's Birthday Party. There's a couple of great Jim Tyer scenes in this one. The second is a Gandy Goose short, 1942's Night Life In The Army. This is the only Gandy short I can find, though I'm pretty sure I have a few more on a disc somewhere. I had to re-encode it to get the file size down so the quality is even worse than my original. Unfortunately I don't have any original Terrytoons art to accompany these cartoons. But I did have a couple of small model sheets hiding on my hard drive.

Bill Wray's King Crab

Bill Wray is one of my favorite artists. I love his background paintings in Ren and Stimpy, Samurai Jack and the many comic book covers he's done. Please do yourself a favor if you haven't already and check out his site bigblownbaby.com. If you haven't read his comics of the same name track them down. They're hilarious. There's also a Hellboy Jr. trade out which is really funny. There's a Baby Huey spoof called "Huge Retarded Duck" that's sick and twisted. He has to be one the finest inkers I've ever seen. His dry brush technique is incredible. Enough ass kissing, let me get to this cartoon. This aired on Cartoon Network's What A Cartoon Show in 1999. I read in an interview that King Crab was to originally be a part of Cartoon Network's night time adult programming, what would later end up being Adult Swim. But the idea of an expensive original show scared them off. It's a shame, I really think this show had the potential to be a big hit. I believe that Bill has had the rights to the character returned to him fairly recently so maybe there's a chance he'll sell it to a different network. Bill also has a blog where he posts his beautiful landscape paintings, check it out here. There's a fantastic interview with art and a painting lesson in Mike Manley's DRAW! magazine, issue 6. Pick it up if you can. Stephen DeStefano, who also worked on Ren and Stimpy and King Crab with him is also interviewed.

Drag-a-long Droopy

Here's a true Tex Avery classic, Drag-a-long Droopy. I love how Droopy is the "star" in so many of Tex' cartoons yet most of the time it wouldn't matter if he was even in it. For instance, in this one he's lying down reading a comic book while his gun's do the shooting all by themselves. I'm pretty sure that Frank Graham is still voicing the Wolf, in any case what a performance. From "whadda y'all mean bah bah bah" to "SHOOT 'IM DOWN, SHOOT 'IM DOWN" he's brilliant. One of my favorite voice actors. Tex has to be one of the best comedic film makers ever, regardless of whether it's animation or live action. I can't think of anyone who can cram more gags, good ones no less, into a film than him. Anywho, here's a couple of layouts from the picture too and thanks to everyone for the nice comments. Hopefully I won't run out of stuff to post for some time.





On an somewhat related note. I picked up this Tex Avery Soundtrack some time ago. It's a French import I believe. For the most part it's like listening to the entire short with sound effects and dialogue. Except there are a couple of songs that are missing dialogue and certain effects that can be heard in the actual short, like Drag-a-long Droopy. Anyone happen to know more about this CD or even the actual recording process used by MGM at the time? I'm very curious. I would kill to get my hands on some of Scott Bradley's music without the effects and dialogue. I don't think MGM's cartoons would have been so great without his contributions. Here's the cover.

Barney Bear

Here's a Barney Bear cartoon I uploaded titled Cobs and Robbers, released in 1953 and directed by Dick Lundy. I enjoy his Barney Bear cartoons the most, though Preston Blair and Michael Lah's are quite good also. Dick Lundy directed a lot of cartoons for Walter Lantz including my favorite Woody Woodpecker cartoon, Drooler's Delight. I'd like to thank Amid at Cartoon Brew for the plugs. The cartoons I've posted for the most part aren't available on DVD and unfortunately it seems likely they'll stay that way for some time. A lot more people watched them through Cartoon Brew than here so it makes sharing them worthwhile.

Layout Drawing

Here's another layout drawing from the scene I've been trying to complete. I haven't had much time to animate so I've tried to work on things that aren't as time consuming.

Robert Gentle and Art Lozzi

I'm a sucker for cartoon backgrounds. Johnny Johnson's work at MGM are some of the best along with Bill Wray's and Scott Wills' work on Ren and Stimpy and Samuai Jack. I'll address them in a different post. These screen shots are of backgrounds by my favorite Hanna Barbera painters Robert Gentle and Art Lozzi. I love early Hanna Barbera, the characters were great but the stories weren't that funny and the animation... well, it's limited that's for sure. But those backgrounds were always a favorite aspect of those shorts.

Robert Gentle

Art Lozzi

Goober Sketch

Here's a sketch of Goober drawn "rubber hose" style. Animator Marc Deckter posted some great screen shots of rubber hose animation on his blog Duck Walk.