Fred Brunish

Here's some screenshots of one my favorite background artists, Fred Brunish. He worked at Walter Lantz Studios from 1946 until 1952. He passed away on June 25, 1952 from cirrhosis of the liver at age 49. His bright, colorful paintings for Dick Lundy's cartoons are welcome contrast compared to Shamus Culhane's cartoons. Many of which contain flat colors and even colored paper backgrounds (though I think they make his cartoons look very unique.) In addition to painting great cartoon backgrounds Fred was also a California landscape painter. The last two pics are of a couple of his landscape paintings. I wish I had better quality pics to share, when that Woody set comes out be sure that I'll be doing another post of his great backgrounds.

Baby Huey and Katnip

This ends my streak of consecutive posts featuring Walter Lantz's characters. The Masked Stinker was kind enough to send me some model sheets that I had been looking for and encouraged me to share them so here's a couple of them. I've been trying to absorb the Harveytoons DVD set but with four double-sided discs there's a lot to watch. I'm a big fan of Famous Studio's cartoons, mostly from the late 40's to mid 50's, so this set is a nice treat. Even some of the Modern Madcaps on the set aren't too bad. Thanks again to the Masked Stinker for sharing these.

Drunkards Timed To Music

Here's some clips of drunken cartoon characters timed to music. All four of these Lantz clips were directed by Dick Lundy, one of my absolute favorite directors. I love cartoons that are timed to music but these clips are particularly fun, at least I think they are. I love how they stumble about only to gather themselves or fall or spin right on the beat. I would think this would've been a nice challenge for the animators. One of my goals is to animate an entire short set to music, but I've got a lot of learning and practice to do before I try my hand at that. Oh, be sure to check out Fred Brunish's great backgrounds in the "Pixie Picnic" scene. So bright and cheery. I'm working on picking some screen caps for a Fred Brunish post. Enjoy the clips.

The Bandmaster-Drunkard

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Pixie Picnic-Drunkard

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Musical Moments-Drunkard

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Sliphorn King Of Polaroo-Drunkard

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Andy Panda - Playful Pelican Model Sheet

I found this model sheet from Dick Lundy's short "Playful Pelican" on my hard drive. Honestly, I didn't even remember having this one otherwise I would've posted it with the others. I'm glad I found it, I was just thinking to myself the other day that I wanted to get a hold of one with this particular design. Sorry it's not the highest resolution, this is definetly one I found online somewhere.

The Boogie Woogie Man

Here's another cartoon that I posted that was taken off of Youtube a while back. It's of poor quality but it's the only copy I have. Another great Culhane short.

The Boogie Woogie Man

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Pied Piper of Basin Street

I had originally posted this one back in May but it was taken off of Youtube and I've finally got around to posting it again. Mark Mayerson did a series of posts regarding this great cartoon, including animator identifications. His analysis of this cartoon is well worth reading. I wish I had tons of Lantz stuff to share as I really love their output from the 1940s but I'll keep sharing whatever I can.

Pied Piper of Basin Street
Animation in Pied Piper of Basin Street
More on Pied Piper of Basin Street

Pied Piper of Basin Street

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Woody Woodpecker

I'm keeping the Lantz model sheets going with their biggest star. Here's Woody and the various designs he went through in the 1940's. It's a shame that Universal has no interest in promoting Woody. He's without a doubt one of the greatest cartoon characters created. I remember coming home from school and the first thing I would do would be to flip on the TV and watch Popeye and then Woody, all the way through high school. Woody was one of the biggest cartoon stars of the 40's, how many big bands recorded the "Woody Woodpecker Song"? I've got more versions of it that I care to listen to. The cartoons by directed by Shamus Culhane and Dick Lundy are my personal favorites. Dick Lundy's are particularly pleasing to the eye and some great animators worked on those cartoons. Check out Thad's blog, he's the only person who seems to focus much attention on the cartoons made at Lantz.

Lantz Stars

I probably should have included this pic in the last post.

Walter Lantz Model Sheets

Here are some model sheets from the Lantz studio's cast of characters, I'm assuming these were model sheets used for the comics books.

If I'm not mistaken Miranda Panda only appeared in one cartoon, "Scrap Happy Birthday" where both Andy and Miranda look and act more like Mickey and Minnie thanks to Fred Moore's design. She mainly appeared in the comic books.

Lil' Eightball appeared in only three cartoons in the late 1930's but would also later appear in the comics. I've never had the good fortune of seeing any of the Lil' Eightball cartoons and with a character looking like that it's safe to say they won't be released on DVD. If Woody isn't coming to DVD there's no way in hell this little guy is.

Merry Christmas

"Peace On Earth" directed by Hugh Harman and nominated for both an Academy Award and Nobel Peace Prize.

Peace On Earth-Hugh Harman 1939

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Joe Barbera (1911-2006)

It saddens me to no end to hear that one of my heros, Joe Barbera passed away today. I can't put into words how much I admire his work and career. His MGM cartoons and early Hanna-Barbera shows are among my favorite cartoons ever created. I can only offer sympathies to his family and friends. Rest In Peace. Here's some pics of Joe at work at MGM and Hanna-Barbera studios, and an early Hanna/Barbera directed MGM cartoon "The Goose Goes South".

Huckleberry Hound crew.

Bill and Joe acting out "Two Little Indians" for Fred Quimby.

Acting out "Mouse In Manhattan".

The Goose Goes South

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Charlie Dog

Here's a couple of models of Chuck Jones' Charlie Dog. Bob Clampetts' "Porky's Pooch" laid the foundation for what would later become the premise behind the cartoons. I like the idea of a dog doing whatever he can to impress someone to be his master but Charlie tends to annoy me a little. I like the cartoons but I don't think I could watch them back to back.



Sorry for the lack of posts. I've been working on a project at night with a friend and hopefully we'll have something nice and stupid to show for it soon.

Tex Avery -"Who Killed Who?"

Here's some model sheets and animation drawings from Tex's "Who Killed Who?" Somehow I highly doubt that any cartoons today would be made that revolved around a murder mystery. I think the closest thing to even mentioning murder was in "Stimpy's Fan Club", when Ren was losing it and was ready to take Stimpy out. Though I wish someone would murder those damn Fairy Odd Parents and the Kids Next Door. What shit. One thing I love about this cartoon, besides it being hilarious,is the soundtrack which just features just an organ. Very different from Scott Bradley's normal work, but very fitting. By the way, buy the new Scott Bradley CD. It features liner notes by Daniel Goldmark who also wrote the great book "Tunes for Toons" which I would recommend to any fan of Carl Stalling and Scott Bradley. Sorry for the commercialism, but I just hope those CDs sell well so that maybe they'll release more. Especially the soundtracks from the mid 40's Tom and Jerry cartoons and mostly Iomogene Lynn singing the retooled version of "Oh Johnny Oh Johnny Oh" from Tex's "Swing Shift Cinderella" and "Little Rural Riding Hood". The Andrew Sisters recorded a great version of that song... if anyone finds that interesting. Enough about cartoon music, I'll save that for another post.

Little Lulu

I'm quite fond of Famous Studio's cartoons of the 1940's and early 50's. Though the stories are usually formulatic and the pacing is sometimes too slow, I love the animation, backgrounds and of course Winston Sharples' music. I wonder if he's related to Robert Sharples, who composed some great cues for KPMs music library? Little Lulu is a particular favorite of mine. Here's a model sheet and a public domain goody "Cad and Caddy". I would love to see a better print of this cartoon mainly to get a better look at Robert Connavale's backgrounds, I think they're really great. Myron Waldman was one of the animators in this cartoon. Before he passed away Myron lived not more than ten minutes from me, I could kick myself for not trying to contact him and speak with him first hand about animation and his career.

Little Lulu (1947) Cad and Caddy

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