"What's New" Archives: May 2013
May 17, 2013:
May 8, 2013:
It's Bob Clampett's 100th Birthday...
May 17, 2013:
Roundup
Animation by Milt Gray: There has been animation on this website by Milt Gray, my invaluable collaborator on Hollywood Cartoons: American Animation in Its Golden Age and a veteran of more than four decades in the Hollywood animation studios, from the beginning. That's his cycle animation of a cartoon dog amid the links in the right-hand column. There is even animation by Milt in Hollywood Cartoons, in the form of several "flip books." Now Milt has posted a minute of animation of a very different kind on his site devoted to his character Viagri Ampleten. Milt says: "It's far from perfect, mainly due to not having a way to pencil test it. But it's about 90% of what I was hoping for." Milt is a tough critic. One may find Viagri herself either sexy or terrifying—I lean toward the latter view, especially after watching "Cyber Cafe"—but you'll certainly have to look very hard to find new animation this accomplished anywhere else on the Web.
Identifying Visitors to the Third Man Set: Last February, I posted an essay made up of photos taken by Werner Schrämli during the shooting of the wonderful live-action Disney feature Third Man on the Mountain in Zermatt, Switzerland. Both Werner and I were uncertain of the identities of some of the people in the photos, but now Michael Kirby has come to the rescue. I've added his identifications and some additional information on that essay page; you can go directly to the caption with the new information by clicking on this link.
Identifying a Mystery Man: Back in October 2008, I published a publicity photo for The Reluctant Dragon in which three members of the Disney staff were seated behind Walt and Robert Benchley in what was supposed to be, but wasn't, a screening room at the studio. I recognized Ted Sears instantly, and Pete Emslie identified Larry Clemmons as the man on the left. The third man remained unidentified, but in February 2009 Gunnar Andreassen offered the very plausible suggestion that he could be Al Perkins, one of the five writers on the film. Now Gunnar has provided another such publicity photo, this time with four Disney writers visible, and, thanks to Gunnar, positive identifications for all of them: from the left, Clemmons, Sears, Perkins, and Bill Cottrell. (Benchley is holding a maquette of one of the centaurettes in Fantasia.)
Al Perkins visited Norway in 1972, and Gunnar has sent me a scan of a newspaper interview with him. The Al Perkins in the photo accompanying the interview is clearly the same man as in the Reluctant Dragon photo. Perkins was by 1972 not working in animation but was instead an author of children's books. He was an alumnus of Dartmouth College, where he was a classmate of Theodor Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, and it was through Geisel that he entered the children's field, writing for Beginner Books. A half dozen of Perkins's books, obviously intended for very young children, are still in print and will come up if you search amazon.com for "Al Perkins." He had some impressive collaborators, including Rowland B. Wilson and Eric Gurney.
And Speaking of Children's Books: I mentioned some time ago that I once tried my hand at writing such a book, an animal fable modeled on the "Freddy" stories of Walter R. Brooks. The characters were cats, the title Furr and Purr. The book found no takers, and I consigned it to the proverbial drawer. Last year, when I learned that I could offer a self-published Kindle version on amazon.com at no cost, I thought, what the hell, and did it. An electronic version of Furr and Purr can be yours for 99 cents, or for nothing, if you're an Amazon Prime subscriber. So, if you're curious and have 99 cents to spare, here's the link. But no refunds!
May 8, 2013:
It's Bob Clampett's 100th Birthday...
...and how strange it feels to write that! I met Bob in 1969, when he had just turned 56 and so was considerably younger than I am now. He died on May 2, 1984, just before he turned 71; again, younger than I am now. But what makes it really hard to embrace the idea of a Clampett centennial is that he is still such a compelling presence in my memories. Almost thirty years after his death, I have only to think of Bob Clampett and he appears instantly in my imagination—not just as an image, but as a deep, chuckling voice, as sly and quizzical facial expressions, as a whole person. I remember with unusual clarity how he looked when I first saw him, sitting behind his desk at his Seward Street studio in Hollywood, and I remember all too well how I felt when my friend Larry Estes called to tell me that Bob had died.
I think Bob made such a strong impression on me because he was in the best sense a character—not a character in the funny-peculiar sense, as in "he's a real character," but a character like the ones he brought to life on the screen. That is, a personality that was vivid and distinct, unlike the personalities of most of the people we encounter. He was great fun to be around, much more so than most his contemporaries at the Warner Bros. cartoon studio, although I don't recall ever feeling truly relaxed in his company. He was too bright a light for that.
Bob enriched my life through his presence as well as his cartoons. It was a great privilege to have known him.
From Thad Komorowski: Thank you so much for the heartfelt Bob Clampett post. What a joy it must have been to know and talk with him on a regular basis. Is there an animation figure today who comes close to his level of knowledge and generosity to students of animation history? Mark Kausler for sure, but I can't name any others.
[Posted May 8, 2013]
From Reg Hartt: I first met Bob and Sody Clampett when they appeared at Sheridan College in Oakville. I was so taken by his warmth and genuine interest in everyone he met (you can't fake that) that I decided that moment that if I were ever to bring anyone up to Toronto from Hollywood Bob would be the first.
In the fall of 1978 I started a program at Innis College in Toronto that ran from 12 pm to 12 am and pulled just 12 people. My first thought was not, "How do I get more people out," but, "I have to do something new to get through this year." One of the 12 was John Kricfalusi who came by to tell me Sheridan College refused to allow him to continue as, in his teacher's opinion he had no talent and was a bad influence.
I had met his teachers through the programs John and I did there. They were all sticks in the mud.
John gave me Bob Clampett's phone number and told me Clampett had said he could have a room in the space over Clampett's garage (which, for some reason, John now denies).
When I got home I called Bob, got his answering machine and invited him to Toronto. The next morning Bob returned my call saying he would be glad to come.
Bob was and remains a real inspiration to me (as is everyone in his family) because, first and foremost, they are extremely decent people.
I spent five years listening to the tapes of the talks Bob gave in Toronto as I transcribed them for publication. My only regret is that I was not able to have Bob video as well as audio recorded.
My deep appreciation for his work is grounded in your Funnyworld interview which was and remains a real inspiration to me.
Bob was generous in every way a person can be generous. It pains me when I encounter people who never met the man and who parrot the damned anti-Clampett claptrap that persists to this day.
It is fortunate that Larry Jackson was not able to employ the ideas he wanted to employ in the creation of Bugs Bunny Superstar. In the first place they were awful. And in the second, I don't think he really understood what an invaluable resource he had in Clampett.
"An art form requires genius. People of genius are always troublemakers, meaning they start from scratch, demolish accepted norms and rebuild a new world. The problem with cinema today is the dearth of troublemakers. There’s not a rabble-rouser in sight. There was still one, but he went beyond troublemaker to court jester. He clobbered the status quo. That’s Godard. We’re fresh out of “bad students.” You’ll find students masquerading as bad ones, but you won’t find the real article, because a genuine bad student upends everything.”—Henri Langlois.
Bob Clampett, Tex Avery, and Chuck Jones embody Langlois' quote. They were geniuses.
God, I wish people who want to make movies (animated or otherwise) would just stay the Hell out of film school, start from scratch, demolish accepted norms and rebuild a new world.
My programs have always been first and foremost about sharing with others what I am learning.
After Bob's passing I was asked to host an animation program at a local university. I wanted to get Shamus Culhane and Zack Schwartz together for one last hurrah before they moved on so I said to the people who had asked me, "How would you like to have somebody up here who actually worked on these films?" "Who can you get?" they asked. "Shamus Culhane," I replied, telling them what he had done. "Who else can you get?" "Bob Clampett's widow, Sody and, maybe, Friz Freleng," I said.
Friz's health was bad so he was not traveling but Sody and her daughter Ruth came up. We had a grand time turning new people on to Bob's genius. I got to meet Ruth. Thanks for remembering Bob. The entire Clampett family is one of a wonderful kind.
[Posted May 10, 2013]
From Jim Korkis: Thank you so much for your short piece about Bob Clampett and I find myself in complete agreement. I never truly felt relaxed around Bob either (and not in a bad way) and I think it was because he was so high energy, constantly thinking and completely focused on the person he was talking with at the time that you felt you had to be on your toes to keep up.
I, too, liked Bob and the first thing I remember about him is not his many animation triumphs but how kind and gracious he was. In my discussions with him, he really never said a bad word about anyone else. He was very generous with his time and knowledge and he demonstrated several times that he was sincerely interested in me and my life and I was nobody. I saw him treat others the same way. He was always eager to help.
When I met him, he was much older than I was at the time and like you, I am now older than he was when I met him....but I never thought of him as an "age." Like many of the animators I met in those years, it seemed like he would never grow old. I saw in person that Ward Kimball was still flirtatious with cute twenty-year-old girls who were mesmerized by him a few short years before his passing and that given the opportunity, he could probably direct circles around the newest generation.
Bob was like that as well, filled with ideas and skills but no reasonable outlet. Some of these guys just seemed to defy being "old" and despite the years, still had an energy that you could literally feel.
I also feel sad that so many future animation fans will only "see" Bob through some of the anti-Clampett material out there.
Anyway, thanks for the reminder that Bob would have been 100. In the old days, there would have been tributes in magazines and film festivals but it is a much, much different world today and I doubt many animation lovers even know much if anything about Bob.
[Posted May 13, 2013]
From Kevin Hogan: I, of course, never met Bob, but I feel like I did. Few people, it seems, have enough outward complexity and individuality to remain as interesting as Bob. In animation, only Walt, Bob, Chuck, and (gulp) Bakshi are colorful enough to be truly interesting outside of their films.
[Posted May 14, 2013]
From Roberto Severino: You and Jenny Lerew have written the best tribute posts to Bob Clampett that I could think of regarding his 100th birthday. As a young, aspiring 18-year-old animation artist and cartoonist myself, the profound influence that Bob Clampett continues to have on cartoonists decades after his death is astonishing. As I wrote on Jenny's Blackwing Diaries blog the other day, Clampett had that sense of wildness in his cartoons but could control it and get the very best, appealing drawings out of draftsmen like Bob McKimson and Rod Scribner. Even his black and white cartoons are worth studying drawing wise. Those are the types of high standards every animation artist should aspire to.
There is plenty of reason to be lamenting over the current state of the animation business with all the layoffs for more traditional hand-drawn animation that have taken place recently, and Clampett cartoons are just one of the many ways we can remind ourselves of what animation can do and always had the potential to do. Thad Komorowski even equated it to being another Dark Age in animation, in his book Sick Little Monkeys. I wouldn't exactly go that far, because of how much more accessible those historic films have become through DVD, DailyMotion, Netflix, YouTube and many other similar websites. Animators have a lot more options in getting their work out there whether it be through Kickstarter or YouTube and producing content on a much cheaper basis with programs like Toon Boom.
As a whole, the commentators on Cartoon Brew have noticed the many problems that the animation business is facing right now and the comments there on the more controversial posts are a reflection of what has been happening. There is plenty of bad animation being made today in the mainstream, but there was also a lot of forgettable old animation produced during the Golden Age. The fact that we're still talking about cartoons that geniuses like Clampett, Jones, Avery, Freleng, Tashlin, Davis, and all the rest created during that time period should really say a lot about animation's future and how the medium can move forward while taking inspiration from the past and building upon those ideas instead of resorting to blind, inbred imitation and cliches.
I respect all of the excellent work that you and Milt Gray have done for the animation community and you should feel lucky to have met an incredible man like Clampett. I have gotten a lot of great drawing advice from my own heroes currently working in animation, but they also look up to Bob, Chuck, and Tex for inspiration and probably would have loved to have known them better themselves.
[Posted May 16, 2013]
From Daniel Guenzel: Thank you, Michael, for your post about Bob Clampett's centennial. As I've probably mentioned before to you, one of the things that pains me most in life is to see great talents being either underused or not used at all, and when I think of the later years of such men as Clampett, and Tytla, it profoundly saddens me.
But your fine tribute to Bob Clampett does lift one's spirit. It is heartening to know that such truly great men are not totally forgotten.
[Posted May 25, 2013]