Thursday 28 May 2015

Foney Fables Backgrounds

Background artists weren’t credited for far too long on Warner Bros. cartoons. One was the never-credited Lenard Kester who spent some time in the Friz Freleng unit in the early ‘40s and painted these scenes for “Foney Fables” (1942). The bag in the third frame is on an overlay.



Mike Maltese wrote the cartoon and may be responsible for the mock-Cockney ‘Agsb’ry signs.



Owen Fitzgerald was Friz’ layout man when this cartoon was made.

Frank Graham is the narrator, by the way. I haven’t checked to see if this was his first Warners’ cartoon.

3 comments:

  1. Wasn't "Horton Hatches the Egg" his first Warners Cartoon?

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  2. These are great! Are these actual backgrounds or are they all screen captures? I think Owen Fitzgerald finally got a screen credit much later.

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    Replies
    1. On a whim, I thought to look up "Agsb’ry" when it popped up a second time. I thought it might be an acronym put in by one of the artists.

      To my rather pleased astonishment, the mystery is solved.

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