Monday 16 January 2017

Little Roquefort

There is absolutely no doubt, even to the most casual of old animation fans, which studio this drawing came from.



Yes, the gooney expression with one eye a different size than the other could only be from a Terrytoon. Really, Jim Tyer epitomises the studio. His characters have such an odd way of squashing and stretching.

Here are drawings from a scene from Good Mouse Keeping (1952). Look how squat the mouse becomes. I can’t possibly picture an animator at MGM or Warners (and certainly not Disney) drawing character porportions anything like this.



Here are drawings from Tyer’s shrink take that later expands to a large eye.



There’s some really well-executed animation in the next scene where a glove (with Little Roquefort inside) carries a jar of paint. The glove has a jaunty hop, accompanied by a nice piece of skippy music by Phil Scheib.

Tyer and the rest of the animators were never credited on screen while Paul Terry ran the studio.

2 comments:

  1. Tyer's wild animation sticks out even more in the more polished Famous Studio cartoons, when Dan Gordon and Izzy Sparker allowed him to get away with it (albeit for briefer periods than the openings he was given at Terrytoons).

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  2. I hope to sometime see the episode where Little Roquefort becomes invisible.

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