Scribner’s animation in the Bob Clampett unit at times wasn’t really so much animation, where one drawing grew out of the other. It was a series of stark, at times rubbery, poses, one for each frame, that eventually led to a conclusion. Scribner seems to get credit for all these drawings, as if he never had an assistant (we know he did, as Bill Melendez was one of them for a while).
Here’s one of many examples. This is in ‘A Gruesome Twosome’ (released in 1945) that’s almost two cartoons in one. Warren Foster wrote in a similar structure later, especially at Hanna-Barbera, where the plot changes direction in mid-cartoon. The stars are a pair of cats, one a rip-off of Jimmy Durante, and the half-first of the short sees them vying for the attention of a girl cat. Then she disappears and the pair vie for possession of Tweety.
The first half features one of those interrupt-the-action-and-talk-to-the-audience bits that Clampett loved. The cats are somewhere off camera fighting. A dog rises up into the shot, he’s designed like something in the Clampett unit of the later ‘30s. He looks very average.
But the dog goes nuts because he has a chance to kiss the babe. And Scribner’s animation goes nuts. Just some of his drawings.
Then the kiss. Just one of the drawings.
And then the reaction. We even get a butt shot at the camera.
The other credited animators on this are Manny Gould, Basil Davidovich and Bob McKimson; Melendez’ name appears on Clampett cartoons before and after this so why he’s not on this one is a mystery.
hilarious!!!
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