Here’s the drawing from the opening of “A Mutt in a Rut” (1959). Bill Butler’s backgrounds are fairly conventional for a Bob McKimson cartoon except for the establishing shot. It has a watered-down UPA flavour.
Freleng's unit didn't feel comfortable with the UPA-ization of their cartoons for about two years before and after the 1953 shutdown, but finally figured out a compromise style that worked for them. McKimson and his unit never seemed to be really comfortable with the modern look, and where it showed up at all seemed to be dragged kicking and screaming into trying to mesh with the house style ("Bartholomew vs. the Wheel" was more pseudo-Thurber than pseudo-UPA, and the supporting characters used by McKimson in the final scene of the final Warner Bros cartoon in 1969, "Injun Trouble", could have been plopped into one of Bob's western-themed cartoons from a decade earlier and matched all the other character designs).
Freleng's unit didn't feel comfortable with the UPA-ization of their cartoons for about two years before and after the 1953 shutdown, but finally figured out a compromise style that worked for them. McKimson and his unit never seemed to be really comfortable with the modern look, and where it showed up at all seemed to be dragged kicking and screaming into trying to mesh with the house style ("Bartholomew vs. the Wheel" was more pseudo-Thurber than pseudo-UPA, and the supporting characters used by McKimson in the final scene of the final Warner Bros cartoon in 1969, "Injun Trouble", could have been plopped into one of Bob's western-themed cartoons from a decade earlier and matched all the other character designs).
ReplyDelete