Friday 31 July 2015

A Bite of Beary

Oh, that wacky, loveable Beary Family! Bursting at the seams with comedy in every cartoon.

Recently, due to a bout of masochism, I tuned in the 1971 Beary cartoon “Moochin Pooch” and spotted an extreme like Tex Avery used almost 20 years earlier at the Lantz studio. Here’s the ever-hilarious Charlie with a dog. The animation is limited but the expressions are still effective. The third and fourth drawings are on threes, while the wide-open mouth drawing is held for eight frames.



Al Coe (assisted by Joe Voght) and Virgil Ross (assisted by Tom Byrne) are the animators. I’m not sure if Virgil left Filmation, worked for Lantz, then went back to Filmation, but his career really wasn’t the same after leaving Warner Bros.

P.S.: Sorry for the TV bug in these frames.

5 comments:

  1. The Beary Family cartoons are for people who found the Terry Bears too funny.

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  2. The faces are expressive, but in the budget-conscious world of Lantz cartoons by the 1960s, the bodies fail to match the face reactions to save costs. Avery's polar bear would have had his whole body reacting to the dog's bite.

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    1. Probably because the face and body were on separate cels.

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  3. Al Coe was an animator from Disney. He worked in the Jack Hannah unit.

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  4. i'm just discovering this fascinating informative section of the universe. i'm a huge animation fan. carlo vinci from the old HB days is a fave. as well as george nicholas of course ken muse (i met his nephew years & years ago in san diego 1982 by chance-the nephew brian muse was the boyfriend of my then sister in law)enough ! this is about visuals. i can't wait to see all the stuff that awaits me.

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