Here are some of Paul Julian’s backgrounds. What a shame the full, long paintings don’t exist any more. There’s a beautiful interior of the saloon that’s quickly panned (the frame with the piano below part of it) I’d love to study.
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Is that “Slosburg Harness”? Any idea who’s being referenced? How about Josiah Cheever?
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P.J. (Paul Julian) to the left of Bugs. Mike Maltese, 1870, Friz Freleng and Tedd Pierce to the right. 1870? Virgil Ross is the animator.
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This town ain’t big enough for the two of us! It ain’t?
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Now is it big enough?
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Ken Champin reference.
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Hawley Pratt (feed), Bill Melendez (bulqueria) and Gerry Chiniquy (blacksmith) references. Sam’s expression as he dances off, stage right, is an all-time classic.
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Manny Perez doesn’t rate a background reference. Neither does Virgil, it seems.
Maurice Noble's background layouts get the lion's share of the attention when it comes to Warner Bros' cartoons, as does the earlier experimental work by John McGrew and Eugene Fleury for Chuck Jones in the early 1940s. But Julian's background work in the Freleng unit really were part of what defined the studio's Golden Age from the mid-1940s to the end of the decade, when both the animation skills and the budgets were at their highest.
ReplyDeleteAlways loved the quick construction gag, one of my very favorites in ALL of WB cartoondom. Do you think the background itself was painted over with the city skyscrapers? Or was that an overlay?
DeleteI figured it was an overlay, Rob, but I don't know for certain.
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