Friday 22 November 2019

Tweety and the Beanstalk Backgrounds

There are three cartoons released by Warner Bros. in 1957 made by the Friz Freleng unit which have no background artist credit. One is Tweety and the Beanstalk. Irv Wyner had been painting backgrounds and was replaced in the credits with Boris Gorelick. It’s unclear when Wyner left; his birthday wasn’t listed amongst the September celebrators in the “Warner Club News” for that month in 1956. I don’t know enough about Wyner’s style to determine if he possibly worked on this short; his last credited cartoon was The Three Little Bops.

(Wyner, incidentally, was born Irving Weiner to Benjamin and Ethel Weiner, a pair of Russian emigres. He was living in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1935 when he won a scholarship to the New York Students Arts League. He arrived in California with his wife Joanne and son Richard in 1949; Richard was born in Minnesota. Wyner died in 2002; a plate with Yosemite Sam, Bugs Bunny and Sylvester is on his gravestone).

First is the opening shot; the camera trucks in on it. You can see how Hawley Pratt handled layouts involving the rising beanstalk, and Tweety in a cage with Sylvester below.



Warren Foster’s story fills six minutes and does little else; he actually wrote more fun fairy tale parodies at Hanna-Barbera.

2 comments:

  1. I agree. Foster did such a great job at Hanna-Barbera with "period" or " Fairy Tale " parodies. " The Unmasked Avenger ", " Oinks and Boinks ", " Snow White Bear " just to mention a few.

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  2. Hans Christian Brando30 November 2019 at 11:24

    Looking at these beautiful backgrounds, it's hard not to marvel at how much talent and skill went into not-very-good cartoons.

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