What's He Doing There?

When cartoons change from scene to scene in what should be continuous action, character positions should try to match so things look seemless, not jarring.

The people at the Van Beuren studio didn’t worry about that kind of thing.

There’s a good example in Runaway Blackie, where a little goat with a design similar to Cubby Bear tries to hitch a ride. There’s no attempt to make the scenes match up.

These are consecutive frames. Suddenly, Blackie is at the side of the road, which is now curved, on a hill, and decorated with telegraph poles.



Two more consecutive frames. Blackie instantly changes locations. He’s standing on a culvert or something like that.



The culvert disappears. So do the cars. And the telegraph poles. Yes, these are consecutive, too.



This is a disappointing cartoon because there’s very little of the usual Van Beuren weirdness (the hitch-hiking sequence has one weak gag about cars being afraid of each other), but plenty of Van Beuren incompetence. Harry Bailey gets the “by” credit. The raspy voice guy has several roles, including the talking moon (or is it the sun?).