Bleep were made at the Soundac studio in Miami. The animation consisted a filled-in blurry outline followed by a pose. Sometimes, the drawings went from pose to pose, being held on screen while a narrator intoned. The last drawing you see below was held for 30 frames, longer if consider only the effects animation changed between the last two drawings.
Soundac cut out animation by reusing cycles (especially effects) or drawings themselves, and by holding a drawing while moving the background.
The studio decided all its characters would have thick outlines (presumably the better to read on black and white TVs, especially if the reception produced a ghosty picture). They made up for the lack of animation with interesting poses. In Scratch and His Feathered Friend, you can see consecutive drawings for various scenes, again held for various lengths of time.
Regarding the studio, Billboard of June 24, 1957 reported:
Soundac Productions of 2133 N. W. 11th Ave., Miami, Fla., has added 2,500 feet of new executive offices and art production rooms. The new facilities have been constructed around an exclosed patio and heated swimming pool for the convenience of out-of-state agency friends who fly down for a day or two. In this way, they can combine business and pleasure without leaving the premises. Currently the company is producing a series of 78 color animated half-hour shows. The series, titled, “The Adventures of Colonel Bleep,” is being readied for the syndication market.
It had been making commercials; some of the company’s clients in 1955 were Howard Johnson’s, Pan Am, Sohio and Sylvania. It operated under the eyes of Jack Schleh, Robert D. Buchanan and Bob Biddlecomb. In 1965, the studio also produced one of the more laughable (and we don’t mean funny) cartoon series when it signed a deal with Trans-Lux to distribute The Mighty Mister Titan..
We’ll profile one of the men behind the series in a future post.
Love the studio's TV WEATHERMAN series of animated weather announcements in varying lengths.
ReplyDeleteAt least back then they understood the importance of strong poses.
ReplyDeleteThat's what you have to do when you have little animation and a lot of held frames.
DeleteAlso, it should, most importantly of all, be mentioned..this is historically said to be the first US animated TV color broadcast cartoon ever!!!
ReplyDeleteMarvin Kempner, an American broadcasting corporation executive, had quite a bit to say in his 1998 book Can't Wait Till Monday Morning about his involvement with syndicating Colonel Bleep and other Soundac productions. One notable example:
ReplyDeleteDuring the sales pitch, he got Colonel Bleep Colonel Bleep sold at 100 cartoons; Jack Schleh and Robert Buchanan were not pleased with that move, as they originally had only planned 52 cartoons. Nevertheless, Schleh had "many shortcuts to save time", ensuring that "enough cartoons were available to start shipping to the stations".
Two more things:
ReplyDelete"dialogue was non-existent" - Well, not always. Some episodes (later ones?) occasionally had the characters talk, giving the usual narration a break (though it was still Noah Tyler).
"September 23, 1957" - From a 2014 post: "Future research is needed to discover when it first aired". Would you now say this truly was the premiere date for the show nationally, not just on WGR? The closest I've found otherwise was in the 1989 book Motion Picture Copyrights & Renewals*, 1950-1959. There was an entry for Colonel Bleep, which had a date of "1Sep57"; I'm guessing that's a legal date rather than an actual premiere (September 1, 1957 was a Sunday), but it is the same month + year.
Disclosure: I am the administrator of the Colonel Bleep Wiki and have much interest in researching information about Soundac.
*For those interested, the book has a way of telling if a production had its copyright renewed or not. From what I saw, Colonel Bleep fell into the latter category.
LS, thanks for the correction. I admit I have not seen all the episodes and none where they spoke. I applaud your commitment to accuracy.
DeleteI don't know if the answer will be found as to when the cartoons aired for the very first time. There were all those kids shows back then that just dropped in cartoons; WTAR aired them on its "Little Rascals Show" (Virginia Pilot, Dec. 31, pg. 10). But in almost all cases we don't know which cartoons they were, so the Colonel could have aired in some city before the WGR-TV date.