McKimson on Cartoon Art

I have mixed feelings about Bob McKimson, at least when it comes to the cartoons he directed. Some of the stories in his earliest cartoons are a little off-kilter for me; The Grey-Hounded Hare being only one. The Sylvester/“giant mouse” routine was beaten to death. In the later ‘50s, there were too many mild TV parodies (did anyone laugh at “The Honeymousers” shorts?). There is nothing hysterical in the cringe-inducing Pre-Hysterical Hare. Then there was his demand that Rod Scribner “calm” his animation; Scribner eventually moved on to UPA (McKimson’s other wild animator, Manny Gould, hightailed it to Jerry Fairbanks Productions in 1947). And, for some reason, for a while he gave caricatures little craniums and huge mouths.

He did try to vary the sound of his shorts by hiring people other than Mel Blanc (Jim Backus, Sheldon Leonard and Lloyd Perryman among them). Some of the early Foghorn Leghorn cartoons are full of raucous action. His Hillbilly Hare may be considered overrated by some, but I still enjoy it. There are others he directed I quite like. I feel bad for him because he quite unfairly and undeservedly ran afoul of office politics. "I've got scars all over my back," is how he put it to historian Mike Barrier. Friz Freleng wrested Warren Foster away from him and McKimson complained he was asked to accept "borderline" artists. And it should be remembered that when you read of the six-month cartoon studio shut down in 1953, McKimson’s unit was out of business for a year. It was closed several months before the shut down and revived in 1954.

The opinion seems to be unanimous that McKimson was an excellent and subtle animator, and created the definitive look of Bugs Bunny. He didn’t give many interviews over the years, but we’ve found one in the Hollywood Citizen-News of April 24, 1937. He was appointed chief animator of the studio by Leon Schlesinger in August 1939 but here he is referred to as the “head animator.”

Art Need in Movies Told
"Even in comedy the trend is toward the artistic and less toward the grotesque," Robert McKimson, head animator for Loony Tunes [sic] and Merry Melodies [sic] at Warner Bros. studio said today. "To achieve this aim some of the finest artists in the country are in the various studios now, while six or seven years ago there ware comparatively few."
McKimson, who studied art at the Theodora Lukits school even after drawing and looking at sketches all day, explained that the person who wishes to become a cartoon animator must have a good foundation in art.
"Each little character in animated cartoons is constructed and goes through the identical motions, although exaggerated, of a human being," the artist explained, “so it is necessary that an animator study anatomy for construction to train the eye for a definite sense of proportions and to acquire a sense of weight balance.
"Now that Technicolor is used almost entirely in all movie cartoons, a knowledge of painting is a great aid. The color of a character is of vital importance. The color must harmonize with the background and yet not fade or clash with it."
Many studios, including Walt Disney's, recognize this need for anatomy and color study and to further it have training departments for young artists in connection with the studio. McKimson stated, however, that since he had been studying with Lukits for the last three years he has noticed a gradual improvement in his own animation.

McKimson only did a little bit of animating at Warners after becoming a director. He animated almost all of The Hole Idea (finally released in 1955), but it’s more a triumph of story than anything else. The character designs are not very daring and the movement is not stylised.

Perhaps McKimson’s cartoons of the ‘50s were the product of the decade. The ‘50s were sedate. Ed Murrow wasn’t amongst bombs and armed soldiers as in the ‘40s; he was behind a desk. Husbands and fathers weren’t on the battlefront. They were urged to avoid the enemy by hiding the family in a bomb shelter. Families relaxed in front of televisions or around back yard barbecues. Stress was eliminated through over-the-counter pills. It was all so inert.

McKimson’s cartoons reflected this. Characters talked and talked. Movement wasn’t exaggerated all that much (a hole doesn’t move at all). The pace of his shorts was fairly leisurely (the same can probably be said of Jones and Freleng as the ‘50s wore on). It’s unfortunate there wasn’t something more captivating to make up for the lack of the frenetic energy of ‘40s cartoons (such as the designs in ‘50s animated commercials) but McKimson simply may not have had it in him.