That was the attitude of Mannie Davis at Terrytoons when it came time to make the Heckle and Jeckle cartoon King Tut’s Tomb in 1950. The magpies ended up trapped inside an Egyptian pyramid. Say! That sounds familiar to a cartoon Davis made in 1943 called Somewhere in Egypt starring Gandy Goose and Sourpuss. It contains some of Carlo Vinci’s best animation for Paul Terry involving a dancing girl cat. So Davis decided to haul the drawings out of storage and put them on the screen again.
Drumming cats.
Somewhere in Egypt
King Tut’s Tomb
A mummy turns out to be a dancing girl cat.
Somewhere in Egypt
King Tut’s Tomb
Gandy dances with the cat. Heckle (or Jeckle) dances with the cat. Because the magpie is shorter, Vinci has had to account for that in the cat’s right arm.
Somewhere in Egypt
King Tut's Tomb
The Heckle and Jeckle cartoon borrows a gag and some drawings from the earlier cartoon involving a skeleton fireman and his Egyptian hounds. In both cartoons they bash into our heroes, water from buckets lands on one (with the Terry Splash) while the fireman’s skull lands on top of the other.
Somewhere in Egypt
King Tut's Tomb
A take. Then the skeleton takes back his head.
Somewhere in Egypt
King Tut’s Tomb
Vinci never got screen credit for any of his work at Terrytoons. Nor did any other animator until Terry sold the studio and CBS hired Gene Deitch.
Phil Scheib’s Egyptian dance cue is heard in both cartoons.
Carlo Vinci was Terry's go-to man for animating dance sequences, and his work was well worth using more than once. To cite another example, his animation of the sexy harem dancer in "The Sultan's Birthday" (1944, d. Tytla) was reused in "The Trojan Horse" (1946, d. Davis) and "Law and Order" (1950, d. Donnelly) -- both times without her veil, which greatly improved her appearance.
ReplyDeleteIt's too bad that Vinci and his colleagues never received screen credit for their contributions to Terrytoons. But I'm sure he'd be gratified if he knew that fans and historians would recognise and appreciate his work after all these years.
Agreed, Paul. Carlo Vinci did some fine work for the studio and it's nice to see people are recognising it.
DeleteIt’s no mystery why Gene Deitch listed the animators and Paul Terry didn’t. Paul Terry’s cartoons were good enough that he wanted to take sole credit for them. Gene Deitch’s cartoons are so terrible that he spent his whole life making excuses and blaming other people for their low quality. But it was 100% his own fault.
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