How To Move a Wolf

Today’s animation question is how do you get a character from here...



...to here?



Obviously, the answer is “in-betweens.” To the best of my knowledge, at the time this cartoon was released in 1953, director Tex Avery would assign animators to a scene and determine the timing. The animator would handle key drawings or extremes (like you see above) and someone in the in-between pool would come up with the drawings linking the two. I suspect the character movement would be indicated on a layout.

There are five in-betweens in this scene from Three Little Pups. Avery decided to use one drawing per frame. While in-betweeners were below animators in the studio pecking order, their drawings could be funny and attractive, though in movement this fast, no one in the audience would ever see them.



Innumerable posts on the internet identify animators and their specific work, but let us, on this occasion, pay tribute to the anonymous in-betweeners and their role in the Golden Age of Animation.