Curious Puppy Backgrounds

Paul Julian is probably known best for his background art seen in cartoons directed by Friz Freleng after World War Two. However, he worked on Warner Bros. cartoons before then. Julian was Chuck Jones’ background artist before leaving the studio to paint murals as part of the war effort.

Julian’s work wasn’t given screen credit then. All background artists at the studio suffered the same fate. One of the shorts he worked on was The Curious Puppy, a 1939 effort. Jones put two dogs in several cartoons that may have been his version of Disney’s Pluto. They don’t talk. They react to situations. This cartoon has a lot of doggie head-shaking.

The Curious Puppy was released many years ago on laser disc. Fortunately, Strummer has sent me a restored copy and the colours are much brighter than on the murky disc.

Here is some of Julian’s art from this cartoon.

>>>>

This was the last cartoon from the Jones unit to be released in 1940. Julian was soon gone, replaced by Gene Fleury in February 1941. The layouts for this short were by John McGrew, who told historian Mike Barrier he became Jones’ layout artist in 1939 and Julian began to paint the backgrounds. Julian revealed to Barrier that McGrew provided “small color sketches I would turn into backgrounds.” You can get an idea of McGrew’s and Julian’s creativity from the frames above.