Disney and his Big Bad Wolf

The drawing you see above comes from a feature story published December 23, 1933 in the Charleston Daily Mail. Alice D. Tildesley, syndicated from the Public Ledger, generally wrote enterprise stories on women’s issues, but she delved into animation on rare occasion. The other photos in this post were with the same story.

Tildesley’s feature sums up the making of Walt Disney’s biggest success to date, “The Three Little Pigs” and how the studio operated. It’s interesting the only other name besides Disney’s mentioned here is Frank Churchill’s (unless you count The Rhythmettes).

A Silly Symphony Becomes America’s Slogan
Three Little Pigs Change the Psychology of the Nation—Walt Disney Tells How He Makes Animated CartoonsBy Alice L. Tildesley“WHO’S afraid of the big bad wolf?” We all could be singing this popular ditty with conviction if we had the confidence of Walt Disney, who has found the answer to this wolf-at-the-door menace.
The answer, according to Disney, is: Invent your own job; take such an interest in it that you eat sleep, dream, walk, talk and live nothing but your work until you succeed. Then you may take on a hobby or two if you feel so inclined.
The creator of the increasingly famous Three Little Pigs started out in business in his father’s garage, his equipment an old still camera and a supply of pens, ink and paper. Now he has his own studio, his own story and music departments, complete equipment and 135 employes on his staff.
The earnings from the eight-minute Silly Symphony in which the pigs get the best of the big, bad wolf have been variously estimated as anywhere from $1,000,000 to $2,000000, but this, alas! like the picture, is just a fairy story.
“All this talk about my making a lot of money is bunk,” declares Disney. “After ten years of pretty tough sledding I am now making a moderate profit on my products, but every dime I take in is immediately put back into the business. I’m building for the future
And my goal isn’t millions; it’s better pictures.
“I’m not interested in money, except for what I can do with it to advance my work. The idea of piling up a fortune for the sake of wealth seems silly to me. Work is the real adventure in life. Money is merely a means to make more work possible.
What They Cost
THE average cost of a cartoon in black and white is $18,000. In color this runs to about $20,000. These figures represent only the actual production cost and don’t include cost of prints—usually 250 prints a picture, but 330 for the pigs—cost of distribution, advertising, foreign taxes, duties, etc.
“It takes a Mickey Mouse comedy twelve months to pay for itself, while the average Silly Symphony doesn’t crawl out of the red for eighteen months.
“On the other hand, these cartoon comedies last for a long time. They are still showing the first Mickey Mouse comedy after nine years. Maybe ten years from now the big, bad wolf will still be huffing and puffing before the door to the house of bricks.”
Certainly the Three Little Pigs should “crawl out of the red” soon, for it’s breaking records everywhere and has been recalled as many as seven times to some theatres. America resounds to “Who’s Afraid?”—not such a bad slogan for any country!—sung over the radio, played by orchestras and whistled by schoolboys.
Yet, if you can believe it, when Disney suggested the idea for the symphony to his staff some nine months ago, the twelve men who compose the story department remained unimpressed.
“It’s lousy! Why don’t you get a real idea?” they chorused.
You see, Disney surrounds himself with good “no” men. Every one of these 135 who work at the one-story building called “Walt Disney Studios” is a member of a co-operating organization. They are not expected to say “yes” when they mean “no,” and nothing is done without a majority opinion in favor of it.
“I think the reason they didn’t like the idea was that at that time the thing wasn’t very clear in my own mind,” confesses Disney frankly. “I withdrew it and tried to forget it, but the pigs and the wolf and the little house kept haunting me. I thought about them until I saw the story clearly, and then I proposed it again. This time they liked it.
“I don’t mean they threw up their hats or that even I thought it would be a tremendous hit. We considered it a typical Silly Symphony.”
If Disney were running any other kind of studio, the proper procedure after deciding on an idea would be to write the story, cast the parts, engage a director and composer, if it were to be a musical, and build some sets.
You can’t do it that way at Disney’s.
First, a one-page story is outlined and read to the dozen members of the story department. Two weeks later this staff must turn in ideas that could be used in the tale, gags that might be included and drawings of their individual conceptions of the characters.
Origin of the La La
FOR the Three Little Pigs, for example, one man may have turned in the gag wherein the pig with the house of straw opens his frail door and pulls in the mat with “Welcome” on it when he sees the wolf come bounding toward it. Another may have suggested that the wolf grab hold of the little pigs’ tails as they flee to safety in the house of bricks.
One wall of the conference room was covered with twelve or more versions of how the four characters looked and sketches of their dwellings. From these selection was made by vote of all present and the animators provided with models of the selections.
In an ordinary picture there is opportunity to rehearse the characters, try things several different ways and select the best “take” for the final product. But in a cartoon comedy, composed of from 10,000 to 15,000 drawings, the director must visualize his action, plan his entire continuity, entrances, exits, dissolves and cuts; in fact editing before a single picture is drawn.
An artist-animator can, with diligence, produce only five feet of action every eight hours, so it is necessary to conserve his time by giving him the kind of work he does best. Some artists are excellent at producing scenes, others can create animated action.
It is difficult for any artist to change his individual style and adopt a standard style for the benefit of the cartoon, so that the little pig drawn by one can’t be distinguished from the little pig drawn by the other. For this reason Disney maintains a group of apprentice artists and trains them in the art of animation. They attend art classes at the studio. Their apprenticeship lasts six months, never less, and sometimes longer, and they are paid as they learn.
A good animator should be a good actor also, for he must, know what, is dramatic, what is comic and what is pathetic.
“We have three musical directors who compose the music, or adapt it, for our pictures,” explained Disney. “Our three picture directors each has a film to direct , and each works with his own musical director
“The music must fit the mood of the story; it should enhance the action, and care must be taken that it does not instead detract from the picture or annoy the audience.
“At first we tried to have the action follow the melody, but we soon saw that wouldn’t do. The musical .score must correspond to the rhythm of the action following the beat of the music.
The problem is simply one of resolving all musical tempos in terms of the standard speed and of making a consecutive series of drawings to fit this tempo. Certain basic tempos, multiples of the frame speed of the film, have been established. The fastest tempo employed is one brat every six frames amounting to four beats a second. The total range is from this to one beat every twenty frames, or one beat every five-sixths of a second.”
In the case of the pigs, one of the staff during the first conference suggested the line, “Who’s afraid of the big, bad wolf?” Whereupon, Frank Churchill, music composer, sat down and wrote the jingly tune in five minutes, after which, the lyric was composed by two of the young men on the staff.
Originally the words appeared like this:
Who’s afraid of the big, bad wolf?
The big, bad wolf, the big, bad wolf?
Who’s afraid of the big, bad wolf?
He don't know from nothing.
But that last line refused to fit, and the boys toiled for some time trying to find a rhyme for “wolf.” At length one said in despair, “Let’s just let the flute take it!” And the well-known “tra la la la la!" was slipped in to finish the first hit melody furnished by a cartoon studio.
The music having been decided upon, the scenic department artists prepare the backgrounds to be used in the action of the film, just as scene painters prepare stage sets or set designers prepare screen sets. The action of the picture moves against these backgrounds, just as it does in an ordinary talking picture.
For the pigs, these backgrounds were the three little houses, from varied angles, exterior and interior. The action of course, was that of the ancient fairy tale, the big, bad wolf who came huffing and puffing to blow the little houses down. The four characters must be opaque figures, so that when placed against the background the scene will not show through.
When the director and musician have settled story, music, situations, gags and approximate footage of film, a layout sheet is made for the guidance of animators. It looks like something prepared by Einstein, but from it the gifted musician is able to prepare a complete music score with all the beats coming at the precise moment the cartoon figure needs them. When a dancing pig puts his plump foot on the ground, the music will keep time, and it will accent his movements when he plays the piano, skips under the bed or shuts his door in the wolf’s face.
The projection schedule, another Einsteinian blueprint, is handed to each animator. From this he discovers that he is to do scenes 25, 26, 27, the footage of each one marked and a description given.
A third cryptic sheet, called the exposure sheet, instructs the animator on the nature of the scene and the tempo of the music.
Completing the Job
THE twenty-five or thirty animators who are to work on the picture have desks, not unlike the desks seen in schoolrooms, the tops being illuminated drawing boards, the light shining through from below, so that pictures may be sketched against their backgrounds, and the next picture in a sequence may be sketched on a transparent sheet just above the first, so that there may be the right amount of difference between the two to give the illusion of action when reeled through the projection machine.
After the drawings of a sequence are completed, they are turned over to the inking and painting department, which traces and inks or paints them onto celluloid sheets, these celluloids then being photographed on their appropriate backgrounds by a camera suspended above an illuminated drawing board.
Approximately 100 hours arc required to photograph a cartoon subject that averages 600 feet of film. The Pigs was considerably longer than this and was composed of 15.000 separate drawings.
While the animators are doing their stuff, the studio orchestra records the musical score. A trio known as the rhythmettes sang the words of the lyric in the Pigs, and a member of the studio staff impersonated the wolf. The sound film resulting is then synchronized with the completed cartoon and the Silly Symphony is ready for release.
“The secret of success, if there is any, is liking what you do. I like my work better than my play. I play polo, when I have time, and I enjoy it, but it can’t equal work!” says Disney.
Oh yes, indeed—who’s afraid of the big, bad wolf? And why?

Music by Screwy Squirrel

Screwy Squirrel cartoons are lots of fun. The only thing wrong with them is Screwy. You can like the gags he pulls but you can’t really like him. And I think that’s the way Tex Avery wanted it. The gags are the real stars in the Screwy cartoons.

Tex came up with great routines where the business of filmmaking actually appears during the cartoon; he did it at Warners then carried on doing it at MGM. In Screwball Squirrel (released April 1, 1944), Screwy is even responsible for some of the sound in his own cartoon. During one chase scene, the William Tell Overture blares in the background. Suddenly, a portion of the music keeps repeating, like a stuck record. The action on the screen repeats with it. Screwy steps out of the action, walks over to a record player, fixes the skipping record, then the chase resumes (passing behind the record player and on to the next gag). It’s a great little routine that comes out of nowhere.



But the best musical gag comes along later in the cartoon. Meathead the dog is in a barrel, rolling down a steep hill. Musical director Scott Bradley has a drum roll on the soundtrack.



Cut to a shot at the bottom of the hill. It turns out that Screwy is playing the snare drum. Not only that, he provides musical sound effects. When the barrel hits a tree, Screwy bashes a bass drum. Meathead flies up into the air and down. Screwy plays a slide whistle to accompany the action. When Meathead lands, Screwy bashes the bass drum again, then finishes up with a bird twitter as Meathead lays on the ground, dazed.







Only Avery would try a sequence of gags like this. Better still, he doesn’t let the audience rest. The short zooms along from one routine to the next once it gets past the deliberately syrupy opening with the overly-cute, frolicking Sammy Squirrel (who Screwy beats the crap out of behind a tree. Take that, Harman and Ising).

The credited animators are Preston Blair, Ed Love and Ray Abrams. The backgrounds (note the house on stilts) are by Johnny Johnsen. Claude Smith designed the characters; the first model sheet is dated December 1942.

San Francisco, Giddyap Style

It’s true. UPA didn’t make funny animal cartoons. The proof is “Giddyap,” which is an unfunny animal cartoon.

Well, maybe that’s being a bit harsh. The horse is just “meh,” as the kids say today. It took three people to come up with a story about how it’s 1950 but ice is still being delivered all over San Francisco, and how a man and a little girl want to get rid of a horse that’s willing to give them all his loot. If the horse had any. And he gets some in the end, as the animated former vaudeville star follows the path of many real-life former vaudeville stars and ends up on early television.

As usual, the stars of this UPA cartoon are the designs (by Bill Hurtz) and colour choices (by Herb Klynn and Jules Engle). Some of the buildings, cars and clouds are simply outlines. There are lots of shades of green and they mesh very well. There’s a bit of red to add variation. And the San Francisco topography allows the layouts to be drawn so the point of view is looking up or down at the action some of the time.










The flashback scene that takes place on New York City’s Broadway uses different colours than the rest of the cartoon—blacks and blues, with outlines in lighter colours. It change works very well. I may post scenes from it later.

The characters aren’t all outlines like you’ll find in other UPA cartoons. They’re coloured in. I suppose Engle and Klynn (or maybe director Art Babbitt) wanted to make it clear that the horse had an audience on the street for his act, and did that by making the people stand out.

The stylised design of the ice truck is pretty cool.

Unless I’m mistaken, Stan Freberg is the voice of the horse.

The One Failure of Arnold Stang

Network radio comedy and comedy/variety shows were filled with all kinds of really talented secondary players, many of whom were in great demand. Yet so few of them broke out of their “also appearing tonight” role and moved into stardom. Even the great Mel Blanc failed in a sitcom supposedly tailored for his talents.

New York Herald-Tribune critic John Crosby probably elucidated the reason the best. Radio sitcoms were, by and large, corny, obvious and trite. And while some secondary players were extremely versatile, they were suddenly called upon to change roles when given their own shows. They had to be the funny straight man around whom a half hour of plot revolved instead of someone who came on, did a couple of minutes of schtick, and was quickly replaced by the next routine. A couple of minutes of Mr. Kitzel on the Benny show is funny. A half-hour of Kitzel is painful (as anyone who heard the failed Kitzel radio pilot can attest). It’s too bad, because the actors themselves were more than capable on air.

That brings us to Arnold Stang, who had a fine career in cartoons (mainly in New York) and was screamingly funny taking the wind of Milton Berle on radio and television. Stang was great with Henry Morgan on radio. He was given a chance at radio stardom, too. The results were predictable. Here’s Crosby from July 15, 1948.

Radio In Review
By JOHN CROSBY.
Stooges And Superstition
A STOOGE, according to Webster’s International Dictionary, is “a foil.”
Webster’s in this case is giving us the runaround, keeping the franchise without being very helpful.
Anyway, I chased over to “foil” and found a number of interesting but not very enlightening definitions. The only one that seemed at all probable was something that “enhances or sets off by contrast”.
That isn't a bad description of a stooge though it’s by no means exhaustive. The reason I undertook all this research—all of a minute or so—was to find some hint as to why stooges when divorced from their comedians do so badly.
The definition goes a long way toward explaining it. A stooge is ornamental, a bit of fancy ironwork around the balcony but not the main support. After all, a man can’t very well enhance or provide contrast to himself.
ALL OF WHICH is a longwinded introduction to Arnold Stang’s new show, “It’s Always Albert” (CBS 8:30 p. m. Fridays). Stang, Henry Morgan’s man in the regular season, is a rather different stooge whose special qualities resist the printed word. His grunts and ejaculations—eh, yeah, neyah—are a sort of an articulate East Side New York commentary on this and that.
“How do you like Hollywood?” Morgan asked him once.
“Eh!” said Stang, summing it all up briefly and bitterly.
I like it but I realize a lot of people find Mr. Stang’s language a little too close to that of the gibbon for comfort.
HOWEVER, I CAN’T say I’m at all happy with Stang as a featured comedian. In this vehicle, he plays a harebrained and impoverished composer, a characterization I find wholly credible.
He is called on to be stupid, inept and recalcitrant—all qualities which I think miss the essence of the Stang character about a mile. As a composer he is harassed by his brother and sister-in-law, who bounce insults off his head from all angles, into selling his music and raising little dough for the family.
This falls into the familiar dull routines of trying to interest millionaires or movie producers and then upsetting the soup over them.
The jokes are long, painful and so carefully telegraphed that you find yourself wincing, waiting for the blow to fall. The brother is played with demonic energy by Jan Murray, a former night club entertainer, and the sister-in-law is Pert Kelton, who isn’t bad though her material isn’t of much help.
Also, I’m afraid Stang’s stylized mannerisms get awfully wearisome in half an hour. I’m sorry about the whole thing.

Stang’s only other starring roles came in cartoons and in each case (Herman the Mouse, Top Cat), his character was far removed from what fans expected him to portray on radio and television.

“It’s Always Albert” is long-forgotten and was hardly a setback to his career. Stang seems to have preferred not being a star and he left behind a great body of work. You can read a little more about him on the Yowp blog, though it focuses a lot on his work at Hanna-Barbera.

Hot Spot Backgrounds

Tex Avery had a great influence on the theatrical animation business, but it seems the first thing he did that everyone copied was phoney travelogues. A lot of them, even by Avery himself, weren’t that hot.

Even the war-time Snafu series for the Army-Navy Screen Magazine used the travelogue format once, in “Hot Spots” (1945). The backgrounds look like the work of Paul Julian and, judging by this post at Thad Komorowski’s web site, the layouts are by Hawley Pratt.







Even the final gag owes something to Avery’s “Land of the Midnight Fun” polar bear bit. The gags actually don’t centre around Snafu at all, and maybe that’s why this cartoon isn’t as enjoyable as the others in the series.

If the voice of the Devil isn’t Hal Peary, it’s the best impression of Peary this side of Willard Waterman (and it doesn’t sound like Dick Nelson’s impression of Peary to me).

Balloon Land

Ub Iwerks’ “Balloon Land” (1935) is almost the quintessential early ‘30s cartoon. It has:

● Squash and stretch (the cartoon stars balloons, after all),
● Singing and dancing (and a Carl Stalling original song),
● Billy Bletcher as a bad guy,
● Pointless celebrity caricatures (and a Joe Penner “You nasty man!” reference),
● The camera coming in for a close-up of wide-open mouths,
● Characters using whatever is at hand to violently attack and vanquish the bad guy.

Being an Iwerks cartoon, it’s also odd and confusing in places, but you kind of give that a pass because, well, it’s an Iwerks cartoon.

Maybe the best part about this cartoon is the designs. I have no idea who is responsible but the balloon-shaped homes, trees (with faces on them) and characters are a lot of fun. And so are the gratuitous appearances of Laurel and Hardy and Charlie Chaplin, doing a flop-footed dance.




And the Pincushion Man has a truly imaginative design. Compare this with what you see on the screen in those crappy Buddy cartoons Warners released at the same time.



Iwerks cartoons, especially toward the mid-‘30s, weren’t exactly known for their gags, but there’s a really good one with a row of babies marked “Alarm.” Take the milk bottles out of their mouths and they start crying, like an alarm. And, being a cartoon of the ’30s, the camera zooms in to the open mouths.



I only have a version of this cartoon from those cheap collections of public domain cartoons so the screen grabs aren't pristine. But you get the idea.

Fred Allen Talks Television

Fred Allen once remarked (and I’m paraphrasing from an appearance on “The Big Show”) that television was called a medium because “nothing is well done, or very rarely.”

Allen spent years complaining about network radio, but then when television started killing the medium he complained about, he complained about that, too.

TV and Allen didn’t mix, though it wasn’t for a lack of trying from those broadcasting executives that Allen constantly ridiculed. They gave him a variety show. It worked for him in radio, but not television. They gave him a Groucho-like quiz show where he could ad-lib with ordinary people. It worked for him in radio, but not television. Finally, they put him on the panel of “What’s My Line” where, again, he could ad-lib. It worked for him as best as it could. But Allen’s reputation for ad-libbing completely overshadowed the fact his radio show was carefully scripted, much of it by Allen himself, week after week. Ad-libs were only the icing on the dessert, not the main course. That was all lost when he went to television. He simply couldn’t be the same one-man band he was in radio.

Allen harangued about television to anyone who would listen, and New York Herald-Tribune columnist John Crosby, who shared with Allen intolerance for the mundane and inane, gave him a chance to make fun of TV in some one-liners. The column is from May 9, 1950, when Allen was still appearing on “The Big Show” with Tallulah Bankhead on NBC. To give you a bit of background, Douglas MacArthur was fired by President Truman on April 11. CBS and RCA both developed different colour TV transmission processes; RCA’s was compatible with black and white TV sets. Televised broadcasts of major league baseball were given as one reason for the decline in minor league baseball in the ‘50s as league after league folded. And as for which Ralph Edwards show is being referred to, it’s your guess. “This is Your Life” wasn’t on TV at that point, I’m presuming it’s “Truth or Consequences,” which opened with loud shrieks of laughs from the studio audience being panned by the camera.

Radio and Television
By FRED ALLEN
John Crosby is in Europe on vacation. In his absence his column will be written by friends.

Television is here to stay—and so is General MacArthur.
In the beginning, God worked six days and created the Earth. Today, 1 director, 1 scenic designer, 8 writers, 4 painters, 6 carpenters, 5 wardrobe women, 4 cameramen, 4 assistants, 2 floor managers, 8 chorus girls, 10 actors, 6 electricians, 18 stagehands and 20 musicians work six days and create a mediocre television show.
* * *
In Chicago, during 1950, a crime was committed every 12 ½ minutes.
(Criminals on TV crime shows claim they could have beaten this record if they didn’t have to stop for commercials.)
* * *
The Western Union Telegraph Company has formed a subsidiary to install and service television receivers.
(If you come home some night and see a messenger boy on your roof—there is no reason to stop drinking.)
* * *
The National Credit Office, Inc., reports that 70 percent of consumer purchases of television receivers are on an installment basis.
(The size of a TV actor’s audience has nothing to do with his ability—it is determined by the Finance Company’s collections.)
* * *
To cover the recent demonstration for General MacArthur the various networks had more than 500 technicians and $2,500,000 worth of TV equipment in the streets.
(Many radio actors wish the networks would leave them there).
* * *
The Supreme Court will shortly rule on whether the CBS or RCA system will be used for color television.
(Meantime, both TV networks will operate in one color—red.)
* * *
According to a survey, conducted by a Northwestern University professor, teen-age youths are reading less because of television.
(In most American homes the 20-inch screen is replacing the five-foot shelf.)
* * *
The newspaper critic’s scathing review of a TV show is hate’s labor lost.
(The minute a program is finished the viewer at home forms his opinion of the actors and their wares. The critic’s pernicious monograph, appearing in the paper the following morning, is too late to serve a purpose. It is merely the obituary of a departed charade.)
* * *
Television is keeping so many baseball fans away from one minor league park that the teams are only playing with seven men.
(The other two players sit in the stands so there will be somebody to watch the games.)
* * *
A Boston incident. Excited by something it saw on a television program, a Doberman-Pinscher bit his six-year-old master.
(It’s logical—the dog couldn’t turn the set off—it did the next best thing.)
* * *
A special committee of the National Association of Radio and Television Broadcasters reports it will attempt to raise necklines in television.
(Faye Emerson is sure going to look incognito in a turtle-neck evening gown.)
* * *
One columnist wonders why most TV directors have those short haircuts.
(TV directors wear crew cuts to keep the actors from getting in their hair.)
* * *
There are so many college men working in television any office door can be opened with a fraternity key.
* * *
A Cleveland Transit System board member blames television for trolley line’s deficit.
(Television may be going places but the people who are looking at it aren’t).
* * *
One TV survey outfit has a new electro-mechanical system that eliminates calling viewers by phone.
(Today there are so many surveys calling set owners that the set owners are starting to call the surveys — and what they are calling them threatens to reach a new high in sulphurous invective. Some of the phrases contain so much sulphur if they are rubbed on a hard surface the words will give off a dull blue flame.)
* * *
In South Bend, a TV antenna fell across a 27,000-volt power line with some amazing results. Balls of fire bounced up and down on the roof with thunderous explosions; the telephone burned out; a glove lying in the yard burst into flames; the plumbing began throwing off sparks and pipes melted around the kitchen sink.
(The family was not alarmed. They thought it was the Ralph Edwards’ TV show starting.)

I’d like to think if Fred Allen had lived longer—he died in 1956—the right venue on the tube could have been found for him. But he never looked comfortable on camera. Some radio people are meant for radio. Allen always wanted to be a writer and, considering the calibre of two autobiographies he put together in the ‘50s, his right venue may have been a publisher’s doorstep.

Walter Lantz, Jitterbugs and Old Drawings

Today, the idea of tossing out animation art makes fans (and collectors) cringe, but if you want an idea about little anyone thought of the drawings at one time, just ask Walter Lantz. A United Press reporter did in 1938.

The story starts off talking about the short “I’m Just a Jitterbug,” which had yet to be released. It then talks about Lantz’s writers. By this time, the writing department seems to have consisted of Victor McLeod and James Miele. Finally, Lantz tells you how much you need to spend to get an Oswald drawing. The story is from December 1, 1938.

Jitterbugs in the Films
Movie Producer Insults 10,000,000
By FREDERICK C. OTHMAN
HOLLYWOOD — (U.P.) — Walter Lantz, who never has been noted for respectful treatment of things artistic, has completed a movie cartoon about jitterbugs — and never have we seen 10,000,000 people more thoroughly insulted.
Producers at Universal studios, it developed, were making a picture called “Swing, Sister, Swing,” for which they hired a dozen of America’s best jitterbugs. Lantz stumbled across these folks dancing like mad in a soundproof stage and that gave him an idea.
He sneaked in a movie camera to record their gyrations for his own nefarious purposes. He developed the film and had his 125 artists reproduce with line drawings each picture in the reel. Then he photographed the drawings in sequence and that gave him a moving cartoon of jitterbugs dancing. That was funny enough, but as insulting as Lantz intended.
Back to the Artists
He sent his cartoon film back to his artists and they turned the jitterbugs into bugs. The men became grasshoppers, the women lady bugs, and the members of the band, crickets. Then Lantz photographed these sequences, too, and he had a picture showing real bugs dancing exactly like jitterbugs. The result was precisely what Lantz wanted. It’s funny, all right, but not to a jitterbug. If the estimated 10,000,000 jitterbugs in the world don’t make him eat the whole reel, without catsup, they’re gluttons for punishment.
Lantz, whose hair is beginning to gray after 24 years in the cartoon business, said he feared no normal man ever could make a success of it.
“We’re all crazy,” he said, frankly. “If we weren’t, we’d never concoct our ideas. A mind has got to be more than just peculiar to do it.
“Craziest, of course, are our writers. They can’t write. They wouldn’t be any good if they could. They’ve got to be men who can express their ideas in pictures. So they think up their gags and draw pictures of ‘em. Usually a man who can express himself in words can’t do it in pictures.”
Writerless Writers
Lantz pays his writerless writers $125 a week, but when he finds a particularly crazy one, he shells out $150. His cartoons cost around $15,000 to produce and always return a nice profit.
Through the years his drawings have been piling up at the rate of several million a year. Lantz was considering burning the whole works, so he could get more space, when he discovered he was about to destroy a valuable asset.
“We found out there was a market for these drawings,” he said. “People would buy them to decorate their bar rooms and their nurseries and would pay $3 and $4 each for them. So now we’ve got an art dealer — imagine that! — selling original drawings of Oswald the Rabbit, Clock Gobble, Henrietta Hen, and Gladys Goose and whatnot and sometimes I wake up at night and laugh.”

The cartoon being discussed was written by Victor McLeod and owes a little bit to the Warner Bros. cartoons where books come to life in a store after closing and engage in musical gags. In this case, the story is set in a cartoon studio, and there’s live action footage of animators running out the door at closing time (sped up like in a Warners’ Christmas gag reel of the late ‘30s).

It looks like Jerry Beck posted it on line so you can watch it (with a re-issue opening title) below.

Bugs as Groucho Smear

The mid-‘40s seems to have been the era of smear animation at Warners. It was one way to get characters to move quicker. Bobe Cannon did smear drawings for the Chuck Jones unit and Virgil Ross did it in the Friz Freleng unit (with the help of their assistants).

Here’s a set of consecutive drawings from “Slick Hare” (1947), a cartoon with all kinds of stuff going on, some of it having nothing to do with the plot. It takes place amongst the stars in West Hollywood’s Mocrumbo restaurant. At one point to hide from Elmer Fudd, Bugs Bunny dresses up as Groucho. But when the rabbit realises Elmer’s onto him and coming after him from behind, he turns his Groucho lope into a run. These are five consecutive drawings.







Freleng’s usual mid-‘40s coterie of animators is here—Ross, Ken Champin, Gerry Chiniquy (with another dance sequence) and Manny Perez.

Excited City Wolf

There’s great animation from start to finish in “Little Rural Riding Hood,” Tex Avery’s last attempt to put his sexual desire spin on the old tale. It starts out with a rubbery Red loping down the path, twisting her feet in the air as she talks to the audience. And it ends with yet another one of those great sequences where Avery tries to keep topping himself.

After the country wolf (Pinto Colvig) goes through typical Avery takes watching a city Red Riding Hood in a nightclub, ending with him being pushed like a wheelbarrow by his icy city cousin (Daws Butler), who takes him back to the country in his limo.



Then we get a look at the country Red Riding Hood (Colleen Collins).



Now it’s the city wolf’s turn to get turned on. His top hat grows, his head bursts through it and the top hat goes up and down his elongated neck.



Time for a typical Avery wide-eyed take. Two drawings alternate to give a throbbing effect for a few frames, then Avery widens the eyes some more.



Next the eyes are round and extend out. When they contract back into the head, ghosts of the whites and pupils are left behind.



The body flies apart. There are two drawings alternated of the body, but the top hat turns clockwise in mid-air.



The wolf jumps out of the car (note the speed lines).



He rips off his jacket and throws it away.



More rubber legs as the city wolf starts to run (in place). The casual country cousin (I love the bent fingers) reaches to hold the city wolf’s suspenders and put a huge mallet in them.



The mallet goes flying in the air, leaving ghost mallets behind.



The mallet bops the city wolf on the head, unconscious and cross-eyed.



The country cousin wheels him away, just like the city wolf did to him in the previous scene. The roles are reversed and the excited country wolf drives his cousin back to the city, presumably to begin the second cycle of a never-ending chain of sexual desire of Riding Hoods and interfering denial. Truly a great cartoon, one of Avery’s best.

The credited animators are Grant Simmons, Walt Clinton, Mike Lah and Bobe Cannon.