How Sound Changed Cartoons

Walter Lantz was a survivor.

His cartoons weren’t as wild and lippy as ones out of Warner Bros. They didn’t have the stunning animation of Disney. But he put them on the screen from the late ‘20s to the early ‘70s with, arguably, only one real A-list character after 1940.

He had an A-list character before 1940, who petered out as the 1930s moved along. His silent star, Oswald the rabbit, made the jump into sound. How much of a transition was it? Lantz himself supplies some answers in this story found in an Australian newspaper of July 17, 1937. It was no small accomplishment; the studio (and others) had to completely rethink how they put together a cartoon. Now everything had to be timed to the beat of the music.

ANIMATORS AT WORK
Looking In At The Making Of A Cartoon
THE animated cartoon was once a catch-penny device. It was thrown in with the rest of a picture programme. If you found the awkward, jumping pen-and-ink, figures amusing, you stayed to watch.. If not, you walked out of the theatre, feeling you hadn't missed a thing.
A radical change has occurred with the production of cartoons in atmospheric sound and speech effects, with the application of color, and the development of a psychology in the public demand for satire and fantasy in unique combination.

THERE were a few individuals, like Walt Disney and Max Fleischer," states Mr. Walter Lantz, who is producing Oswald Rabbit cartoons for Universal, "who dedicated their life's work to making the animated cartoon a thing of beauty, interest and artistry. So many improvements have been introduced in these crude, irregular short films that they have now become one of the most popular forms of screen entertainment. Grown-ups, no less than children, love the amusing drawings and the fleeting escape from a hard, practical world into delightful realms of fancy.
"To-day, from 40 to 200 people actually work on the making of a single cartoon feature, which usually runs from 600 to 800 feet in length, and costs from 1600 to 15,000 for the same amount of footage. Each cartoon screen strip contains from 12,000 to 15,000 Individual drawings, and an animator—the artist who executes the sketches—averages about 60 of these drawings a day.
"Besides the animators, there is a separate crew of musicians, vocalists and actors. Each of these men or women is a specialist chosen exclusively for the character sound effects required in the picture.
Synchronising the Music.
"The business of making animated cartoons with sound is a much more difficult and complicated process than in the silent picture days. Back in 1926 [sic], when I first started producing the adventures of Oswald, the Lucky Rabbit, for Universal, we never worried very much about a story plot. We just said, ‘This week we will make 600 feet of Oswald Rabbit going to the North Pole,’ and then permitted the story to take care of itself, ambling on in a rather haphazard fashion, in relation to the gags inserted. To-day the scenarios for film cartoons must be planned, written and set to music with as much care and thought as any screen drama. For instance, the action must exactly fit the sound track. Four hundred bars of music mean 800 feet of action, two feet of action being counted to every bar of music. If in the story also Oswald is required to run to a certain place, the music accompanying the running hops must be speeded up to synchronise with the ever-changing drawings to the exact moment of Bunny's arrival. The scenario is perfectly timed, and the tempo of the music in relation to it is tested repeatedly until both fit identically.



Magnified for Testing.
"Wherever talking is introduced a sound recording is made of the voice and the words to be used. Then the film is placed under a magnifying glass in order that each syllable of each word can be picked out separately and measured for length. Naturally, some of the syllables are long and some short, so the animator must accelerate or slow up his action drawings accordingly. Of course, no two of those thousands of pen-drawn pictures, which take on the movements of life when run off in rapid succession, are identical; each differs in a very slight degree from its preceding one. And when once the actual animating of the drawings begins no changes are made. So that not one foot of film is ever wasted.
"In the early stages of celluloid comics when only blacks and whites were used, a few sketchy lines were considered sufficient as backgrounds. Now photographic backgrounds are often combined with the drawings.
Application of Color.
"Color in its application represents another big progressive step. This is obtained by placing sheets of celluloid over the line drawings and painting in any desired color on the celluloid. In this way the original black and white lines are blotted out.
"The majority of creators of animated cartoons have entered the screen world after experience as newspaper comic strip artists. Besides developing a facility for drawing very rapidly, the cartoonist soon possesses an eye carefully trained to the foibles and frailties, the vanities, eccentricities and humorous quirks of his fellow creatures. He acquires a deep insight into human nature and, with tongue in cheek, he gets and gives a lot of fun by transferring his whimsical slant on human beings to animals and puppets.
"Two men right here on the lot both started out in life as ‘comic strippers,’ James Whale and Gregory la Cava. Long before he produced Journey's End and directed the film Show Boat, Whale drew 'funnies' for two publications in London, and la Cava, who directed My Man Godfrey, used to do comics for the New York American in 1915, when I, too, was drawing for that paper. Both of us gave up newspaper work with the intention of making screen cartoons."

Eventually, Lantz ran out of story plots for Oswald and tried a menagerie of unfunny characters. Fortunately, he was able to jump on the “brash heckler” bandwagon, thanks to a guy who came from Warner Bros., where he had put a rabbit in a duck suit. While Warners greatly modified its rabbit so he became a whole new character, Lantz put Ben Hardaway’s rabbit in a woodpecker suit and onto the screen for the next 32 years.

Cartoon Outline

The Last Mouse of Hamelin starts with an interesting premise—suppose the Pied Piper didn’t remove all the mice from Hamelin. Suppose a music-hating mouse plugged his ears and stayed behind.

This Terrytoon itself isn’t that great, though it borrows an explosion/outline gag that Tex Avery liked. The cats are battling each other for the one lone mouse to eat. In this scene, a cat substitutes a stick of dynamite for the mouse as it is about to be eaten by another cat. Cut to the next scene where the newly-fed cat explodes, leaving just an outline. No matter, he strolls around a building and out of the cartoon.



We don’t just get the Terry Splash™. We get the Terry Sewer Splash™.

Connie Rasinski directed this 1955 release. Dayton Allen is the Germanic narrator.

Goosed her Rooster

The sun rises in the Flip the Frog cartoon The Milkman (1932) but the rooster isn’t crowing. He’s still sleeping. A sun-singe to the butt takes care of that. The sun is delighted with being a masochist.



The odd thing is it’s not a real rooster. It’s actually a weather vane.

The cartoon features an obnoxious child and a horse that sings “damn.”

Durante

He moved to Hollywood in 1932 but Jimmy Durante never lost that 1920s New York speakeasy entertainer atmosphere about him, even four decades later.

His act was old-fashioned hokum when radio made his career explode again, but audiences loved it. They were taken in by Durante’s sincere enthusiasm for the old numbers and corny jokes. He was impossible to dislike.

In the late ’50s, United Press International put out on the newswire a three-part series on Durante. As is usual in show biz, with happiness comes sadness, too. You can read that in this first part that began appearing in papers on November 5, 1959. I’ll try to get to the other two parts in future posts.

THE PRIVATE LIFE OF JIMMY DURANTE
Comedian Soft Touch
By VERNON SCOTT
UPI Hollywood Correspondent
HOLLYWOOD – The curtain goes up, the ricky-ticky music blares out, “Who Will Be With You When You're Far Away?” and a ramshackle old man struts jauntily on stage.
The music fades away. "I'm walking into de theater mindin' my own business when dis man comes up and sez, 'I reconize the face, but the nose ain't familiar.' So I ups to him and he ups to me and I sez, 'Any friend of mine, is also a friend of thuh nose.' "
Cackling merrily, the bald little guy breaks into a dance. He pounds the piano. He sings off-key. He spouts another joke in a voice that cracks plaster. He's Jimmy Durante, 66 years old.
A secretive man who baffles even hit closest associates, the old Schnozzola is beloved but not well-known in Hollywood. Fifty years in show business has not separated fact from fiction, and Durante does everything possible to confuse legend with reality.
Example: Jimmy has lived in the same Beverly Hills house for 20 years. His friends insist the Schnozz never has been in the swimming pool. They say it's typical of Durante's eccentricities. But Jimmy swears he goes for a dip every morning.
"Sure I do," he said hoarsely. "Why else have I got a pool?"
His compatriots merely lift their eyebrows in resignation.
The softest touch in the warm-hearted society of entertainers, Durante denies his charities and good works, perhaps to minimize future handouts, but it is known he gives away some $15,000 a year to organized charities and an equal amount to down-on-their-luck buddies. This may not sound like a lot of money for a big star, but Jimmy is not as wealthy as his Beverly Hills Neighbors.
"Aw," he says of his generosity, "I don't like discussin' them things."
Pressed on the subject, Jimmy smoothed down a fragile wisp of hair atop his head. "Well, lem-me see. There's the Jewish Home for the Aged, the Thalians (mentally retarded children), the Lighthouse for the Blind in New York and the Catholic Church among others. But please don't talk about it no more."
Durante's perverse nature crops up whenever his passion for horse races is mentioned. He vows his bets are small and infrequent, and made only at the track.
But I’ve seen him in action during many a TV rehearsal when he spends as much time with the racing form as he does with the script. Jimmy’s sidekick and friend of 42 years, Eddie Jackson, shuttled between Durante and the telephone placing bets. On one occasion Jimmy was astonished to find he’d bet on every horse in a single race.
Yet he will tell you he’s not a real horse player.
“I don’t know how to gamble—and I never won on the horses during a season in my life.”
Then why is he the inveterate plunger?
“I like to see ‘em run,” he grinned sheepishly.
Purposefully or not, Jimmy Durante will twist and sidetrack a conversation so skilfully most people are unaware he is escaping painful subjects. And there have been many painful episodes in the comedian’s life.
His cheerful, raucous on-stage personality gives way to thoughtful reflection when Jimmy is alone. He speaks and thinks about the past a great deal, but not regretfully. He enjoys the nostalgia, re-living the good old days when Clayton, Jackson and Durante were the toast of New York.
Durante's life has been a series of professional and emotional ups of and downs. He's seen good times and bad in night clubs, movies, radio and television The death of his wife, the passing of his partner Lou Clayton, a disastrous love affair in his youth and other tragedies played an important role in shaping Jimmy's way of life.
Jimmy is fiercely loyal to his troupe of seven regulars who surround him on his night club and TV skirmishes.
"I gotta keep 'em workin'," he explained, before enumerating his tight little band. "My drummer, Jack Roth, has been with me 41 years. Eddie Jackson (with whom he squabbled last year) and I been together 42 years, and Jules Buffano, my piano player, has been around 17 years.
“Then there's Louis Cohen, he attended lots of things, and he's been working for me for 40 years. Lemme see. I think it's 24 years Bill Stocker has been driving me around and taking care of me. My press agent Joe Bleeden, has been with me nine years. Sonny King, my new singer, is a two-year man. They're all my boys."
The "boys" make the big-beaked word-mangler's home their own. They drop by at all hours of the day and night to keep the boss happy.
It's a surprisingly democratic clan, in contrast with the sycophants who generally congregate around a star. His pals adjust themselves to Jimmy's schedule which keeps them up until 5 and 6 in the morning hashing over the "good old days."

Inki Backgrounds

Chuck Jones’ unit was experimenting with various kinds of backgrounds during the war years. Some consisted of geometric patterns but all were not literal.

Here are some examples from Inki and the Minah Bird from 1943. They certainly don’t look like jungles you will find in other cartoons. The clouds are in patterns of three.

Jones was going through a bit of a transition around this time. Layout artist John McGrew went into the military, followed by background painter Eugene Fleury. Fleury’s wife, Bernice Polifka, was hired for background work. I don’t know which of these artists were involved in this cartoon.

Jones made five Inki pictures for Warners release. He told author Mike Barrier that theatre audiences liked them but nobody understood them, including him.

Lassoing a River

Life was not easy for pioneers heading West, we’re informed by the narrator of Homesteader Droopy (1954). “There were wide rivers to cross.” Director Tex Avery and gagman Heck Allen toss in a sight gag.



The animators in this short are Mike Lah, Grant Simmons, Walt Clinton and Bob Bentley. Your narrator is Paul Frees.

Canada's Million-Dollar Composer

It’s a tune that may be more Canadian than “O Canada.”

It’s the theme to “Hockey Night in Canada.”

Every Saturday night, there it was on the CBC to signal the start and end of a televised NHL encounter. Even die-hard hockey haters—what few of them there are in Canada—must have recognised the theme.

Music, as you know, doesn’t compose itself. The composer of the “Hockey Night in Canada” theme was a lady by the name of Dolores Claman. And I see that she has passed away just after her 94th birthday.

I had the pleasure of meeting her and her husband a little over 40 years ago. They had a company that sold LPs of music that you hear in the background of commercials and industrial films, and had a little office on the second floor of an old brick building in downtown Vancouver. I was a commercial announcer/producer at an obscure radio station which needed a production library, and I purchased one from them. Dolores admitted to me she wrote all the music but used pseudonyms to make her company look like it had a staff of composers.

Silly me, at the time I had no idea she was responsible for Canada’s most famous sports theme.

Claman was a native Vancouverite and was giving recitals by the mid-1930s. As time wore on, she ended up being responsible for a great number of commercial jingles heard at one time on Canadian television. If you were watching the CBC or CTV in the 1960s and 1970s, you could not avoid them.

Chatelaine magazine wrote this profile of her in its September 1966 issue:

Dolores Claman music to sell by

Dolores Claman and her husband Richard Morris head the company that writes the words and music for probably seventy-five percent of the English-language commercials for such firms as Imperial Oil (remember the original “Tiger in your tank” commercials?), Scott Tissue (with the “this old man” tune) and Black Magic chocolates. Working out of a drab office in a semislum section of Toronto, the Claman-Morris team average five new commercials weekly. Dolores writes the music, Richard the words, helping to sell cigarettes, soap, soup, candy, cars, beer and gasoline, and bringing in for Miss Claman alone close to $20,000 annually. Dolores, who is auburn, slim and nervously energetic, drives herself hard. She socializes little, spends no time at sports or hobbies, and employs a full-time housekeeper to cook and clean and care for the Morrises’ four-year-old daughter Madeline. She married Morris, an English playwright writing for TV shows, in 1957, when she was working in London composing music for TV shows, West End revues and special material for performers like Tallulah Bankhead. Born in Vancouver, Dolores studied music and drama at the University of Southern California then switched to the Julliard School of Music in New York to concentrate on the piano. In 1952 she produced her first big theatrical score, Timer, for Vancouver’s Theatre Under The Stars. Occasionally the Morrises return to their old love—theatre. They’ve contributed music to the CNE grandstand shows and, with fellow writer, Ted Wood, turned Dickens’ Christmas Carol into a musical, Mr. Scrooge, which CBC-TV taped in December 1964 starring Cyril Ritchard. They’re currently working on a musical based on the sourdough ballads of Robert W. Service. Like Scrooge, much of it is written at home, a roomy east Toronto house decorated with antiques, and an amiably ugly bulldog called Sheba. – Shirley Mair.

Her most famous work came about on an afternoon in 1968. A front-page story in the Toronto Globe and Mail in June 2008 explained Claman looked out her window at her garden and plunked away on her grand piano. She tried B-flat, then the key of C. She pictured Roman gladiators wearing skates; she had never been to a hockey game. Five notes came to her and it didn’t take long for the rest of the melody to be written.

She was paid $800 by a Toronto ad agency for writing it. That was the flat rate for a jingle. The 20 musicians who played it got residuals each time it aired. Among them were top Toronto session people like trombonist Rob McConnell and trumpeter Guido Basso. But in the early ‘70s, it was reclassified as a “theme,” meaning Dolores got music-use license payments. That worked out to around $4,000 a year on average. “Hold on!” said an agent in 1993, who told Claman to license the tune. That resulted in $500 for each hockey game; up to $45,000 a year.

In 2008 at age 80, Claman decided to sell the theme. By then, sports had changed in Canada. The CBC wasn’t the only outfit broadcasting play-by-play hockey. The Mother Corp offered $850,000. No deal, said Claman, who then accepted a minimum $1,000,000 from CTV. (The CBC reacted by staging a contest for a new theme).

Show business is littered with stories of people who don’t get rewarded or credit for their work. In this case, a friendly, honest woman got a nice windfall for a Canadian musical icon.

Farewell, Dolores.

Knowing Jack Benny

I suppose the question “What’s Jack Benny really like?” is a legitimate one. A writer for one of the dailies in Los Angeles tried to answer it.

Here’s a feature story from the Evening Citizen-News of January 15, 1962. It has a few inaccuracies—Jack was not born in Waukegan, his first radio appearance was not with Ed Sullivan, he knew Mary well before he got into radio—but it’s a pleasant story about a pleasant man.

Benny mused about Broadway on occasion but rejected the idea of going on stage simply because of the time it would take up, And he would have to give up the concerts he loved doing, maybe more so than his television show.

Jack Benny — Comedian, Violinist, Philanthropist and Living Legend
By ED ADDEO
Besides being a comedian, musician, businessman and philanthropist, Jack Benny also a loyalist.
It is this quality— loyalty — that has proved to be Jack's greatest asset, and it has more than any other factor made him something of a legend in his own time, a classic image that walks, talks, eats and does all the things that legends are supposed to do.
Jack, who will begin his 13th year in television, and his 30th in broadcasting, whose name is mentioned on every list of show business greats, and whose Beverly Hills headquarters is chock full of plaques, trophies and accolades of all sizes and kinds, has, almost to the man, the same people around him now whom he had when he started out in the big time.
His comedy format was so advanced when Jack started in 1932 with the lines "Hello, folks, this is Jack Benny. There will now be a slight pause for everyone to say ‘who cares?’” that it has remained virtually unchanged throughout the years.
When he jumped from radio to television, his cast made no changes. All they did was put on make-up.
There is no real Jack Benny. Jack Benny at home is Jack Benny in his office. Jack Benny the businessmen is Jack Benny on television. Jack Benny buying a cigar in a Beverly Hills shop is Jack Benny rehearsing for next Sunday's show. Jack Benny is Jack Benny.
In a studio at Desilu Productions in Hollywood, a group of people sit around a long, rectangular table every Tuesday. This group includes the players, director and writers connected with the “Jack Benny Show” to be filmed the following Friday evening.
The day before this scene, Jack parleyed with his writers on the new script for about an hour. This is the first reading, the time when kinks are ironed out, additions put in and timing and inflection practiced.
The casual air is almost unbelievable. Everyone just knows — is absolutely certain — that everything will go well, with no squabbles, scenes or hurt feelings.
Jack and his crew, including Don Wilson, Dennis Day, Eddie (Rochester) Anderson and senior writer Sam Perrin go through the script in about two hours.
The following day there's a dress rehearsal, and they’re ready to shoot. Simple? Uncannily easy? Smooth? Yes, but it's one of the few shows around that run so smoothly.
This is Jack's secret. This is where his loyalty rewards him. His writers, four of them, have been with him n total of 76 years. They know Jack Benny inside out—his likes, dislikes, pet peeves and manias in comedy.
Don Wilson, who's been with him 30 years, knows what Jack expects of him, has done the show thousands of times, and can probably do it blindfolded. The same goes for Dennis Day and Rochester who have also been with him from the start. There are few mistakes when the “Jack Benny Show’ goes on the air.
The man behind all this is somewhat of a genius, the same quality that seems to emanate from all the great men in show business. Jack will sit in rehearsal and think for five minutes about whether line should be said, “It’s easier to slip on the girdle” or “It's easier to slip the girdle on.” A two-letter word can bother him for half-an-hour.
On the set, Jack is relaxed, agreeable and far from temperamental. He'll joke with the staff, give a short concert on his Stradivarius (which he carries wherever he goes), or suggest changes to the director. It is said that every director in the business would like to direct the “Jack Benny Show” because it’s such an easy job.
Jack has a few taboos and flares in his comedy. “People laugh because they’re surprised,” he says. “They won't laugh if they know what's coming. I don't want the obvious in my show. The obvious is never funny.”
Another quirk Jack has is that he prefers to integrate the commercials into the script, rather than leave the show for “a word from our sponsor.” And his commercials are some of the funniest bits in the show. Good natured jibes and improvisations on the message while still sending the message clearly through are a hit with audiences, and Jack was quick to seize the method.
On comedy itself, Jack doesn't think it has changed much, “although the audiences are much better now. Audiences have matured and changed much more than comedy has— not that it should, mind you.”
Jack, who has been 39 for 29 years, is vigorous for his age. (He doesn’t wear a toupee). There is a slight slowness about him, which is to be expected, but it also breathes a vitality that is amazing. In a time where comedians are falling off television like lemmings, Jack still rides the crest of popularity and hasn’t slowed down. The teamwork and familiarity of his staff makes his work easier, but the energy expended is still more than most people generate in a week.
The man was born Benny Kubelsky, the son of a clothier, Feb. 14, 1894, in Waukegan Ill. He eased into show business like many of his era did, knocking around in a few small jobs until he found an audience that wanted more and more, under the name of Ben Benny. Confusion with another comedian, Ben Bernie, led to the adoption of another name, Jack Benny. His first broadcast was on Ed Sullivan’s radio show in 1932 and his appearance led to his own show. He had already attained stature on Broadway and was immediately a hit. He’s been going ever since.
Once on his radio show, a part called for a girl to break in and read her poems to Jack. A youngster named Mary Livingstone got the part, was a hit, and became a regular. She later became a regular in the Benny household when Jack married her. They now have a daughter, Joan, and a few grandchildren.
Jack, contrary to the popular image, is far from cheap. He even goes out of his way in private life to shun the “miser” image he has created. He overtips waiters wherever he eats.
Perhaps the one thing Jack can’t shake is his genuine love for the food in New York's Automat, a place where nickels are deposited in slots that open to present the food ordered. To combat the jokes that arise whenever he eats there, he recently threw a black tie affair in the Automat, hiring a band, and giving all the guests $2 worth of nickels to buy their food.
The Benny character is summed up by the comments of the people who have worked for him all these years. Don Wilson calls him “quite a fantastic man, who picks up the ball and runs with it.
“Jack will bend over backwards to help a guy get a start or better himself in the business. He once forstalled a show so that I could sign for a Broadway part. He could have got someone else to do the show, too.”
Dennis Day, the tenor singer with the Benny group, says that Jack “has a loyalty that is hard to equal.” He says Jack is a "very generous person who is good to everyone around him.”
Jack has played benefit concerts on his Stradivarius. People like Leonard Bernstein have said of him “Benny has done more than raise the thousands of dollars to erase operating deficits of major orchestras. He has brought multitudes of people, who would not otherwise be there, into the concert halls to prove that good music can be entertaining and rewarding.
Musicians like Jascha Heifetz and Mischa Elman refer to Jack as “one of the boys,” and often commend him on his violin aptitude.
“I’d rather be referred to as a comedian than a musician,” Jack replies to the age-old query: Is he a musician with a comedy sideline or vice versa? “I’m really not that good.”
Jack, who lives fairly quietly with his wife in Beverly Hills (“If Mary found a good cheap toothbrush, she’d buy 300 of them”) enjoys playing golf (he shoots around 90) and manages to get out for a round almost every day. His greatest pleasure is playing the violin, at which he frequently practices in his dressing room.
He says he has no future plans. “I like what I’m doing now,” he says. “It’s not hard really. I would like to do a Broadway play soon though.”
The big impression when digging into Jack Benny’s life is that there isn’t a single person who can find something bad about him. He draws praise from a clerk who has just met him, to people that have watched him, lived with him and worked for him for decades.
Asked to define something unflattering about himself, Jack’s reply is “I’m a little impatient, I guess.” But then no one will agree with him.

Women and Walt

Women can’t handle being animators. Walt Disney was convinced of that. It was pointless for women to even apply for the job at his studio. He wouldn’t consider it.

The “distaff side,” as it was once called, got short-shrift at Disney for so long, it’s remarkable to see an newspaper article in 1940 telling how women were making progress at the studio. Even more amazing is in the entire story, not one woman is named!

You would never know reading the article that the woman referred to at the outset was Bianca Majolie (right). And you would never know of the harassment and the condescension she had to put up with. That was finally told in 2019 in the book The Queens of Animation by Nathalia Holt.

The article points out there were female animators elsewhere—you won’t find La Verne Harding or anyone else’s name mentioned—with the odd logic that this somehow proves that Disney was right and women were incapable of the job. It also doesn’t address the irony that Disney’s first regular character in shorts was a girl and his first feature film was about a young woman. There were many, many more female lead characters in Disney features, so many the company could mash them together and create a highly-salable entity of “princesses.”

This story comes from the Hollywood Citizen-News of February 23, 1940. There is no byline.

On the Distaff Side At Walt Disney’s
IT IS no longer news when a woman takes her piece in a men's work-a-day world. But it was news when a women artist invaded the strictly masculine stronghold of the Walt Disney studio.
The event took place about four years ago. Until that time the only girls in the studio were the few necessary secretaries and the girls who did the inking and painting of the celluloids.
The girl who caused all the excitement was a young artist who, as a child, had gone to school with Walt in Chicago.
In 1934 she was in New York trying to market a comic strip. Remembering the little boy who used to draw pictures in her school books and who was now drawing Mickey Mouse, she wrote asking his advice about the strip. He replied promptly offering much good advice.
Shortly after this she arrived in Los Angeles on the first leg—which proved to be the last leg— of a trip to the Orient. She had luncheon with Walt. He thought she should try working at the studio, but he was not sure that a woman would fit in the story end of the business. But she was eager to try and was admitted to the “charmed circle.” Not only has she proved herself in the story end of the business, but was instrumental in breaking down the prejudice against women in this particular field of work.
Up through “Snow White," there were only two girls working on the story—the above-mentioned veteran of a couple of years, who sketched as well as worked out ideas, and another who developed sequences and wrote dialogue.
The reason for the lack of women artists until the last year or so, was that animation was just about the only field. The studio was concerned with making only short subjects, which is child's play in comparison with putting out a feature production. The backgrounds used to be more simple; there was no multiplane camera for which layers of backgrounds and overlays had to be painted on plate glass in oils; technique had not reached a point where there was a great deal of air brush work used, and story sketches were not the little gems many of them are today, because it was necessary to make only rough colored pencil action sketches for a Mickey Mouse or Silly Symphony.
WITH the advent of the features came the widening of new artistic fields, and although animation is still the backbone of the productions — for without animation you would have nothing but beautiful still pictures — the beauty of the Disney animated picture as a whole has been caused by more varied artistic technique.
For instance, in days gone by, the animators maintained a uniformity of a character by following model sheets of the character drawn characteristic poses. Now, for feature productions, the Character Model department creates dimensional figures which not only enable the animator to get a better idea of what a character would actually look like, but it makes for better drawing, for they can be studied from any angle.
A young woman creates many of these little plaster figures used in the studio, as well as those used as models for the commercial industries that put Disney ceramics on the market.
Although there has never been a ban against women artists in the studio, they are in the minority. However, there are about a dozen young women artists creating atmosphere sketches and paintings for stories. These paintings, which are miniature works of art, are used by the story men and those connected with the picture to set the mood for the sequence and as a guide for the coloring.
Several of the girls in the story department started with the Disney organization as inkers and pointers. Their skill with the brush and pen coupled with visualizing ability has landed them in the story sketching division. For one of the future feature, productions they are working on an entirely new technique — that of painting their sketches directly the celluloids.
Another girl entered the Disney organization direct from an art school. Her forte is the creation of the enchanting little animals, favorites of all lovers of the Disney pictures.
ALTHOUGH there is not a woman animator in the Disney studio, the girls in the airbrush department come the closest. These girls, picked from the painting department, are capable of doing simple effects animation. Trained in the elements of animation by the special effects animators, in whose department they work, they create the movement of smoke, clouds, dust, rain, glitter on jewels, twinkling of the stars, the glow around a candle flame.
Women are playing a very important part in the preliminary work — known as story research. Here story properties are tested for possible value to the studio. These girls gather all available information on stories and books which look like possible Disney features. They take inventory of all phases of fantasy, folklore and legends of all nations, searching for basic story material of certain type that would be adaptable to the Disney medium.
ONE of the most interesting jobs in the organisation is that of the girl in charge of the fan mail department. What makes it interesting is that the fan mail received by the studio is unlike that of any other studio. The bulk of it is written by people who do not usually write fan letters. In the letters they express appreciation of the productions or intelligent criticism, although the latter is in minority. What is more amazing is that the majority of the letters is from adults!
There are two departments which the girls have to themselves — the secretarial and Inking and Painting departments.
In the Inking and Painting department 200 girls trace and paint the animators' drawing onto the celluloids which are photographed over backgrounds.
In the early days of the studio men did the inking and painting, but they were always being snatched away and turned into animators. Finally they hit upon the idea of having only girls as inkers and painters. Girls not only have more patience and a finer sense for detail line and color — so necessary for this work on celluloids, but there was no chance of their being set to work on animation. There never has been a woman animator in the Disney organization. The consensus is that a man has a better feeling for action personality and caricature. There are several women animators in other studios — the exception which proves the rule — but it is doubtful if there will ever be any women animators in the Disney organization.
WHAT corresponds to script clerks in a "live action” studio are unit secretaries at Disney's. There are 10 of these girls in the studio, each assigned to a director's unit. Her connection with the making of the picture begins with the preliminary story conferences.
Taking notes at a story conference calls for psychic powers on the part of the secretary. When creative minds start popping thoughts back and forth, it's a case of get it now — or it's gone!
Thus while the organization is still predominantly masculine, the outposts have fallen and feminine influence is on the ascendancy!

Three Part Harmony

There was a time when Disney cartoons had little bits of impossible fun in them.

Here’s a scene from Alice Rattled by Rats, a 1925 silent Alice comedy. A rat is playing the piano but apparently wants extra harmony. He splits into three.



The gag’s laughs having subsided in the theatre, the rat reassembles, using the same drawings in reserve. They’re pretty stiff but it is 1925 after all.



The short features Disney’s Felix knock-off. Julius tips his ears and detaches his tail just like Felix. Where are the Sullivan corporate lawyers?!?