Vivien Halas has posted this filmic remembrance of her father John Halas (1912-1995), who would have been 100 years old today. Halas, whose studio, Halas & Batchelor, made the first British animated feature, Animal Farm (1954), was obviously a seminal figure in British animation and also served as the founding president of ASIFA-International.

The documentary features a number of interviews with friends and people who worked with him at his studio and ASIFA. It also includes some fascinating clips from his films, including a 1970 experiment with 2D computer animation and a 1930 film he made in his native Hungary.

I never really met Halas, though I did correspond with him when I served as editor of the ASIFA-Hollywood’s Graffiti magazine and The Inbetweener newsletter in the mid-1980s. As ASIFA-International President and President Emeritus, he would send out a column which we and other ASIFA chapters would publish.  I still recall a rather prescient piece talking about the growing affinity between visual effects and animation.

Vivien Halas add that, “This short documentary will be available shortly as a bonus on a new DVD specially made for ASIFA of John’s favourite short films from Halas & Batchelor.”

Happy birthday John.

Adam Abraham’s new book, which has just been published by Wesleyan University Press, is an easy book to recommend to anyone interested in film or animation history. I was one of the anonymous readers Wesleyan engaged to evaluate it. A brief excerpt from my confidential evaluation is used on the back cover as an endorsement; but I would like to say a few more words on why the book is so important. (I did have some reservations, but they did not hesitate me from urging its publications.)

Until now, one of the many glaring gaps in animation, film and TV history has been the lack of an authoritative (or even a superficial) history of UPA, which was the most important American animation studio in the post-World War II period. (I do recall a self-published work issued on ditto whose circulation was obviously limited and lacked the scholarship of Abraham’s book.) The studio’s films, ranging from John Hubley’s Rooty Toot Toot and Ragtime Bear (which introduced Mr. Magoo) to Bobe Cannon’s Gerald McBoing Boing and Ted Parmelee’s The Tell-Tale Heart, were seen in their day as revolutionary and had a profound influence. Their films changed the way animation was designed and set the tone for not only for much of what followed (especially TV programs), but also helped define the field of motion graphics, including the development of the modern title sequence (predating the better known work of Saul Bass).

The studio has been largely neglected, in part, due to the lack of books such as this, as well as the lack of corporate support by the various rights holders (e.g., until recently, the best collection of UPA films on DVD was found as extras on the Hellboy special edition DVDs/Blu-Rays owing to Guillermo del Toro being a UPA fan ). As I noted earlier here, two new DVDs containing the bulk of UPA’s theatrical work are also now available.

Over the years, there has been talk of someone doing a serious study of the studio, a project pushed by the family of UPA-cofounder Steve Bosustow (I recall Charles Solomon once being bandied about as a possible candidate).

My biggest complaint is that the author’s knowledge of animation history pre-UPA seems limited. It’s almost as if he’s channeling the views of Disney animation artists in the 1930s and early 1940s who went on to found UPA, who thought of themselves as the center of the animation universe. This leads to a somewhat parochial view of the film and animation world at the time of UPA’s birth. In his research, Abraham’s also misses some important articles, including Michael Frierson’s  "The Carry Over Dissolve in UPA Animation"in the 2001 issue of Animation Journal. But these are not game changers and this is certainly a book I can easily recommend.

Jerry Beck at Cartoon Brew breaks the news that two DVD sets devoted to UPA’s theatrical cartoons are coming out soon: UPA Jolly Frolics due out on March 5th from Turner Classic Movies and  The Mr. Magoo Theatrical Collection 1949-1959 which s due out June 19th from Shout! Factory (both are available for preorder). Until now, the best DVD source for them was the Special Edition set of Guillermo Del Toro’s HellBoy. which includes three Gerald McBoing shorts plus The Tell-Tale Heart as extras. (Del Toro is a long-time animation fan and has been working lately with DreamWorks Animation, where he’s slated to direct a forthcoming movie.)

These films have been shown intermittently on American cable channels, but such major titles as John Hubley’s Ragtime Bear (which introduced Mr. Magoo) and Rooty Toot Toot will now be available in restored versions (they were previously available on out-of-print VHS versions). Because of their lack of availability, the importance of UPA to post-World War II American and international animation has largely been overlooked.

If this isn’t enough, Wesleyan University Press will be publishing Adam Abraham’s When Magoo Flew: The Rise and Fall of Animation Studio UPA which is scheduled to be published March 9th. (It is also available for preorder at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.)

By the way, I reviewed the book for the publisher, but will hold off my comments until after it comes out; but I should note I recommended Wesleyan publish it.

From this week’s edition of The New Yorker. (Click on image for larger view.)

A free preview screening of Waking Sleeping Beauty, Don Hahn’s documentary on the Disney animation renaissance that started in the 1980s will be held at the Atlanta campus of the Savannah College of Art and Design, 1600 Peachtree St., in Event Space 4C, on Wednesday, April 14th, at 7:00 PM. The film will be presented by Peter Schneider, the film’s producer and former President of Disney Feature Animation.

I just got my copy of the latest issue of the nice little French fanzine, Oxymore, which is a special Fleischer issue, to which I contributed “Max Fleischer & les studios Fleischer.” The other featured piece is Leslie Carbarga’s “L’histoire des Fleischers.” In addition, there is an interview with comic artist Kim Deitch, who talks about animation, including the work of the Fleischer Studios. Oxymore editor David Amram wanted to focus on Fleischer since he felt the studio’s contributions to animation were not really appreciated in France. The issue, which is priced at 10€, can be ordered from the publisher’s website here. Needless to say, I can’t help recommend it.

This is by way of an overdue update on Tinga Tinga Tales, the Kenyan animated TV series I reported here on June 30th. The series (see trailer above) has begun broadcasting on the CBeebies,(Children’s BBC) (those living in the UK can see past episodes here). In the meantime, check out this BBC story on the studio here.

Thanks to Cartoon Brew.

The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archives has recently been posting a slew of wonderful material from their Clair Weeks collection, including this entry on Weeks’ role in jump starting the Indian animation industry. Weeks’ career is a fascinating one, as after 16 years at Disney (where his credits ranged from Snow White to Peter Pan), he went to India as part of the American Technical Co-Operation Mission, where he set up the country’s first animation studio for Information Films of India. The image above shows Weeks at work during the production of the studio’s first effort, The Banyan Deer. The posting also includes a Quicktime version of a silent film showing the studio (and Weeks) at work on the film.

Weeks was born and raised in India the son of missionaries; and because of this he apparently felt more at home there than in the United States.  Given this background, it is probably no surprise that:

What started as a one year project expanded into almost a decade of service abroad working for the US Agency for International Development. Weeks toured Southeast Asia and headed up a [communications] office in Katmandu, Nepal. He made films and audio-visual programs that aided in the social development and economic growth of third world countries.

The Joe in question is my father, Joe Deneroff, and the drawing by cartoonist and illustrator Gilbert Bundy was apparently done in 1943 when both were working in the US Army Air Force’s fabled First Motion Picture Unit FMPU),  based at Fort Roach (i.e., the Hal Roach Studio, Culver City, California). My mother said my father was hired by the Unit to work at their New York City facility in 1942;  in 1943, both units were consolidated in Culver City and my father moved out there, leaving his family behind. He only stayed for six months for reasons which are not entirely clear; a letter written during the time he was there indicated he was somewhat homesick for New York, but I suspect his health problems (which eventually led to his death in 1946) were a major factor in his return.

When he returned to New York, he became an animator with Famous Studios (he had previously worked for Fleischer from 1932-40), where he worked alongside his friend Jack Ozark. When he died, Jack kept the drawing, which my father kept in his desk, and gave it to me when I got to know him in the 1980s. Jack said that my father and Bundy worked together at the FMPU and that the drawing perfectly captured  the way my father acted and dressed.

In doing some admittedly cursory research. I could not find anything on Bundy and the FMPU; for instance, David Apatoff’s Illustration Art blog does note that:

… when World War II came along, Bundy decided for some reason to leave it all behind and volunteer to work as an artist in the South Pacific for Hearst newspapers.

In 1944, Bundy was accompanying the Marine invasion of Tarawa when a Japanese shell exploded in his small landing craft. …

Bundy returned to the U.S. but never recaptured the joy in his pre-war art. On the anniversary of his ordeal Bundy committed suicide, thereby rejoining his fallen comrades.

I would, of course, be delighted to hear from anyone who has any additional information on the matter.

It is with some regret that the Animation Studio Links portion of this site is being discontinued. These links were initiated when the site was first started under the name Animation Consultants International in 2001. It was something of a labor of love, which has become increasingly hard for me to keep up. I appreciate the kind words about the Links I have received and though the librarian in me wants to go on, its continued maintenance is simply no longer possible.

Jerry Beck has this fascinating item at Cartoon Research on Yip Harburg and his work at the Fleischer Studios in the early days of talking pictures.  Harburg, of course, was one of America’s finest lyricists, whose work includes the words for two of the most memorable songs  of the Great Depression — “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” and “Over the Rainbow” (from The Wizard of Oz).

The caption in the Life/Google archive for the photo above (by Allan Grant) reads: "Carlo Vinci, artist drawing cartoon at Hanna-barbara [sic] productions." Taken in 1960, the year Hanna Barbera became the force in television animation with The Flintstones, when it debuted on the ABC network on prime time.  The image below has the caption: "Joe Barbera (R), [with] partner Bill Hanna (L), creators of animated cartoons."

The Nitrate Film Interest Group of the Association of Moving Image Archivists‘ has a Flicker site where archivists post frame scans (and clips) of unidentified films. The above "frame scan is from the end of the film when the audience realizes that Krazy has been eating his furniture in his sleep."

David Bordwell recently noted that,

The submissions have tended towards silent films and nitrate prints, but sound films and safety elements are welcome as well. The page is also set up for short video clips, and the first video post has just been uploaded from a new scan of a 28mm print in the Academy Film Archive’s collection. This is also a good resource for anyone out there seeking help in identifying film elements, and you do not have to be a member of AMIA to submit images.

The Krazy Kat is one of the few animation items posted so far and is from the original series done at Hearst’s International Features Service; there is also this film clip identified only as, "Based on the character name Courandair, it is probably a film by Henry Monnier.

I must admit to knowing little about Monnier, other than he seemed to have been active in France after World War I. However, the Hearst studio, which Gregory La Cava ran from 1916-1918, was an important player in early American animation; it was the studio where the likes of Walter Lantz and Grim Natwick began their careers in animation. As Joe Adamson wrote in The Walter Lantz Story, the studio was responsible for several technical and stylistic innovations, including the development (by La Cava) of the storyboard, which was not picked up by others until Disney rediscovered it later on. (La Cava ended his animation career at the Bray Studios in the 1920s before going into live action, directing such movies as Gabriel Over the White House [1933], My Man Godfrey [1936] and Stage Door [1937]).

Below is what is identified as the "Opening credit and first shot of the [Krazy Kat cartoon]. "

Whenever I lecture about UPA, I almost always mention the Life magazine story about Gerald McBoing Boing as an indicator of how popular the film was. Thus, it was no surprise to find a whole slew of images from the film in the Google/Life magazine archives. What is interesting is that they were apparently photographed by Peter Stackpole specifically for Life from specially done cel setups, as normally only a few publicity stills would have been made for each cartoon. (The peg bars are clearly evident in a number of the pictures, including the one above.)

Life magazine’s photo archives are in the process of being posted online, thanks to Google.  The magazine was the picture journal of its day and was published weekly from 1936-1972, and continued to be issued in various stand alone forms until 2000. And its roster of photographers reads like a Who’s Who of Photo Journalism during the middle part of the 20th century.

Needless to say, Life‘s coverage of the arts, especially film and television, was extensive. The images being posted include photos never published before, along with production stills and posters not easily found elsewhere online. The high resolution (300 dpi) images are apparently free for nonprofit use.

My first instinct was to search for animation-related material and, naturally, Disney-related material, such as the 1938 photo of Disney by Alfred Eisenstaedt above , were most easily found. Much of the material I initially looked at lacked full identification; e.g., a picture of Gore Vidal and Melvyn Douglas only named Vidal, and some photos of live TV shows from the 1950s I looked at were not identified in any way, other than that they were TV shows. Anyway, here are some images of interest I came across, starting with  several by Hart Preston of Disney’s 1941 South American tour, which he embarked upon after the Bank of America told him to settle the strike by the Screen Cartoonists Guild:

This is identified as "Disney artist Mary Blair (R) working in Brazil w. company founder Walt Disney (L)," with Sugarloaf in the background; however, that’s doesn’t look like Disney to me.

"Artist Franklin Thomas (L) standing with Walt Disney (C) on Brazilian beach."

"Audiences gathered outside theater for the Brazilian premiere of Walt Disney’s ‘Fantasia’."  Brazil’s President Vargas was in attendance.

"NBC TV actor Sid Caesar (2nd R) rehearsing the Saturday night show with actress Janet Blair (2nd L), Carl Reiner (C) and others." The Saturday night show was, of course, Caesar’s Hour, which along with Your Show of Shows, was an incubator for a whole generation of comedy writers and comedians, including Woody Allen, Mel Brooks, Neil Simon, Danny Simon, and Larry Gelbart.  I’m not sure who the woman on the left is, but the man in the center is Carl Reiner and Howie Morris is on the right. Photo: Gordon Parks.

"Scene from the play ‘No Time For Sergeants’." The 1955 Broadway play was inspired by the popular live TV adaptation of the Mac Hyman novel, and also starred Andy Griffith, who later went on to also star in the movie version. On the right is Don Knotts, who had been a mainstay on The Tonight Show with Steve Allen, made his Broadway debut in the show. Photo: Yale Joel.