WORKING DOLLARS is a John Sutherland industrial film from the mid-’50s that can be downloaded for free at Archive.org. Unfortunately the film print is awful - scratched up, spliced and faded - and one can only imagine how much cooler a clean print of this film would be. The film’s super-appealing designs and layouts are by Bernie Gruver (1923-1985) and the solid animation is by Emery Hawkins, George Cannata and Jim Pabian. I don’t know much about Gruver, but his design sense is terrific. At Playhouse Pictures, where he worked from the late-’50s through the mid-’60s, he designed the very distinctive Friskie Puppies spots, and then Gruver worked with Bill Melendez for many years on the PEANUTS specials including the classics like A CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS and IT’S THE GREAT PUMPKIN, CHARLIE BROWN. Here’s a look at Gruver’s Friskies designs:

I can’t imagine how awful Mainframe’s CG Popeye looks in motion, but these stills are disgusting enough. Frank Panucci, who posted the frame grabs on Animation Nation and has had the misfortune of watching this, describes the CG sailor man as follows: “Popeye’s face, as designed, textured, and animated in 3D by Mainframe, looks like a big bald scrotum.” Compare to the beautiful graphic shapes in the hand-drawn shorts, then go wash your eyes and never speak of this aesthetic monstrosity again.

THE SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS MOVIE isn’t THE INCREDIBLES, and I don’t mean that in a negative way. The film has a simpler goal: make the audience laugh for an hour-and-a-half. And laugh I did, quite frequently throughout the movie, though it’s interesting to note that the laughter was typically because of either the dialogue (”My eyes! My eyes!”) or a humorous situation (Spongebob and Patrick’s hand-knee slap-jive). There were only three instances during the entire film where I laughed because of the drawings and animation: when Spongebob is “drunk” from ice cream, when Patrick and Spongebob are trying to suppress themselves from singing the “Goofy Goober” song in the biker’s bar, and when Patrick and Spongebob are drying out under the heat of a lamp. In these few sequences, the awesome visual potential of the movie became apparent and the characters rose above their clumsy ’80s DiC-throwback designs to actually deliver on the promise of a cartoony animated feature created by artists. Granted, the rest of the film had funny drawings as well, more than entire seasons of a lot of animated TV series, but the cartoon acting was so inventive in the three aforementioned sequences as to make the rest of the film’s poses and expressions seem downright pedestrian. Perhaps one day we’ll see an animated feature that isn’t afraid to entertain with drawing and animation for a full 90-minutes. Until then, SPONGEBOB is a half decent start towards that goal.

Other brief observations…

> I realize that the dedication at the end of the film - Jules Engel (1909?-2003) - is because SPONGEBOB creator Stephen Hillenburg is a graduate of Engel’s Experimental Animation program at CalArts. Nonetheless, it is ironic that a film with such garish and slapdash color styling would be dedicated to Engel, the artist who introduced the “Color Styling” credit at UPA and who was a proponent for the intelligent use of color in animated cartoons.

> The brief stop motion bit in the film was animated by Screen Novelties founders Seamus Walsh and Mark Caballero and their frequent collaborator Chris Finnegan. It was a pleasantly spontaneous moment in a film that was too heavily plot-driven and bogged down with linear storytelling. David Edelstein put it best in his review of the film for SLATE: “I like my SPONGEBOB a little less lumbering, a little more free-associational, without that big, heavy anchor of a story structure to weigh him down.” The film’s characters are too silly and unique for the conventional trappings of Hollywood storytelling; we never believe that Spongebob and Patrick are in any real danger, so consequently, the scenes with the villains - Plankton, Dennis the Hitman, etc. - are the most tiresome and unnecessary. Had the filmmakers simply created a light-hearted adventure about Spongebob and Patrick embarking on a quest to become men, and thrown in a few more non sequiturs (Patrick in fishnet stockings and heels was a nice touch), the film would have been plenty more entertaining; the potential was there for this film to become a YELLOW SUBMARINE for the Nick generation.

> Apparently, former cast members of the TV sitcom COACH make really solid animation voice actors. Bill Fagerbakke’s Patrick the Starfish is one of the most entertaining cartoon voices I’ve heard in a long time, the perfect blend of idiocy and heart, and Craig T. Nelson’s understated performance as Bob Parr in THE INCREDIBLES was the voice acting surprise of the year. Now it’s Jerry Van Dyke’s turn to amaze us with his vocal chops…

As for why I’m not posting so much this holiday weekend - I’m immersed in severe work overload and deadline panic on two (count ‘em 2) book projects: THE PINK PANTHER: THE ULTIMATE VISUAL GUIDE (DK Publishing) and ANIMATED FEATURES FILMS: A COMPLETE GUIDE (Chicago Review Press/Acappella Books). Memo to myself: Never commit to two books at the same time.I will tell you more about these projects when we get closer to publication… right now, let’s just say they look good and they’re still on schedule…

Saw THE SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS MOVIE last night. It’s a kid’s flick, but a really funny, really good kids flick. I liked it a lot.I’m still warming in the afterglow of the greatness that is THE INCREDIBLES - Pixar’s film is a classic, aimed at all audiences and works on all levels. SPONGEBOB is the best in the recent crop of TV-spinoff movies - a group which includes the RUGRATS movies (they are better than they have any right to be), THE POWERPUFF GIRLS MOVIE (with its strong designs), and TEACHER’S PET (excellent humor, design and direction) - It’s perhaps the best Nickelodeon Movie thus far (full disclosure, I used to work for Nick Movies developing animated features), it encompasses the subversive nature of the channel, the network’s kids empowerment message and great animation design that is classic, yet takes full advantage of the medium’s surreal language.It’s not perfect - but it’s good moments are really good - the highlight for me being the song Spongebob and Patrick sing about being “men” while marching through a monster filled trench - featuring the coolest alien creature designs I’ve seen since Kimball’s MARS & BEYOND.While the animation itself is adequate, the star of the show are the strong layouts, poses, hilarious facial expressions, great comic timing and even funny sound effects (I noticed a cool sound cue from an old Speed Racer episode at one point, but I think I was the only person in the theatre who “got it”).As an animation historian, I thought it was great that this Paramount release has so much combination live action and animation (like Koko The Clown, which Paramount once distributed long ago) and in the Goofy Goober ice cream sequence there is an homage to two early Paramount cartoon stars - Krazy Kat and Popeye - on the wall behind the characters (look close - there’s a panel from the first comic strip appearence of Popeye, and a classic Ignatz & Krazy brick tossing drawing).It’s not the greatest animated film of the year - but a refreshing, worthy, funny holiday movie that is certainly encouraging during this time of 2-D suppression.

We will resume our daily contest for a few days next week - with prizes of the HARVIE KRUMPET dvd courtesy of High Fidelity Media. Join us here 9am on Monday for your chance to win this Oscar winning claymation short.

Jerry Beck is not (I repeat, NOT) related to Oscar-winning actor Adrien Brody. I’m glad that’s straightened out.

So I’m trying to get for Iowa City for Thanksgiving–but at the moment, I’m stuck at the San Francisco airport, where my flight has been delayed by three hours. What better way to kill time than to celebrate the happy news of the rescue of Dick Huemer’s murals with a look at other murals by cartoonists?

Back on October 29th, 2002 (scroll down), Jerry blogged at CARTOON RESEARCH on the old Museum of Cartoon Art’s bathroom murals, which included work by Bob Clampett, Chuck Jones, Wendy Pini, and many others. I’m not sure if these were saved when the Museum left Port Chester, New York for Boca Raton. (Anybody know?) But at least we have photos. (Matthew Hasson, if you’re reading this–maybe it’s time to repost yours on the Web?)

Like Dick Huemer, Charles Schulz decorated a wall at his home with children’s illustrations. Fortunately, Sparky’s work was not only saved, but is on public view at the Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa, California.

When I was a kid, I didn’t consider any trip to New York complete without a visit to a saloon called Costello’s. No, I wasn’t a budding barfly–Costello’s had amazing murals by James Thurber, and a less-amazing but still interesting wall with art by the likes of Milt Caniff and Mort Walker. Here’s an article from early 2004 with the alarming news that the Thurber murals are missing and the cartoonist’s wall is threatened. (By now, it may be history.)

Lastly, LA’s Chinatown welcomes visitors with a big outdoor mural of a dragon by Disney inspirational artist Ty Wong. (Click here and scroll down to see it–I learned it was by Ty when his BAMBI colleague, Maurice Noble, pointed it out to me.) Ty Wong has done a remarkable number of interesting things in his long career–here’s the online companion to a recent museum exhibit of his work.

Anyone know of other cartoon murals, past or present? Hmmmm–there’s Mary Blair’s Disney theme park work…

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