George Pal in Hollywood | Cartoon Brew: Leading the Animation Conversation

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George Pal in Hollywood

April 21, 2009 12:05 am

George Pal came to America in 1940 with a contract to make animated shorts for Paramount. His Madcap Models (later Puppetoons) were a instant success, and Paramount played up, for publicity purposes, the unique methods Pal used: stop motion and replacement animation.

Mike Van Eaton recently shared this rare publicity photo with me (click picture above to see larger, fuller image). That’s actreses Martha O’Driscoll with Pal in the Paramount commisary, with “Sarong-Sarong” the star of the third puppetoon, Hoola Boola (1941). The caption on the back says “More than 7000 miniature, stringless manikins were used for the eight minute film”.

Here’s a short scene from Hoola Boola, featuring Jim Dandy and Sarong-Sarong:

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9 comments posted in Animators, Stop Motion

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04/21/09 5:23am	doug holverson says:
	So how big of a crew and shop does it take to make over 7000 puppets in a respectable time?
04/21/09 8:05am	jordan reichek says:
	‘Hoola Boola’ is absolutely one of the greatest gifts bestowed upon mankind. period. God bless you, George Pal, and your Nordic tenacity.
04/21/09 10:55am	John A says:
	What happened to all the models? Does Paramount have them all stuffed in a vault somewhere?
04/21/09 12:57pm	a reader says:
	I don’t think Hungarians would be described anywhere as “nordic”, but they definitely have tenacity. IIRC the puppets belonged to Pal, not Paramount, and they weren’t made to last a long time. Very few exist today apparently although some collectors have one or two somewhere-someone had a Jasper puppet that was shown on the internet a long while back. They’re larger than one would imagine.
04/21/09 2:26pm	Emily says:
	George Pal gives me some Hungarian pride.
04/21/09 9:00pm	Doug Drown says:
	Pal was a visionary, incredibly creative AND tenacious, and was reputedly one of the nicest producers/directors anyone ever worked with — a genuinely kind and affable man. It never occurred to me to wonder what happened to all the puppets. I would think they’d be quite valuable today.
04/22/09 11:48am	ParamountCartoons says:
	Ahh….a Puppetoon post.
04/22/09 12:01pm	ParamountCartoons says:
	Why don’t you post an entire Puppetoon? It seems to me like there needs to be a George Pal Puppetoon post (from BrewTV), because it would be nice if I could see one again. “Jasper and the Haunted House”, “John Henry”, and “Tubby the Tuba” are the only ones I could find. Sure, they are classics, but we would like to see them. Arnold Lebovit is crazy about removing Puppetoons as Viacom is removing…. well, copyrighted stuff — posted from people who just can’t respect how America works and all of the producers, directors, writers, cameramen, etc. I’d buy “The Puppetoon Movie - Special Expanded Edition” but it’s just kinda expensive and inconvenient.
06/26/09 6:17pm	Richard says:
	I’m just gonna say this! Using one new model after another to create movement in a Puppetoon…WHAT A WASTE!!!

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