A few weeks ago I posted about Chuck McCann and mentioned his memorable voice work as Sonny and Gramps in the original 1960s Cocoa Puffs cereal commercials. At the time, I couldn’t find any on the internet to link to, but thanks to our pal J.J. Sedelmaier we were able to place several on You Tube ourselves. These spots were animated by the great Jan Svochak (1926-2006), who was best known for some of the early Hawaiian Punch commercials.

It looks like he had a lot of fun animating these.

What do Brad Bird, Bill Plympton, Mel Blanc, Pinto Colvig, Carl Barks, Matt Groening, Basil Wolverton and Will Vinton have in common?

They all came from Oregon. Film historian Dennis Nyback has been running an animation festival there all month long, highlighting these local talents as well as the entire history of animation. There are incredible shows all week, leading to grand finale on Thursday March 15th at Portland’s historic Hollywood Theatre. The program that night will include classic shorts in 35mm by Jan Svankmajer, John Hubley, Mike Judge, Marv Newland, Will Vinton, Bill Plympton, John Lasseter (pictured above left), Barry Purves (above right) and, believe it or not, Paul J. Smith (center image).

The show starts at 7:15 PM. Admission: $6.00. Tickets can be purchased online at hollywoodtheatre.org

Here’s an oddity.

I found a copy of cartoonist Chuck Thorndyke’s 1939 book The Business of Cartooning: The Success Stories of the World’s Greatest Cartoonists. In it, he profiles three dozen print cartoonists (mainly artists of newspaper strips, magazine gags and editorial cartoons), with caricatures by Thorndyke. Under a subsection for Animated Cartoonists, Thorndyke profiles only three animators. He devotes a whole page to Walt Disney, that’s understandable — but some some unknown reason, from all the animators to choose from in 1939, he singles out Fleischer’s Roland “Doc” Crandall and Jack Mercer.

What? What about Max or Dave Fleischer? Paul Terry? Walter Lantz? Why not Hugh Harman? It’s great to learn a little more about Crandall and Mercer, but it seems a bit odd. My guess is he knew Crandall and Mercer personally. Perhaps owed them a favor. Here’s the spread devoted to animated cartoonists. It’s not particularly well written, but a few bits of odd information can be gleaned from it.

Russian animation director Fyodor Khitruk once said in an interview that the best award he ever received was when Disney director Woolie Reitherman told him, “You know, your Winnie is better than mine.” Now we can judge if Reitherman was right. The first of Khitruk’s three Pooh shorts, Winnie the Pooh (1969), has been posted online (watch it below). I think if I ever had to point to an example of perfect stylized animation, this short would be it. Just look at the way Pooh and Piglet move in this cartoon—so simple yet so much personality and humor throughout. There’s a moment when Pooh is talking to Piglet and he takes a deep breath before speaking. It is absolutely beautiful. You can truly feel these characters thinking before they act.

Looking at this, I can’t help but think of all the Flash TV cartoons being produced nowadays. The character designs in this Pooh short, in terms of complexity and construction, are no more complicated than anything one would find in a contemporary piece of Flash animation. Yet the animation in Khitruk’s film is light years ahead of anything being produced today. I was just watching an episode of a Cartoon Network Flash series yesterday. The movement was even fuller than this Pooh cartoon, but it left me feeling completely empty. The characters moved with generic gestures, mechanically matched to the dialogue and scripted actions; there was never the sense that the characters were alive or had a thought process beyond their meaningless movements on the screen. To create great character animation, whether it’s stylized or full animation, one must believe in…empathize with…truly feel…their characters; clearly Khitruk and company did.

Some stills from Khitruk’s other Pooh shorts are here.

Here’s a reason to visit Disneyland next weekend. Michelle and Amanda (aka The Girls Productions) will be doing a signing Sunday March 18th from 9-11:30 in the Disneyland Gallery above the Pirates Of The Caribbean attraction. This is to commemorate the 40th Anniversay of the ride. There will be some cool new merchandise available and one-of-a-kind art for sale. The Girls will be joined by artist Jeff Granito, and Disney Legends Alice Davis, X Atencio, Bob Gurr, Harriet Burns and Blaine Gibson.

Here’s a link with more info.

Actress Geena Davis spoke at the National Conference for Media Reform in January, discussing her new foundation, See Jane. This group seeks to reduce gender stereotypes, and encourages an increase of female characters in the media–particularly in children’s media. In her speech, she discussed the history of female cartoon characters. Although her facts may not be completely accurate, she certainly makes a valid point. Her speech was broadcast this morning on public radio’s Democracy Now!.

DAVIS: “Do you remember the kinds of stuff that they made for us, for kids, in the oldie old days? Let’s see, the first animation, of course, was Disney’s Minnie Mouse and… Daisy Duck, who didn’t really do much at all, except ask to go shopping, I think. There were a lot of Hanna-Barbera cartoons — Magilla Gorilla, Wally Gator, George of the Jungle — virtually no female characters. I had a vague recollection that Yogi Bear had a girlfriend, and I searched and searched, and I finally found her, Cindy Bear, as you all remember…”

“…On the Looney Tunes website, they list twelve characters, and only one of them is female, but it’s the great one. It’s the one you all love and remember the best: Granny. She’s the one who owns Tweety, and she has to leave so that the story can happen.”

Geena rips into the Smurfs, Judy Jetson, Winnie The Pooh as well. It’s very entertaining. The whole transcript is posted at the Democracy Now! website, and you can also download a streaming video of the speech.

As a follow up to my posting a 1943 Look Magazine article on George Pal, Brew reader Kevin Kidney sends us this April 1944 Coronet Magazine article. Lots of neat things to look at here, including famed sculpter Wah Chang (in picture #3), and the fact that they are making Jasper Goes Hunting, the one with a cameo by Bugs Bunny. Click on thumbnails below to view at full size.

Dutch animator Paul Driessen will make a rare Los Angeles area appearance next week, on Friday March 16th.

Driessen will do an Q & A at the UCLA James Bridges Theatre following a screening of some of his best work. The program begins at 7pm and there will be a reception after the screening. The whole evening is free (though parking is $8.00 in Lot 3 and you may need to RSVP). See you there!