When I finally landed a job in the animation industry, I ended up meeting and working with a lot of people who had created animated cartoons that I had grown up on. While not household names, they were very familiar to me from seeing their credits on various cartoon shorts or shows over the years. I ran into some of these people at Warner Bros Animation. People like Gerald Baldwin, who had worked on UPA and Jay Ward productions product and had created a sequence that I truly enjoyed from Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol. Art Leonardi, who worked as an animator on late 50's/Early 60's Warner Bros.Cartoons and became a jack of all trades with Friz Freleng on Pink Panther and Ant & The Aardvark cartoons. Tom Ray, a veteran animator from MGM and Warner Bros cartoons, would later work for Chuck Jones 'How The Grinch Stole Christmas' and 'Horton Hears A Who!'. Of course, there were many others, some of which I was surprised were still alive and actively working in the animation industry.

People like Alex Lovy, a longtime Lantz Director, who later worked on Hanna Barbera cartoons, Norm McCabe, an animator and Director of Looney Tunes from the late 30's thru early 40's,
and Charlie Downs, who started at Disney and worked on many of Ward Kimball's projects at the studio.

When I was working for Don Bluth on The Troll In Central Park in the early 90's. The studio was going through a difficult time with Goldcrest, the movie company that was funding the Troll movie. Apparently, Goldcrest had a new management team and they weren't pleased with the Bluth product (more on that in a future post).
Fortunately, the Bluth unit in Burbank had a special projects division that had just completed the character animation for a ride at Universal Studios called The Fantastic World Of Hanna Barbera and was now embarking on a new project for a theme park attraction in Japan.
One day, I had noticed an older gentleman in a corner of the studio who was toiling away on color keys for the new project. I went to introduce myself and he told me his name was Walt Peregoy.
Peregoy, a superior talent, had painted backgrounds for Disney's Sleeping Beauty, 101 Dalmations, Sword In The Stone and had designed the backgrounds for Hanna Barbera's late 60's/Early 70's product.
He eventually returned to Disney to work on projects for EPCOT center.
It was pretty much known in the business, even back then, that Peregoy was a volatile individual and wasn't afraid to voice his opinion about things. I didn't care much about that; I was in awe of being in his company. Every other day I would drop by talk to him a bit and would salivate at his beautiful paintings. He was 64 years old at the time. I developed a friendship with Peregoy while working at Bluth studios and got to hear plenty about Walt Disney (not all good things either from Peregoy's perspective!).
It still strikes me as a surreal experience that I got to work side by side with people who made the cartoon films that I grew up on.
Above, is a film that was featured on the old Disney TV show called Four Artists Paint A Tree. Walt Disney introduces four of his artists; Walt Peregoy, Marc Davis, Eyvine Earle and Josh Meador. Years before I met Peregoy, I actually saw this film in High School. It's good stuff! Enjoy!

As some of you know, I took off a couple of years from blogging to focus on other projects.
The time was well spent as I was/am working on a traditionally animated cartoon project that I was trying to get off the ground for a number of years. I finally have a handle on it and have been animating it the old fashioned way; with pencil on paper. I'm happy to say that rough animation is completed and I'm heading toward finishing it up by the Holidays. I will start revealing bits and pieces as it gets closer to completion. Expect to see making of materials right here on the blog in the near future!

Going forward, this blog is going to change directions a bit. What that means is that the focus is going to be directed more toward my personal experiences in the animation field, the challenges involved in creating a storyboard, animating a scene, designing a character or the headaches and triumphs of putting a whole film together.
I think that this will be more informative than posting a you tube video of The Osmond Brothers at Disneyland. Stuff like this will be removed from the site and posted onto a sister web site for Theme Park related posts (more on that to be announced soon!) I just want to make this blog more about the Animated Cartoon.

I feel (whether people believe it or not) that pure Cartoon Animation is disappearing from movie and Television screens all over the world...and that's just plain sad. What's worse is that the people in control of the purse strings in the entertainment world are killing the medium, simply by omitting it from being seen.
A few people are stepping up to the plate to help give the Animated Cartoon world a good kick in the pants. Glen Keane's classy DUET recently made a big splash on giant video screens in Times Square, New York City (where I saw it first hand!) and animator James Lopez is working on his Steampunk Animated film Hullabaloo that easily surpasssed its' target funding goal on Indiegogo. Mr. Lopez asked for $ 80,000, but instead raised $ 470,000! How's that for interest in Traditional Animated Cartoons!? The trailer is very impressive and the line up of animation talent even more so. Let's all get behind this and support James' project.

I know some of you have been visiting the blog for a while and have not seen anything new. I apologize for this and promise that I will be updating on a regular basis.
Thanks for staying tooned!

[フレーム]I'm a real sucker for classic how to material like this..Here's Walter Lantz explaining the traditional process of making an animated cartoon. In the old Woody Woodpecker show from the late 50's and early 60's, Walter Lantz would introduce the cartoons, much like Walt Disney did in his Wonderful World Of Color and Disneyland episodes; but Lantz would describe in short 4 minute sections like this, how a story was put together or how the backgrounds were made or how the pencil drawings got transferred to cels, etc. These real glimpses into the process fueled young people (like myself at the time) into learning more about the animation medium. Some would eventually be inspired enough to pursue a career into the cartoon arts! Material like this was pretty rare to see, especially at a time when there was no you tube or DVDs. If they aired a piece like this and you missed it, you'd have to watch the show on a steady basis to see the re-run of the episode. Fortunately, a bunch of these clips are available on The Woody Woodpecker DVD boxed set #2. In this bit, Lantz explains the job of an animation director. The Director I believe, is none other than Alex Lovy. Lovy was a key director for Lantz and later for Hanna-Barbera. Sometime in the early, early 90's, Alex was still working, directly across the aisle from me at Warner Bros. Animation. Don't know why, but I should have asked for an autograph at the time.....missed opportunities!

If you know me well or have been following the blog, I have a big love for Disneyland.
It's the only Disney park that Walt actually walked in. In a sense, Disneyland is an extention of the animation work done for the Disney motion pictures, mainly because it was designed by the very people who created all those wonderful Disney animated films! It's pretty obvious in places like Fantasyland where the rides are based off the animated features. But classic attractions like The Jungle Cruise, Pirates Of The Caribbean and The Haunted Mansion, it's not so apparent. In my animation classes, I told students to go to the Disney parks to study the art direction, composition of the scenes inside the attractions and the actual animation of posing of the animatronics. There's a tremendous amount of education to be had there!
[フレーム]In this clip from The Wonderful World Of Disney episode, Disneyland Showtime (1970), Kurt Russell takes us on a behind the scenes tour of Disneylands' Haunted Mansion. What's really great about this clip is that some of the imagineers who made this attraction a reality are in it. You'll see animator Bill Justice cutting discs to control the ghosts that shoot at each other continuously throughout the ride and then you'll see layout artist Yale Gracey setting up the haunted bust illusion featuring Thurl Ravenscrofts' projected image. Then it's off to a complete ride through of the then new Disneyland attraction. Missing from the clip are the key designers of the ride, background artist, Claude Coats, who was the main designer of the interiors, Master Animator, Marc Davis who designed a good amount of the scenes and characters, Blaine Gibson, who did a good amount of the sculpting of the figures and Rolly Crump who came up with a good portion of creepy ideas. Animator X. Atencio provided the script and probably one of the most important and memorable elements of the attraction, the lyrics of the song Grim Grinning Ghosts. Buddy Baker, also equally important to the mood of the attraction provided the creepy music. Believe it or not, I remember seeing this episode when it first aired in 1970, and being 8 yrs old and living in New York at the time, couldn't wait to get to California to see it first hand. It would be five years before I could see the Disney World version of the attraction and another eleven to see it it at Disneyland. The full version of Disneyland Showtime featuring the Osmond Brothers, Kurt Russell and E.J. Peaker can be viewed here...but beware!!!!!!!!It's slightly dated but still a fun look back at a more innocent time at Disneyland Park.

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The Muppets comes out this week, and it looks and feels very much like the Muppets that I grew up with; fresh, fun and humorous. I'm going to see it with my daughter around the holiday and it should be pretty entertaining. I'm glad in that respect, but it bothers me that Jim Henson's name is not in bold, above the title. It may be called Disney's The Muppets, but even though they own the property, it's still not Disney to me.
Jim Henson was the heart and soul of The Muppets.
Many moons ago when I was just about 11 or twelve, I was a big Muppet Fan and very much into puppets for that reason. Henson was involved with creating delightfully bizarre sketches for The Ed Sullivan Show, For Commercials, for Sesame Street and was creating hour long specials for CBS and for syndication. Each of these projects were a whole lot of fun and I got caught up into it. In fact, I was so bitten by it that I decided that when I grew up, I wanted to work for Jim Henson!
My father saw that interest and nurtured it by enrolling me in some puppetry classes at The Museum Of New York with a professional puppeteer named Rod Young. For a number of weeks, we built puppets, wrote a show, recorded it and then performed it on a beautiful stage at the Museum. I took the experience and ran with it by performing my own little shows on a giant stage that my father had built me. I even entered a puppetry competition and won three 2nd place prizes. Professional puppeteers attended this and made a point to tell my father that I was a natural for the medium.
For a time there, I would write to Jim Henson in NYC, and he would actually answer these little letters personally. These letters would be typed up on Henson Associates stationery and signed by Mr. Henson in green pen. To say I was thrilled when I received these would be a major understatement. I even got the number to Jim Hensons' workshop on East 67th Street in NYC, and called him a few times on the weekends...he always picked up the phone. I knew what I wanted to say to him, but sometimes the words were slow to come out. Somehow I managed to stumble through a question or two...and I'm sure it sounded like some stuttering dumbbell kid on the other side of the phone, but he never rushed me off. Sometimes, I wondered if it was really Mr Henson answering that phone on a Saturday morning. Years later, I did find out that he did go into the workshop on Saturdays, often always by himself.
The letters that I received from Jim Henson weren't very long; basically simple answers to simple questions but I cherished having them. Unfortunately somehow over time, due to my carelessness or whatever, they got misplaced and lost.
By the time, I had hit thirteen years old, the animation bug got me and I redirected myself toward a career in animated cartoons. My father had a problem with my new direction because he had felt that I was giving up something where I had a unique ability. He eventually saw why I wanted to go into animation and supported my efforts. While I gave up puppets as a career choice, I never lost my love for them. I've remained a Jim Henson fan ever since. Recently, I went to see The Jim Henson Exhibit at the Museum Of The Moving Image in Astoria, Queens (runs through January 2012). The show features Jim's original character sketches as well as original muppets from some of the early commercials and specials. It was a thrilling experience for me. I think I've been bitten by the Muppet bug yet again.

One of my favorite cartoons growing up was The Ant & The Aardvark, which was a part of the Depatie Freleng Pink Panther show that ran on NBC for something like a gazillion seasons. Actually the show started with a half hour in the late 60's, expanding to an hour and then an hour and a half in the early 70's!
The cartoons felt hipper than the older Looney Tunes stuff, even though the Depatie Freleng staff basically reused a whole lot of old Warner Bros gags. The thing about these cartoons though was the unique voice characterizations of John Byner doing impressions of Dean Martin (The Ant) and Jackie Mason (The Aardvark) in the guise of two odd ball cartoon stars. What really made these cartoons special was the great line reads by Byner. They're simply not your standard cartoony cartoon voices. It's really hard to believe that Byner did all these characters because you don't hear his vocal voice print (Even with some of the classic voice artists like Paul Frees, Mel Blanc and Daws Butler, you could tell who was doing those voices). To top off the uniqueness of these cartoons, the jazzy music by Doug Goodwin creates what I call a drunken type of music that really works. Everything adds to the fun! In Technology Phooey (The cel above is from that very cartoon) the Aardvark has to deal with the Ant and a computer (also voiced by Byner doing a pseudo Paul Lynde impression) who gives him very bad advice. It's one of my favorite Ant & The Aaardvark cartoons! Even though it seemed like they produced a lot of these shorts, in reality only 17 were made between 1969 and 1971. Art Leonardi, who was a Warners guy back in the late years of that studio, moved to DFE and was a key guy there doing lots of different things. I later worked with him on Tiny Toon Adventures in the late 80's. He's credited as animator on this particular short and did all 17 of the cut out titles. Take a look at the short below...
Somewhere over the last twenty years, I started collecting animation art from Depatie Freleng's early years and stumbled across a bunch of original cels from The Original Ant & Aardvark series (many from this short). Because I had never seen too many originals ever offered through the years, I decided to buy whatever I could. Fast forward to now and a lot of these cels are just sitting in a closet where they will probably never be displayed the way they should. So I decided to let a few go on ebay so that other people might enjoy them. I will post some of my other original Ant & The Aardvark art over the next couple of weeks.

ROY WILLIAMS MICKEY DRAWING FROM DISNEYLAND!
I have a few of these Roy Williams drawings, so I'm letting this one go to auction on ebay. I consider myself a pretty fast artist, but Roy Williams was lighting quick. He probably effortlessly knocked this one out in under five seconds. It's not the best Mickey I've ever seen, as a matter of fact it's not even on model, but the drawing has charm....and it's probably the best drawing that you're going to get in under five seconds.
Waiting to get your own Roy Williams drawing was probably the shortest line ever at Disneyland just because Williams was so lightning quick!
Between drawing assignments at the Disney studio in the late 50's and early 60's, Walt would send some of his artists down to Disneyland to draw for the crowds. Sometimes this would be at the Art Corner in Tomorrowland or you could find them somewhere on Main Street, possibly somewhere near the castle. I know you could occassionally find Disney vet Bob Youngquist also drawing for the crowds.
The only thing I'm not sure of is if they ever charged for the drawings!
Regardless, it sure sounds like it was a great time to go to Disneyland.

I have a whole lot of sketches just lying around and every so often I go through them and start discarding; Frankly, If I didn't, my house would look like a trash heap and my wife would throw me out...or so I'm told. In this joyless process, I pull up the old trash can and begin to thumb through stacks of drawings, most of which are ok sketches but they're not spectacular enough to make me want to keep them. I'd say a good 99% find their way to the Shredder but every once in a while, I'll find a drawing that somehow stands out of the bunch. I posted a few examples above that were done in Ebony pencil. I don't think this was intentional, but the guy looks a little like Disney Animator Frank Thomas while the dog has a Hanna Barbera influence to him.

Tiny Toon Adventures was a very interesting experience. The memories that I have from it are all good. As a matter of fact, working on that show was a whole lot of fun. There was a carefree quality for me working on these cartoons and I remember laughing a lot. Maybe that's why in 'Fields Of Honey' I explode in a burst of laughter (more on that in another post). I had just joined the studio from Don Bluth's Burbank facility. I was working as an animation trainee and making a very low salary. Don't get me wrong; I learned many things there at the Bluth House, but it got to the point where I couldn't afford to work there anymore. Ken Boyer, who was one of the designers of the Tiny Toon Characters and a director for the show, offered me over double what I made at Bluth to join Warners as a layout artist! I loved animating for Don but I couldn't turn down the offer. Joining Warner Bros. Animation was a fantastic opportunity! Here I was working side by side with legends of animation and some of the most talented animation artists in the animation business! Working on Ken's crew offered me the ability to grow as an artist. Because we both liked the same styles of animation and design, it gave me the opportunity to stretch in the direction that I really wanted. In a short time, I was promoted to storyboarding. Storyboarding is as close to Directing a cartoon as you can get. Here you can really influence how the thing plays from beginning to end and that was very appealing to me.
Although I storyboarded a handful of Tiny Toon cartoons before this, Twotone Town was different for a few reasons. Even though it features the Tiny Toon characters, it feels like a different show. It was a half hour episode (most half hours were made up of three cartoon segments) and it is one of the few that features storyboard credits on the title cards (the episode was broken up into four blocks for the storyboard artists).
It's also one of the best animated episodes of that series...the twotone characters look great in the finale.
It's also credited as the inspiration for the next series that Warners would tackle called Animaniacs.
Although I was never credited for character models for the studio, I did influence a few through the boards. Near the end of this episode in Part Two, the Buddy Hackett caricature is from the only model sheet that I ever did at the studio.
(For your information, I worked on the last section to the finale!)

One of my all time favorite Lantz Cartoons Directed By The Great Tex Avery. Some people love it, some people don't get it. I think it's terrific because of it's simple concept. Enjoy!

Someone emailed me the other day about my drawings and somehow they got the impression that I never do dirt ruff sketches. After looking at some of my posts over the last couple of years I can see how you might get that impression. Truth is, I will do a lot of exploration with thumbnails to help me get where I'm going. If I can't get with what I'm after with a certain pencil, I'll switch off to some other pencil, marker or even a plain ol bic ball point pen, which is what you see here. Some of these sketches were done looser than normal for me and took no longer than 30 seconds to make. Because you're not investing a ton of time into the sketch, it's easy to discard and move on to the next. Like most people, there are times that I'll hit a brick wall. In those moments, it's best to walk away for a couple of minutes and clear your head. Get some reference, live action video, photos or look at other drawings that are similar. Go back to the board and use the reference to help you get the result you need. Worst case scenario, get another artists opinion and see if they can help solve the problem. Sometimes the solution is very simple and you were complicating it.
It's not a bad idea to look at the drawings you had previously done before becoming frustrated. Sometimes there's a gem in there and you glossed over it because you were caught up in the heat of the moment. BTW, the drawing on the bottom, is also a thumbnail drawn in a bic pen, but sketched a little slower.

Here's some random doodles of a bear character I had rolling around in my head. Lately, when I draw I prefer to use Polychromos because it's an erasable pencil and it has a nice flow. Years back when I was working on Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures For Bakshi & John K. and Beany & Cecil for John Kricfalusi, I was used to drawing in Col-erase, however John quickly got me out of that and told me to draw with Prismacolors for my character layouts. Prismacolor Pencils have a nice flow and you can get a drawing down pretty loose and quick, but the main problem is that they're nearly impossible to erase with! In order to correct the drawing, you had to use white out. I got used to drawing with those pencils and still like to sketch with them as seen here with the bear heads. My approach with Prismacolor is simple; I'll do a very light underdrawing first, then go over it with bolder strokes.
Most of the time though, I'm using Polychromos or Ebony pencils for my sketching, but will still switch back to Prismacolor for fun or col-erase for animation work.

Once apon a time, there was a show that was broadcast on Metromedia stations across the country called Wonderama, and although there were various hosts through the years, probably the most popular host was the last one, a man named Bob McAllister. McAllister, like many other hosts of childrens shows in the nation, started off in local television with his own childrens show in Norfork, Virginia and as his popularity grew, was hired by a TV station in Baltimore to host The Bob McAllister Show. The success of that show, which showcased Bob's gift for magic, ventriloquism and comedy, led to an offer from WNEW TV in New York to be the New Host Of Wonderama, replacing departing host Sonny Fox. Wonderama started in 1955, with hosts changing every couple of years. Bob's tenure was the longest, from 1967 to 1977 and for good reason, he was very popular with kids. Wonderama was a three hour show that ran on Sunday mornings from 8 to 11 am and featured games, prizes, special guests, magic, humor and Warner Bros. Cartoons! Because of the popularity of the show, they were able to get some big name guests such as Jerry Lewis, Abba, The Jackson Five and Muhammad Ali to name a few. They also had guests from the world of animation and puppetry, like Mel Blanc, Jim Henson and Bob Clampett!
But make no mistake, It was McAllister's show and he was the draw. Who can forget The Fingleheimer Stomp, Have You Heard Any Good News Today?, Exercise!, or Ecology? All these songs were co written and performed by McAllister on the show. McAllister was the kids celebrity.
Wonderama was cherished by most young New Yorkers as there was a three year wait to get on the show. As a kid, I must have mailed hundreds of letters requesting tickets. Sure enough, I was thrilled to receive tickets a few years later...and continued to get them into my teens! I appeared on the show three times but was never picked to participate in the games. Drats as Charlie Brown might say, however it was a kick just being there taking it all in. Songs that he had performed on the show were compiled as a record album called Wonderama's Bob McAllister: Kids Are People Too!
Bob made appearances at May's Department Stores around the NY area promoting the album. I was one of those kids lining up outside the Mays' store in Lake Success, NY one Sunny Saturday morning in the early 70's, eagerly waiting for the store to open up at 10am. When the doors were unlocked, kids literally stampeded through the store to get where McAllister was sitting, with endless stacks of these records. All I remember was waiting on a long line to say hello to Mr. Wonderama himself and say how much I liked the show. Of course, that never really transpired as the conversation went something like this...McAllister: "What's your name?" and I replied, 'Brian'. McAllister then ripped off the cellophane and signed the album in magic marker. It's an image that has stayed with me all these years.
Wonderama ended on Christmas Day 1977, and McAllister went on to host an ABC show called, Kids Are People Too! Because of creative differences with ABC, he was replaced by a younger host named, Michael Young the following year.
Bob went on to perform magic and host the occasional special here and there, but never enjoyed the success that he had with Wonderama. He managed to put out a video called Blockbuster Magic in the 80's that was mildly successful. It's still available in some magic shops.
McAllister died of lung cancer on July 21, 1998. Sadly, his passing wasn't considered big news.

Sometimes you don't realize how special something is until you lose it...and then you recognize it as a lost treasure.
Bob McAllister made every Sunday morning feel special, kind of like Christmas. That show will always be a treasured part of my childhood; not only because the show was fun to watch, but it featured things that were of interest to me, like the worlds of animation, puppetry and television production.
There's not much left of Wonderama. WNEW erased much of the video tapes so there's not a whole lot available. Fortunately, somebody saved a few of the episodes. Above here's a clip of the snake cans game, which gives you a brief but dated taste of the show.
However, If you didn't live it, you'll never know how special of a show it once was.

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I recently got verbally beaten up over my last post featuring The Firehouse Five Plus Two because I didn't provide enough information about the group. So in order to right that wrong, here's the full story.
Back in the 40's, a group of Disney animators (Frank Thomas and Ward Kimball included) liked Dixieland Jazz and during lunch hours, would play some records on the studio record player of Jelly Roll Morton, Baby Dodds and Louie Armstrong. Kimball, who learned trombone in grade school, would play to the records. Other people; who also played an instrument, would come in and join Ward playing to the records. Finally one day, when a group of these guys were jazzing along to 'Royal Garden Blues', the record player broke down, and they kept on playing and according to Ward, "...to our amazement, sounded pretty good all by ourselves!" They got to be tight as a group and eventually drew crowds at lunch time. The band was first called the Huggyjeedy Eight, and later on they changed their name to The San Gabriel Valley Blue Blowers. When the local horseless carriage club asked them to play for their auto tour in San Diego, Ward found a 1915 Fire Truck, restored it, and with the group now dressed as firefighters, they changed the name of the band to The Firehouse Five Plus Two.
The FH5+2 ended up playing a good amount of local gigs around Los Angeles, while maintaining their day jobs at Walt Disney Studios, and were discovered by Les Koenig, who was a writer at Paramount Studios and had dabbled in producing Jazz records. Koenig liked their sound and offered to produce some records for them for Good Time Jazz. From 1949 to 1971, the band recorded 12 full albums of material which was distributed around the world, most of which have been available on CD and can be purchased here...The Firehouse Five Plus Two Story
The FH5 played many gigs in the 50's and 60's and appeared in movies, radio and on television!
The fact that this was all done on their spare time is even more impressive. Ward once told me that Walt Disney felt a certain amount of pride that his group of animators were equally talented as a famous music group! Between 1955 and 1971, the group could be found playing around Disneyland, but most often at Plaza Gardens (to the left of the Disneyland Castle, off Main Street) or at The Golden Horseshoe in Frontierland. The group even released an album entitled, The Firehouse Five Plus Two at Disneyland, from one of their Golden Horseshoe performances.
In the clip above, Directing Animator, Ward Kimball (Jiminy Cricket, Jaq, Gus, Tweedle Dee and Dum, The Mad Hatter) is on Trombone, Harper Goff (the designer of the Nautilus from 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea and The Jungle Cruise attraction from Disneyland) is on Banjo and Directing Animator, Frank Thomas (Pinocchio, Queen of Hearts, Tramp, Baloo) is playing the piano. Interesting to note; if Thomas looks a little like Roger playing the piano from 101 Dalmatians, that's no coincidence. Milt Kahl who animated most of those scenes caricatured Thomas as Roger in the film! Other Disney studio personnel is George Probert is on clarinet, Danny Alguire on Cornet and Ed Penner on Tuba. Jim MacDonald, the studios sound effects man and voice artist responsible for Jaq, Gus, Evinrude and in later years Walt Disney's stand in for Mickey Mouse, plays the skins.

[フレーム]Here's some real Disney animators led by Ward Kimball, playing some hot dixieland jazz. Back in the 50's and 60's they were very much in demand, so much they could have left their day jobs. Instead, they used it to blow off steam from Disneys. I know it seems romantic to think that things were more fun and simpler back then...maybe they weren't...but it sure seems like they were.

Looking at this drawing today, I would probably approach this pose a little bit differently...like changing the angle of the head and possibly having the arms clench in a downward direction. But this is the way my emotion took it and for some reason it works for me. As an animation artist, I use emotion to fuel my quick sketches because I believe you get something absolutely pure on the paper. Sometimes I'm surprised by the result because you're not thinking about technique or second guessing yourself on the pose. You're focused strictly on getting that emotion down in a sketch and you're letting your talent shine through.

Here's another character of a rat recording details from a crazy crime scene. It was from a project I was actively developing about six years ago that borrowed heavily from shows about detectives from the 50's and 60's. The pencil media is Polychromos Blue.
Now don't get me wrong, there's some great execs who take pitches all day long that get the ideas you're trying to sell...but unfortunately, there are a good number who have a hard time comprehending a good idea...or any idea.
It dawned on me after some rather unsuccessful pitches that a show like this could never fly today. It had a couple of strikes against it from the get go which I'll share with you here.
Strike One - It references a different time period. Because this show evokes old imagery from the 50's and 60's, Executives feel the show would never connect with todays' viewers.
Strike Two - The main character is an adult rat wearing clothes.
This would never fly with some executives because there would be too many confusing questions about the humanoid rat. I.E., Why is a rat wearing clothes? Rats can write? Is the rat really a human that looks like a rat? Why is the rat a detective? Can the rat talk? etc. etc. The questions would be too numerous to answer in a single sitting.
Besides, the rat is an adult and could never relate to children.
Strike Three - The rat character doesn't sing or have a band. The kiss of death for a show like this. You see no band, no show.
Strike Four - The cartoon is a bit clever. If the show has an ounce of wit or parody, the kiddies will never get it.
Strike Five - The cartoon has slapstick humor. You can't have characters hitting each other over the heads because kids watching will get the wrong idea and repeat it on their friends. Can you imagine the violence that could erupt nationwide?
Strike Six - The drawings are too slick and professional looking. If the drawing is drafted well, overseas animation studios will never be able to copy it. Better to stick to childlike drawings that are simpler to draw and kids can relate to better.
In other words, strive for the lower possible denominator. It's no wonder why kids don't watch cartoons anymore!

[フレーム]I don't know who put this together but this is a loving tribute to behind the scenes at Hanna Barbera Studios. Some of it are drawings of the people and offices, which quickly goes to staged footage on how a show is thought up like Magilla Gorilla. However, a good amount of this footage looks like HB home movies; putting faces to the names we've seen all these years on the credits of the studio cartoons. Some of this footage is outside the HB plant on Cahuenga Blvd in Hollywood, which was still in operation in the mid 90's. I worked a couple of times for Hanna Barbera in the late 80's and early 90's and Bill and Joe didn't look a whole lot different than they do here.