Dan Gordon's Cookie

Dan Gordon has quickly become one of my favorite cartoonists. Here's a Cookie story of his from COOKIE #11. Cookie is essentially Archie with lively artwork (and doesn't suck).

Herring Murder Mystery

Greg Ford wrote years ago something along the lines of "Columbia cartoons are either just really weird or really bad." I think this one definitely falls into the former, but I still found it entertaining. I love the design and voice of the Puzzlewitz character (this one was his only color appearance). Emery Hawkins and Volus Jones were most likely animators on this one too.

I don't know much about the director of this cartoon, Dun Roman, other than this was the only theatrical short he directed, and he was credited for the story of the Columbia cartoon "Mass Mouse Meeting" (ouch). He also was a director for Jay Ward on Rocky & Bullwinkle.

John Sibley

Here is another animator tribute video I put together of Walt Disney's funniest animator. He was recognized around the studio as the best shorts animator (from the 40s on anyway), and met the incredibly high demand of making a tall, lanky, moronic character believable and endearing. Sadly, I don't think anyone managed to interview Sibley, something Milt Gray lamented to me once.

I uploaded this one to Google as DailyMotion is quite fascist with deleting Disney-owned clips. Edit: Google is fascist too. Let's try Blogger.

Dick Lundy - The Flying Jalopy

My personal favorite of Lundy's directorial efforts at Disney's is probably "The Flying Jalopy". The animation of Ben Buzzard (later Buzz Buzzard at Lantz, when Lundy remade this cartoon as "Wet Blanket Policy") is particularly funny (Mike Barrier cites Art Babbitt as one of the animators of this cartoon). I love the jangly, corny melodrama soundtrack in this one too.

John Gentilella

Inspired by Kevin Langley's post on Pat Matthews, I thought I'd put together this tribute video of scenes animated by John Gentilella ("Johnny Gent") at Famous Studios. As noted in the past, he was highly regarded as the best Popeye animator at the studio, but I included some non-sailor scenes in this montage to break up the monotony. (Though it's one of my darkest secrets that, generally, I prefer Famous to Fleischer as far as Popeye is concerned.)

Clips used in order of appearance:
"The Anvil Chorus Girl" (1944), "Pop-Pie Ala Mode" (1945), "Moving Aweigh" (1944), "Klondike Casanova" (1946), "Philharmaniacs" (1953), "For Better or Nurse" (1945), "Rocket to Mars" (1946), "I'll Be Skiing Ya" (1947), "Sheep Shape" (1946), "Royal Four-Flusher" (1947), "Safari So Good" (1947), and "A Lamb in a Jam" (1945).

Famous Popeye - Shape Ahoy

I haven't posted a lot of Famous Popeye material, so here's a really good one from 1945, with a lot of Jim Tyer animation. This is also the one with Mae Questel voicing Popeye (in Jack Mercer's absence). I love the end shot in this one, it's a nice throwback to something the Fleischers might have done.

Best Eating Scene Ever

Sick of Jim Tyer? Too bad! I didn't know I actually had this cartoon, "Dream Walking", until going through stacks of DVDs this morning. I don't recall any animation of a character eating being quite as hilarious as Gandy's here. Before I actually saw this cartoon, I always visualized how Tyer might have animated a character eating, and this scene met my expectations.

The walk cycle of Sourpuss at around 1:09 is also hysterical.

Andy Panda - Dog Tax Dodgers

I don't think this one has been posted before, but here's a slick entry in the Andy Panda series from 1948. Fred Moore did a lot of the animation at the beginning of this film ("You just leave everything to little ol' Andy", etc.). And just about anything with that lovable tub of lard, Wally Walrus, is worth watching.

The Fox and Grapes

I posted this one last year, but it got deleted after the great YouTube purge (the fascists). Someone else reposted it, and I feel it's worth posting again. I don't think I have much to add to what's already been said about this cartoon, other than it's inarguably the best (and most important) cartoon done at the Columbia studio. Vocals by Mel Blanc, directed by Frank Tashlin.

Fox and Crow Time - Unsure Runts

I've been getting requests for a Fox and Crow cartoon for awhile, so here's one that's actually any good: "Unsure Runts" (1946, D: Howard Swift). Mike Kazaleh told me that Grant Simmons animated the first scene with the Crow trying to make his sales pitch to the sexually-naive Fox. All of these Columbia cartoons are usually full of story contrivances, but this one actually manages to survive relatively unscathed.

Liking This Cartoon is Hating Black People

(OK another sarcastic title.)

Here's a cartoon people on various websites love to form an opinion on or refer to, but haven't seen it. So here it is in all of its bigoted glory. Even all of the Harris, Washam, and Cannon animation can't save this thing.

Even if you look past the racial caricatures, this is still one of the few Warner shorts that really and truly does blow.

Irv Spence - Seal Skinners

I've been looking at the late 30s MGM Captain & the Kids cartoons lately. While they're not terribly funny, nor are as good as the brilliant strip, they have some really hilarious animation by Irv Spence, Bill Littlejohn, and Emery Hawkins in them.

This one, "Seal Skinners" (the uncredited director is Friz Freleng), has a lot of Spence in it and has some very funny movement and drawing.

Jim Tyer - First Flying Fish

You will be rewarded if you make it through the grating first four minutes of this Terrytoon (complete with the studio's infamous chorus), for when the pelican shows up begins some of the most insane animation Jim Tyer ever did. I might give this character my vote for the geeks' award of "Greatest Cartoon Pelican Ever".

(Thanks Bob J.)

Andy is in da house

Electric Tiki is now shipping their Andy Panda maquettes. Limited to only 700. Get your's today to complete your cartoon geek shelf!

Mouse Mazurka

Amid Amidi just wrote in passing that Paul Julian was Warners' greatest background painter, and I have to strongly agree. I didn't feel like making montages out of them, but here's some BGs of his from Friz Freleng's "Mouse Mazurka".










And here's the hilariously brilliant cartoon, another entry in Freleng's 'musical' series. Gerry Chiniquy animated the great opening and closing dances. It's really funny 'limited' movement, as it doesn't use squash and stretch as much as other animators (or in this case, directors) would use, but it's still pretty wild stuff.