Baker's Animation Showcase

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Re: Baker's Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Sun Dec 06, 2020 9:56 pm



Fred Crippin did a bunch of shorts by himself at his studio, Pantomime Pictures. A cute cartoon featuring a short dog going on a blind date with a taller girl dog. I believe PBS aired this at some point in the 1980s.

That's Lorenzo Music voicing Phil. Gene Moss is heard doing some of the other voices. Not sure who's voicing Fluffy.

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Re: Baker's Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Tue Dec 08, 2020 10:53 pm



Very impressively made student film! Cute cartoon

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Re: Baker's Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Wed Dec 09, 2020 10:16 pm



I had people express shock that a cartoon based on "The Godfather" exists, but there is.

It's called "The Dogfather" and they made 17 cartoons out of it. It never actually aired on television, but rather made for theatrical release, distributed by United Artists (note that there's a "Rated G" card in the end of the cartoon, indicating its theatrical release). It was the last cartoon series made specifically for theaters, long after other studios had given up in favor of television.

As for the stories, half of the cartoons are remakes of the old Looney Tunes cartoons, mostly the Rocky and Mugsy cartoons. This particular short is a remake of a Sylvester cartoon "Tree for Two", the one with two dogs named Spike and Chester. This is actually the second time the DFE studio remade that particular cartoon, using a similar idea for the first "Tijuana Toads" cartoon.

The studio loved to recycle scripts from old Looney Tunes shorts :-I

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Re: Baker's Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Thu Dec 10, 2020 2:06 am



And here's another cartoon from the same studio that was based on a live-action property, in this case "The Odd Couple". This show, "The Oddball Couple", featured the concept translated into furry characters.

Unlike "The Dogfather", which was a parody that didn't get permission from the filmmakers, "The Oddball Couple" is an officially licensed spin-off. Neil Simon is even credited in the end credits. Paul Winchell voices the sloppy dog, Fleabag, while Frank Nelson voices the neat freak cat Spiffy.

Notably, Earl Kress made his writing debut on this show.

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Re: Baker's Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Thu Dec 10, 2020 2:37 am


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Re: Baker's Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Fri Dec 11, 2020 12:18 am



How about something Christmasy? "Santa and the Three Bears" isn't exactly a classic Christmas special, but it got a lot of airings due to its circumstances in distribution.

This was a passion project for Tony Benedict, who was a writer/board artist for Hanna-Barbera. Benedict originally pitched this to H-B as a Christmas special but they passed on it. Benedict, however, believed in it enough that he decided to produce and direct it independently, recruiting Hanna-Barbera animators to freelance on it.

He was able to finish the special, called "Yellowstone Christmas" originally, but finding a distributor proved to be a challenge. All three TV networks passed on it, so Benedict looked for theatrical options. Warner Bros. initially took on it, but while this was going on a company called Seven Arts bought the studio (you may recognize the name on the very late "Looney Tunes" cartoons with characters like Cool Cat, where they were released under the Warner Bros-Seven Arts banner), which didn't do the film any favor.

Eventually a small hole-in-the-wall distributor that, according to Benedict, "specialized in children films and softcore porn" agreed to distribute the film as a Children's Matinee release, back when they were common in theaters. Retitled "Santa and the Three Bears", it was able to get booked cheap at theaters across the country.

According to Benedict, even though the distributor profited half-a-million dollars from the film, only a very small percentage of it went to Benedict's pocket. A sadly common occurrence with these sort of deals, alas. The film has since entered public domain, so it got spread around on cheap videos and DVDs, as well as television stations wanting something to fill space.

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Re: Baker's Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Sat Dec 12, 2020 12:50 pm



Long before SNL had "TV Funhouse", a British sketch comedy show "The End of Part One" (1979-80) did their own parody of limited animation Saturday Morning cartoons with "Cheapo Cartoon Man".

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Re: Baker's Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Sun Dec 13, 2020 7:56 pm



Karameru's animations are great

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Re: Baker's Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Sat Dec 19, 2020 2:49 pm



Another animation reel, for Warren Batchelder.

The later Bob McKimson cartoons are pretty dreadful, with McKimson losing all of his good animators during the temporary shutdown and having to fill his roster with rather mediocre artists (by contrast, Chuck Jones and Friz Freleng were able to retain most of their animators).

One exception was Warren Batchelder, who was the most competent animator in McKimson's unit, to the point the saying goes that if you're watching a later McKimson cartoon and there's a scene with "real animation", then it was done by him.

Batchelder continued to have a long career after Warners shut down their animation studio, working for DePatie-Freleng for years on the Pink Panther, Dr. Seuss, and other cartoons. He then worked at Marvel Productions, directing episodes of the 1980s "My Little Pony" cartoon, "Transformers", "G.I. Joe", and others.

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Re: Baker's Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Sat Dec 19, 2020 8:14 pm



An obscure Christmas special from 1992, made at an animation studio in Indianapolis (yes, there was an animation studio there. Actually had a long run).

It was made during the early success of "The Simpsons", with attempts at producing adult-themed animation. The special's director, Jerry Reynolds, wanted it to be different from a typical Christmas special, hence the more cynical tone (at least in the start of the special). This page has some details on the production, the gist of it:
It took a year to finish Up On The Housetop, which is actually pretty fast for a special created from scratch by only three people. Reynolds animated 80% of it, did all the layout and all the backgrounds, half the voices, and someone named Rachel Rutledge handled the ink and paint. Its only contracted guarantee of release--and only source of production funds--was from the home video company Video Treasures, now known as Anchor Bay.
They shopped the special around to networks but they all turned it down. It was eventually shown on television through syndication.

I love the meta joke in the beginning, where the main character sings "If I see one more cartoon special / I'm going to go jump off the railroad special" while looking at the TV listing, and it just happens to contain the title of the special he's starring in. Ha haa, meta-humor.

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Re: Baker's Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Sun Dec 20, 2020 3:05 am



Rankin/Bass's cartoons always had a sense of weirdness, but here's one where they did weird on purpose. "The Tomfoolery Show" aired 1970-71 on NBC Saturday Mornings, and the premise was that it's an animated sketch comedy where they would recite jokes from Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll, showcasing really corny puns, songs, and riddles.

Notably, this is one of the very few Rankin/Bass productions that wasn't animated in Japan. It was instead animated in England at Halas and Batchelor studio, the same company that made the animated adaptation of "Animal Farm".

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Re: Baker's Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Mon Dec 21, 2020 7:27 pm



Hanna-Barbera had a separate division for commercials and industrial films, the same kind that companies like Jam Handy and John Sutherlan produced years prior.

The division did, in fact, have a John Sutherland connection: John's brother, Ross Sutherland ran the unit. Ross worked for John at his company, but by the 1970s he retired from the business, so Ross went to Hanna-Barbera and the unit started producing the kind of films that John's studio used to do.

One of the films they did was "Popcorn" for the US Airforce. The film utilizes the synth music "Popcorn" throughout. An odd inclusion in a 1970s recruitment film, but there you go. The song was heard all over, including an episode of "Rick and Morty".

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Re: Baker's Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Mon Dec 21, 2020 9:18 pm



Here's another one made at Hanna-Barbera's industrial film unit. This was a TV special about the energy crisis made in the 1970s starring Fred and Wilma Filnstone, with narration by Charlton Heston. Seriously.

This is an interesting curiosity because it features scenes of Fred and Wilma in then-contemporary setting. Pretty wild stuff.

This special/documentary was the last time Alan Reed voiced Fred (he would die the year this was released). Henry Corden, already providing Fred's singing voice (including this film), took over the speaking duties in future Flintstones media, including the Pebbles cereal commercials, until he himself died in 2005.

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Re: Baker's Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Tue Dec 22, 2020 11:50 pm



There was one film adaptation of Tolkien's work that was made during his lifetime...and he never saw it.

In fact, not many people saw "The Hobbit" short at all. This is a classic case of "ashcan copy", where something is made for the sole purpose of fulfilling a contract with no real plans for wide release. The Roger Corman "Fantastic Four" movie is another infamous example of that.

Director Gene Deitch explained on his blog. The gist of it is that his boss was about to lose the rights he had to Tolkien's books (which he obtained cheap, before the books became popular), but he wanted it extended long enough so he could sell it to another producer for a tidy profit
The Tolkien estate had now been offered a fabulous sum for the rights, and [producer William] Snyder’s rights would expire in one month. They were already rubbing their hands together. But Snyder played his ace: to fulfill just the letter of the contract — to deliver a “full-color film” of THE HOBBIT by June 30th. All he had to do was to order me to destroy my own screenplay — all my previous year’s work, and hoke up a super-condensed scenario on the order of a movie preview, (but still tell the entire basic story from beginning to end), and all within 12 minutes running time — one 35mm reel of film. Cheap. I had to get the artwork done, record voice and music, shoot it, edit it, and get it to a New York projection room on or before June 30th, 1966! I should have told him to shove it, but I was basically his slave at the time. It suddenly became an insane challenge.
Czech artist Adolf Born did the illustrations and Herbert Lass, an American expat living in Prague did the narration. The music came from Deitch's record collection; since there were no plans for wide release they didn't bother with securing the rights to use them.

It was finished in a month and shown in single movie theater in New York to a dozen or so people. Having met the requirement in the barest minimal sense, Snyder got what he wanted and had the rights extended long enough that he could sell it for a good amount of money.

Tolkien never saw the film. "Thank god!", Deitch exclaimed.

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Re: Baker's Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Fri Dec 25, 2020 9:00 pm



Gotta say, I legit like this song. From Rankin/Bass's "Twas the Night Before Christmas".

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Re: Baker's Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Sat Dec 26, 2020 9:24 pm



This was an Australian cartoon from the 1960s that had a big "Bullwinkle" influence, their take on the King Arthur legend. It's a pretty amusing cartoon with a very funny intro. It had a brief run in the US on syndication, but it was short-lived due to low ratings.

Arthur was voiced by John Meillon, probably best known for playing Walter in the "Crocodile Dundee" movies

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Re: Baker's Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Mon Dec 28, 2020 11:23 am



New cartoon from the guy who did "Double King". Weird but beautiful. Worth watching

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Re: Baker's Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Tue Dec 29, 2020 11:46 am



This is one of those things I remember watching on AtomFilms years ago. About a penguin in search of tea.

I can't think of briskets without thinking about this cartoon.

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Re: Baker's Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Tue Dec 29, 2020 10:50 pm



Another obscure Rankin/Bass special. This was based on a live-action sitcom called "That Girl", which starred Marlo Thomas (daughter of Danny Thomas) playing an aspiring actress trying to make it big in New York City.

Marlo Thomas reprised her role in the special (she voiced in one other special for Rankin/Bass prior, "The Cricket on the Hearth", co-starring with her father). It was pretty much a pilot for a potential cartoon spinoff that never got off the ground.

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Re: Baker's Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Sun Jan 03, 2021 11:45 pm



A lovely cartoon from Switzerland.

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Re: Baker's Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Fri Jan 08, 2021 9:56 pm



"Chargeman Ken!" has a reputation as a "so bad it's good" anime from the 1970s, but over in Japan "Gan & Gon" was starting to gain reputation for this as well, with somehow even less animation (and with even shorter running time than "Ken").

To showcase how bad the animation is, these two screenshots are of the EXACT SAME CHARACTER...IN THE SAME EPISODE:

Image
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Re: Baker's Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Sun Jan 10, 2021 10:46 pm



The 1971 made-for-TV movie "The Point" was produced and written by Harry Nilsson, with Fred Wolf being the director and sole animator. The movie is about whether there is a point to it all in a magical, fantastical world. It's pure 1970s.

This film probably holds the record for being the most times a character's voice was re-recorded for different releases. When it was first broadcast the dad (narrator) was voiced by Dustin Hoffman, a friend of Nilsson. However, the agreement was that they would only air Hoffman's narration once, so for the 2nd airing they redid the narration with Alan Barzman. On the 3rd broadcast Alan Thicke did the voice. Finally, for future airings and on the home media release they got Ringo Starr to do the voice.

The version above is Starr's version. You can watch the Alan Thicke version here. The version with Dustin Hoffman's narration is around somewhere (I watched it in full), but for the moment only this 7 minute except is on YouTube. As of now, the Alan Barzman version seems to be lost to time.

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Re: Baker's Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Wed Jan 13, 2021 10:49 pm



Another fun short from the NFB. Nominated for Oscar.

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Re: Baker's Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Sun Jan 17, 2021 12:24 am



So here's an oddity from Warner Bros. They released this theatrically alongside the last batch of "Looney Tunes" cartoons, but it was not an in-house production. Instead it was an independently produced short that Warner Bros. bought the distribution rights to.

No Bob McKimson here. The director was Ken Mundie, an artsy animator who has done movie titles over the years; he was the guy who did the opening titles for the 1960s TV show "The Wild, Wild West", for example.

It's a VERY 1960s animation with a couple of Indians rendered in watercolor. I think the conflicts in Vietnam was starting to become a nationwide news at this point, so I guess it's to be expected. Clark "Mumbles" Terry does the soundtrack throughout.

On another note, you may have noticed a company name in the beginning, Campbell-Silver-Cosby. "Cosby" refers to Bill Cosby (yeah :-I ). It was a production company he had at the time, and at one point had a contract with Warner Bros, which would explain why they ever released this in the first place.

Needless to say, Bugs Bunny this is not.

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Re: Baker's Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Sat Jan 23, 2021 7:31 pm



A variation of memetic videos has been around as long as the film medium existed. One of the classic examples of that is "Bambi Meets Godzilla", a student film created by Marv Newland in 1969. What is basically a shitpost film because a cult classic, and Newland would go on to have a prolific animation career. He opened his own studio in Canada, Internaitonal Rocketship Limited, where he would employ the likes of Danny Antonucci ("Ed, Edd n Eddy") and others. Newland would also go on to direct two specials based on Gary Larson's "The Far Side" at his studio in the 1990s.

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Re: Baker's Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Tue Jan 26, 2021 1:16 am



"The Crunch Bird" was made in Detroit, Michigan by Ted Petok in 1971, which became a cult classic, especially after it won an Oscar (seriously).

At little over 2 minutes, this is the shortest film to ever win an Oscar.

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Re: Baker's Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Wed Jan 27, 2021 12:49 pm



"Hoppity Hooper" is a "forgotten" Jay Ward cartoon, done after "Bullwinkle" ended its run. One of the stories involved has a Robin Hood-type figure, except he stole from the poor and gave to the rich.

I'm sure you can make a lot of political jokes about that :-I

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Re: Baker's Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Wed Jan 27, 2021 6:50 pm



This came out earlier this month, done in a very retaux style that I love.

Also this cartoon's pretty sweet.

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Re: Baker's Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Thu Jan 28, 2021 1:16 am



I maintain that they need to bring back Clyde Crashcup in newer "Chipmunks" media.

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Re: Baker's Animation Showcase

Post by Madeline (?) » Thu Jan 28, 2021 1:20 am

Mr. Big wrote:
Wed Jan 27, 2021 6:50 pm


This came out earlier this month, done in a very retaux style that I love.

Also this cartoon's pretty sweet.
Wow, this is amazing. :starity: This is moving and better than some shorts that have won prizes. Damn.

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Re: Baker's Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Sun Jan 31, 2021 8:52 pm



Yeah yeah, Filmation, but this one has an admittingly interesting history.

Animation studios doing parodies of live-action shows has been a thing, and Filmation was no exception, doing their all-dog spoof of "MASH", which was still airing at this time.

The cartoon was part of a hour-long live-action/animation program called "Uncle Croc's Block", a parody of children's TV show featuring Charles Nelson Reilly in a crocodile costume, often lamenting that he deserves better acting roles instead of appearing in a shabby kids program. The live-action bits aired between the cartoons "MUSH", "Fraidy Cat", and "Wacky and Packy".

"Uncle Croc's Block" proved to be troublesome for Filmation and the network that aired it, ABC. As Lou Scheimer noted years later in his autobiography: "Uncle Croc's Block was in trouble right out of the gate. The network already hated it, and, when it got some negative reviews and the ratings weren't great, things got ugly."

ABC later cut the hour-long program in half, then cancelled it mid-season. On the upside, the premature cancellation meant that Filmation technically made a profit on the show: ABC paid for the entire season in advance, and since no further episodes were to be made, Filmation could pocket the rest of the money (of the 30 "MUSH" episodes already written, only 23 were animated).

The downside for Filmation was that ABC never bought a show from them ever again. "Uncle Croc" was such a miserable failure the network decided to cut ties with the studio entirely.

You can read more about it in this MeTV article.

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Re: Baker's Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Fri Feb 05, 2021 2:57 am



Being caught with plagiarism, especially with major properties, is a big scandal that can ruin a reputation.

However, back in the 1930s it was a different story. Creatives and studios ripped each other's ideas up out in the open. Such was the case with the Van Beuren studio. They did a handful of cartoons featuring a pair of mice characters called Morton and Rita Mouse. You may have noticed that they look VERY familiar.

And this didn't escape Walt Disney's attention. After this cartoon came out Disney sued the Van Beuren studio for plagiarism and won, with the court ordering Van Beuren to cease production of further Morton Mouse cartoons.

The Disney studio never asked for money in the settlement, fwiw. They just simply wanted Van Beuren to stop ripping their star character off. Disney got another revenge few years later. At the time the Van Beuren cartoons were being released through RKO Pictures (with the Disney cartoons coming out of United Artists), but in 1936 RKO ended its distribution agreement with the studio, having decided to switch to, you guessed it, Disney. Van Beuren closed up shop that year.

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Re: Baker's Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Fri Feb 05, 2021 10:02 pm

Since I brought up "Uncle Croc's Block", another cartoon that aired on the show was "Fraidy Cat", which admittingly has an interesting premise. The titular character is a cat who's afraid of everything due to being on his 9th and final life. However, whenever he says a number it would summon a ghost of his past life that corresponds to it, which complicates things for him.

Sadly, it was executed horribly by Filmation, and it's not much better than "MUSH" (although I think the worst of the 3 cartoons to air on the show was "Wacky and Packy". but that's for another day).

Here's an hour of "Fraidy Cat". Godspeed if you can sit through them :-I


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Re: Baker's Animation Showcase

Post by @Zebra_ebooks (?) » Mon Feb 08, 2021 12:37 am



A personal favorite!
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Re: Baker's Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Mon Feb 08, 2021 2:24 am

@Zebra_ebooks wrote:
Mon Feb 08, 2021 12:37 am

A personal favorite!
There's a film restoration group that was able to obtain a Super 8mm copy of one of the Daicon films. They're currently working on a new restoration right and documenting it on Twitter


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Re: Baker's Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Wed Feb 10, 2021 5:20 pm



Oh wow, this finally popped up online. I first heard about it from an animator I know, who called it "the worst animated film" he's ever saw. It's pretty awful, yeah.

"Mutt and Jeff" was a long-running comic strip that ran from 1907 to 1983, going through several artists but was originated by Bud Fisher. It was an incredibly successful strip, and in 1916 Bud Fisher licensed the rights for a series of animated shorts. The series lasted 11 years and over 300 cartoons were made.

Those cartoons were later redrawn in color, and rather badly. In 1973 they took 11 of those cartoons and cobbled together a movie, using the short "Slick Sleuths" as a framing device, with new dialogues dubbed over (as the cartoons were silent originally).

The result is a hot mess of a cartoon, and was lost for many years until somebody found a copy and uploaded it above. "Enjoy" :-I

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Re: Baker's Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Thu Feb 11, 2021 2:01 pm



A student film by Randy Cartwright, who would later go on to animate for Disney on films such as "Aladdin" and "The Lion King".

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Re: Baker's Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Tue Feb 16, 2021 11:41 pm

From 1966, an early pilot from the Filmation studio, fresh off the success of the "Superman" cartoon on CBS that year. This was one of the several pilots they were offering that year, the other being "Bulldog Bondd" (a spy spoof featuring a caricatured Japanese sidekick that Lou Scheimer expressed regret years later), "The Green Lantern", and, uh, this one:



I'll let Lou explain from his autobiography:

"Anybody who sees it now - and it's out there on the Internet - will wonder what we were smoking. It was a weird superhero show with a circus performer called the Jester, and he has a puppet named Dick Digit, except, as the pilot ends, Dick Digit gets replaced by a real guy - from outer space - who just happens to be super small. I think [Ted Knight] did most of the voices, but I also think that [Norm Prescott, Filmation co-producer] played the announcer. We did a seven-minute pilot for that one, but it was just too strange for anyone to want. We kept offering it to people for quite a while though. It did eventually get released in England by Video Gems, in 1982 on a Balckstar videotape!"

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Re: Baker's Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Fri Feb 19, 2021 11:51 pm



I've been watching Brewstew lately. He's one of those "storytime" animators that's common on YouTube, but he stands out in that his videos tends to have more PG-13 content, with more adult humor and swearing. The animation's not great, but I've laughed at a lot of the videos, and find many of them to be funny.

I think one thing that makes Brewstew stand out from many other storytime animation is he doesn't go for the "relatable" content that's common in many of these vids. Tellingly, he's also one of the few that's not introverted, something that's a common theme in Jaiden and the Odd1sOut.

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Re: Baker's Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Sat Feb 27, 2021 12:47 am



A student project from Sheridan College in Canada. Very well done, with nice eerie animation.

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