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Now 75, Bugs Bunny remains a towering influence. We look at some of his greatest hits.

Cut through the clutter with our handy guide to the must-see animation events happening in San Diego this year.

He voiced iconic cartoon characters like Pete Puma, Junyer Bear, and Cecil the Sea-Sick Sea Serpent.

A look at animation history via Cartoon Brew's archives.

On Thursday, May 30, the Filmpodium Zurich in Switzerland will present a screening of nine Warner Bros. shorts directed by the legendary Bob Clampett. The show is being presented in honor of his centennial, which was earlier this month. Clampett’s work isn’t well known in Switzerland and the film lineup is a solid primer to his work:

• Porky in Wackyland (1938)
  
• A Tale of Two Kitties (1942)
  
• A Corny Concerto (1943)
  
• Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs (1943)
  
• Draftee Daffy (1945)
  
• Book Revue (1946)
  
• Baby Bottleneck (1946)
  
• Kitty Kornered (1946)
  
• The Great Piggy Bank Robbery (1946)
  

Better yet, each film will be introduced by Swiss animator and historian Oswald Iten, who will discuss different facets of Clampett’s visual style. Iten runs one of my favorite animation blogs Colorful Animation Expressions, where he has recently been writing some fantastically informative posts about Clampett’s art. Ticket and screening details are available on the Filmpodium Zurich website.

Cartoon women are inherently difficult subjects for the animator for the reason that animation demands caricature and comedy, which are concepts inconsistent with femininity, grace and sensuality. The result is that when animators create female leads, they tend to de-emphasize cartoon qualities and accentuate realistic mannerisms and behaviors.

There was a brief moment in animation history when funny and sexy female characters were encouraged though, and that era coincided roughly with World War II. Some historians, like John Costello, have argued that the war represented the true beginnings of the sexual revolution in the United States. During the early-1940s, sexual imagery gained new visibility and cultural acceptance. Young soldiers lusted after Betty Grable and Rita Hayworth pin-ups, while reading Milton Caniff’s comic Male Call and decorating their bombers with provocative nose art. Within this liberal environment, Hollywood directors and animators took advantage of the opportunity to explore creative new ways of portraying the female character in animation.

A handful of animators, notably Pat Matthews, Preston Blair, Rod Scribner, Fred Moore, and Milt Kahl, became known for their ability to handle women characters that were true cartoon creations. Still, there were limited opportunities to animate such characters, and it wasn’t uncommon for animators to use male characters in drag as a substitute for the female, such as Daffy Duck’s striptease in The Wise Quacking Duck (1943), animated by Art Babbitt.

The sexy cartoon female occasionally appeared in animation after the war, but by and large, the industry began to favor a blander and less cartoon-influenced style. By the early-1960s, the average cartoon female in Hollywood animation had become so unappealing that Rocky and Bullwinkle co-creator Bill Scott quipped, “The way women are drawn in our business today, one would assume all the artists are fags.”

The following selection of animated films illustrate some of the various approaches to the animated female character during the World War II period:

“Eatin’ on the Cuff” or The Moth who Came to Dinner (Warner Bros, Bob Clampett, 1942)

Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs (Warner Bros, Bob Clampett 1943)

Red Hot Riding Hood (MGM, Tex Avery, 1943)

Abou Ben Boogie (Walter Lantz Prod, Shamus Culhane, 1944)

Plane Daffy (Warner Bros, Frank Tashlin, 1944)

Duck Pimples (Disney, Jack Kinney, 1945)

“Animation is a young man’s game,” Chuck Jones once said. There’s no question that animation is a labor-intensive art that requires mass quantities of energy and time. While it’s true that the majority of animation directors have directed a film by the age of 30, there are also a number of well known directors who started their careers later.

Directors like Pete Docter, John Kricfalusi and Bill Plympton didn’t begin directing films until they were in their 30s. Don Bluth, Winsor McCay and Frederic Back were late bloomers who embarked on directorial careers while in their 40s. Pioneering animator Emile Cohl didn’t make his first animated film, Fantasmagorie (1908), until he was 51 years old. Of course, that wasn’t just Cohl’s first film, but it is also considered by most historians to be the first true animated cartoon that anyone ever made.

Here is a cross-selection of 30 animation directors, past and present, and the age they were when their first professional film was released to the public.

1. Don Hertzfeldt (19 years old)
   Ah, L’Amour

On April 5th 1965, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences bestowed an Oscar to Friz Freleng for Best Animated Short – for The Pink Phink (1964), the first Pink Panther cartoon. The next day, Friz’s former Looney Tunes colleague Bob Clampett wrote a congratualtory note to him in the form of a poem (or “pome” as written below). Click image to read enlarged version:

Some notes on the references in the poem: Clampett refers to “(Richard) Burton and Liz (Elizabeth Taylor)”, the famous show-biz couple of the time, though only Burton was nominated for Best Actor that year (and lost), Liz was not.

“Where there’s a LIL…” is a reference to Freleng’s wife, Lillian. “Nudnik” was, of course, a reference to Gene Deitch’s character, also nominated that year – in fact, Deitch had two nominees that year (the other being How To Avoid Friendship).

This cool little historical curio is now on ebay, apparently found among Freleng’s mementoes by the folks compiling the book, Animation: The Art of Friz Freleng (a great book, if you can afford it).

(Thanks, Charles Brubaker)

Cartoon Brew | Permalink | No comment | Post tags: Bob Clampett, Friz Freleng, pink panther

Golden Age animator Phil Monroe (1916-1988) is rarely discussed, even amongst animation cognoscenti, which is unfortunate because he had an amazing career. Over the course of his career, he animated for an honor roll of legendary directors including Bob Clampett, John Hubley, Chuck Jones, Pete Burness, Friz Freleng, and Frank Tashlin. Animation historian Michael Barrier has posted a never-before-published 1976 interview with Phil Monroe that he and Milton Gray conducted.

The interview delves into details that may appeal to only a small portion of our twenty thousand-plus daily readers, but if you appreciate classic Warner Bros. shorts and animation history in general, the interview is guaranteed to blow your mind. There’s even a great story about how Monroe got Chuck Jones and Friz Freleng to square dance with one another, even though “they were barely on speaking terms.” Barrier conducted a follow-up interview with Monroe in 1987, which he promises to publish online soon.

Cartoon Brew | Permalink | No comment | Post tags: Bob Clampett, Chuck Jones, Frank Tashlin, Friz Freleng, John Hubley, Michael Barrier, Pete Burness, Phil Monroe, Warner Bros.

In ancipation of Andrew Stanton’s (Finding Nemo, Wall-E) live action debut, John Carter, this clip of Bob Clampett’s 1936 John Carter of Mars test footage has recently gone viral (thanks to Geeks of Doom, io9 and The Animation Guild, among others):

Of course, longtime readers of Cartoon Brew know this clip comes off the 1999 Beany & Cecil The Special Edition (Vol. 1) DVD, which we have championed for years. I am happy to report Volume 1 was just re-released in a newly remastered version last month. You can only get it through the official Beany & Cecil.com website, and according to the site “the remastered disc has new menus and loads faster, adds Spanish tracks for all of the cartoons (except Beanyland) and several new audio commentaries by Clampett’s kids on three cartoons. There is also a recently discovered storyboard for an unproduced Clampett autobiographgical cartoon titled Cecil’s Scrapebook. What makes it really unique and strange is that it recounts Bob Clampett’s creative and “surreal” life in the person of Cecil.”

I can’t tell you how much I personally love the work of Bob Clampett. These DVDs (Volume 1 and Volume 2) are vital for anyone interested in classic Hollywood cartoons – or anyone who simply wants to laugh. I’ll end this post with one of my favorite Beany and Cecil cartoons (many are now available on You Tube’s Beany & Cecil Channel). I’d be hard pressed to pick my favorite B&C cartoon, but this one is in the top ten – one of the funniest, cleverest and coolest TV cartoons ever, The Wildman of Wildsville:

Cartoon Brew: Leading the Animation Conversation | Permalink | No comment | Post tags: Beany & Cecil, Bob Clampett

Don’t miss these never-before-seen hand-drawn maps by director Bob Clampett illustrating the various Warner Bros. animation facilities (called Leon Schlesinger Productions at the time) and identifying where the artists worked.

It’s a nice complement to this recent photo that turned up on eBay that identifies the various buildings on Disney’s Hyperion lot in the 1930s.

Cartoon Brew: Leading the Animation Conversation | Permalink | No comment | Post tags: Bob Clampett, Hyperion Studios, Warner Bros.

(thanks to Jay)

Glass Slipper, Gold Sandal, the new picture book by Newbery Award winner Paul Fleishman, takes the story of Cinderella for a spin around the world. Fleishman starts out traditionally, “Once upon a time there lived a wealthy merchant whose wife had died. They had one daughter, gentle-eyed and good-hearted.” But once the stepmother messes things up and Cinderella cries, the story takes several directions. “…the animal poured honey for her from its horn…and a fairy gave her figs and apricots…and Godfather Snake gave her rice.”

By the time the prince/king/headman marries Cinderella, the page is overflowing with dancers and food from Zimbabwe to Korea, and readers of all ages will be under the spell of Fleishman’s lovely worldwide enchantment. Illustrator Julie Paschkis traces the story variations with colorful bands of textile-inspired images, labeled with country of origin. Click here and scroll down for an interview with Glass Slipper, Gold Sandal’s illustrator extraordinaire.

Fleishman may be the first to meld so many Cinderella tales into one narrative. In doing so, he communicates something very special about this beloved story. But Cinderella’s multiculturalism is well documented; here’s an ALA BookLinks list of worldwide Cinderellas by region and culture. Here’s an extensive list from the Cinderella specialists, our friends at Shen’s Books. You can also search for Cinderella, if not her glass slipper, here at PaperTigers.