Who is this handsome couple...

... posed in front of the Fleischer Miami Studio in 1940?? Both worked there and...

... he animated the following scene from Popeye Meets Ali Baba's Forty Thieves. (released in 1937)

Any wild guesses??
More on them to come.

Sidney Pillet's 'Fin and Butch!'

Some more comic book work from a Popeye animator I know next to nothing about - apart from a couple of funny anecdotes. There are only 2 Popeye cartoons I am aware of with Sidney Pillet's animation - Problem Pappy and Popeye Meets Rip Van Winkle - both done under the de facto direction of Myron Waldman.

Pillet biographical cartoon from Fleischer's Animated News.

Gag cartoon from Fleischer's Animated News, Dec.,1935

The pages below are from a comic published in 1943.

Click on image to enlarge

Click on image to enlarge

Pure Golden

Tom Golden had a sort of funky drawing style with respect to his hand gestures. They were unique and sometimes awkward looking - and an easy way to help ID his animation style. He would not always articulate the shapes of the fingers often giving a 'webbed' look to the hands he drew.







Like many animators of that time period Golden moonlighted drawing comics to supplement his income. Among the ones he drew were some of the early issues of Casper the Friendly Ghost (he animated on the first cartoon) and Baby Huey. (on which he also animated) You can see many of his animation drawing licks in the following pages drawn for a comic book published in 1945.

Abner Kneitel at Work

Photo courtesy of Abner's grand daughter Renee

That's him on the left - well, part of him. The other animators pictured are unknown.

Possibly as rare or rarer than hens' teeth are photos taken of animators at work inside the Fleischer Studio. I'd like to think they were working a Popeye cartoon when this photo was taken. Note the Popeye and Bluto models sheets on the desk tops.

Tom Golden

Those of you with a keen eye for animators will recognize the work of Tom Golden, ace animator responsible for arguably the most recognizable piece of Popeye animation - the spinning star opening of the color Popeye cartoons from 1943 to 1957. (the animation also had an afterlife, re-used as the opening of the King Feature TV cartoons)

Golden's credits start appearing in the later Fleischer cartoons, where he animated for Dave Tendlar's crew. He moved to Al Eugster's crew for a few cartoons that were released in 1942, animated for one cartoon - 'Seein' Red White 'N' Blue' - for Jim Tyer's crew that was released in 1943, and then spent time in Nick Tafuri's short lived crew animating on 2 Popeye cartoons released in 1944 and 1946. Golden then returned to Tendlar's group, with his animation in the 1946 release 'Rodeo Romeo'. He later became a de facto director of his own crew.

The clips below are from - in chronological order - 'Fleets of Stren'th' (1942), 'Pitching Woo at the Zoo' (1944), 'Abusement Park' (1947), 'Popeye and the Pirates' (1947), and 'Pre-Hysterical Man' (1948).

Note in the last clip that Jack Mercer was still ad-libbing as late as 1948. There are a couple other cartoons from the mid Famous Studio period where Popeye ad-libs - debunking the myth that Mercer stopped completely once the Popeye cartoons started being produced by Famous.

Gordon Sheehan's Dumb Buggies

I've been able to eke some time out of my schedule to post a couple comic pages drawn by Popeye animator Gordon Sheehan. It seems like Sheehan couldn't get the 'Mr. Bug' out of his system. The characters in his story are very similar in design to the characters he may have animated in the Fleischers second feature 'Mr Bug Goes to Town' released in 1941.

I have discovered that many golden age animators who drew comics would often borrow designs from the characters they animated. If not a direct copy, often heavily influenced by them.

O.T. - Interlude of Shameless Self-promotion

I’m preparing a few posts that are taking longer than expected.

In the meantime – to fill the gap - here’s the hanging song from the Ren and Stimpy cartoon 'Out West' , unedited for those fans out there that have not yet seen it in this form. I animation directed this cartoon and it was animated by an amazing group of animators at my studio Carbunkle Cartoons.

Note that Stimpy is out of sync as he says ‘hoedown’. For some reason there were 2 versions of the song - using the broadcast version threw Stimpy's animation way out of sync. I've included a piece of the pencil test that has the track we used for animation. (it's slightly out of sync too but closer than the broadcast version) Why it was changed I don’t know. Hey Bob Camp - if you’re reading this, can you shed some insight on why that happened.
 

Contrary to some opinions circulating the internet, animating Ren and Stimpy was not just the act of doing inbetweens. Any of you who have tried this style know that it (generally speaking) takes a lot of skill, is time consuming, requires more drawing than regular limited animation, and involves a lot of problem solving.