Here’s a gallery of interesting publicity images from Fleischer’s Out of the Inkwell Screen Songs, Betty Boop, Popeye and Superman series, as well as Gulliver’s Travels and Mr Bug Goes to Town.
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Archive for the ‘fleischer’ Category
Thursday, July 7th, 2022
Annual Member Bonus Archive Update: Esquire, Starevich and Fleischer
As a special thank you to our annual General and Student members, we have created a special page where we will archive past Reference Packs. There will be at least four reruns of complete RefPacks per year.
If you are currently on a quarterly membership plan, consider upgrading to an annual membership to get access to our bonus page with even more downloads. If you still have time on you quarterly membership when you upgrade to an annual membership, email us at…
membership@animationresources.org
…and we will credit your membership with the additional time.
Available to Student and General Members
PDF E-BOOK:
Esquire Magazine
Cartoon Annual Volume 1 (1937)
Esquire was the leading "gentleman’s magazine" of its day. Great writers like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemmingway wrote for the magazine, and the Esquire staff included a stable of illustrators and cartoonists that represented the best in the field. Even though it was founded in the height of the depression, the publishers spared no expense to produce a first class product. The cover price was fifty cents, many times the price of any other magazine on newsstands at the time. Hugh Hefner began his career as a copy editor at Esquire in the late forties, and it’s clear that his vision of what Playboy would become was greatly influenced by Esquire.
In 1937, the staff of Esquire prepared a prototype copy of a proposed cartoon annual containing the best cartoons from the first few years of the magazine’s publication. However before the book could be printed, the project was cancelled and the prototype was put on the shelf. Twenty years later, they finally did publish a book honoring the great work of the Esquire art staff, but it was a much different selection of cartoons. Animation Resources was given access to the one-of-a-kind prototype of the 1937 book, and we will be sharing it with our members in this, the first of two e-books. We hope you find it to be useful.
Click to access the…
Downloads expire after September 2022
DVD QUALITY VIDEO:
The Mascot
(Ladislas Starevich/1933)
Ladislas Starevich created the first puppet animation film in 1912 and continued to work in the medium for half a century. He was born in Russia to Polish parents in 1882 and emigrated to France soon after World War I. Assisted by his wife, who made the costumes for the puppets, as well as his daughter and son, Starevich produced a large and varied filmography. We are presenting the most famous of his films, "The Mascot", which Terry Gilliam has cited as one of the ten greatest animated films of all time.
"The Mascot" (1933) is a technical marvel, with sophisticated puppet armatures, a wide variety of techniques, and fantastic subject matter. Starevich simulated motion blur in this film by smearing vaseline on a glass plate between the camera and the puppet. He also broke new ground by rigging the puppets so they could move slightly while the shot was being exposed. This technique predated Jim Danforth’s "Go Motion" in the Star Wars films by almost 50 years! We have deinterlaced this film and encoded it at an increased bitrate so you can step frame through the animation and study the animation. Starewich often created a seamless blend of several different techniques in a single shot. It’s fascinating to look at the work frame by frame to discover the secrets behind the cinematic magic.
"The Mascot" was edited and reformatted several times over the years. It is rarely seen with the original soundtrack and running time, but Animation Resources obtained a copy of the film as it was first released and we are proud to be able to share that with you. If you would like to see more films by Starevich, let us know on the Animation Resources Facebook page.
Click to access the…
Downloads expire after September 2022
DVD QUALITY VIDEO:
Two Fleischer Screen Songs
“Tune Up And Sing” (1934) “Let’s All Sing Like The Birdies Sing” (1934)
When the Hayes Office took aim at risqué humor in the movies, Fleischer’s Betty Boop cartoons were square in its crosshairs. The difference between the 1933 Betty Boop cartoons and the ones from 1934 is stark, and the series never really recovered from the blow. The Screen Songs weren’t hit nearly as hard, but you can still see that when it comes to gags, punches are being pulled. To add insult to injury, when these cartoons were syndicated to television in the late 1950s, the live action celebrity cameos and singalong sequences were usually cut out, and that is the case with the two examples we are sharing in this Reference Pack. But because of the way the cartoons were constructed, the edit isn’t too noticeable and they play well as short cartoons.
In the home video era, the Fleischer Screen Songs cartoons are missing in action. Only a tiny handful have been released. Animation Resources would like to thank our Advisory Board Member, Steve Stanchfield for sharing these rare films with us.
Click to access the…
Downloads expire after September 2022
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by Tuesday, March 22nd, 2022
Exhibit: Berny Wolf 1911-2006
Berny Wolf holds up a model sheet he created
along with Grim Natwick for an Iwerks Willie Whopper
cartoon. (See Al Eugster’s Photo Album)
(Originally posted 9/13/06) We received the sad news today that veteran animator, Berny Wolf passed away a few days ago at the age of 95. Berny was a real gentleman, and his career spanned the entire history of animation… from Fleischer, where he rotoscoped Cab Calloway as a ghostly walrus for "Minnie the Moocher"; to Iwerks, where he designed characters and animated on Willie Whopper and Comicolor cartoons; to Disney, where he animated on Pinocchio, Fantasia and Dumbo. In the TV era, Berny was a mainstay at Hanna Barbera and FilmRoman, continuing to work into his 80s.
Here are some model sheets Berny created along with Grim Natwick at Iwerks…
Ben Burgess mentioned that Berny animated the scene of Jimminy Cricket on the seahorse in Pinocchio. I have a drawing from that scene in my own collection and didn’t even realize that it was from one of Berny’s scenes…
Perhaps Berny’s most famous scene is one he animated when he was just 21 years old… the ghostly walrus from the Fleischer Betty Boop cartoon, "Minnie the Moocher". Dave Fleischer assigned Berny to rotoscope footage of Cab Calloway. He told me that he did the work at Max Fleischer’s original rotoscope rig- the one on which they had rotoscoped Ko-Ko the Clown many years earlier. The rotoscope machine was made from an old camera stand, and it stood in a dark, dusty corner of the camera room. For a week, Berny sat alone in the corner, perched on a high stool rotoscoping Cab Calloway. Here is the film…
Minnie the Moocher (Fleischer/1932)
(Quicktime 7 / 17 megs)
Berny was a quiet, unassuming man. Perhaps that is why many people today are unaware of his importance to the history of animation. He was the quintessential East coast animator until the end, often attending important meetings in an impeccable pinstripe three piece suit, complete with a watch chain and white carnation in the lapel. Animation Resources offers its condolences to the family of Berny Wolf. He will be missed by all who had the honor to know him.
COMMENTS
On behalf of my father, I want to say a heartfelt thank you for being so interested in his work and his life. You cannot imagine what it has meant for our family to see his name in print with all the wonderful comments. I can forward photos of him in the past and at his 94th birthday if you like. He was very shy and did not like having photos taken.
Sincerely,
Lauren Wolf-Purcell
Please do send the photos. We’re building a digital archive of information on the lives of great animators. If you have anything you would allow us to digitize to represent your father in our collection, please let us know. -Stephen Worth, Director
Read Mark Kausler’s overview of Berny’s career at Cartoon Brew
Mark Evanier’s remembrances.
Ernesto Pfluger’s Spanish obit
Stephen Worth
Director
Animation Resources
This posting is part of an online exhibit entitled Grim Natwick’s Scrapbook.
This posting is part of the online Encyclopedia of Cartooning under the subject heading, Animation.
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