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The Birthplace of American Animation?

11 Feb

A frame from "Gertie The Dinosaur"

by Rachel Newstead

I have nightly conversations with a friend and fellow blogger, Lisanne Anderson, on a variety of topics, some of which are–not too surprisingly–old music and animation. When I received an uncharacteristically early morning call from her today, I wasn’t quite prepared for what I was about to hear.

the winsor mccay house as it is today

The house on Voorhies Avenue today (above) and as it appeared in 1909 (below)

At 1811 Voorhies Avenue, not far from Lisanne’s home in Brooklyn, NY, a run-down, vermin-infested boarding house–dubbed “Hell House” by those unfortunate enough to have lived there–could have a date with the wrecking ball, if the building’s owners have their way.

Not all that unusual,

Winsor McCay house, 1909. From the Sheepshead Bites blog

you might say–old houses get torn down every day. But members of the community suspected something might be special about the house, now more than a century old. Special enough, in fact, to warrant status as a historic landmark.

What they needed was proof–and thanks to local historian Joseph Ditta, they found it. The house, he said, belonged to none other than the father of American animation, Winsor McCay.

There’s strong evidence to suggest Ditta is right. McCay and his family did in fact settle in Brooklyn on Voorhies Avenue (the 1910 census records bear this out) and had occupied the house pictured in the sepia-toned photograph above since at least 1907.  “Hell House”, in better days, had the same elegant porches seen in the aforementioned photo, and shares the distinctive neoclassical columns that could have come straight from Little Nemo’s “Slumberland.”

At least one of McCay’s pioneering animated films (The Flying House, 1921) is reputed to have been animated there; his Little Nemo comic strip was drawn there. (Correction: according to animation historian John Canemaker, McKay only occupied the house until 1910, after which he moved to another house on the same street.)

McCay’s first animated film, based on that comic strip, appeared in 1911.  How bitterly ironic it would be to lose the former home of its creator just as that groundbreaking film is about to mark its centennial.

(Post title changed, as original was misleading). R.

That Golden-Voiced Crooner…Lurch??

27 Jan

Lurch in Addams Family episode posing for his album cover

I have to tell you, I love YouTube. My usual searches for documentaries on early television (upon which I embark when I’m trying to avoid work) sometimes lead me down a blind alley to a number of strange but wonderful places. This is definitely one of those.

The TV series THE ADDAMS FAMILY spawned the usual tie-in products during its two-year (1964-66) network television run. And a few things decidedly less….uh, usual.

Fans may remember an Addams Family episode in which Lurch (Ted Cassidy) becomes an instant pop sensation. Who’d have thought life would imitate art? Cassidy–as Lurch–provides his distinctive bass growl for a mid-60s single in this YouTube gem….

Too bad American Idol didn’t exist then–he’s a natural.

Erbert and Gerbert Redux: The Making Of “Human Flipbook”

20 Jan

Just a little tidbit to tide everyone over until the review goes up. (And I fight off this cold that’s been slowly creeping up on me for the past three days). Remember the Human Flipbook? Well, here’s how they did it.

Just thinking about it still makes me swimmy-headed. Or maybe it’s just the cold medicine…

Goodbye, Orphan Toons–Hello Test Pattern

15 Jan

Bosko and Bruno, going down path while Bosko carries bundle

by Rachel Newstead

If ever a question consumed Kevin and me for every waking moment in the last several years, it’s “What to do with the blogs?”

We had begun our first blog, The Home For Orphan Toons, in 2006 as a noble experiment of sorts.  We wanted to talk about animation which, it appeared to us, was not being talked about–cartoons rotting away in vaults or condemned to the $1.99 discount bin.

Neither of us, however, were prepared for the explosive growth of sites such as YouTube and Facebook, sites which render the very term “orphan toon” meaningless. A cartoon can hardly be “forgotten,” after all, if everybody and his brother can upload a copy to YouTube.  Now, rather than the cartoons, it seemed as though we had been left behind by time.

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“WHEN’S IT GONNA GET HERE??” (BRING ON THE POP CULTURE PARADE!)

20 Oct

by Kevin Wollenweber and Rachel Newstead

Foreword from Rachel:

Acting according to the maxim that it’s better to have good content than frequent content, a very burnt-out Kevin and I have stayed away for awhile. But nothing provides quite the motivation to write as new DVD releases, and we have a video bonanza in the coming months. The latest Looney Tunes Golden Collection goes on sale today, with the third volume of Fleischer Popeye DVDs soon to follow. Kevin talks about the new releases in his latest “musings”, written a couple of days ago (and only now posted by procrastinator me–sorry, Kevin).

Jimmy Weldon, Tom Hatten and friends

Jimmy Weldon with "Webster Webfoot"--above him, Tom Hatten poses with a friend who shall remain nameless...

Not that we haven’t been busy during our hiatus. We’ve been spending far too much of our time haunting the best undiscovered treasure on the Internet, namely Stu Shostak’s Shokus Internet Radio. Every Wednesday the esteemed Mr. Shostak interviews a different legendary figure from the world of animation and pop culture. This past week he spoke with two children’s show hosts well-known to generations of former kids in Southern California (and those fortunate few in other parts of the country who had cable): Tom Hatten and Jimmy “Webster Webfoot” Weldon.

I never had the pleasure of seeing Mr. Weldon in his prime, though I have heard him, and very likely you have too (Weldon took his vocal talents to Hanna-Barbera in the early sixties, as the voice of Yakky Doodle). Weldon’s a good old southern boy (Texas, to be exact) who’s enough of a character to fit in with my crazy South Carolina family–he may have made his fortune providing voices for ducks, but he himself is something of a live-action version of a certain, I say, certain animated chicken. Rooster, that is. Interviewing Jimmy Weldon has to be the easiest job in the world for any interviewer–all one need do is sit back and let him do the talking.

Tom Hatten hardly needs an introduction here, as my admiration for the man knows no bounds–and I never miss an opportunity to say so. I’ve written about him extensively in this blog, as he was the catalyst for my own interest in animation and animation history.

If you want to catch Mr. Weldon and Mr. Hatten, you’ll have to hurry, no thanks to me. (Procastination strikes again). Shostak airs repeats of his program all week, meaning the Weldon/Hatten edition will air just one more time: tomorrow at 4 P.M. Pacific time (adjust accordingly for your particular corner of the globe). Just follow the link I’ve provided above. Mr. Hatten and Mr. Weldon will thank you.

If you stick around to the end, you might catch a phone-in comment by a certain humble toonkeeper expressing her heartfelt admiration for Hatten.

What’s that? Oh, yes–Kevin. I haven’t forgotten him. He’s interrupted his Daffy Duck-like vigil at the mailbox to express his boundless enthusiasm for the upcoming and newly-released flood of video headed our way. Pardon me while I go pace for him.

Well, folks, “ah-go-ny, ah-go-ny!!”  I feel like DAFFY DUCK at the opening scene of “DAFFY DOODLES”, as he impatiently paces in front of his mailbox wondering aloud the phrase that I’ve used as the title of this piece.  In the cartoon, a classic by Bob Clampett if there ever was one, Daffy is referring to his morning paper as he eagerly awaits the day’s comic adventures of DICK TRACY.  I use the over-anxious question as my impatient cry for October 28th or eventual due date of the arrival of LOONEY TUNES GOLDEN COLLECTION, VOL. 6!  I cannot wait for this stuff to hit the shelves and I am perhaps as anxious to find out how well it sells in hopes that, like the WALT DISNEY TREASURES collections, we see a sudden revamping of the series and news that it will indeed continue!  Oh, right now, the news is still that the series is halted after this volume, but that Warners cartoons are still on hand for future restorations and collections, delving deeper into the vaults, but this series is just too good to just flop here as the absolute overview.  I don’t say that there are no other interesting in-depth possibilities, but this volume just seems so good that to cut the series off here is like axing an entire fourth of a very good major motion picture!  I still hold out hope that the decision-makers can be convinced that, even in these hard economic times, people are throwing down their cash for this wonderful series and genuinely look forward to its arrival each year in our video collections.

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My Travels With Chuck

14 Aug

Foreword from Rachel:

Welcome, one and all, to our new “sister site” to the Orphan Toons blog, the title of which comes from Kevin. (And inspired by that coolest of cool “cats”, Cecil The Sea Sick Serpent’s beatnik friend Go Man Van Gogh). We’ll be launching this new venture, however, with a look at a cat of the more literal kind, the unnamed feline of Chuck Jones’ Fin ‘N’ Catty (1943). My editorial comments will be interspersed throughout.

By Kevin Wollenweber

Well, while sitting back and checking out a VHS sampler of favorite cartoons I had created from my laserdisk collection, I was reminded of how much I liked some of the earliest Chuck Jones directions at Warner Brothers, when his “style” started to take hold and his inspiration began to be felt by other animators in his unit–especially the one shots that did not feature any specific characters.

Chuck Jones’ cats are especially funny, as evidenced by the inclusion of “THE ARISTO-CAT” on the fourth LOONEY TUNES GOLDEN COLLECTION set on DVD. A title that was omitted, no doubt, for inclusion in a later volume of LOONEY TUNES and MERRIE MELODIES under a different banner in later years, is a toon called “FIN ‘N’ CATTY”.

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