Adios, Rudy
In tribute to my late teacher and amigo, Rudy Larriva, who recently went to cartoonist’s heaven, here are a few panels from a sequence in Gus Arriola’s GORDO from 1946. These feature Gus’s caricature of Rudy as a near-sighted little nebbish, constantly falling into the hole left by the excavation of Gordo’s 1912 Michigan Meteor antique car from Rudy’s back yard. Rudy was a great animator, and teacher of animation when I was going to Chouinard Art Institute. I was animating a student film called “The Twenty-Second Tragedy” featuring a frightened little dog. I used a two-drawing shiver cycle of the dog as he confronted a scary axeman. One drawing had shaky lines, the other had normal lines and I exposed them on twos. Rudy discouraged me from using such simple tricks, he advised me to ANIMATE the shiver and really think more about the dog’s emotions. I made a whole lot more drawings, and had to admit that the scene had more impact that way. Rudy animated on such prestigious films as SONG OF THE SOUTH and MELODY TIME for Disney, he animated the tug-boat “Little Toot” in that picture. In SONG OF THE SOUTH, Rudy has draft credit in the “Laughing Place” sequence for Sc. 9, shared with Ollie Johnston, close-up of Bre’r Rabbit tied up on a spit, Sc. 30, shared with Eric Larson, close-up of Bre’r Rabbit starting to sing the “Laughing Place” song: “Hee-Hee-Hee-Hee, Ho-Ho-Ho…” and Sc. 31, also shared with Eric Larson, Long shot of the Rabbit, Fox and Bear with Bre’r Rabbit leading them, tied to a rope. Some experts give Rudy the credit for Sc. 66, 67 and 68 of the “Tar Baby” sequence, as well, but the draft credits Eric Larson. These scenes transitioned back to a shot of Bobby Driscoll listening to the story as Bre’r Fox and Bre’r Bear danced around the tar-bound Bre’r Rabbit.  Rudy was also one of Chuck Jones’s early animators at Schlesinger, notably on ELMER’S PET RABBIT and GOOD NIGHT ELMER from the early 1940s. When I met Rudy he was directing at Filmation. He admitted that his Road Runner cartoons of the late 1960s were not as well-animated as Chuck Jones’s, but he felt that they had superior camera work by Ray Thursby, who shot those cartoons at Format Films, where Rudy also directed portions of THE ALVIN SHOW. Rudy was a smallish, soft-spoken man, not quite as helpless as Arriola depicted him, but not prone to histrionics. He lived to the age of 94. I wish I had been in touch with him all these past years, since Chouinard. My friend Vincent Davis, visited Rudy often. Evidently he was reclusive in his last years and discouraged visitors. He was really a grand person and a wonderful talent, you will be missed mi amigo. Adios, requisat in pace. We will continue the Gordo strips next post with more panels devoted to Rudy Larriva.
Felix this time is from 9/14 to 9/20/1936. Danny Dooit, Socky, Snobbs and the whole Dooit clan vanish from Felix’s life now, as Felix manages to escape from the zoo. The fisherman in the Sunday page is a precursor to more fishing gags to come in the succeeding dailies.
Krazy is from 3/4 to 3/9/1940. Ignatz is thrown in prison again, but manages to fool Offissa Pupp several times. I like the “What Goes Up” 3/9 strip with it’s “Gran Baile” poster on the wall.
In Patrick, from 12/6 to 12/10/1965, Patrick organizes the “Patrick Club”; so exclusive that he is the only member. No Groucho, he. The gag for 12/10 reminds me of Red Skelton’s radio character, “The Mean Widdle Kid”. Patrick arguing with himself over whether to be good or bad is reminiscent of Skelton’s “If I dood it, I get a whippin’…I dood it!” Sometimes when the “Mean Widdle Kid” was contemplating a malicious act, he would say, “I don’t know why I’m wasting time arguing with myself, I’m gonna dood it anyway!” Mal Hancock’s Patrick is unapologetically mean-spirited, unlike a lot of contemporary comedy which IS mean-spirited, but lies about it’s intentions.
charlie says:
they just keep me coming back–Felix & Krazy of course—charlie
Mark says:
Great to hear from you Charlie, thanks for all the great Barney Google scans you are putting online!
Don M. Yowp says:
Mark, thanks for posting the Larriva cartoon. I was hoping to see it somewhere.
It’s funny how a couple of weeks before he died, I was checking around online doing some research and, out of curiosity, typed Rudy’s name and found his phone number and that he was still alive.
The shiver trick is something Carlo Vinci liked to do in the early HB cartoons in lieu of full animation. It was effective enough and, in his case, necessary given the time and financial constraints.
Mark Kausler says:
That’s right, Yowp. Carlo used the vibrating lines (shiver) trick in his HB animation, and even in his Terrytoons full animation. Another animator who used the device was Ray Abrams in the Walter Lantz cartoons of the late 1950s and 1960s. He even used wavy lines to indicate extreme actions like George yelling to Junior in “Henpecked Hoboes” (Avery MGM cartoon), for instance. Rudy probably thought that we should be using a more Disney approach in our animation as students, being that Chouinard at that time, (1968), was primarily a Disney-financed institution. Rudy thought that graphic devices like wavy lines detracted from the believability of the acting. Carlo Vinci and Ray Abrams used the wavy lines (shiver trick) in many ways, even in comedic “acting”.