Bob, Fred and Wick in the Jr. Times
Here’s another small survey of the L.A. Jr. Times and the future animators of America! May of 1926 was Bob Clampett’s greatest month in the Jr. Times. “The Innocent Pussy” was the ten dollar cover winner of May 16th. It really captures the innocent and mischievous spirit of a cat, like I tried to do in the animated cartoon “It’s ‘The Cat'”. I’d like to think that Bob C. would have liked my cartoon. There’s also a photograph of Bob at the age of 12 when he lived in Glendale, a poem he wrote for the Jr. Times on the virtues of the T.J.C. and one of his rare comic strips featuring the “Duke” (monocle) and “Kewp” (Derby hat) in a swimming race from Santa Monica to Ocean Park. Note that this strip foreshadows the story in “Porky’s Naughty Nephew” (babies are funny) where all the cartoon animals have a race across the lake, and Pinkie scares the wits out of them with a phony shark fin. He scares Porky into winning the race, like Duke and Kewp are frightened into swimming like two Buster Crabbes by a real shark. In “Porky’s Naughty Nephew”, a real shark gets into the act at the end of the picture, made even more ludicrous by appearing in a fresh water lake. The germ of the ideas was there in 1926! Also we have a strip (4-25-26) from future Clampett animator Larry Martin (and the model for Dishonest John), and Fred Moore, shamelessly promoting the T.J.C. in a cartoon published 4-4-26. I wonder if Bob Clampett and Fred Moore knew each other, and how did they get along at those Aunt Dolly meetings with the live jazz bands? Also we have the earliest comic strips by Bob Wickersham, a future Disney animator and key artist of the “Fox and Crow” cartoons and comic books for D.C.. He breaks precedent by working with an animal character, Fido Bark (5-9 and 5-16-26), who starts out promoting the T.J.C. (surefire for getting Aunt Dolly’s approval) and then starts doing father and son gags that remind me of “Smitty” or “Skippy”. Actually, “The Innocent Pussy”, the photo and the poem are already on the Internet, but I wanted to show them here, especially with the cat tie-in.
In Barker Bill, from 5-2 to 5-14-1955, Bill solves the Hippo mystery (the hippo coughs up the radium watch), and starts a new story line as Ali K. Zam, the circus treasurer, practices the old levitation trick and makes Barker Bill float away with Puddy on his chest. Ali can’t get Barker Bill back down to Earth without buying the counter-spell, which he can’t afford (what do you expect from a character who wears a shoe on his head?). Bill floats by the offices of Bitten, Button, Bursten and Foghorne (parody of Batten, Barton, Durstine and Osborn advertising agency), and the execs think that Bill’s floating girth would be a great place to advertise Dunker’s Donuts. They wind up tying a banner to Bill’s feet, and he’s off to make some money to buy an antidote to Ali’s levitation spell.
 Felix, from 7/22 to 7/28/1935, follows Felix and Danny’s adventures on the Ape’s Island. Felix ties a string to Danny so that they don’t lose track of each other, but finds himself on the end of a spider’s thread. The ensuing spider gags last the rest of the week. Otto animated Felix vs. a spider in at least one silent Felix, but I can’t remember which one, David? In the Sunday, Felix once again descends from Dreamland to entertain a sleepless youngster.
 In Krazy, from 6-2 to 6-7-1941, Herriman predicts the “Suspense” radio show, which didn’t start until 1942. Or, maybe Garge is just commenting on an increasing awareness of suspense as a continuity device in comic strips. In any case, all the strips this week hinge on the concept, with the brick remaining “suspended” in the air in the 6-5 and 6-6 episodes. Ignatz even talks to the brick in the 6-5, addressing it as “brickie”. More hard knocks next time.
 In Myrtle this time, from 2-17 to 2-22-1947, we’re into our first full week of strip continuity. In the 2-18, Susie reminds me of Popeye as she strides out the door ready to sock neighbor Mac in the eye! I like the little subtle touch of Pop hiding a mouse trap behind his chair in the 2-21. Fisher’s characters are so full of life, it’s fun to see Myrtle continually flying through the air, or hanging on to the garden gate, just being an energetic little girl. Many more to come. In about 5 or 6 more posts, Barker Bill will run out of episodes, so this blog will take less time to make up. For the most part, each little strip has to be separately scanned and uploaded, it takes a great deal of time, so I hope you will excuse the less-than-frequent posts. I’ll never be an Evanier, how does he do it? (Well, for one thing, he doesn’t post too many daily comic strips!)
Charles Brubaker says:
Clampett could draw pretty well at age 12. I don’t think my cartoons were in that caliber when I was that age.
Valentin Moretto says:
Do you know if Chuck Jones started drawing comics at an early age as well?
Mark says:
Thanks Charles and Valentin,
I don’t know if Chuck drew comics at an early age, so far no Chuck Jones comics have appeared in the Jr. Times as of 11/26. Chuck referred to Bob C. as a “precocious kid”, pertaining to his early newspaper comic strips, so maybe Chuck tried but just didn’t get in the Jr. Times in those days. It paid to butter up Aunt Dolly!
Thanks for reading, Mark
Manar says:
“Get A Job” was one of the big awakenings for me as soon as I gadeurtad college in 2001. It showed me that quality cartoons could still exist and I strive for that kind of quality still even today. It also opened my eyes mainly because at the time I was leaving my family’s home to live on my own and make a name for myself and “Get a Job” reminded me of what I was going to go through soon.I got my whole resume and portfolio ready and turned it in into 50 or so companies, many of them falling due to the big dot-com bubble burst at the time. People living in LA seemed to be the only kind of folks getting any work at the time.In a sense I always thought the director of “Get a Job” may have been reflecting a great part of his life as it is very hard for people with a great personal vision to get work. Nowadays it seems like people get turned off by that (which is so sad and can be clearly seen by the decline in the quality of cartoons nowadays). I remember many substandard students getting work often knocking down the more talented ones. It’s like a lot of major studios want to see a lot less personal vision in their work nowadays as well in order to appeal to the masses (in fear of offending someone or simply not wanting to take a risk). Which is sad because we are seeing less and less personal films such as the National Film Board of Canada shorts.Heck the days of “O’ Canada” airing on Cartoon Network is over. Nowadays crappy shows like Aqua Teen Hunger Force are favored. Today I work doing animation and while it’s a good job n’ all (I animate videogames nowadays, best job I ever had and loving it) it’s not doing cartoons. I do my own shorts at home and while it may take long I get a sense of satisfaction that no studio will ever control it, even though I won’t make money from it. It seems to me in order to get your work out to the masses you have to do your own cartoons and put them out the web because a lot of companies out there don’t want to take a risk and give the money needed to make the film of your dreams. I know what the director of “Get A Job” means when he quit. He should’ve gotten a huge amount of pay for unleashing his genius among the world (shame on a lot of people for not noticing it!). It pisses me off because the big wigs and mainstream mass cannot see how good this kind of stuff really is. It’s like you get praised more for doing less effort and getting patted on the back for it. Aqua Teen Hunger Force is PURE PROOF of that! :(I hope the director of “Get a Job” comes back one day to treat us to his delicious candy of “24fps shot- on-ones” glory of inspirado. I also hope one day a big studio will hire John Kricfalusi and give him the proper funding to run their shorts division. Maybe then it will finally show me the industry is heading towards the right direction.I get tired of hearing praises for crap like Thundercats, He-man, Transformers and Power Rangers! GIVE ME “Get a Job,” “The Cat Came Back” and the “Big-SNIT” any day over all the crap today.