Mark Kausler’s CatBlog

New Kats

Here are the K.K.s from 7-29 to 8-4-38. I love Garge’s bug characters, note how similar the “boll weevil” in 8-1 to 8-4 is in appearance to archy in the illustrations Garge did for Don Marquis books. One of the happiest assignments I had in my early years in the animation game was animating a few scenes in the ‘Archy declares war’ sequence in John Wilson’s “Archy and Mehitabel”. I did these under the great Frank Andrina’s tutelage, as I was his assistant on the picture. Sam Cornell did the layouts in a combination Garge/Sam cartoon style. I haven’t posted much lately, Cathy and I just got back from Santa Catalina island, where we participated in a plein air “paint out” last week. Avalon was not damaged from the recent brush fires. Catalina is an ENORMOUS island, so a 4000 acre blaze would only burn a small part of the brush there. I was lucky enough to sell a small watercolor of the Casino and harbor there to a kid from Oceanside. Paid for a meal there anyway. I will do a photo post of the trip later on this week. Have a GREAT Memorial Day and remember our poor, overextended military at this sad time in history!

End of the Line

I was reading the Pennysaver (a local adzine) on Weds. and noticed an ad: “Estate Sale: Residence of Ollie J., Disney animator…” It was almost as if the organizers of the sale were trying to keep it a secret! Poor Ollie, I thought, he must have decided to sell everything and go to assisted living. As it turned out, Ollie has gone to Oregon to live with his family, as Don Hahn, Disney producer, (pictured above gesturing toward a chair) told me. (Don is working on a documentary about his friend, Joe Grant.)  I went to the estate sale both Friday and Saturday (May 18th and 19th). I didn’t see too many people I knew besides Don. All the household effects, dishes (see above), clothing, tools, garden equipment, books were all for sale. I took my wife to see the house on Saturday, and she suggested I buy one of Ollie’s hats and a plaid shirt to remember him by. I’m glad I did (see above of me relaxing in Ollie’s back yard wearing one of his hats). There was a bit of Disney memorabilia of course, mostly research material that Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston assembled for their books. Piles of photocopies of Disney animation drawings and story sketches, some loose, some mounted on illustration board. There was a whole box full of large photostats of Disney drawings, mostly storyboards. The stats must have been done recently, as they would combine Jungle Book Bill Peet story sketches with drawings from Donald Duck shorts like “Donald’s Gold Mine”, for instance. Probably material assembled for the book “Too Funny for Words”. At any rate, they were priced at $100.00 apiece (see above)! Ollie’s signed copy of Mike Barrier’s “Hollywood Cartoons” book was available for $60.00, as were things like some drawings that Nancy Beiman sent to him (there were a lot of things like that in the sale). Some of Ollie’s engineer caps were available from his live steamer train days at $75.00 a throw, including a photo of Ollie on board his engine. They all sold. Ollie collected Bing Crosby 78s, I bought one for $3.00 that had Bing on one side and Russ Columbo (his rival), on the other side! There was a whole box of scripts and story conference notes from the Disney films (photocopies). They wanted $10.00 a page for them, but that turned out to be negotiable. I found some notes from the Soup sequence from Snow White, as well as “Night on Bear (sic) Mountain” from Fantasia, mostly Walt, Dave Hand and Perce Pearce trading ideas, fun stuff to read. Ollie had a lot of books, some of which are pictured above. The prices for most of the hard backs were between $60.00 and $150.00. In a room covered with train wallpaper was an antique engineer’s lamp made over into a ceiling fixture, price: $2000.00! On Saturday, a very nice lady was getting quite emotional over that lamp. All of Ollie’s miniature trains were either sold or donated to the live steamers exhibit in Griffith Park. If there was any original art, most of it was not at the sale. I found one watercolor that was very nice, but not by Ollie.

It was a sad occasion, yet happy too (for me). The neighborhood Ollie lived in (La Canada) was and is absolutely beautiful. Both Ollie and Frank Thomas bought a lot of land to build their respective rambling ranch style homes on, probably in the late 1930s. The oak, eucalyptus and sycamore trees on the properties are stately and in prime condition. It was fun to see the remains of Ollie’s famous backyard railroad (see above). The little yellow train barn was charming and Ollie’s trestle in front of the house was a miniature masterpiece of construction. As you can see by my expression sitting in Ollie’s back yard, I finally came to the party! It felt so good just to BE there! I always wanted to visit the famous pair of animators at their homes, but never was invited. This was the last chance for me (heck, the last chance for ANYBODY). It’s interesting that Peter Schneider, who used to be the president of the animation division at Disney, owns the Tudor style mansion right next to Ollie’s house! Ollie was very nice to me on at least one occasion, when I put together a film tribute to Fred Moore at ASIFA Hollywood a few years ago. As feeble as he was, Ollie took time to answer letters about Fred Moore’s family, and talked by telephone with me about Fred’s auto accident and other things. Evidently, Mrs. Thomas is still living in the house next door to Ollie’s. Cathy and I walked around the neighborhood on Saturday and looked at the Thomas home from the outside, it too is beautiful, very big ranch style home with teal green trim and on a big lot surrounded by California oaks. The documentary, FRANK AND OLLIE, doesn’t begin to convey just how impressive these homes were. The neighborhood is now filling up with mansions, one was under construction. Cathy and I noticed that one of the homes across the street had a miniature train trestle in it’s front yard, but the tracks had been removed. Evidently, Ollie’s train inspired the sincerest form of flattery from some of the neighbors as well. Imagine what that area was like when Frank and Ollie bought the land. Probably an oak grove that had to be cleared for ground breaking. La Canada is the essence of old California ambiance. What a great couple of days at Ollie’s house!

A week’s work of mentally challenged felines!

Welp, here’s 7-15 and 7-16-1938, followed by 7-18 through 7-21. 7-17 was a Sunday page. Herriman seems to be doing two-strip continuities here, 7-14 and 7-15 use a barrel, 7-18 and 7-19 show Krazy waiting for Ignatz to “come”, 7-20 and 7-21 ring changes on a “benjo”.  7-16 trots out Offissa Pupp’s thought detector once more.  I think that Krazy feeling “fit as a banjo”, goes right to the heart of his jazz age origins; Krazy was a musical cat!

Get these DVDs NOW!

Alright, cartoon lovers! Go to www.thunderbeananimation.comand order copies of “The Little King” and “Cultoons Volume 2: Animated Education” right NOW! Got em? Good! My friend Steve Stanchfield put these together, and they are a true labor of love. Who thinks much about Otto Soglow’s merry monarch these days? You can see 1940s Sunday Little King pages on line at dailyink.com, but the animated cartoons? Now Steve makes it easy for you to see all 10 Van  Beuren “Kings” uncut and restored with the original titles (wherever possible), plus the two “Sentinel Louey” Cartoons and the Max Fleischer “Betty Boop and The Little King” thrown in as a bonus! Wait until you see and hear all the text extras that Milton Knight and Chris Buchman put together for this DVD, including a recording of the tune “Zombie”, which is heard in “On the Pan” and in my favorite Van Beuren Aesop Sound Fable: “Rough On Rats”. Milton wrote a wonderful essay on Jim Tyer that explains just why the design in his animation transcends the thirties and was contemporary all the way into the late 1950s! Milton, you should write Jim’s biography. The Little King was one of my childhood favorites, not because his cartoons were funny, but because they were scary! Jim’s animation of the catacombs that scare the fat lady tourist in “Art for Art’s Sake”, are an indelible scary delight, as is the “mad bomber” in “The Fatal Note”. Jim animated a lot of the bomber’s acting scenes, as well as the crazy chase where the bomber’s arms rotate like pinwheels as he shoots at the King.  Wait until you see “Marching Along”, essentially a commercial for the NRA, a true time capsule which shows how volatile commodity investing was (and still is). This one was not on TV that I remember, well worth buying the DVD to get!

Cultoons Volume 2 features a lot of obscure and rare educational cartoons from the 1930s to the 1950s. It includes “A Desert Dilemma” bu Cy Young the great Disney special effects animator (audio commentary by Milton Knight, Steve Worth and Jerry Beck), “See How They Won”, an Ub Iwerks cartoon featuring The Microbe Army for Boots Chemists in London, “Finding His Voice” by Max Fleischer and “The Family Album” by Paul Terry, both made for Western Electric. “The Family Album” is actually a sequel to “Finding His Voice”, so the grouping is appropriate and long overdue. Steve Worth does audio commentary for “Voice”. Also on the DVD you will find a very early John Hubley Navy UPA production: “Swab Your Choppers”, and a beautiful color print of Hugh Harman’s “Winky the Watchman”. “Winky” is the little guy with the lantern on the box cover drawn by the late Brenda Bailey, to whom the DVD is dedicated. She did a great job in drawing Winky, he looks very appealing. Pinto Colvig does his voice. I did the audio commentary on this short, with info culled from Hugh Harman’s papers. I made a really embarrassing mistake, not in the cartoon notes, but in the info I supplied on live action films. See if you can spot it. Steve even threw in an extra audio reminiscence of Hugh that I recorded for the DVD.

Steve is a tireless collector of the rare and the obscure in vintage animation, so we who love this material have an obligation to support him! Buy several copies and give them away to friends, relatives, or the next person you meet on the street! Donate a copy to your local public library! Let’s make these cartoons FAMOUS! Then, with the profits (?), Steve can do more DVDs of  the unusual and forgotten in cartoon history. I has spoken!

Also in today’s blog is the next installment of “Lane Allen’s Diary”, which I saved as a kid from some religious weekly or other. The strip is not really religious, but I think it’s almost as good in it’s own way as Walt Kelly’s “Our Gang” comics. Just look at the attitudes in the last panel. The mom and dad’s poses tell us so clearly what their attitudes are toward Lane and his fishing trip with “good ol’ worms”. I love the drawing in this strip, a combination of illustration and cartooning. The facial expressions are refreshing to look at. To repeat from previous posts, if any of ya’ll know anything about this strip, please let me know!

7-11, etc.

7-11-1938 through 7-14-1938.  Offissa Pupp’s mind reading device resembles a divining rod! I like the barrel joke in 7-14, especially the scandalized Mrs. Kwakk-Kwakk in the last panel.

the next batch

I did an interview and two commentaries today on Looney Tunes Golden Collection Vol. 5, coming soon. You know, it’s interesting how much I still love the black and white Looney Tunes fifty-two years after I was first exposed to ‘THE DAFFY DOC’, the earliest one I can remember seeing. In St. Louis, Mo. where I was an infant, we had a TV program called “The Wranglers’ Club”, featuring a man named Harry Gibbs, otherwise known as “Texas Bruce”. He must have run that cartoon a hundred times. I was honored to do the commentary on THE DAFFY DOC today, as well as  LITTLE RED WALKING HOOD , and to talk about Mel Blanc, Bob McKimson, Hugh Harman, Rudy Ising, Art Davis, Irv Spence and many other hero cartoonists. Thanks to David Gerstein for helping me to decipher Daffy’s sign with the Hebrew/Yiddish lettering that he holds up in the operating room sequence of THE DAFFY DOC. In means “shah”, which is the word for “quiet”. Time for that mystery to be cleared up!

Here are the next four episodes of KK. 7-6 through 7-9-1938. I love that “Weezie”  cat in the 7-9. Looks like Krazy after an elephant stepped on his head. The schoolteacher is an interesting new character as well.  In 7-6, once again Garge reveals that Coconino is a stage with stage hands providing the audio just behind the backdrop (in this case, the fence). Again a hole in the wood plays a part, this time to let the words to “O, Solo Mio” seep through.

A Bunch More Kats

Here’s 7-2, 7-4 and 7-5-1938. In 7-2, I would swear that Garge used this joke before, in the 1920s. In 7-4, a double reconsideration results in inaction, sounds like the federal government, doesn’t it? In 7-5, I love the personification of “conscience” in the third panel, and the staging on floor planks. I love the hole in the floor, maybe that’s where “conscience” exits and enters. This seems to convey that Garge thought of this idea as a parenthetical aside, so it takes place in “the wings” of the strip, or off-stage.

Aw, c’mon have a coupla more!

Here’s 6-30 and 7-1-1938. When the anti-smoking police get down cutting out all of the smoking scenes in all the old movies and cartoons, maybe they will get around to the old comic strips! Krazy’s gang all seem to love a good stogie, even if it’s used!

Two, Two, Two Kats in One!

Here’s 6-28 and 6-29-1938. Savor the “kat langwidge” in 6-29 with the enraged chicken hawk, and the incredible melting banjo fret in 6-28.

Hugh’s Project

What a great experience it was to get to know Hugh Harman. In the early seventies, Bob Clampett introduced me to Hugh. It was a lot of fun to eat breakfast or lunch with him at his favorite restaurant, The Old World in Beverly Hills. However, Hugh did not live in Beverly Hills, but in an old apartment building on Selma and Cahuenga in Hollywood. Hugh preferred to come over to my house, or meet me in Beverly Hills. He did not own a car, took the bus everywhere and never invited me to his rooms. You see, he was poor. I tried to help him by selling artwork he had from the Bosko comic strip of the thirties, and some Red Ryder prints that his brother, Fred Harman had created. Hugh would always bring something every time he came over, like a sack of donuts. Then he would borrow a hundred dollars or so. Up to the time I met him, no print of the legendary Bosko pilot: “The Talk-Ink Kid” existed. Then mysteriously, a nitrate copy turned up out of a friend’s garage. We made a safety negative in 16mm, but the print had no main or end titles. So Hugh designed the main title (the sketch on yellow lined paper). I then re-drew and inked the design to look like the earliest model of Bosko (sketch on white paper). Hugh was pleased with the result, but I can’t remember if we ever photographed the title cards or not. Later my friend Dave Butler, made a final negative and put the new title cards on it. I just recently saw a copy of “Bosko the Talk-Ink Kid” on DVDr and I saw my titles on it. All the memories of Hugh Harman came back, and I smiled. Can you imagine how much fun it was to work with one of my childhood heroes, creator of such a beloved character as Bosko? It always amazed me how tough Hugh was on himself, and in how little esteem he held all the great old cartoons he had helped to create, except for “Peace On Earth”, one of his MGM cartoons. What an honor to have known him, and to have helped him out a little. It’s a sobering thought to know that such a key creator and one of the greatest animators of the 1920s lived the last years of his life in such reduced circumstances. He didn’t save his money, and was forgotten by Hollywood. Residuals for animators!

Martha’s ruff and more!

Here is the pencil ruff I made on Martha Sigall’s 90th birthday card. I thought it would be fun if she could be dancing with the first and last theatrical Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies characters. Her husband Sol is keeping time in the background. Martha has the inked and watercolored final card. Thrown in are the next episodes of “Lane Allen’s Diary”, (still looking for info about this feature, how about it, Stripper’s Guide?) and KK.

KK 6-24-1938

Here’s today’s Krazy. My wife Cathy and I went to Martha Sigall’s 90th birthday party in Culver City on Saturday. Martha, as you know, is one of the last living links to the Schlesinger and MGM cartoon studios, having worked as an inker and production supe at both shops. Of course, you know her book: “Living Life Inside the Lines”, highly recommended. She had so many guests, both family and cartoonists, that she scheduled her party in two shifts, 1-3 PM and 3-5 PM. A lot of us stayed a little after 5, like until 6:30! One talented member of Martha’s family put together a 9 minute video of family photos, concluding with an image of 100s of photos morphing into a great portrait of Martha’s face. I did a little drawing of Martha for her birthday card, I’ll post it when I get a chance. Tom Sito and Art Leonardi also did personal cards for her. What a great time we had!

K.K. again 6-23-38

No wonder Offisa Pupp’s been absent, too many robin jokes! I love that monument with the Indian runes in panel four!

Today’s Kay 6-22-38

Sorry I was too tired last night to post.  Here is the next episode of our Krazy, 6-22-38.  Pretty good “mistaken identity” gag. The birds seem to be taking over the strip this week.

K. Kat 6-21-38

A sterling example of Garge’s cross-hatching and scraping techniques. He scratched through his ink on the bristol board to get the drops and lightning effect in the fourth panel. Herriman loved Scotch Terriers, (he was owned by two of them) so he put a Scotty in this strip. The tall dog resembles an aardvark with long legs. Herriman’s umbrellas and parasols are always funny props. Good night now!