Little Grey says We’re Up and Running! Go to www.itsthecat.com !
Hi readers! Thanks again for all your kind words about Little Grey, who is still very much in our thoughts around here. Here he is in mid-groom, looking very contented with squinty eyes.
Thanks to the expertise of our webmaster Adrian Urquidez and Top Producer Greg Ford, “itsthecat.com” is now fully updated and operational! Just go to www.itsthecat.com and click the “mouse” next to the word “gallery”.  There you will see an updated page of cel set-ups for sale in three different price ranges, with Sc. Three (the most requested), well represented. The shipping is included with every cel and a free DVD of the cartoon: “It’s ‘The Cat'” will be included along with the cel. If you go to “movies” (“Movies, we NEVER go to movies!”) on the gallery page, you will find a Quick Time embedded movie of the original pencil test from “It’s ‘The Cat” to entertain you as you select the cels you would like to purchase. This is probably the last place on the Internet where you can buy actual PRODUCTION cels from a cartoon, and not reproduction or so called “sericels”. Most of these cels are HAND-INKED as well as HAND-PAINTED, production methods and skills which are increasingly rare or little used. With each cel comes a reproduction of the BACKGROUND, and in most cases the original DRAWING from which the cel was inked. Help us continue to make short cartoon films, the first six scenes of our new short, “There Must Be Some Other CAT!” are almost ready for the production camera. Your purchase is appreciated by lovers of cartoons and cats everywhere. Thank You!
This week I’m re-printing an ad promoting the St. Louis Post-Dispatch comics which appeared in the Moberly (Mo.) Monitor-Index on March 7th, 1956. This is a rare instance of a newspaper actually printing an ad promoting a rival paper’s comic section. Both “Marvelous Mike” and “Reverend” were winners in a contest that United Feature Syndicate held to find new comic strips. I believe “Reverend” ran a little longer than “Mike” but neither strip proved to have “legs”. Our “Marvelous Mike” strips this week are from 2/25 to 3/2/1957. Cliff Crump (who increasingly reminds me of Joe McDokes in the Warner Bros. shorts), is appointed judge by retiring Judge Hartshorn because Cliff is a “good citizen”. We’ll see if he can resist a bribe. Krazy Kat this week is from 7/17 to 7/22/1939, the subject being “music”. There are a lot of puns on the words “suites” and “fugues”. The 7/21 strip has me baffled, can one of you comic experts tell me what “fugues” are in “Ken-tuggy” and “Tennis Sea”? I’ve heard of the “Tennis Sea Walts” to paraphrase Krazy, but not a fugue. I like the fact that in the 7/19 strip the pose of Ignatz hurling the brick is now so familiar that Garge can just draw Ignatz with his arm following through without even showing the offending missile!
We’ll see you next time, good readers. Please consider buying a cel, they make wonderful gifts, too!
Little Grey–From Box—(Sadly) To Bag
Dear readers, if you don’t want to read sentiment, please skip to the comics section. Otherwise: “He taught Laughing and Grief, they used to say.” Lewis Carroll from “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”.
Little Grey has come home. I found his little body out in the back yard, while I was preparing to cut grass a few days ago. He was evidently killed by a coyote. I dug a grave for him underneath the lemon tree, not far from the grave of Little Sister, another dear cat who was the victim of a coyote some years ago. That’s a photo of his final resting place above, next to one of my favorite pictures of Grey on our front porch, in his box with the red pillow. I also have included a picture which I have posted before, of Little Grey eating a well-earned meal, with his “catch” going unmolested. Grey was a good mouser and bird-catcher in his early years. For awhile, it looked like he was especially good at catching pigeons. Grey seemed to be coming up with a fresh kill nearly every day, until I realized that he was simply eating the pigeons that a neighbor had shot with his air rifle! As I posted last time, Little Grey was shy with a lot of people, but was never shy with me. He followed me everywhere, and jumped into my lap nearly every place I sat down, including the bathroom! Of course Grey liked to sit on my lap down here in the computer room, purring as I typed. He made me laugh every morning as he climbed the stairs, wide eyed and eager, with his paws taking the steps two at a time, then dashing into the kitchen and greedily chowing down without even looking up. This winter was quite hard on him, he was meowing at the kitchen and front doors quite a lot, sometimes very urgently. As I said last time, he was not box-trained, so we had to let him in selectively and supervise him. For the most part, Little Grey was used to an outdoor life, but lately he was slowing down a little and eating less. We always thought he could take care of himself in co-existing with the skunks, possums, raccoons and coyotes that live around here, and he did that quite well for a long time. Whenever a skunk would show up to eat his leftovers, Little Grey was smart enough to just sit back and relax until the black and white robber had eaten it’s fill. Sadly, he finally slowed down enough that a coyote caught him. I can still hear him meowing everywhere, his spirit is very strong. It’s especially sad in the morning without the little one sunning himself on the back steps waiting for breakfast. Cathy and I miss him very much.
Thanks Diana Rodriguez of the Hampa studio, Dave Nethery and Charlie Judkins for writing sympathetic letters about Little Grey. Your words mean so much at this time, I am very moved that you took the time to care! Grief is such a strange emotion, it just comes over me in waves. Little Grey was such a big part of my life that almost everything around here reminds me of him. No other family adopted him, he stayed near us for all of his life. I’m so glad he was with us for as long as he could be, and at least I know where he is.
“…who had died as he had lived, in absolute love and infinite devotion.” Charles Tazewell from “The Littlest Angel”.
Comics this week are “Pop Korn”, the conclusion from Coo-Coo Comics, #28, August 1946. The wolf is foiled by a loose board on the front porch as Pop happily finishes his detective story. Pop walking along with the rifle over his shoulder, towing a miniature cannon and animal traps strongly resembles Taliaferro’s Donald Duck poses. Pop even says “So..!” when hit by a scrap of paper, just as Donald would do. Even though the story is slight, I love the small town, Centerville atmosphere that Taliaferro conjures up so lovingly with his beautiful drawings.
Marvelous Mike from 2/18 to 2/23/1957 this week concludes the Mr. Kosno story, as the Crumps return home from their Florida vacation. I think that kids could really agree with Mr. Kosno’s line in the 2/20 strip as he reacts to Cliff’s corporal punishment of Merrie: “..how many times we adults mete out undeserved punishment to our children.” Of course to kids, almost ANY punishment felt undeserved, especially spankings! Corporal punishment really seems to have vanished from modern parenting, about the worst a child gets now is a “time-out”. My brother and I were usually careful to tow the mark and avoid the belt when we were kids. We’ll find out what the policeman wanted to see Cliff about next time. Krazy Kat is from 7/10 to 7/15/1939 and the story could be called “Sixty/Forty”. Offisa Pupp, Mrs. Kwak-Wak, Krazy and Ignatz spend the week discussing physics, Pupp running 40 miles an hour, Ignatz hurling a brick at sixty. The boomerang brick in 7/12 is novel, but I like the 7/15 strip the best, as the brick reacts to a “stop” sign.
Wherefore Art Thou, Little Grey?
Well, dear readers, I’m going to take a little break from the ballyhoo for “It’s ‘The Cat'” over on My Toons. There is concern in our house tonight for our dear friend, Little Grey, the outdoor cat. You see he’s been missing now, for three days. Little Grey’s been with us since 2004, he came in to our lives (my wife Cathy’s and mine) hissing, spitting and suspicious. He was very young, little more than a kitten, and evidently had been mistreated. Gradually, the power of food won him over, and before many months went by, he let us touch him, and he let it be known that he was a “lap cat”. Grey liked nothing better than climbing up on my lap, to doze and purr. I think he would have stayed in my lap for 4 hours in a row if I would let him. Little Grey must have been part Siamese, because he loved to “talk”. He would yowl for his breakfast and supper, and whenever we would stand around talking to our neighbor, Little Grey would sit close by our feet and try to join the “conversation”. Although there will never be a cat dearer to us than our cats Crispy and Little Sister, who are both gone now, Little Grey will never be forgotten. Crispy, who was with us nineteen years, was quite intolerant of other cats, and really hated Little Grey. As old as she was, one day she went on the attack and tried to scratch Grey. Little Grey could fight fiercely when he needed to, we saw him do it, but that day, he just rolled over and showed his belly to Crispy and that stopped the fight! Little Grey seemed to sense the social order around here and treated the senior cat with respect. That fuzzy close-up of him in my lap was a self-taken snap shot, that’s why he’s out of focus, but I think it’s a funny picture anyway. Little Grey has been in declining health lately, getting pretty thin and not eating very much. He is really a semi-wild creature, an outdoor cat, not box-trained, but really a nice, friendly kitty. I hope he got adopted by a caring family and will get some good medical care. We miss him.
     Comics this week are pages 3 and 4 of “Pop Korn” by Al Taliaferro from Coo-Coo Comics #28, August, 1946. The wolf grabs Pop’s food and candy, then takes the old goose’s Detective magazine. It looks like the wolf also bought up all the Detective mags at the local newsstand and is burning them in his stove so that Pop can’t finish his detective story! We’ll finish off this comic in the next post. Marvelous Mike this week, from 2/11/1957 to 2/16, continues the Mr. Kosno story. The dialog in the last panel of the 2/13 strip is a little hard to read, due to the darkness of the microfilm copy. Mike says: (to Merrie): “Go back to the hotel man and wait for me, dear sister—if my plan works, I’ll see you within the hour–” Mike stows away in the spy’s car, causing them to fear a federal rap, kidnapping. Thinking that they have the secret papers, they run out, leaving Mike with Mr. Kosno, but of course Mike has the real ones; more next time. Krazy Kat, from 7/3/1939 to 7/8, is primarily about a Coconut tree and the Coconino citizens who are bopped by coconuts dropping from the tree. Of course it’s mostly Ignatz doing the dropping and bopping. Remember, to see any picture larger, just click on the images with your mouse. I’ll be posting some more of my favorite pictures of Little Grey in the next few entries, after all, this is the Cat Blog. See you then.
“It’s ‘The Cat'” is on My Toons!
  Wow Folks! It’s taken quite a long time, but my cartoon “It’s ‘The Cat'” is now on the My Toons store! Here’s the link: http://www.mytoons.com/markkausler. If you fork over the princely sum of $1.99, you will see the cartoon at full frame rate. I think it plays at reduced frame rate if you just click on the arrow and try to view it for free. Very soon we should have cels for sale from “It’s ‘The Cat'” on this very web site! There will be 52 set-ups in all, mostly from Sc. 3 (the cat on the fence), but quite a few from other points in the cartoon, as well. My cat is rubbing whiskers with “Banjo the Woodpile Cat” by Don Bluth on the My Toons store, among many other cartoons available for paid downloads. So please pay, download, and erase, then repeat as often as you can! Maybe we’ll pay our negative cost back one of these days.
Did you know that the great Disney Donald Duck comic strip artist Al Taliaferro also dabbled in comic books outside of the Disney ranch? Well, here’s “Pop Korn” from Coo-Coo Comics #28 from August, 1946, one of the few stories Al was able to publish under his own by-line. Pop is a goose, not a duck, but his body shape and attitudes certainly suggest Donald, but Pop Korn comes off more like Grandma Duck than anything else. The wolf seems right at home on a rural front porch, not like Zeke Wolf at all. I assume Al wrote the story and inked it too. Let me know what you think.
In strips this week, Marvelous Mike (2/4/1957-2/7, 2-9) walks for the first time, and the Mr. Kosno plot thickens as the Crump’s room at the Miami hotel is ransacked. The strip from 2/8 was missing from the Post-Dispatch microfilm, but the continuity seems pretty clear without it. Krazy Kat is from 6/26/1939 to 7/1, and the week’s strips are all about “Boids and Bugs”, puns on things like “Bowl” Weevils, “Liar” Birds, and so forth. These play like gags Garge was doing in the earliest Krazy Kat dailies from 1913. The design of the Boll Weevil looks a lot like “Archy” from Herriman’s illustrations for the “Archy and Mehitabel” stories by Don Marquis that were published around 1939. Garge drew Archy and Mehitabel in several different designs over the course of the books he illustrated, the Boll Weevil design is just one of Archy’s “looks”.
That very crude drawing of “The Cat” at the top of the page is one of two drawings I have done on a digital “paint” program. It’s like drawing on a chunk of ice with another chunk of ice, so my control was not the greatest, but the result has a bit of life in it anyway, so I’m throwing it out there. Let me know what you think of the My Toons store! See you soon.
Welcome, Please Come In!
Hello everyone, (and I do mean ONE)! Welcome to the lonely blog! Come in and enjoy our comic offerings for today and the art gallery. Our painting today is by my wife, Catherine Hill and is currently on exhibit in the Contemporary Masters, Artistic Eden II show at the Pasadena Museum of History over on Orange Grove in Pasadena. Head over there for a fine show, featuring local scenes of San Gabriel and Pasadena, with work by the great Ray Harris, Jove Wang, Vic Riseau, Walter McNall, Donald Hildreth and many others. Cathy’s painting is an interior view of the Huntington Library’s art gallery with a group of art lovers enjoying the paintings. I especially like the subtle colors Cathy chose for the walls and way she painted the reflections in the gallery floor. You really should go over to the Museum, which was the Fennes mansion in a former life, and see this beautiful painting for yourself! You have until the end of April to do it.
I was asked to do a tribute to my friend Lyn Kroeger at the Afternoon of Remembrance at the DeMille barn on Saturday afternoon, Feb. 7th. I wrote about her in this very blog a few weeks ago if you recall. Unfortunately I ran a little long, it was hard to decide what to leave in and leave out in my speech. I did cut out a paragraph or two as I went along but that still wasn’t enough, I ran over 5 minutes. It’s frustrating to be hurried at these tributes, at least I was there and prepared. Many of the honorees didn’t have anyone to speak for them. The oldest person that was honored was veteran animator Al Stetter, who lived to be 100 years old! Maybe Lyn was not a veteran animator, but she was a very good assistant and a true artist, so I thought she deserved a good speech. I’m glad I could do it, I owed you one, my friend.
Our comics this week are “Dusty and Littlechief” by Bud Sagendorf from Coo-Coo Comics #4, the concluding two pages. The Japanese spy is socked and bopped all over the place but winds up more humiliated than hurt as they mail him to Washington D.C. as livestock! I wonder what Littlechief wanted the purple paint for? Marvelous Mike this week from 1/28/1957 to 2/2, continues the story of Mr. Kosno as he plants his secret information on Mike at the airport. Mike is already on to the plot in the Feb. 2nd strip, that brilliant little detective. Krazy Kat this week is from 6/19/1939 to 6/24, half the strips feature a continuity with Offissa Pupp’s Mechanical Stool Pigeon machine. It’s supposed to tell when Ignatz is in or out of “Jail”, but malfunctions in the 6/24 strip.
Go to FLIP!
Hi everyone! My wife Catherine Hill is the Featured Artist this month in the February issue of FLIP! FLIP is an on-line magazine devoted to the “Lifestyles of the Hunched and Goofy”, edited by the eminent animator, director and webmaster Steve Moore. Here is the address: www.flipanimation.net/flipiissue20.htm! Head over there to read an article which Cathy wrote about her painting methods and see many jpegs of her recent oil paintings. You’ll be glad you did.
Comics this week are pgs. 3 and 4 of Bud Sagendorf’s “Dusty and Littlechief” from Coo-Coo comics number four. This is pretty anti-Japanese stuff by this time, consider this was 1943 at the height of the hostilities between the Empire of Japan and the Allies. In this strip you get two stereotypes for the price of one, American Indian and Japanese. Littlechief is pretty easily fooled, and Dusty makes like Popeye on the second page when he knocks the Japanese spy clear across the page.
Marvelous Mike by Bob Kuwahara this week is from Jan. 21 to 26th, 1957 and gets into cold war territory when a new character, Mr. Kosno, stumbles over Mike at the airport. It looks like Cliff is going to be led into doing a little smuggling for the aforesaid Mr. Kosno, we’ll see. Krazy Kat this week, from 6/12 to 6/17/1939 features Ignatz trying to make Offissa Pupp’s jail a little more livable by turning it into an office, a hotel and an “Unfair Jail”, picketing it like a Prisoner’s Union member. This might have reflected the union activity in 1939, just before the U.S. entered into the second World War.
Sagendorf Back When
Hi Folks, ever wonder what some famous comic strip cartoonists did between gigs or on the side for extra income? Here is an example of Bud Sagendorf’s comic book work from Coo-Coo Comics #4, March 1943. Tom Sims and Bela Zaboly were doing the Popeye comic strip at the time, I’m not sure if Sagendorf had started to do original work for Popeye comic books in 1943. Segar’s influence on his drawing is very much in evidence here, as is the unique “slant” on the Japanese in American comic books during World War Two. Here a Japanese spy wants to steal the four-legged chicken that Dusty and Littlechief are breeding, shades of Bernice the Whiffle Hen from “Thimble Theater”! I’ll run the next two pages in the next post.
In answer to a question from a reader, “Cinder the Cat” was originally published in 1931 by the American Book Company, written by Miriam Blanton Huber (any relation to Larry or Jack Huber I wonder?) and illustrated by A. Gladys Peck. It was one of the early books to use a small vocabulary of 242 words, to make it easy for grade school children to read. I have posted a scan of pages 6 and 7 this week, with Cinder getting friendly with Mr. Cook, the owner of the toy store where Cinder lives.
Comic strips this week are Marvelous Mike from 1-14 to 1-19-1957, Mr. Kimball’s doctor convinces Kimball that Cliff is trying to drive him crazy. Mike visits Mr. Kimball and sets him straight, the dialog in the last panel of 1-19 reads: “…the truth, as you see I am perfectly…” Krazy Kats are from 6-5 to 6-10-1939, this week Garge explores the worlds of Army worms and Doves of Peace, no doubt reflecting the state of the world in 1939 as war clouds grew stormy in Europe. I was a long time getting this post together, it was hard to get to the scanner which is in a remote location. Now I have enough material to last for a while. I will double-check that scene in “Saturday Evening Puss” that I believe was shared by Ken Muse and Ed Barge. Steven thinks it’s all Ken Muse. May the great comic “muse” watch over all my readers until we meet again.
Cinder comes back
Well, here’s another draft I put together for the Tom and Jerry cartoon “Saturday Evening Puss”, see if you agree with my animator choices:
Tom Sneaks thru house–Ed Barge
Mammy puts on jewelry–Ken Muse
Mammy Struts–Ed Barge
Mammy Struts Past Tom in Basket–Barge
Mammy Out Door–Barge
Tom imitates Mammy’s strut, laughs–Barge
Tom Whistles–Barge
Cats in Trash Cans–Barge
Tom holds up sign, “O.K. for Party”–Barge
Cats thru window–Muse
Cats Play Instruments–Muse
Tom out of kitchen with sandwiches–Muse
Tom feeds cats pies and sandwiches–Muse
Jerry’s head changes shape–Muse
Jerry yells at Tom’s feet–Barge
Jerry scolds Tom, standing on cymbal–Muse/Barge
Cats flip Jerry up in the air–Barge
Jerry lands in record player needles–Barge
Jerry smashes Meathead’s fingers in Piano lid–Spence
Three cats smash into zipped-up mouse-hole, become one cat–Spence
Tom puts stylus back on record–Spence
Jerry pulls plug out of wall–Spence
Little Cat tries to smash Jerry with trash can lid–Spence
Cats chase Jerry, all smash into Dutch door–Spence
Jerry hides behind curtain, smashes little cat in the face with trash can lid–Spence
Cats chase Jerry into Venetian blind–Spence
Tom ties Jerry with blind cord–Spence
Jerry dangles from cord–Spence
Tom plays cat’s tail–Muse
Orange cat plays little cat’s whiskers–Muse
Jerry crawls like a worm, tied up in cord, makes phone call–Barge
Mammy playing cards–Spence
Mammy runs to and away from camera–Spence
Mammy crashes thru front door, catches Tom by the tail–Barge
Totem Pole gag–Barge
Mammy plays records–Barge
Jerry’s head changes shape again–Muse
I’ve put up another page from the old school reader: “Cinder the Cat”. My wife and I both love black cats, see Cathy’s “Mangy” pages in earlier posts. This week’s strips are Marvelous Mike from 1-7-1957 to 1-12, Mike goes to the office with Cliff and nearly drives Mr. Kimball nuts! At this point, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch moved Mike off the color page and printed the strip in black and white at a larger size. Too bad they didn’t keep it that way! Krazy Kat this week should be titled “Habits”, from 5-29-1939 to 6/3. Pupp and Ignatz try to change their ways, Mrs. Kwakk-Wakk is satisfied with herself as she is. Ya’ll take care until next time!
Happy Blog Year!
In answer to reader Steven’s request, here is a “draft” that I put together on the Tom and Jerry cartoon, “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Mouse”. Please excuse me if this has been done by somebody else on some blog somewhere, I can’t read ’em all! Here ’tis:
Milkman delivers bottles–Al Grandmain
Tom through door with milk, Tom behind chair–Pete Burness
Tom lapping milk–Ray Patterson
Tom pushing bureau–Ed Barge
Jerry sipping straw–Ed Barge
Tom piling up suitcases–Ed Barge
Tom does multiple eye take–Pete Burness
Tom throws trunk in basement–Barge
Tom with milk–Barge
Tom and Jerry at wall safe–Mike Lah
Tom stirring chemicals with shadow behind him–Ken Muse
Fly drinking chemical–Muse
Tom with chemicals in milk bubbling–Muse
Jerry drinking tainted milk–Muse
Jerry becomes a muscle mouse–Muse
Jerry tears up phone book–Al Grandmain
Tom hits Jerry with poker–Grandmain
Tom braces door, door smashes down–Mike Lah
Jerry pulls Tom through wall safe–Mike Lah
Jerry turns back into himself–Lah
Jerry drinks again–Lah
Jerry body slams Tom–Lah
Jerry back to himself, ties Tom’s whiskers–Lah
Tom chases Jerry, waffle iron gag–Ed Barge
Jerry kicks Tom into refrigerator–Barge
Jerry remixes formula–Muse
Tom drinks–Muse
Tom swells bigger–Muse
Tiny Tom–Muse
Jerry chases Tom with flyswatter–Muse
There you have it, Steven, hope you agree with most of my animator scene assignments on this cartoon. I’m a bit reluctant to post a lot of my hard-won animation data on the blog, because there is too much free information on the web as it is. I won’t be doing this too often, so don’t get used to it!
I’ve posted the front cover to an old school reader called “Cinder the Cat”, just because I like it. It has some charming illustrations inside, one of which I’ll post next time. The comics for this week are: Marvelous Mike 12-31-1956, 1-2-1957 to 1-5. January 1st is missing, because the Post-Dispatch did not publish that day. Cliff makes a New Year’s resolution to spend more time with Mike and Merrie, but his boss Mr. Kimball won’t let him take a 2 week’s winter vacation. In a major turning point in the strip, Mike speaks directly to Cliff on Jan. 5th, there is no turning back from this point on, Cliff knows now for certain that Mike can talk! Krazy Kat from 5-22-1939 to 5-27 could be called “Photo Plot”, Ignatz takes a compromising photo of Offisa Pupp asleep on the job, and Mrs. Kwakk-Wakk takes her own photo of Ignatz taking the picture to prove that it’s really the Pupp napping. A lawyer gets involved, to the confusion of all. I didn’t know that Krazy was the editor of the Coconino County paper! A Happy New Year to you all. Thanks for the great comments on my piece on Lyn Joy Kroeger last week (year).
This just in: My friend and cartoon scholar Mike Kazahleh wrote me last night that his educated guess is that Al Grandmain was an effects animator at MGM, who received credit with the character animators as a favor from Joe Barbera and Bill Hanna for all his work on the effects in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Mouse. There are a lot of special lighting effects, especially when Tom is mixing his chemicals in the water dish, and the exploding effects when Jerry takes a drink of the stuff, or the formula wears off and he goes back to normal. My only trouble with Mike’s theory is that most of the time, the effects in Tom and Jerry cartoons are handled by the character animators. Mike Lah had a special way of handling water, for instance. When the droplets break up on a Lah scene, they are in the shapes of jacks from the child’s game. Irv Spence always handled his shock effects and speed lines in what amounted to his graphic signature. As a side issue, some of the best water effects are in the Barney Bear cartoon: Goggle Fishing Bear. It’s my theory that Arnold Gillespie, who later did some effects on live action pictures, animated the water in Goggle Fishing Bear. My educated guess is that Al Grandmain was a character animator, but a “junior” animator, who may have worked his way up from an assistant. I believe he animated the milkman and Jerry tearing the phonebook by process of elimination, since I can identify the work of Burness, Muse, Barge and Mike Lah fairly accurately. Al didn’t work on too many Tom and Jerrys, Dr. Jekyll, Just Ducky, Safety Second and The Cat and the Mermouse. If the effects animator theory is correct, Safety Second and the Mermouse cartoon have a lot of explosion and underwater effects, Just Ducky has water effects to accompany the ducklings swimming in a pond. So who knows for sure? Step right up and make some comments! Or write to me at blogmolasses@att.net.
Remembering Lyn Joy
Hello Everyone! It’s almost Christmas Eve, the wood is gathered in against the approaching storm and we have food to eat, how blessed we are! I send a lot of Christmas cards around this time each year, and I think about friends I still hear from, and friends who are gone. Lyn Joy Kroeger was a friend who I heard from every Christmas for the past 20 years. She was my assistant animator and inbetweener on a few free-lance commercials I did for Duck Soup and Bob Kurtz in the 1970s. She started doing inbetweens on Lady and the Tramp in 1954. She left Disney’s after Lady wrapped and worked at a lot of the small studios, Quartet Films (Mike Lah), The Haboush Company, Murakami-Wolf, Levitow-Hansen, Duck Soup and Hanna-Barbera. She stopped doing animation in 1984, and passed away in March of this year at the age of 77. I used to drop off and pick up work from her at her house over on Figueroa St., which she inherited from her mother. It was a large old house in a rather bad neighborhood, with bars on all the windows and doors. She lived alone with her huge great dane, Tarzan IV, who was almost as big as she was, and Lyn Joy was quite tall. Lyn had at least six dogs named “Tarzan”, all fierce looking, but gentle once you got in the house. She liked to go walking through the neighborhood, and nobody bothered her with Tarzan along. Lyn was a very talented artist, who made “assemblages” out of her huge collection of household brick-a-brack. She did three-dimensional canvases that resembled Magritte’s floating heads and bowler hats, and made a lot of fake bowls of soup with clear resin; many of the bowls had little toy ducks floating in them (duck soup). The house was very large, the upstairs was filled with “junk”, things that had belonged to her mother, and things Lyn Joy found around the neighborhood, materials she used in her art. All of her Christmas cards were made out of old cards that were re-assembled to make new ones. She was an unrepentant individual, she was unhappily married at least once, and was quite a striking beauty when she worked at Disney in the 1950s (she appeared in person on a You Bet Your Life episode, where she traded quips with Groucho). Even though she had been through a lot of bitter experiences at the hands of the men in her life, Lyn Joy’s attitude was self-satiric, she could stand outside of her life and make fun of it and herself without losing your respect in any way (with Tarzan around, you’d BETTER have respect). Her drawing was very good, she did a great job on the commercial jobs we shared. I last heard from her at Christmas, 2005. She always sent letters and cartoons she had drawn along with her card, usually reacting to the cards I sent to her. Here are a few excerpts from her 2005 card:
Good News             Bad News
I’m Still Here          It Ain’t What It Use to Be
I Followed My Dream          I’m seeking SSI
I’m Still Trucking        I have fallen behind and can’t catch up
I Have a 1,000 Boxes of Collectables   My House Is A Mess
I Do Mom Art       They’re Only Buying Pop Art
2 of my 3 Toilets Are Working      I Have an Active Bladder
Tarzan and I Go Walking      The Time Limit is 30″
The Roof Doesn’t Leak       There’s A Lien On the House
You see what I mean about her sense of humor? Even though she was in reduced circumstances, she could de-fuse bad situations with her existential jokes. I think if Lyn Joy had not been as shy and embattled as she was, she could have been a fine stand-up comedian. Here are a couple of her humorous and bitter paragraphs:
“From the Baby’s View”–A Womb of One’s Own
1-26-05: Most men most of the time have no real understanding about women. They all have this emotional, sometimes a barrier, reaction to the first experience of action in his beginning namely, “Mother”….and how she related to him. Was it a good, happy experience, or was it hell on Earth…& this “Chinese Water Torture” would go on intensely for the first 5 yrs.
Post Disney 9-14-05
A. It’s A Dog Eat Dog World–Competitive
It’s A Dog Chases Cat World–he wants HER
But For What? To Kill, or Serve and Protect?
It’s a Dog Chase Pussy World–To Possess, Abuse, Use, Control
Be A Dog in the Manger?
Her attitude toward the men in her life, certainly comes through here, but you can perceive the artist in her, and her appreciation of childhood imprinting as a prime directive of mature sexual attitudes. Lyn Joy had not only a stormy relationship with men, but she evidently had battles with her mother as well. I never met her mother, but her influence was all around Lyn, the house, and all of her mother’s old things were with her all her life, and she made art out of all of it. Here’s a little of her last letter to me:
“..Tarzan -Good Dog & I are still hanging out, hanging in there. I’m 75, man, one slows down, so make hay & ha while you’re still in the running. I wish I had more time to draw, but everyday chores is a time thief…You, Mark, working with, for you–one of the nicest experiences I have had in my life. You’re honest and you didn’t try to beat me out of anything. I’m sure you’re aware of how bad & cruel it is, but you shine like a rose, mixing metaphors—I like. …If the shoe fits, send it to the funny farm. Take Care…. Love, it’s a Lyn Joy & Tarzan VI”
I haven’t changed Lyn’s punctuation or spelling, I think it should be read just as she wrote it down. Lyn Joy Kroeger was one of the many artists who worked in the “rank and file” of the business, she never animated on professional jobs, but did finish one experimental film: “Mandela”, which may be on You Tube someplace. It was a film made of abstract designs, I can’t remember if the soundtrack was Ravi Shankar or not, but I’m sure you get the general idea of the film. It aired at least once on Los Angeles TV. Most of all, her odd and unique life was her art. I have no idea what happened to her in 2006 and 2007, I didn’t hear from her and should have suspected something. I hope she had someone to care for her, when I knew her she didn’t have any family except for Tarzan, and I believe no close friends. She was a “prickly” person, but a very dear one. I miss her very much, especially at Christmas.
This week’s comics are the last two pages of Jim Tyer’s Hennery Hound from Barnyard Comics #7, on page 6, Hennery runs out of the graveyard so fast that he leaves his clothes behind. This story is signed “J.T.” Marvelous Mike this week is only four episodes. The strips from 12-25 and 12-28-1956 are missing, because the Post-Dispatch didn’t publish on Christmas, and the episode for the 28th was not in the microfilm. The homeless boy, Billy and his mom, Ellie, are re-united with Don, their long-lost papa. Cliff Crump lands the International Department Stores account, because amnesia victim Don was the President of the IDS. Mike solved the whole case through Billy’s locket, what a genius! Krazy Kat is from 5-15 to 5-20-1939, this week’s storylines are “Firecracker Crack-Ups” and “Top Hat and Bricks”. Enjoy the strips, may Santa bring us World Peace. Love and Joy to all.
Gallery Christmas Cat
Very busy around here getting ready for Christmas. Our Catblog post leads off with a painting by my wife Cathy called “Gallery Cat”. We encountered this sleepy citizen in a chair in the middle of a bustling art gallery near Temecula a few years ago. Cathy did this small oil painting later from a photo that we made of the gallery’s mascot. I like the bright red that she used behind the black and white cat, it also feels in keeping with the season.
Our comics this week are the third and fourth pages of “Hennery Hound” by Jim Tyer from Barnyard Comics #7. Hennery tries to escape the noise pollution in the movie theater, the park and the library, with no luck. I wonder how he would have reacted to cel phones? Especially after next February.
Marvelous Mike from 12-17 to 12-22-1956 continues the Christmas tale we started last time. Mike and Merrie are trying to get the homeless boy and his mother to their house for Christmas, but have to get their idea past the depressed Cliff, who can’t seem to catch a break landing the International Department Stores account. Krazy Kat this week from 5-8 to 5-13-1939 is about, what else?, bricks! I especially like 5-12, with the unusual pose of Krazy winding up to toss a brick at Ignatz! It looks like Los Angeles is in for torrential rains the next few days. I sure hope I can post again here soon, but if you don’t hear from me, I may be dealing with situations. Merry Christmas and Happy Chanukah!
Howdy!
Hello, fellow prisoners! Thanks to Mark Evanier’s website, I scored a $10 copy of the new Howdy Doody 40 Episode collection from NBC-Universal. The earliest episode on the collection seems to be from Feb. 1949, when the whole show was done live. You can hear Howdy’s mouth making little clicking sounds on the live microphone, and there are no scenes in these early shows with Bob Smith and Howdy talking in the same set-up. After all, Mr. Smith (as Howdy addresses him in the early shows) did Howdy’s voice live and not being a ventriloquist, he had to do the marionette’s lines off-camera. Bob Keeshan is very funny as Clarabelle the clown, in one episode the clown gets frustrated trying to do a magic trick and spends most of his screen time flailing around on the floor attempting to tie knots in a scarf without actually touching it. Keeshan’s Clarabelle is a small child in a clown suit who speaks through his horns. Paradoxically, he was the spear-carrier and on-camera engineer for the show as well, producing live rabbits from the Flapdoodle and running old Jones Family and Mickey McGuire silent comedies on the Scopedoodle. The quality of the old kinescopes is pretty sharp for their age and the audio levels are just fine for comfortable listening. This is a 5 disc set, and includes many extras, even the last episode broadcast in 1960. If you love 1950s television, try to pick this one up. It’s a window on a world before the mean-spirited scatology that passes for comedy became the norm in our 21st century world. It’s especially heartening to see the adoring reaction to the family of rabbits that Clarabelle produces from the Flapdoodle from the kids in the Peanut Gallery. They seem enchanted by the family of angoras. Bob Smith was one of the warmest on-air kid’s show hosts ever, he always seemed to have a loving and respectful relationship with the “little guy”, Howdy, which enhances the family atmosphere on the set. I’ll report on some of the other features in the collection when I get to see them.
Our comics this week are, Hennery Hound from Barnyard Comics #7, by Jim Tyer. It looks like Jim inked this one with a brush. Hennery seems to be a forerunner of Huckleberry Hound, he looks a little like Huck, and is the same hard luck type of character as Huck was in the TV cartoons. His Hippo wife is a very funny touch. When her bridge club steps all over Hennery on the second page, a high-heel goes right into his eye! While we are looking at Tyer, here are the last two pages of the Flebus story, “Thumb’s Up”. I love that distorted thumb on Rudolph, and Flebus as a tall, cranky old man takes the story out with a laugh.
Marvelous Mike this week is from 12-10 to 12-15-1956. In a new story line, Mike wants to feed the homeless on Christmas Day, and finds a needy boy in the local department store that he wants to care for. Liz Crump wants to invite the boy and his mother for Christmas dinner, but Cliff is feeling the pinch financially and his inner Scrooge is emerging. Let’s give a birthday shout out to my brother Kurt (Dec. 10), who braved the somewhat “charged” atmosphere at the downtown St. Louis Public Library to copy all these strips from microfilm for our reading pleasure. Krazy Kat is from 5/1 to 5/6/1939 and continues Mimi the poodle(?)’s appearance from last week. Mimi is a heavy user of “Pomme d’or” perfume, much to Ignatz’s delight. Ig’s wife, Molly, is jealous of Mimi’s perfume and starts to use some of it herself. Garge gets a week’s worth of gags out of these olfactory antics.
Thanksgiving Comics
Hi Ya Pals, Happy Tanks’Givin’. I couldn’t resist reprinting this TV ad from the old St. Louis Post-Dispatch from 1956, promoting “The Cisco Kid”. I especially loved the beginning of each episode: “Here’s Adventure! Here’s Romance! Here’s That Robin Hood of the Old West, The Cisco Kid!” Of course Pancho, played by Leo Carrillo, was my favorite character, the funny guy. Westerns have just about vanished from TV now, the younger viewers can’t even relate to them at all. I have a few DVDs of the earliest “Gunsmoke” shows. I think they are the best TV westerns of all, especially the episodes that Sam Peckinpah wrote and that Robert Stevenson directed.
In comics this week, pgs. 3 and 4 of Flebus in “Thumb’s Up”, with a hilarious depiction of corporal punishment by Jim Tyer. Also, the last two pages of Sourpuss in “Moving Day”, evidently by Tom Morrison, veteran Terry storyman and the TV voice of Mighty Mouse. The drawing style is very close to Kuwahara’s, but I defer to Milton Knight’s opinion that the story is Morrison’s. Milton really knows Terry comics and the cartoonists’s graphic thumbprints. Maybe one of you collectors out there can send me a scan of a page of Bob Kuwahara’s comic book work, I feel he must have done some. Marvelous Mike wraps up the Madame Le Moult story in episodes from Dec. 3, 1956 to Dec. 8th. Mike’s psychic abilities actually mystify HIM in this story! Krazy Kat from April 24, 1939 to April 28, 1939 (April 29th is missing) concerns “Mimi”, one of the strangest characters in the strip. Mimi is a French animal of some kind, perhaps a Poodle, who speaks in broadly accented French/English. Everyone in Coconino County seems a little in love with her, in this week’s strips, Krazy Kat is jealous of her. Mimi seems out of place in the desert environment of the Navajo Tribal Park, but most everything in Herriman’s world is one “brick” short of a monument.
Flebus and Iwao
Hi everyone! I’ve been reading a proof copy of a new autobiography by Iwao Takamoto and Michael Mallory called: “Iwao Takamoto: My Life With A Thousand Characters”. It’s going to be published next year by the University of Mississippi. I will admit that I’m not the greatest fan of Iwao’s character designs, but I have a lot of respect for him as an artist. When you read the account of his life, including his experience in Manzanar internment camp during World War Two, you can’t help but empathize with him. I don’t want to reveal too much about the book right now, but I thought it was worth my time to read it. Watch for it next year! THIS year, get yourself a copy of the new Baby Huey comics collection which was compiled by Jerry Beck and Leslie Cabarga. It’s a real trove of Huey art and lore, the reproductions are from high quality stats made from the original artwork and there are lots of Dave Tendlar and Marty Taras pages along with excerpts from interviews with these two great cartoonists. Pick it up if you can, I’m really enjoying it. Marty Taras did that wild scene in “Quack A Doodle Doo” (1950) when Huey pulls the fur off Mr. Fox’s head and the fur resembles a mask! The arcs and knowledge of weight and timing delay makes this scene fun to watch. Marty was one of the greatest New York animators, and his comics are very good too.
This week’s comics are the first two pages of Flebus in “Thumb’s Up” from a Mighty Mouse Fun Club Magazine. Of course it’s drawn by Jim Tyer, no one drew Flebus with as much flair and comic expression as Jim. When I was a child, I used to draw Flebus over and over again. He seemed so simple to draw, just a walking head really. I could never get him as funny as Tyer made him, Flebus is a lot harder to get down than you’d think. I have also re-printed the third and fourth pages of Sourpuss in “Moving Day” from the Mighty Mouse Fun Club Magazine. I still haven’t heard from anyone about whether this is Bob Kuwahara’s art or not. Please let me know what you think.
The dailies are Marvelous Mike from 11/26/1956 to 12/1. The phony mediums persist as Mike breaks up the seance of Madame Le Moult! Krazy Kat from 4/17/1939 to 4/22, the story this time could be called “Devil or Angel”. You decide.
“Salt Water Tabby” Draft, Pt. One
April 5, 2009
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Mark
Hello Readers, I apologize for the long gaps between posts lately. I’m getting some nice mail regarding Little Grey from old friends like Bill Warren and David Gerstein. Milt Gray gave me a hopeful message verbally: “Someday another kitty may come along.” A cat that needs you is the best kind of cat to have, and that’s certainly what Little Grey was.
Here is part one of my draft to “Salt Water Tabby”, I’m pretty sure about the scene IDs in the first part, in the second there are a few gaps. We’ll get around to that next time:
Salt Water Tabby–Barge, Lah, Muse credited
Tom comes out of Beach Club House in red suit, closes door pinching suit, runs out–Lah
Tom tries to dive into ocean, suit stretches, pulled back to Club House–Lah
Tom crashes into Club House, making hole in the door, runs out again on long pan, dives onto dry beach as tide goes out, swims in junk lying on beach, tries to get water out of his ear, runs out, junk dripping from inside his suit–Lah
Tom jogs past “Toodles”, girl cat, falls into trash container–Muse
Tom slides into shot with grapefruit on his head, tips it to Toodles like a hat–Muse
MCU Tom sips Toodles’s soda, grabs her hot dog–Muse
CU Tom eats hot dog with typewriter sound efx.–Muse
MCU Tom antics., lies in Toodles’s lap, hit by tomato, banana, looks left, pan over to basket, Tom into shot with shovel–Muse
CU Jerry eats bologna from sandwiches, grabs hard boiled egg–Muse
CU Jerry throws eggs and olives at Tom, forming an extra set of “eyes”–Muse
CU Jerry chews celery in Tom’s hand,.taking bites out of his finger, Tom yells–Muse
Jerry runs on pan, hides in rocks, Tom in, reaches into rocks–Muse
CU Tom grabs crab, crab nips his whiskers off–Barge
Tom tries to run away, crab pinches his tail–Barge
CU Tom up in pain, exits fast–Barge
Tom runs behind rock, looks at tail, it’s cut like paper dolls–Barge
Jerry runs up beach umbrella handle, steps on catch–Barge
Umbrella closes on Tom–Barge
Jerry exits Tom’s pants, runs on pan to crab, crab tries to pinch him, both run out left–Barge
Jerry pursued by crab, in cycle–Barge
Jerry holds up Tom’s trunk leg, crab runs up his trunks, snaps him four times in the rear–Barge
Tom and umbrella flie up in the air, come down on tip–Barge
CU crab opens rear of Tom’s trunks like beer can with claw, crab hops out of shot–Barge
Jerry out of basket with soda pop, runs into Tom, Tom pops off bottle cap, puts it on Jerry’s head–Ray Patterson
Jerry feels his way with cap over his eyes–Muse
Jerry trips over crab’s claw, uses it to get bottle cap off his head, crab almost snaps him, exit–Muse
Jerry runs behind picnic basket, looks screen right–Lah
Tom takes sandwich from Toodles–Muse
Jerry runs in with clam, puts it in the sandwich–Muse
CU Tom bites sandwich with clam in it, teeth break off–Muse
Tom giggles to Toodles, tries to nonchalantly swallow the sandwich with effort–Muse
CU Tom with broken teeth–Muse
Jerry runs over with bucket of sand, no suit on–Muse
Tom spoons sugar into coffee cup, truck into sugar bowl-Muse
Jerry with suit on, subs sand for sugar, puts extra shovel of sand in coffee-Muse
CU Tom drinks sandy coffee, spits it out–Muse
Jerry scoops salt water in bucket from ocean, runs on pan–Muse
Tom choking, Jerry in with bucket, Tom grabs bucket, drinks, spits it out in Toodles’s face–Muse
The Jim Tyer text illo is from LAFFY-DAFFY COMICS #1. None other than Art Spiegelman has borrowed my copy to scan for an upcoming book called “RAW: Junior”, I assume it’s a collection of comics originally aimed at children. Watch for it.
In comic strips this week we have MARVELOUS MIKE from 3/4 to 3/9/1957. Cliff has a conflict of interest as a working judge and employee of Mr. Kimball. It seems a pal of Kimball’s needs a ticket fixed, but Cliff is too ethical to do it and seems doomed to lose his position with Kimball and Co. In the meantime, Cliff narrowly manages to rescue Mike and Merrie from being run-down by Mr. Kimball’s car! In Krazy Kat this week from 7/24 to 7/29/1939, we have two days of Krazy’s grief over the lack of a “love brick” from Ignatz, the balance of the week Garge does mostly food gags, with watermelons and ice cream bricks.
Don’t forget our cels for sale on this site, www.itsthecat.com. I have had some so-so reports from customers on the viability of the www.mytoons.com site. It seems that it is quite complicated to download the “It’s ‘The Cat'” movie. I tried it, and the site requires you to 1. Register to get a user name and password. 2. Go to my window in the My Toons store and click on the “buy” or “add to my cart” link. 3. Pay the $1.99 with a credit card or Paypal link. 4. The “file” goes into a “digital safe”, which you have to re-enter your user name and password to get in to. 5. Click on the icon in your “digital safe” to download the movie file to your computer. 6. Save the file in a favorite spot on your hard-drive; I use “My Music”. 7. Open the file and choose a player. Not all of the players work, I can’t seem to play it in Winamp, but Quick Time played the movie without a hitch. Some of the customers can’t get it to play at all. I’ve taken this up with My Toons, as way too complicated for the average customer. This after all, is an impulse buy. Once the “nickel” is dropped, the customer should be able to see the cartoon IMMEDIATELY, preferably in a POP-UP WINDOW. Do any of you computer jockeys out there know if this is technically feasible? Write and let me know. I hope to hear from you.