{"id":1909,"date":"2010-03-08T01:57:05","date_gmt":"2010-03-08T05:57:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/itsthecat.com\/blog\/?p=1909"},"modified":"2010-03-08T01:57:05","modified_gmt":"2010-03-08T05:57:05","slug":"adios-rudy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/itsthecat.com\/blog\/adios-rudy\/","title":{"rendered":"Adios, Rudy"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/a>\"gordo-larriva-1.jpg\"<\/a>\"gordo-larriva-2.jpg\"<\/a>\"gordo-larriva-3.jpg\"<\/a>\"gordo-larriva-4.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In\u00c2\u00a0 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\u00c2\u00a0from 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\u00c2\u00a0 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\u00c2\u00a0Sc. 9,\u00c2\u00a0 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\u00c2\u00a0Bear with Bre’r Rabbit leading them, tied to a rope. Some experts give Rudy the credit for Sc. 66,\u00c2\u00a067 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\u00c2\u00a0Bre’r Fox and Bre’r Bear danced around the tar-bound Bre’r Rabbit.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Rudy 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.<\/p>\n

\"felix-9-14-36.jpg\"<\/a>\"felix-9-15-36.jpg\"<\/a>\"felix-9-16-36.jpg\"<\/a>\"felix-9-17-36.jpg\"<\/a>\"felix-9-18-36.jpg\"<\/a>\"felix-9-19-36.jpg\"<\/a>\"felix-9-20-36.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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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.<\/p>\n

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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.<\/p>\n

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In\u00c2\u00a0 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","comment-open"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/itsthecat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/itsthecat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/itsthecat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itsthecat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itsthecat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/itsthecat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1909\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/itsthecat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itsthecat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itsthecat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}