{"id":3367,"date":"2012-05-20T15:27:42","date_gmt":"2012-05-20T19:27:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/itsthecat.com\/blog\/?p=3367"},"modified":"2012-05-20T15:27:42","modified_gmt":"2012-05-20T19:27:42","slug":"bob-fred-and-wick-in-the-jr-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/itsthecat.com\/blog\/bob-fred-and-wick-in-the-jr-times\/","title":{"rendered":"Bob, Fred and Wick in the Jr. Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/a><\/a>\"jr-times-innocent-pussy-clampett-5-16-26.jpg\"<\/a>\"jr-times-bob-clampett-photo-5-9-26.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"jr-times-bob-clampett-5-9-26.jpg\"<\/a>\"jr-times-larry-martin-4-25-26.jpg\"<\/a>\"jr-times-fido-bark-_1-bob-wick-5-9-26.jpg\"<\/a>\"jr-times-fido-bark-by-wick-5-16-26.jpg\"<\/a>\"jr-times-fred-moore-4-4-26.jpg\"<\/a>\"jr-times-bob-clampett-poem-5-9-26.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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\u00c2\u00a0the 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)\u00c2\u00a0from future Clampett animator Larry Martin (and the model for Dishonest John), and\u00c2\u00a0Fred\u00c2\u00a0Moore, shamelessly promoting the T.J.C. in a cartoon published 4-4-26.\u00c2\u00a0I 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.<\/p>\n

\"barker-bill-5-2-55.jpg\"<\/a>\"barker-bill-5-3-55.jpg\"<\/a>\"barker-bill-5-4-55.jpg\"<\/a>\"barker-bill-5-5-55.jpg\"<\/a>\"barker-bill-5-6-55.jpg\"<\/a>\"barker-bill-5-7-55.jpg\"<\/a>\"barker-bill-5-9-55.jpg\"<\/a>\"barker-bill-5-10-55.jpg\"<\/a>\"barker-bill-5-11-55.jpg\"<\/a>\"barker-bill-5-12-55.jpg\"<\/a>\"barker-bill-5-13-55.jpg\"<\/a>\"barker-bill-5-14-55.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In Barker Bill, from 5-2 to 5-14-1955, Bill solves the Hippo mystery (the hippo\u00c2\u00a0coughs 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?).\u00c2\u00a0Bill floats by the offices of Bitten, Button, Bursten and Foghorne (parody of\u00c2\u00a0Batten, 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.<\/p>\n

\"felix-7-22-35.jpg\"<\/a>\"felix-7-23-35.jpg\"<\/a>\"felix-7-24-35.jpg\"<\/a>\"felix-7-25-35.jpg\"<\/a>\"felix-7-26-35.jpg\"<\/a>\"felix-7-27-35.jpg\"<\/a>\"felix-7-28-35.jpg\"<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0Felix, 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\u00c2\u00a0the Sunday, Felix once\u00c2\u00a0again descends from Dreamland to entertain a sleepless youngster.<\/p>\n

\"krazy_vintage6-2-41.gif\"<\/a>\"krazy_vintage6-3-41.gif\"<\/a>\"krazy_vintage6-4-41.gif\"<\/a><\/a>\"krazy_vintage6-5-41.gif\"<\/a>\"krazy_vintage6-6-41.gif\"<\/a>\"krazy_vintage6-7-41.gif\"<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0In 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.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/a>\"myrtle-2-17-to-2-22-47.jpg\"<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0In 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!)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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\u00c2\u00a0the innocent and mischievous spirit of a cat, like I tried to do in […]<\/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-3367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","comment-open"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/itsthecat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3367","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=3367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/itsthecat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3367\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/itsthecat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itsthecat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itsthecat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}