Saturday, July 01, 2006

Buckaroo Bugs - switch animators in the middle of a scene and flaccid pistols

Here's an odd thing Bob would do once in awhile. He would take a scene and give part of it to Rod Scribner and then the rest to Bob McKimson. I don't know whether he did that as a practical joke on the two opposite animators or whether he had some casting reason, like one animator was better suited than the other to certain actions.

In the beginning of the scene look at the way Red Hot Ryder's guns wobble like limp you know whats.

That's more of my favorite style of animation movement that I can't figure out why the world stopped doing it. Just a guess: because it's not "realistic"?



The animators change MID-WAY THROUGH CARROT CHEWING!

Scribner animation







And the very next frame is...

McKimson animation!

Note how Bugs' legs all of a sudden become thick. This is the beginning of Bob McKimson's "stubby period". Shortly after this cartoon, McKimson became a director on his own and started drawing all his characters with short stubby legs, pot bellies, small craniums and eyes, and big jaws and fat lower lips. Clampett told me that McKimson was his top animator, but that he would have to lean on him to draw the characters cuter with bigger eyes and more appealing design which wasn't natural to McKimson. Once he got his own unit, he was able to draw more in his own pure style.





In McKimson's own cartoons all the characters had the same basic personality; they were all assholes or "Loud-mouthed Schnooks" who shoved each other around looking pissed all the time-even the normally mild-mannered Porky became a bully-like character in McKimson's world.

I have a theory about why he treated the characters this way and I will tell it in some later posts about McKimson's hilarious cartoons...if you want to hear it.