When I was a kid I recognized his style 2 ways:
1) Upside down curly mouths
2) His movements were more fluid than the other animators. -he did fully animated HB commercials too! I'll show some later
Upside Down Curly Mouths
Mixing different animators with different layout artists
Here are two animation drawings by Ed Love. They have different proportions. The one on top is more even and tastefully on-model. The one below is more awkward and dumpy.
The one above is probably layed out by someone like Dick Bickenbach who drew everything with even pleasing gentle proportions. The one below is by Walter Clinton who always drew Fred (and other men) dumpy and oafish, which is funnier to me.
Above: Bickenbach
Above: BickenbachBelow: Clinton 
There is a ton more to be said about Ed Love, and I will in further posts. This was just to give you a quick superficial clue to recognize his work from the drawings.
Some Clinton and Love oafs to admire
23 comments:
I never noticed while watching the cartoon that tose football oafs had six fingers in the close-up. Trippy!
Ed Love is a talented man indeed.
WHY aren't these earlier flintstones episodes aired as much as the later ones ( that is, if you see them on TV at ALL )?
it seems that warner bros. and HB both have that same distinction; the earlier more innovative shit gets blind-sided by the later more formulaic cerebral stuff.
also? those football guy drawings are beautiful! you can FEEL the pain!
it seems they went to pimento university with the dover boys: GOOD OL' P.U.!
- trevor.
Do you think it's funnier for a guy to have four or six fingers? Five fingers are just too boring. I love Fred's expression when he sees the hand that's bigger than the last guy's. It's Priceless. Please do more posts on Ed Love.
I love it!
What season is this? Season 2?
"he did fully animated HB commercials too!"
Really ? I want to see these.
i feel like i'm in Animator grad school. your posts are always informative and mind expanding...
6 fingers on the oaf's hand, 4 on Fred's = 10 total fingers. odd.
I love how Fred's fingers are all screwed up after being utterly crushed by the oaf. That is a classic gag right there.
"2) His movements were more fluid than the other animators. -he did fully animated HB commercials too! I'll show some later"
I can't wait to see those, especially since "Hey, There, It's Yogi Bear" appeared to be fully-animated (to me, at least).
Slightly off-topic: I know that you'd probably grill on me for mentioning this (Or at least be disgusted by it. I know you can barely watch one of these), but I've seen Ed's name on some of the Tom and Jerry cartoons. I'm sorry if I'm potentially offending you.
Anyways, those Flintstones drawings (especially the ones drawn by Walt Clinton) are just priceless! I'm assuming that the framegrabs with the blueish, grayish rock tint are from season one.
sorry to go off topic a little, but i read the news over on uncle eddies blog. congratulations on the asifa award, you really diserve it.
The Clinton fred is a world away from the Bickenbach drawing. Clinton's so much weight, and solidness the the figure and lots of line-flow in all the shapes. The other looks like a stilted textbook diagram of how to assemble a cave-man. 1)Draw a barrel 2)stick i ton 2 perpendicular legs 3)attach paper cut-out arms 4)jam a melon on top 5) there should be a necktie th hide the seems
yeah. So the Art love Combo certainly meets my fun standards
"Slightly off-topic: I know that you'd probably grill on me for mentioning this (Or at least be disgusted by it. I know you can barely watch one of these), but I've seen Ed's name on some of the Tom and Jerry cartoons. I'm sorry if I'm potentially offending you."
On second thought, I believed I confused Love with Ed Barge. Sorry (again) about that.
Ed Love was one of my favorites, too. As you say, very elastic style; fun to watch. Loved the swirls he made on character run starts.
MEET THE STARS OF THE FLINTSTONES - from the Flintstones laser disc set
There's a link to a quicktime movie of various Ed Love scenes compiled together in the post as well.
*courtesy of the Asifa-Hollywood Animation Archive
As far as the weird six-fingered giant man, I'd guess it's not just a random invention but a cultural reference few would understand today.
I'd hazard to say it was inspired by the storied giant Goliath, or more specifically his equally large relatives who were reputed to have six or seven fingers on each hand.
Anyways, interesting blog. Nice to see a skilled pro who is willing to teach simply for the love of it.
Goddamn! These drawings are fantastic. Those oafs amaze me. I'm gonna have to research Walter Clinton. His drawings rule!
I've heard about Ed Love I think in Kevin Langley's blog or Thad K's blog. I really liked his style of animating in this one Woody cartoon. It was so alive that I completely forgot I was looking at an animated cartoon character and thought it was kinda real (Is it a bad thing to think that?).
Anyway, thanks for sharing some more awesome Flinstone frames and animators, John!
I prefer simpleton galoot Fred myself, but the nicely proportioned Fred is nothing to turn up one's nose at.
In the "Oaf" pictures, you can tell exactly what kind of character Fred is supposed to be.
Those Walt Clinton drawings are great! I would've never have picked him out in these cartoons but now I can see it. His best work was with Tex. The unit with him, Lah, and Simmons is my all time favorite.
Maybe I'm mistaken but didn't Clinton also do layouts for Tex around the same time Gene Hazelton did? A lot of those Spike shorts seem to be closer to Avery's drawing style than earlier stuff laid you by Claude Smith or Louis Shmitt.
Anyone notice how Barney is swimming in his upper body in this picture? That's a massive collar! Click here to see it.
Johnny K.,
The scenes which I've seen of Fred taking part from the Prinstone University American football team (with the Walter Clinton's layout), are from the episode Flintstone of Prinstone, which makes part of the second season (1961-62) from the Flintstones classical series (Hanna-Barbera/Columbia Pictures, 1960-66).
The sequence of the football match from this episode, wasn't animated by Ed Love. Don Patterson animated this sequence.
Another detail which I've on this sequence from the football match, it's that was included on the background music, an university fanfare which doesn't have nothing to do with the Hoyt Curtin's original music score from this series. This fanfare seems which was produced by John Seely.
I doubt...
Johnny K.,
I could notice that Ed Love also was involved on the Flintstones spin-offs, such as: The Peebles & Bamm-Bamm Show (1971, not credited) and The Flintstones Comedy Show - in the USA - or The Flintstones Frolics - the international title (1980, not credited). I could recognize his animation style on these spin-offs (besides of him being not credited).
Alias, Ed Love was also involved in the animation of two Hanna-Barbera productions where you was involved in the layouts: The Smurfs (1981-89) - which you hated to do the layouts - and the 80s version from The Jetsons (1985-88) - which you loved making the layouts.
I believe the football sequence was animated by Dom Patterson.
I agree with you, David.
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