BOB GETS HIS FIRST JOB IN ANIMATED CARTOONS
Bob was still a teenager when he joined the Harman-Ising Studio in 1931, while virtually all of the others were in their late 20s, and they generally looked upon this “young, punk, snot-nosed kid”, with his brash enthusiasm and wild ideas, with suspicion and resentment.
Friz Freleng admits this decades later...
The studio held weekly story meetings, which everyone was invited to attend, but Bob quickly learned that the studio was very determined to follow strict formulas -- mainly they were just imitating the increasingly literal things that Disney was currently doing, with little variation.
Bob did offer ideas, but his more original, “crazy” ideas were generally ignored, and only his Disney-like ideas were accepted. Bob found this working environment stifling, and wanted a chance to have more artistic freedom. But, working as an “inbetweener”, there wasn’t much chance.
LEON SCHLESINGER PARTS WAYS WITH HARMAN-ISING, BOB IS NOTICED
Bob’s creativity did not go unnoticed, however. Leon Schlesinger’s brother-in-law, Ray Katz, who was generally watching over the Harman-Ising Studio, noticed Bob, and so in 1933 when Leon ended his relationship with Harman-Ising and set up his own cartoon studio, Bob was the first person from Harman-Ising that Leon hired.
Unfortunately, Leon, who was significantly older than the people at Harman-Ising, evidently also regarded Bob as little more than an inexperienced kid, albeit a kid with ideas. So Leon set about hiring “experienced” animators and directors from other studios, with Bob given only the chance to continue learning animation, under people like the ex-Disney animator Jack King.
TEX AVERY JOINS SCHLESINGER CARTOONS-TERMITE TERRACE IS BORN
In 1935 Leon hired Tex Avery, formerly from Universal (and five years older than Clampett), to direct, and assigned Bob -- who was by then a full-fledged animator -- to work with Tex. For a while it was just Tex and Bob working together, alone in a separate shack of a building, which they dubbed Termite Terrace.
TEX AND BOB WERE COMPATIBLE
Tex had only a little more professional experience than Bob, but Tex got the director’s job because -- Tex admitted years later in interviews -- he bluffed his way into the job by claiming to be significantly more experienced than he actually was. But Tex and Bob were more compatible than the other people at the Schlesinger Studio then, who were still focused on imitating Disney.TERMITE TERRACE STARTS WB IN A MORE CARTOONY DIRECTION
Many animation fans, and some animation historians, credit Avery for starting the Schlesinger Studio in a more cartoony direction, and indeed it is in these early Avery films that a fresh new cartoony sensibility does begin to emerge. But for all the credit that Avery actually deserves, I say that Bob actually deserves most of the credit. I say this because if anybody makes the effort to look at all the Schlesinger cartoons from that era in chronological order, they will see that the emerging cartoony quality only lasts in the Avery cartoons until Clampett leaves to begin directing his own cartoons.
PORKY'S DUCK HUNT
One special case in point: Avery’s groundbreaking, inspired cartoon, Porky’s Duck Hunt, which introduces Daffy Duck. On that cartoon, Clampett was helping write the gags, Clampett drew the storyboards and did many of the layouts, and Clampett animated the most inspired scenes of Daffy, the ones that established Daffy’s “woo-woo” personality and a refreshingly new approach to animation, not just at Schlesingers but at any animation studio.
BOB STARTS DIRECTING - ULTRA CARTOONY CARTOONS
Then the emerging cartoony quality continues strong in Clampett’s cartoons and mostly disappears in Avery’s.http://www.cartoonthrills.org/blog/Clampett/38PorkyandDaffy/DaffyWildBoxingSpin.mov
Avery’s cartoons, after Clampett leaves, become close imitations of Freleng’s cartoons, which in turn are labored imitations of Disney -- except that Avery too often took refuge in the most uninspired mock-travelogues.
This continued until almost the end of Avery’s stay at Schlesingers.
CLAMPETT'S EARLY CARTOONS
Milt and I had some disagreement over this section of his article. While I too think that Clampett should get a lot more credit for changing Warner's style and direction, I also think Avery and Tashlin made the first obvious changes.
I discussed this with Milt :
Do you mind if when I put it up, I disagree slightly with a couple points?
No, that's okay. I feel that having different viewpoints and open debate is healthy.
Like, I don't think Avery was imitating Friz at all in the late 30s. His animation was not as focused as Clampett's but he had a kind of street smart sarcastic humor in his cartoons that was very anti Disney and a big part of what became known as the Warner's style. And Friz was over at MGM at the time anyway, wasn't he?
Friz was at MGM for about a year and a half, from September 1937 to April 1939, but he had largely set the tone and graphic style of the Warner cartoons, with Leon Schlesinger's approval, for about the mid-1930s through the late-1930s. To me, Avery basically followed the graphic look and animation style that Freleng had established. There are none of the zany characters or "springy-boingy" graphics or animation in anyone's cartoons then that kept re-emerging in Clampett's cartoons in the late 1930s. But you do have a good point, that the "writing" in Avery's late-1930s cartoons has the kind of "street smart sarcastic humor" that did become a big part of what became known as the Warner's style.
And I also think in the early to mid 40s Chuck was very experimental with film techniques, cutting, staging, timing, production design. I don't think he was following the live action film rules.
Chuck wasn't following live action film rules exclusively, but there were many articles in film magazines back then by critics who speculated about what could be added to live action films, and these are what Chuck was following. To me, Chuck's experiments feel forced, self-conscious, and tacked-on -- like, for example, in "Hold the Lion, Please" (1942), the cross-dissolve from one scene of laughing animals to another scene of bushes moving in the same position and basic shapes as the previous animals. Many more such examples could be listed. I do love the abstract backgrounds that Jones sometimes experimented with, such as those in "The Aristo Cat" (1943). About the only original animation style that first appeared in a Jones cartoon was the abrupt "smears", which most people associate with "The Dover Boys" (1942), but even that was the invention of animator Robert Cannon. By contrast, the innovations by Bob Clampett feel (to me) more natural, intuitive, organic, holistic -- they seem to originate from inside the characters, as a natural expression of those characters' emotions, as if the intensity of their emotions affect all of nature around them.
My theory on Friz was that he just wanted to do what was already established by others. A milder version of it.
Mike Fontanelli and I watched piles of Looney Tunes from 1930 Boskos through to 1935 when Tex got there and what I noticed was that during that period the cartoons actually devolved! They got less funny, less imaginative and less cartoony. By thinking they were imitating Disney, they were devolving while Disney evolved.
I agree totally.
Wasn't Friz pretty much gone while the Warner's style emerged in the late 30s? When he came back he even made a cartoon about it. "You Ought To Be In Pictures" which to me is his best film because it's about how he really passionately felt. He's the sensible reliable Porky and Bob is the crazy uncontrolled Daffy who turns the studio upside down while Porky (Friz) is away.
To me, the style that Friz had established at Warners by the time he left to go to MGM was exactly the style that Clampett (and Avery, in his "writing") was trying to break away from. I get sick in my stomach every time I read that Friz, or one of his fans, try to claim that Friz was one of the founders of Termite Terrrace.
A lot of people think that all Warner's cartoons were done at Termite Terrace. Bob told me once that "Friz wouldn't be caught dead in Termite Terrace."
He figured he was above them, doing the serious cartoon work while they were the cheap unit just fooling around animating nonsense.
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Next- Bob's Black and White cartoons totally depart from the studio style.
