History: Terrytoons Studio Tour 1939

This post is just the tip of the iceberg... see reason number 8 on our The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA for links to more great info on the history of animation told through the careers of great animators.


For more on the Terry Studios' production process, see our earlier post, How Animated Cartoons Are Made
Recently, the family of the legendary animator, Carlo Vinci lent us two 8mm films to transfer for the archive. I'll post about the other one soon, but today I have a special treat for you... a color film outlining the animation production process from Terrytoons in 1939!

Here are frame grabs of most of the people appearing in this short. If you can identify anyone, please let us know in the comments below.


Animator Carlo Vinci



Story Man Larry Silverman


Story Man Tommy Morrison


Music Director Phil Scheib and Director Connie Rasinski


Animator Jim Whipp and his assitant





Makin' Em Move (Terry/1939)
(Quicktime 7 / 30.7 megs)

Here is the cartoon we see the artists working on in this film...






Harvest Time (Terry/1940)
(Quicktime 7 / 13.8 megs)

PLEASE NOTE The text and media files on the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive Blog are not to be duplicated, redistributed or hosted on other websites without the prior written permission of the Board of Directors of ASIFA-Hollywood.

Many thanks to the Vinci family for sharing this with us! And thanks to Jerry Beck too for arranging the video transfer of this delicate original film.

For more information on Carlo Vinci, see our Carlo Vinci Cartoon Hall of Fame entry. Also see... Carlo Vinci Notes / Terrytoons Model Sheets and The Temperamental Lion / John K on Flintstones Animators / Nat Falk's How To Draw Animated Cartoons Part One: History Of Animation / Part Two: The Cartoon Studios / Nat Falk's How To Draw Animated Cartoons Part Three: How Cartoons Are Made, Part Four: How To Draw Animated Cartoons and Part Five: How To Animate

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

5.28.09
.

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Terry-Toons: Carlo Vinci Notes

This post is just the tip of the iceberg... see reason number 7 on our The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA for links to more great cartoons to study.


Last Friday, archive assistant Amir Avni, John Kricfalusi and I took a trip out to visit Carlo Vinci's family at the home of his wife, Margaret. Mrs. Vinci graciously welcomed us into her home for a tour of her collection of artwork belonging to her late husband. Carlo's animation desk, which he designed and built himself, still stands in his office just as he left it, with caricatures by co-workers hanging above it on the wall. Every room in the house has beautiful artwork filling the space. It was an awe inspiring experience to get a chance to see it all.


John K, Steve Worth and Margaret Vinci
Carlo Vinci was a remarkable artist. He received classical art training at the National Academy of Design in 1930. He joined Paul Terry's Terry-Toons soon after, and worked there for twenty years. He came West to join Joe Barbera at MGM, and ended up as the lead animator at H-B for twenty more years. But as I learned at my visit, those great achievements were only a small part of his story. In addition to cartooning, Vinci was an all-around fine artist, adept at oil painting, watercolor, illustration, stained glass and sculpture... in a variety of styles, from classical to baroque to art deco... with a wide range of subjects- still lifes, portraiture, landscapes and religious subjects. It was a mind blowing experience to discover the depth of talent behind a cartoonist we thought we already knew.


Carlo Vinci's son, Paul and grandson, John
with John K in front of Vinci's self-portrait
After we had viewed all the amazing artwork, Mrs. Vinci invited us to enjoy some home made Italian desserts with her family. Excited by everything we had seen, we had plenty of questions about Carlo and his wonderful career as an artist. We asked if she had met him before he started working for Terry-Toons or after, and she replied, "He was working for Mr. Terry when I met him. When we were courting, he lived in the Bronx, and I lived in Brooklyn. It was a long trip across town to meet for our date every Wednesday evening. Carlo would send me a little note with a cartoon every day in the mail when we couldn't be together. I've saved them all these years, but I don't suppose you would be interested in seeing them..."

Naturally, we were! Her son, Paul Vinci helped her to retrieve the hundreds of letters from a closet- all on Terry animation paper in envelopes with the distinctive Terry-Toons logo. Dating from 1938 to 1939, these charming little notes had a personal message, along with brilliant drawings depicting Terry characters. Paul commented that he himself hadn't seen the letters since he was very small; and even then, his mother only shared one or two with him. They had been bundled away carefully for over fifty years. Mrs. Vinci has kindly allowed us to share these drawings with you...

















We will be presenting more material by the great Carlo Vinci in the coming weeks. All of us at ASIFA-Hollywood appreciate Mrs. Vinci's generosity. Paul and John Vinci will be printing out this post and sharing it with her, so you can thank her yourself in the comments below.

For more information on this great animator, see our Carlo Vinci Cartoon Hall of Fame entry. Also see... Terrytoons Model Sheets and The Temperamental Lion / John K on Flintstones Animators / Ruff And Reddy And Pinky The Pint-Sized Pachyderm / Alex Toth Model Sheets / Nat Falk's How To Draw Animated Cartoons Part Three: How Cartoons Are Made, Part Four: How To Draw Animated Cartoons and Part Five: How To Animate

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

4.8.09
.

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Filmography: Tytla and Terry-Jekyll and Hyde

This post is just the tip of the iceberg... see reason number 7 on our The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA for links to more great cartoons to study.



Today, we continued to digitize our collection of Terrytoons. The second-tier golden age studios have been given short shrift in animation history books. It's unfortunate that book after book about Walt Disney and the Warner Bros. cartoons continue to be published when other studios, like Terry-Toons and Walter Lantz have never been adequately covered. The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive is gathering together information on these studios with the hopes that we can raise the awareness of these neglected cartoons.

Here is a fabulous Terry-Toon featuring Mighty Mouse... Mighty Mouse Meets Jekyll & Hyde Cat. You might remember the recent postings we published here with John Canemaker's notes to a gallery exhibit of artwork by Bill Tytla, (Part One / Part Two). After leaving Disney during the strike, Tytla worked for a brief time at Terry-Toons before moving on to Famous Studios. This is one of his best cartoons for Terry during this period.




In particular, pay attention to Tytla's wonderful transformation sequence...








The animation of the cat running across the rooftops has a creepy sort of "man in a cat suit" feeling. At Terry-Toons, the animators were given much more latitude to handle scenes in their own particular style. Tytla takes full advantage of that in this cartoon.






Mighty Mouse Meets Jekyll & Hyde Cat (Terry/1944)
(Quicktime 7 / 13.8 megs)

PLEASE NOTE The text and media files on the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive Blog are not to be duplicated, redistributed or hosted on other websites without the prior written permission of the Board of Directors of ASIFA-Hollywood.

If you found this post to be interesting, you should also see... Canemaker On Tytla Part One and Part Two, The Temperamental Lion 1940, Catnip Capers 1940, Jim Tyer's Barnyard Actor 1955 and Terrytoons Lobby Cards

Many thanks to John Kricfalusi for donating this great cartoon to our archive.

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

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Filmography: The Temperamental Lion 1940

This post is just the tip of the iceberg... see reason number 7 on our The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA for links to more great cartoons to study.

Today, we digitized some great Terrytoons model sheets that Carlo Vinci's family loaned to us...






This one is particularly interesting to me...



...because it's from one of the very best Terrytoons of the time, "The Temperamental Lion". Connie Rasinski created the goofy Bert Lahr lion character as the "King of the Jungle" for the classic cartoon "Doomsday" (1938) as well as "The Nutty Network" (1939). The model was adapted a bit in the late 1940s for "The Lyin' Lion", a film that includes some funny Jim Tyer animation...


...but the character was never better animated than he was by Carlo Vinci in this short... Check out his great scene of the lion singing!







The Temperamental Lion (Terry/1940)
(Quicktime 7 / 14.5 megs)

PLEASE NOTE The text and media files on the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive Blog are not to be duplicated, redistributed or hosted on other websites without the prior written permission of the Board of Directors of ASIFA-Hollywood.

Many thanks to the Vinci family for sharing their treasures with us!

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

11.18.08
.

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Biography: Carlo Vinci

This post is just the tip of the iceberg... see reason number 4 on our The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA for links to more great biographies of important artists.

If you only get information about animators from books on the history of animation, you might think that the Warner Bros directors and the "Nine Old Men" were the only important figures in the development of animation. But there are many books yet to be written about unknown artists whose achievements are right up there with the more familiar names.

Take for instance, Carlo Vinci...



Carlo Vinci's career spanned half a century. He received many honors as a fine artist before joining the staff of Terrytoons in 1933. For the next two decades, he was one of their top animators, specializing in dancing scenes...


Click to see a larger view.
John Kricfalusi describes Vinci's style as being as if Carlo invented animation himself, having never seen anyone else's animation. He was the master of the basic principles we read about in the Preston Blair book or Illusion of Life, but as you watch Vinci's syncopated, sinewy dancing scenes, you have to wonder if he didn't have a few extra principles of his own!

Carlo left Terrytoons and moved West to join his old friend Joe Barbera at MGM in the mid 50s, but soon after he arrived, the studio closed down. Joe Barbera got him a job at Disney, where Carlo animated on the Disneyland TV program. His pace was so fast, he was told to slow down, because he was producing so much quality footage, he made the rest of the animators look bad.



When Hanna and Barbera opened their own studio to produce TV cartoons, Vinci was one of the first three animators hired. He reinvented his style to work within the constraints of television schedules and budgets on shows like Ruff & Reddy, Huckleberry Hound, and Yogi Bear; but he really made his mark on The Flintstones. Every six weeks, Vinci animated an entire 24 minute episode of The Flintstones by himself!

Carlo retired at the ripe old age of 72, and passed away in 1993. We are very fortunate to have the assistance of his family in compiling a biopedia entry on his career. It includes photos, frame grabs, notes by John K and Joe Barbera, and movie files of his great film, "Mighty Mouse In Krakatoa" as well as clips from The Flintstones. Check it out...

Carlo Vinci Biopedia Entry

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

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Filmography: Catnip Capers 1940

This post is just the tip of the iceberg... see reason number 7 on our The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA for links to more great cartoons to study.


Today, we digitized a batch of Terrytoons from the 3/4 inch masters donated to us by John Kricfalusi. Among them was a real gem... Catnip Capers (1940).



This cartoon is among the best cartoons TerryToons ever produced, and for my money, one of the best cartoons ever. It starts out like a typical Terry cat and mouse cartoon, but before long, it's gone off on a wild tangent into feline surrealism and exotica.




The backgrounds in this cartoons are spectacular. If anyone out there knows who laid out or painted these, please post to the comments below. There are times where backgrounds and layout are equal in importance to the animation of the characters... a couple of good examples would be the end of Tex Avery's "King Size Canary" and the St. James Infirmary Blues sequence of "Betty Boop in Snow White". This cartoon certainly fits in that category as well.




Terrytoons have been ufairly criticized as being "flaccid", "predictable" and "boring" in just about every animation history book that references them. The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive has made it a goal to collect and make available as much of the output of the studio as possible to put the lie to those mischaracterizations.



Catnip Capers (Terry/1940)
(Quicktime 7 / 13.5 megs)

PLEASE NOTE The text and media files on the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive Blog are not to be duplicated, redistributed or hosted on other websites without the prior written permission of the Board of Directors of ASIFA-Hollywood.

Thanks!
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

8.22.08
.

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Media: Terrytoons Lobby Cards

Mike Fontanelli brought by a set of Terrytoons character lobby cards for us to digitize. "It's pretty unusual to find sets of cards" Mike explained, "because collectors back in the 70s would pull out the Mighty Mouse and Heckle and Jeckyl and trash the rest." Terrytoons are vastly underrated. ASIFA-Hollywood is fortunate to have a complete syndication package of Terrytoons on broadcast quality 3/4 inch masters. We've digitized nearly 900 Terry-Toons to date.

Many thanks to Mike Fontanelli for lending us these great lobby cards to scan...










Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

7.16.08
.

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