Biography: Scooper Conlon's Scrapbook

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.


Cartoon by animator, Bill Nolan
Today, we had a visit from John Denos, who is a collector of portrait photography and Hollywood memorabilia. He had a treasure with him... a scrapbook of gag drawings that belonged to publicist, "Scooper" Conlon. Conlon's career spanned the history of the golden age of Hollywood, from the early silent era all the way through the fifties. He had many friends in the business, including many famous animators. John is looking for information on the artists behind these great cartoons. If you have any pertinent details, please leave a comment below.


Cartoon by Lantz animator, Bill Nolan in his retirement years


Gag by unknown cartoonist (Bill Nolan?)


Cartoon by Lantz director, Dick Lundy from the late 1930s


Cartoon by MGM animator, Irv Spence dealing with Conlon's work on "Gunga Din" (1939)


Another by Irv Spence


Gag by Warner Bros animator, George Grandpre, soon after he left John Sutherland Productions, and before starting his long run at Warner Bros


Gag by unknown Disney animator


Caricatures of the cast of "Gunga Din" with Conlon by MGM animator, Carl Urbano



Gags by unknown magazine cartoonist




Gags by Warner Bros story man, Warren Foster
Thanks to John Denos for sharing these with us!
The artwork in this post is © John Denos Archive

If you enjoyed this article, you'll also want to check out our... Profile of Carlo Vinci, John K on Flintstones Animators, Bugs Bunny In Coronet Magazine, Ward Kimball In Escapade Magazine, UPA Done Right, The Pencil Test of Art Babbitt's Best Scene, A Drawing Lesson From Walter Lantz, and Remembering Berny Wolf

Thanks
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
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2007 Review: 8 Writing Cartoons

As the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive completes its second year in operation, it's time to review the accomplishments of the past year. Here's a countdown of the ten most important subjects we've covered in 2007. See if your list matches mine. (View the complete list.) Click on the link to see more on this topic.



NUMBER 8: WRITING CARTOONS

One of the best things to happen to animation in the past few years is the growth of blogging among animation professionals. Topics that used to be discussed only in obscure trade journals or at private symposiums are now discussed publicly on the internet, where participants from all over the world can benefit from the exchange of information.

One of the principle catalysts for discussion on the net is John Kricfalusi's blog, All Kinds of Stuff. A series of John's posts on writing for animation created a wave of comment across the "blogosphere". A prominent cartoon scriptwriter vehemently disagreed with John's opinion that cartoons should be written by cartoonists, not scriptwriters. But when he was asked to name his favorite golden age cartoon writer, the scriptwriter was unable to come up with a single name... This isn't particularly surprising because THERE WERE NO CARTOON SCRIPTWRITERS prior to 1960.

Many people working in animation today have very little idea of how cartoons were made in the first half century of the medium. But Walt Disney was happy to tell you how he wrote his cartoons...


And it was the same at every other golden age animation studio...


Here's the Terry-Toons writers at work...


And a "script" for an MGM Tom & Jerry cartoon...


And a page from the "script" to Max Fleischer's Mr. Bug Goes To Town...


And this fragment of a storyboard from Warner Bros by my pick as the greatest cartoon writer of all time, Warren Foster. Check out the link below for a complete storyboard by Foster from the pilot episode of The Yogi Bear Show.


Story: The Greatest Cartoon Writer Of All Time March 27th, 2007

We've posted other great examples of visual storytelling this year as well...

• Alvin Show Pilot Board September 21st, 2007


• Clair Weeks' "Banyan Deer" Storyboard August 12th, 2007


• Ren & Stimpy "Big House Blues" Sequence 03 January 11th, 2007

After the first of the year, I'll have some more storyboards to post.

Go To Number 7 on the list of Top Ten Subjects of 2007

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
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Story: The Greatest Cartoon Writer Of All Time

This post is just the tip of the iceberg... see the bonus reason on our The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA for links to more great posts featuring animation art.



The other day, a discussion on cartoon writing erupted in response to recent posts on the subject in John Kricfalusi's blog. One of John's main points is that the golden age cartoons that we all regard as the greatest cartoons ever created were written by cartoonists as storyboards, not written in words as scripts. In support of his argument, he presented video clips of Walt Disney and Walter Lantz discussing the qualifications of the people who wrote their cartoons. (See also, Page 5 of the 1938 Disney Training Manual).

The scriptwriters dismissed John K's points as old fashioned and irrelevant to the current scene, while expressing respect of a general sort for the classic cartoons of the past. They claimed that it was just a matter of John's personal tastes, not a reflection on the effectiveness of the process itself. They never seemed to address the fact that prior to 1960 stories for cartoons weren't created and developed with words in script form- they were drawn. In listening to these arguments by current cartoon scriptwriters, I began to wonder how much they really knew about the process used to make the classic cartoons they expressed respect for. I posed a simple question...

Who was your favorite golden age cartoon writer?

It's a fair question- one that I've heard animators discuss and argue about on many occasions. Surely current cartoon writers would have golden age writer heros, just like animators study golden age animators like Milt Kahl or Grim Natwick...


Disney story man, Joe Rinaldi
But none of the scriptwriters participating in the discussion could name a single golden age cartoon writer. The only names they could mention were other current scriptwriters, or novelists, journalists and live action screenwriters who worked in totally different media. They had no idea who pioneered their profession and the process these people used to create cartoons for nearly half a century. To be fair, this sort of ignorance of the history of our craft isn't just limited to writers. I've heard the same sort of admissions of ignorance from producers and directors, as well as artists and animators.

Here is an example of a story by my favorite golden age story man... Warren Foster.

Warren Foster is responsible for writing many of the greatest cartoons ever made... He started as a gag man on Fleischer's Popeye series in New York, and moved West in 1938 to join Bob Clampett at Warner Bros. He wrote a string of classic cartoons... "Coal Black And De Sebben Dwarfs", "Birdy And The Beast", "Falling Hare", "Baby Bottleneck", "The Great Piggy Bank Robbery", and perhaps Bugs Bunny's most shaded performance, "Tortoise Wins By A Hare".

After Clampett's departure from the studio, he wrote for McKimson ("Gorilla My Dreams", "Easter Yeggs", "The Foghorn Legorn") and Freleng ("Ballot Box Bunny", "Bugs And Thugs", "Birds Anonymous"). Freleng said that Foster was the best story man he ever worked with. In the TV era, Foster wrote episodes of Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear, Quick Draw McGraw, The Jetsons and The Flintstones.

Here is a storyboard by Foster from his days at Hanna-Barbera. This is a model of clarity and simplicity, designed to meet the stringent economics imposed on TV animation at the time. This is a board from the pilot episode of The Yogi Bear Show.

















WHAT ABOUT ADVENTURE SHOWS
AND COMIC STRIPS?

In his article, "Detour Guide For An Armchair Marco Polo", master comic strip storyteller, Milton Caniff writes...

There has been a tendency recently for artists to automatically assume they cannot write their own stories because they see so many double by-lines. I contend that any man who can invent pictures can invent situations and dialogue. In fact, it should be easier for the artist to pilot his own action because he is not likely to write himself into one of those undrawable dilemmas in manuscripts about which illustrators have complained for years. --Milton Caniff

Sound familiar?

I'm working on a series of illustrated articles on how cartoons were written in the "golden age". For the first four installments, see...

WRITING CARTOONS

Part One- The Gag Session
Part Two- A Continuity Emerges
Part Three- Structure
Part Four: The Rough Board

If you found this post to be interesting, see also... Ren & Stimpy: Big House Blues Part One, Part Two and Part Three / The Alvin Show: The Whistler Storyboard / Chad's Design For Television / Ren & Stimpy: Stimpy's Invention Part One and Part Two / Charlie McElmurry's Year Of The Tiger Storyboard.

Thanks
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

2.23.08
.

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