Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Irv Spector at Ed Graham Prods: Enter The Albino Gorilla



The first season of The Linus The Lionhearted Show debuted at the end of September 1964. My previous post noted how the whole staff was laid off during the off season and my dad took to work for Chuck Jones. Many of the staff came back on board for season two but things were not to be quite the same. Ed Graham Prods also changed office locations. No longer within the general vicinity of most other animation studios, they moved to a location on Woodley Ave., by the Van Nuys Airport and "...near Ed's planes.", as someone hand-wrote on the notice. I think it was around this point that Graham had closed his east coast office and moved to L.A.

I don't have the original albino gorilla for "Winner and Still King".
This one is from a different story titled "Hand Car". However, you
are getting an authentic Irv Spector coffee cup stain in the deal.


In a letter from May 1965, from Ed Graham to Benton & Bowles and cc-ed to my father, Graham writes, "Irv Spector told me today that he is considering quitting Warner Brothers and coming back to work here..." Graham wants to, "...grab him while the grabbing's good", and relates a story outline my dad has come up with for the second season. This is why my father's end-credit slips from Supervising Director in the first season to among those credited as Story in the second. The end of the second season's credits now say, Produced and Directed by Ed Graham. All stories, as per the first season, have to go through the ad agency, who then pass it on to General Foods for final approval.

Most likely because of the studio switch, I don't possess much in the way of his first season's work. However, here is most of his storyboard for the second season's Winner and Still King. Because certain parts are missing I'm including his original story outline (so you won't lay awake at nights wondering how it all ends!) Much of the studio's output was drawn on a sort of carbon replication paper -- to save money I guess. Hence, what you are seeing in many of the model sheets and boards I'm posting are just that.