My dad was a big fan of Jay Ward's wonderfully absurd Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, but otherwise had no connection to Ward until later in the 1960's when he was briefly involved with George of The Jungle, of which Super Chicken (and Fred, of course) starred in their own episodes. In fact it was so brief I'd pretty much forgotten about it until I came upon this stash of model sheets among the Irvchives. I think the year was 1967 and I imagine he was doing story, but anyone who has access to the credits, on the George DVD for instance, your input is welcome.
Model sheets are all I have and I don't know who drew the ones above. However, I can vouch for the handwriting on these last two being my dad's, the secondary characters McTasty and Spike for episode 15.
(Actually, it was Spectorphile acolyte Weirdo who went ga-ga and called for Super Chicken when he saw that I'd appended the top model sheet to my earlier Taste Just Like Chicken post. So Weirdo, (and any other Super Chicken fans) this post's for you.)
3 comments:
Irv Spector received no screen credit for "George of the Jungle." It was, however, one of the very few Jay Ward shows that wasn't shipped off to some foreign land to be animated - all the animation was done in Hollywood. Frank Braxton was one of the directors, who with Floyd Norman were the trailblazing African-American animators. Braxton died of cancer a year or two later, sadly. Floyd, thank goodness, is still with us.
The catchy theme song is the handiwork of Stan Worth and Sheldon Allman, both now unfortunately deceased, and both more noted for their work scoring game shows, mainly in the 1970's. (Stan often worked with Alan Thicke - yes, the "Growing Pains" guy - on various music projects.)
According to an obit I read someplace for Allman, he and Worth got together one Sunday afternoon and wrote all three theme songs (George, Super Chicken and Tom Slick). Unfortunately, the cartoons themselves had ABSOLUTELY NO MUSIC TRACK WHATSOEVER which was the Ward style. So Worth and Allman got a nice hefty credit all to themselves for writing about two minutes worth of extremely memorable music.
Thank you Mr. Spector for this. I love "George of the Jungle" and the rest. The animation was lively for a TV cartoon, which was thanks to the fact that it was animated here in the U.S. This is a fantastic post and a great blog. I love your father's work a little more every time I see it.
Hey, Thanks Weirdo. In a way, my dad's work doesn't really exist unless people like you want to see it.
And make sure you call me "Paul" next time ;)
Post a Comment