While I still have the MGM Animation/Visual Arts file handy, what do you make of this? It's drawn by my father, some of it on official MGM board paper. To my own knowledge MGM never issued a B.C. animated cartoon, although some of you might know different. Maybe it was a test that B.C.'s creator, Johnny Hart, vetoed. In this era MGM was co-opting the material of others -- Ted Geisel (Seuss), Tashlin (Bear That Wasn't) and Juster (Phantom Tollbooth), to name a few. In any event, to my memory, some of it looks like a straight rip from the actual strip.
Here are the type of drawings dear to my heart. Again at MGM, the inside innuendo stuff that cartoonists pass among themselves. Not knowing exactly what was happening at any particular moment which caused one cartoonist to playfully jab another, it's tough to say who drew what, and for what reason...but who cares. You'll notice a couple of recurring artists depicted.
10 comments:
There was a B.C. tv special. I think it only ran once and didn't get a large audience. It was a bunch of small gags one on top of another without much story.
Thanks Michael! That must be right by the looks of things.
Anybody out there remember the name of the special?
Hey Paul,
There was one called 'B.C. The First Thanksgiving' It's on Youtube.
Thanks Bob! That appears to be a Levitow-Hanson thingie, released after MGM Animation had closed.
Paul---besides the two specials (one of which featured the voicework of BOB & RAY!), I BELIEVE there were B.C. segments on Chuck Jones' "CURIOSITY SHOP" Saturday morning show.
There was also a primetime special in the '60s called "THE FABULOUS FUNNIES" that I seem to recall had brief animated blackout gags, and I think B.C. may have been one of them...
"I.S." and the stereotypical director's garb in the one drawing would make sense if it was a parody of Izzy Sparber, though if the drawing came from the MGM period Sparber would have been dead for about a decade by then.
Jim -- Thanks for the leads. I'm in the dark about the cartoons you mention but will keep an eye out.
J Lee -- They are all definitely MGM; found together with everything else in the same folder. What's interesting is that the design on the I.S. blazer is the same kind of pattern my father used on exec blazers for some of the Paramounts.
These are incredible. Fantastic drawings by some very talented artists. Top notch all the way. I love it when you post stuff like this.
Thanks Eric! I'll try and do some more of it soon.
Fascinating!
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