Monday, March 29, 2010

Abner The Baseball -- A LIttle Pepper In There Boy

In October of 2009 I received emails from Turkey. Here are some excerpts:

...in late 80's abner the baseball became very popular in turkey .everybody looks for it but nobody can find.

abner was shown in turkish tv channel TRT , between 85-90's.(in the football matches half times.) turkish children loved it very much.especially "little pepper in there boy" became an idiom.. turkish people use it as "Hadi biraz biberliyelim" it means "let's start" for us.now people aged 25-30 remembers abner...they talk how they can find it, some of them will be very happy to see that cartoon just one time again .because abner is one part of their childhood.

So, I asked Bob Jaques if he had a copy the thing, and it was immediately uploaded. Fatih, in Turkey, wrote me, ...from now on you are God to me. I forwarded the message to Bob, as it was better meant for him, who replied (to me), "I think you are the divine one." While Bob and I were discussing who was going to be the One, Fatih emails me: it s only a joke paul :)
That's too bad, because as the One, I had already made a list of all the butt I was gonna kick.

Here's Abner:


10 comments:

J Lee said...

I always remembered this cartoon because when it debuted on TV in 1963 Mantle was still Mantle and Berra was still (albeit barely) on the Yankees, so like "Cool Cat Blues", it was one of the few theatrical cartoons to make it to TV while the references were still relevant (we won't even go into the American League not having the designated hitter back then).

Just about all the cartoons your dad did with Eddie Lawrence in the 1960-62 period worked, which considering the low animation budgets and overall batting average of Paramount in the early 60s, is pretty impressive ("Abner" also took up two of the three segments of "The New Casper Cartoon Show" when it aired on ABC, instead of the normal two Caspers around one Modern Madcap -- which given the level the made-for-TV Caspers were done at, was an added bonus. Even as a 7-year-old, I thought a little of those TV Caspers went a long way).

Anonymous said...

Good One! the Kid holding Abner reminds me of Tom Terrific. The Design in this one Is Pure Genius. the BGs are Amazing. Lots of Great Stuff. do you have the storyboards to Cool Cat Blues? im Dying to see what it originally looks like before the finished cartoon and your father's storyboards look actually much funnier and actually much more superior to the finished cartoon. Asim M Ishak.

p spector said...

J Lee Just for the record, my father had already left Paramount/Famous and was freelancing for them; I deduce this from his financial journal. There's a good chance that his participation in ABNER was done while he was in Los Angeles and under employ during the last days of UPA.
Oh yeah, I'm still a Yankee fan, and still miffed by the American League DH rule. Let's go back to 8 teams per both leagues! :)

Anonymous Sorry, except for a few strays I'd have to dig for, -- if in fact I have any -- there are no boards for "Cool Cat Blues".

Brubaker said...

Thanks for the upload. I love those sixties Paramount cartoons.

Here's another video that might interest you. It's a DePatie-Freleng cartoon your dad wrote, "Flying Feet" with Roland and Rattfink

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GPvRSLvr9M

Dave Mackey said...

Bernie Wayne, who wrote the music for this (note Sharples is credited with "musical direction"), also wrote a little song called "There She Is".

Some of the 1940's and 1950's cartoons approached the length of this and stretched the capacity of one reel of 35mm film as far as it could go. "The Enchanted Square", the touching Noveltoon about Raggedy Ann and a blind girl, runs almost 10 minutes. "La Petite Parade", with all its reenactments of the daily parade, clocks in at 8:20 (its running time is a minute or so less on compressed copies). I don't know what sort of time restrictions were placed on Kneitel and the other directors, but I figure if a story was too good to tell in 6 minutes, Buchwald or Goodman could give them the extra time if needed.

p spector said...

Thanks Bru and Dave:
Things have slowed of late on Spectorphile but I hope to ramp up in the near future. - Paul

Panço'nun Arkadaşı said...

hi ı am fatih. thanks a lot paul.you made me and my friends very happy.

p spector said...

Fatih, Anytime. An animator named Bob Jaques is really the one to thank on this one. I'll relay the message. - Paul

k. said...

With all my respect to cartoons and cartoonists, this was much more than a cartoon for the those who were children in Turkey during the 80's. Thanks a lot for sharing it and also the original script:

http://irvspector.blogspot.com/2009/04/paramount-abner-baseball-script-by.html

to see these scripts is a complete magical experience for me.

Wish Eddie Lawrence can read our comments!

p spector said...

My pleasure brother.
Keep the faith.
- Paul