MGM: The Adventures of Mr. Crippen

No drawings in this post, only writing. Hence, if you are the type who would rather not visualize images of what might have been, look away and all is forgiven.

My recent intentions have been to move away from my dad's MGM years, yet I continue to be compelled to spin freefall down the rabbit hole. Here's my latest semi-obsession: The Adventures of Mr. Crippen.

First of all, what about that title!? Most of you will undoubtedly glom onto the surname Crippen, for although it neither common or uncommon, there can be only one Crippen known to my dad, and that would be the animation industry's inimitable Fred. For the uninitiated, I'll provide a link to his imbd listing, but that hardly provides any real detail of the man's career. Why my dad chose the name, I don't know; but who cares? Perhaps a little inside joke.

In this character overview, my dad cuts a very broad path of Mr. Crippen's preternatural abilities. All but the title page are xeroxed, so I assume this got passed around the MGM offices.

Below is a story based on the above. What strikes me about this is that the idea does not seem to be conceived as a typical MGM half-hour one-shot, but rather as an episodic show. Can you imagine MGM doing a Saturday morning cartoon show at the dawn of the 1970s? What if my previous post, M. Flamingo was intended as such as well? And with the talent at the studio at that time, those of us young enough to remember might have had something substantial to bite on as an alternative to Filmation (which Anonymous commented upon in the previous post.) I can't say that if this were the case there would never have been a Filmation, but my dad might have been spared from writing "Sieze them!" a half-dozen times per episode.

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.