Aniforms: The Great Foodini and Pinhead

The Great Foodini and Pinhead were puppet characters that evolved from The Lucky Pup Show, created by puppeteers Morey and Hope Bunin. (At some point they incorporated as Aniforms, Inc.) Akin to the likes of The Howdy Doody Show and Kukla, Fran and Ollie, the original show aired on CBS and ABC in the early days of television. The show was produced in New York City and ran in a handful of major cities across the United States. The Bunins and Foodini have an interesting history, right on through at least the 1960s, including a collaboration with David Seville, of Chipmunks fame.

(After prowling the internet, the best single site I could find on this subject is HERE, and my information above is very intensively cribbed and extremely concentrated from it. There's much more, including a clip of the show's opening, music, and comics.)

I'm not precisely sure what was happening with Foodini in 1961, but apparently they needed a "traditional" animated cartoon: enter Irv Spector. Personally I find it interesting, although not necessarily surprising, that my dad drew this with one foot planted in the Paramount/Famous style and the other crossing the line into UPA territory. At the time this was made, my father was bouncing between the coasts, freelancing for the former and developing ideas for the latter. This was aside from the commercial and other work he was doing, and at least one freelance job that I know of for Hubley. So, to my amatuer eyes, while Foodini has a decent dose of Paramount, Pinhead's construction is reminiscent of that UPA style -- eyes on one side of the head, form/shape, etc. Anyone out there who remembers this show, please drop a comment. The six board pieces in this post are all I have...

...as well as his billing invoice itemizing story adaptation, storyboard and direction...

...and a page from his personal freelance ledger.

Irv Spector at Ed Graham Prods: INA - Cinderella, Shooting Script

Here's the revised shooting script for INA (Insurance Company of North America) that my dad did for Ed Graham Prods. This one is based upon Cinderella. If you've been following these on Spectorphile (and I know you have) then you'll naturally recall that there were five of these spots: Graham's idea to rip off -- ...er, I mean paying tribute to without paying royalties to -- Jay Ward's Fractured Fairy Tales, right down to the Edward E. Horton narration.

Cinderella should be a little more visually interesting than the other shooting scripts due to the fact that I've scanned it from my dad's own hand-on-paper, rather than the B&W stats. The final animation was done by the inimitable Dick Thompson. Other than that, my dad did the direction, animation direction/layout and background layout. On the few occasions you come across the scrawl of blue ballpoint pen, that would be Graham, exercising his creative might and unable to control his excitement over finally learning what "truck-in" means.

(click on all to enlarge)

Next post I'll put up my remaining tidbits for Cinderella.

Those Who Dwell Among The Rocks

There's a time-honored and not all that uncommon tradition among cartoonists to once in a great while draw human figures among the backgrounds or secondary textures of their work. My personal take on this is that it's a fleeting feeling: the moment is ripe, the whim hits, and bang! it's on the page before they know it. I'm no artist, but I'd venture the urge is irresistable. (Maybe some artists reading this can elaborate on the phenomenon.) My dad was no different. Somewhere I have a storyboard panel where the same thing happens, although I can't say that it makes it way to finished animation form. However, below are two Coogy's where this has occured and there's no reason to think it didn't carry over to published form in the Trib. The two examples I've excerpted are quite easy to spot from the beginning (this is not a puzzle page). If you've been following the Coogys I've posted then it's no secret that my dad had a love for the landscape of the American Southwest. Long before Coogy was conceived, he'd driven across the country about a dozen times (thirteen, I think).

From March 21, 1954:

re the above: In real life, "Bea" is my mother, and my father actually did grow up virtually on the border of "Watts", CA -- and so you can easily deduce who really did live at "1619".


From May 2, 1954:

Comic Book Interlude: Rocky Rabbit - "Out Of My Mine" (From Supermouse #31)

Rocky Rabbit was Lucky Duck's foil in all four of the Lucky Duck title issues, and it's interesting to me that Rocky got his own story in a Supermouse (#31, June 1954). The final Lucky Duck, #8, was published in 1953, so either this story sat on the publisher's shelf -- both Supermouse and Lucky were Literary Enterprise, Standard Comics -- or my father knocked it out close to a year later.

It's doubtful I would have come upon this story without Scott Shaw reviewing the issue in his old Oddball Comics column at Comic Book Resources. Thanks Scott!

Also, I plan on running into NYC for the NY Comic Con this Saturday, 2/7/09. My plan is to rummage through the used and abused golden age stacks for more of these sort of stories that appeared outside of the usual titles. Any readers of this blog who are also going and feel like hooking up, shoot me an email at the address in my profile.

In The Event You Were Unable To Attend...

(The Miss Joan Crawford seated next to then Mayor Wagner?

Mommy Dearest indeed!)

Coogy: Mary Mo (Pt.5) - Plus a Switcheroo

Original from Nov. 15th, 1953.

Same episode as published in the Tribune dated November 15th, 1953. What's different?

(Color scan compliments of All Things Ger)

Yes, that's right. On my originals, the top tier of the final episode was swapped with the top tier of the penulitmate episode. Here's the tier that was originally on this episode, which I cropped from my own orignal Pt. 4, posted previously:
What happened to my beloved originals? The NY Herald Tribune would offer their strips to their syndication papers as either a 2/3rd page or 1/2 page, In other words, the papers would publish either two full strips on a single page of newspaper, or three strips on a single page at two tiers per strip -- either way adding up to six tiers per page. If you look back on the Coogy originals I've blogged, almost all would still make sense if the top tier was lopped off and the final two tier were run by themselves. Often, the top tier was meant to be a little gag by itself. The top tier was removed physically to do this. Hence, when it was time to reattach the top tier, some absentminded drone at the Tribune must have swapped the top tiers from episodes 4 and 5. I always knew something was amiss with these originals in regard to how the 4th declared the "Final Episode" and yet the 5th episode did not, and also how Mark Dextrose's drive on the NY State Thruway was disjointed. However, I've been looking at them for so long I eventually just took it for granted. It wasn't until I looked closely at the color scan that it finally made sense to me what had happened. Okay, so not the biggest mystery to you, but I can now sleep easier.

Coogy: Mary Mo (Pt. 4)

From November 8. 1953:

(Although the title panel states "The Final Episode", there's one more to follow. That's just like a soap opera, ain't it?)