This week, Cartoon Modern will be devoted to highlighting the work of LA commercial studio TV Spots. There were dozens of TV commercial studios around during the 1950s, and it was impossible to discuss them all in my book. TV Spots is one of those studios that I couldn’t fit in. The studio was started in the early-1950s. I’m not sure who founded the studio, but I think it was Sam Nicholson, who had been an animator in Friz Freleng’s WB unit in the 1940s. According to Keith Scott’s excellent book THE MOOSE THAT ROARED, the studio was purchased in 1954 by businessman Shull Bonsall. Nicholson stayed on as the studio’s vice-president.
In addition to TV commercials, TV Spots produced the color revival of CRUSADER RABBIT in 1957 and the primetime cartoon CALVIN AND THE COLONEL (1961). At some point, the studio changed its name to Creston Studios, though the staff remained the same. The studio’s head art director was Norm Gottfredson, who had previously worked at Ray Patin Productions and UPA. The commercial directors were primarily Bob Bemiller and Paul Sommer. Other people who worked there include director/designer Ed Levitt, animators John Sparey, Morey Reden, Phil Roman and Bob Matz, designers Fred Charrow, George Cannata Jr. and Bernice Shapira, and background/layout artists Eleanor Bogardus, David Weidman and Rosemary O’Connor.
It’s interesting to point out that more veterans of TV Spots are still around today than any other 1950s studio that I can think of. Among the artists still with us are Gottfredson, Weidman, O’Connor, Cannata Jr., Roman, Sparey, Sommer and even Sam Nicholson (though I understand he’s in poor health). I’ll be posting stills from their 1950s commercials all week long. Unfortunately, I’ve seen only one or two of the actual commercials. It’d be nice if somebody could find reels of this studio’s work.
Bexel Vitamins
director: Bob Bemiller
designer: George Cannata, Jr.
art director: Norm Gottfredson
L&M Cigarettes
Johnson’s Glo-Coat Floor Wax
Nice! The 2nd pic with the window reminds me A BIT of the window-scene in TOOT, WHISTLE, PLUNK & BOOM!
Comment by Thorsten Hasenkamm — January 23, 2006 @ 4:22 pm
You forget that TV Spots also animated the first two seasons of “KING LEONARDO AND HIS SHORT SUBJECTS” for TTV-Leonardo (and General Mills) in 1960-’61 [as “TVS, Inc.”] around the time they began animating Gosden & Correll’s “CALVIN & THE COLONEL” [as “Creston Studios”].
Comment by Barry I. Grauman — September 6, 2006 @ 2:25 pm
Thorsten H. IS right about that window scenem it DOES look like Walt Disney’s Toot Whistle..and indeed Barry is right on about TV Spots’s “King Leonardo” (For Leonardo-TTV) and (as Creston Studios) “Calvin and the Colonel”
Comment by Steve Carras — June 16, 2007 @ 1:04 am