Cartoon Modern

I’m not sure what aggravates me more: that oil companies are so openly and blatantly gouging the American public or that oil companies no longer make cool animated commercials, like this Speedway 79 spot from 1955. The commercial was produced at John Hubley’s studio Storyboard and I think one of the animators was Emery Hawkins, though it doesn’t look like he handled the entire commercial. The familiar tune is based on the old spiritual “Dem Bones.” Watch the spot below.

50s-era photos of Ray Favata from a print ad campaign for Phillies Tips. An ad agency friend had asked him to be in the ad, even though Favata wasn’t a smoker.

While researching CARTOON MODERN, I had the opportunity to find out about a lot of designers from the 1950s who I previously wasn’t aware of. One of these individuals was Ray Favata. Ray worked on the East Coast for his entire career. I had the pleasure of visiting him and his wife, Carol, in upstate New York in November 2004. In the early-1950s, he started in animation at Tempo Productions, a studio that was co-owned by David Hilberman, one of UPA’s founders. After Tempo was shuttered by the Hollywood blacklist (I’m too lazy to look up the exact date right now, but it was around ‘53-54), Favata started working at other studios, like the short-lived East coast division of John Sutherland Productions and Academy Pictures.

In 1957, Gene Deitch recruited him to work at the revamped Terrytoons, and Favata was the animation director of the terrific industrial film DEPTH STUDY (for CBS Television) and boarded the second (unproduced) FLEBUS short. After Terrytoons, Favata teamed up with Bill Tytla to start a new commercial animation studio. In the 1960s, the studio became Ray Favata Productions and the studio continued into the 1980s, producing mostly commercials and also the SESAME STREET series “Billy Joe Jive.” Favata himself continued working in animation into the ’90s, and I think he even pitched in on the design of J.J. Sedelmaier’s 50s-styled spot for Home Savings Bank.

Here’s a small sampling of Favata’s work from the 1950s.

Two storyboard panels (and a still) from an early-1950s Tempo commercial for Clark’s chewing gum. This is early in Favata’s career, and his drawing style is still somewhat tight. The drawings, while displaying a nice sense of posing, feel more like illustrations than characters that are designed for animation. The commercial won an award from the NY Art Director’s Club.

Another award-winning Tempo spot designed by Favata.

Stills from various mid-1950s commercials designed by Favata for Academy Pictures.

A page of character suggestions taken from a 1950s instructional booklet on creating TV commercials. (Thanks, Shane)

A 1958 drawing for TOP CEL, the newsletter of the New York animators’ union.

A late-1950s commercial for Cheerios. Favata’s design was animated by Bill Tytla in this commercial.

While I try to find some time to work up some longer posts, here are a couple interesting photos that I thought would be fun to share. First, a photo of the three main UPA directors in 1951, after winning the Oscar for GERALD MCBOING BOING. From left to right: Bobe Cannon, John Hubley, studio prez Steve Bosustow, Pete Burness, and (I think) UPA’s publicist Charles Daggett.

And a photo of Magoo director Pete Burness (left) and Steve Bosustow. They are holding a certificate from the Motion Picture Herald, which says that Mister Magoo was one of the top ten money-making short subject series of 1952.

Illustrator Leif Peng comes through again, this time with a 1959 SATURDAY EVENING POST magazine ad for Timken roller bearings. The ad uses images from a mid-1950s television commercial designed by Paul Kim at the NY commercial studio Academy Pictures. In the late-1950s, Kim teamed up with designer Lew Gifford, and they started Gifford-Kim Animation, which existed well into the 1970s and maybe even the ’80s. As far as I know, Kim is still alive, though I tried hard to track him down for the book and was never able to find him.

Canadian illustrator Leif Peng recently discovered a 2-page COLLIER’S magazine spread from 1956 with some great stills from the educational film MAN OF ACTION (1955). I wrote a bit about the film back in November and the film can be seen online at Archive.org. The magazine article is below.

Ernie Pintoff in the mid-1960s, on the set of a live-action shoot.

A couple weeks ago I was talking to Fifties-era artist Leonard Glasser, and he mentioned something that I’d never heard about: a children’s book illustrated by director/designer Ernie Pintoff (1931-2002) . Of course, I had to track down a copy. The book is called ALWAYS HELP A BIRD (ESPECIALLY WITH A BROKEN LEG) and it was published in 1965. It’s based on a 1956 UPA short—A WOUNDED BIRD—that was written and directed by Pintoff. The dialogue-less short was animated by Fred Crippen, and is set to a jazz piece by Shorty Rogers.

Glasser speaks more about A WOUNDED BIRD in the printed CARTOON MODERN. He saw the film in art school in 1957 and thought it was one of the greatest cartoons ever; Glasser ended up working with Pintoff a couple years after seeing the short. He describes Pintoff’s designs for the film as “dumb” but uses the term as a compliment. The artwork in the book is even goofier. For example, look at the way Pintoff draws the hair on the kids or the cow udders. He doesn’t have time to be bothered by details and uses a visual shorthand to put across his ideas. Glasser describes Pintoff as somebody who was generally impatient with the animation process, the type of person who would scribble out exposure sheets with markers, lipstick, whatever he could find around the studio. It’s little wonder that Pintoff grew bored with animation.

Pintoff worked in the industry for less than ten years, from 1955 through the early-1960s. In 1957, during a stint at Terrytoons, he directed one of my all-time favorite shorts, FLEBUS (it’s the header image of this blog). It was the only film he made for Terrytoons before launching his own studio, Pintoff Productions, where he produced dozens of TV commercials, and a number of award-winning animated shorts including THE VIOLINIST, THE CRITIC and THE OLD MAN AND THE FLOWER. By the mid-1960s, Pintoff had closed his animation studio and switched over to directing live-action features and television shows.

Below you’ll find the cover and a few illustrations from ALWAYS HELP A BIRD. I found a cheap used copy on Abebooks, but the other copies on the site are somewhat pricy. It’s too bad Pintoff didn’t do more children’s books because this one is a lot of fun and perfect for kids (as well as adults).

Worth pointing out: Brad Bird commented about his love of Hubley’s work in this ROOTY TOOT TOOT post from last week. Brad makes an excellent observation that even though Hubley’s films had a daring sense of design, it was never at the expense of the animation. Hubley’s sensitivity to the movement of characters is even more remarkable considering that he was one of the few directors of the era who hadn’t been an animator prior to directing.

And one final bit of ROOTY randomness. Below is a postcard of a restaurant—Johnny’s Steaks—that had a mural of ROOTY TOOT TOOT on its wall. The decor of the restaurant suggests the photo might be from the 1960s. This was posted before on Cartoon Brew, but I think it’s pretty cool so here it is again. If anybody knows where this was (is?), let me know. We’ll all go and have a steak there.