Cartoon Modern

Random 1950s sketch by Ed Benedict

Ed Benedict (b. 1912) was one of the primary designers of the 1950s so it’s surprising that he hasn’t been mentioned more on this blog. I’ll try to correct that over the next few weeks, especially since Ed’s 94th birthday is coming up on August 23. Here’s a CliffsNotes version of Ed’s career in the 1950s. In the early-1950s, he was the head designer at Paul Fennell’s Cartoon Films Ltd. In 1952, Ed became Tex Avery’s designer at MGM, and styled a lot of Avery’s later MGM shorts including DIXIELAND DROOPY, FIELD AND SCREAM, THE FIRST BAD MAN, DEPUTY DROOPY and CELLBOUND. In the late-1950s, he started working for Hanna Barbera where he designed most of the studio’s early classic TV characters including Ruff and Reddy, Huckleberry Hound, Quick Draw McGraw, Yogi Bear and The Flintstones. You can find out more about Ed in my book CARTOON MODERN (obviously), or check out the extensive interview I did with him in ANIMATION BLAST #8.

The designs below are from the mid-to-late-1950s when he was designing commercials for Tex Avery at Cascade Pictures. As far as I know these have never been published anywhere before. The only reason these images exist is because when Ed was freelancing, he would photograph all of his artwork before mailing it to the studio. These are scans from copies of Ed’s contact sheets so the quality is not that hot, but they offer a valuable insight into how he would design and lay out TV commercials.

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Rod Scribner in 1962 at Playhouse Pictures

Rod Scribner (1910-1976) is generally considered one of the great all-time animators. The animation that he created at Warner Bros., particularly under director Bob Clampett, is classic in every regard. What many don’t know about Scribner, however, is that he was also one of the great stylized animators of the 1950s. Scribner had an innate understanding of design and of how to move around highly stylized characters in innovative ways. This put him heavily in demand during the decade, and he animated commercials at many studios including Animation Inc., Storyboard, Playhouse Pictures, John Urie and Associates and United Productions of America (UPA).

From approximately 1956-1958, Scribner worked in-house at UPA, where he directed and animated three shorts for THE BOING BOING SHOW (”The Lost Duchess,” “One Wonderful Girl” and “The Armored Car”) as well as animated dozens of commercials and the studio’s new theatrical titles. The frame grabs below are from “The Lost Duchess,” in which Scribner offers his distinctive take on the conventional big-nosed/eyes-on-the-side-of-the-head characters and devises a completely original way of moving these characters around.

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CARTOON MODERN: STYLE AND DESIGN IN FIFTIES ANIMATION will be making its official debut in San Diego this week. These are the first copies that are being sold to the public. My publisher Chronicle only managed to get forty books from the printer so they may not last through the weekend, but they’ll definitely be there when the doors open Thursday morning. I’ll be doing a signing on Friday, July 21st, from 3-4pm at the Chronicle Books booth (#1019). If I find the time, I’ll try to make a special dvd with a few of my favorite difficult-to-find 50s cartoons. Anybody who purchases the book at the signing will receive this lovely dvd as a thank-you gift.

Homer Jonas was a layout artist who started at Disney in the late-1950s. He did layout on PAUL BUNYAN, SLEEPING BEAUTY and 101 DALMATIANS among other films. The photo above, by fellow Disney layout artist Ray Aragon, is from 1958 and will be included in the upcoming ANIMATION BLAST #9.

Yesterday at Cartoon Brew, we received an email from animator Brad Constantine, who works with Homer’s son Jeff. Below he shares this great piece of Fifties design by Homer Jonas along with the story about it.

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From Brad Constantine:

I am an avid animation art fan, especially the great experimenters of animation design of the 50s and early 60s (Blair, Kimball, Oreb, UPA, etc.)… I happen to work with the son of one of the great 50s layout men, Homer Jonas. I saw him pop up on Cartoon Brew, and so I got an itch to share some of his talent with you. He was a great artist who rarely gets a mention these days but went on after Disney to work with some of the greats including Friz Freleng, Bob Clampett, and later with Alex Toth at Hanna Barbera to name a few.

His son, Jeff Jonas, is quite an accomplished artist himself and does well down here in San Diego working for Sony. Well every once in a while Jeff will come in with some fantastic art treasure from the boxes in the garage and I try to scan them to study before they go back into hiding. Attached is one of my favorites. It’s a layout series for the 1959 Disney short, [Ward Kimball’s] EYES IN OUTER SPACE, which is included on the ”Tomorrowland Treasures” dvd set now out.

You can see Homer working through the different styles within a style trying to find the perfect approach for the look and feel. I find it a tour de force of late 50s design and a great lesson to all designers out there to try things as many different ways as possible to find the best solution.