Magoo Express Designs by Sterling Sturtevant
In the book version of Cartoon Modern, I published a couple character layout drawings from the UPA short Magoo Express (1955). (A sidenote: I misidentified the title as Magoo’s Express, which I hope to correct in any subsequent printings.) What’s particularly interesting about these layout drawings is that they use a female character design which was significantly changed for the final film version.
Below are the layout drawings I included in the book along with corresponding stills from the film showing how the design changed:
The redesigned version of the character, Gigi, creates an intriguing mystery—Why was the design changed midway through production?—and it’s a question for which I don’t have any answers. The mystery deepens because the character designer of the film, Sterling Sturtevant (1922-1962), spent a significant amount of time designing the original version of this character. A lot of Sturtevant’s development work exists from this film and I’ve posted some of it below to show how she came up with the design of Gigi:
These concepts led to the initial design of Gigi. Below are the character model sheets and a few character layouts:
This was obviously not just a design concept but likely the final design that director Pete Burness had approved for production. Otherwise, Sturtevant would not have invested so much time laying out the film using this design. My personal feeling, and I have no hard evidence to back this up but it’s the only thing that makes sense, is that the animation crew may have asked for a change on the character design. (I have to double-check, but I also believe that this is the last film that Sturtevant worked on before leaving UPA in 1954. Though it’s somewhat unlikely that her departure would be connected in any way to this film, one cannot completely discount that possibility.)
Sturtevant (pictured at right) was a talented artist and easily the most prolific and influential woman character designer of the 1950s, but one of the problems with the ‘femme fatale’ approach of this design is that the style reaches beyond the range of her drawing skills, not to mention the skills of the animators on the crew who were tasked with bringing the character to life. Director John Hubley had no problem pulling off a similarly designed character in the earlier UPA film Rooty Toot Toot (1952), but Sturtevant’s drawings lack the cohesive strength of a master draftsman like Hubley. There are nice graphic ideas in a lot of the individual poses, but the overall design lacks structure, and the character looks awkwardly drawn and poorly constructed from certain angles.
At some point, Sturtevant was asked to redesign the character and came up with the second version of Gigi that is used in the film (model sheet and concept drawing below). Personally, I like this second design far more than the first attempt and think it’s better suited to the Magoo universe. Unfortunately the animation of the film is a huge disappointment. To be clear, I think either of Sturtevant’s designs could have been a success if they had been followed up by the proper animators. Burness’s animation crew, however, included some of the most conservative animators at the studio, and his animators during this period rarely pushed the graphic element in their animation. (Lead animators on this film were Cecil Surry, Tom McDonald and Rudy Larriva.) The animators on this film resigned themselves to creating stilted and limited movement with little deviation from the layout poses, which is a shame because Sturtevant’s second design of Gigi offers fun graphic shapes and a distinctive posture that could have been exploited by more creative animators.
Magoo Express is not a bad entry in the Magoo series by any stretch of the imagination. Seeing Sturtevant’s development of the female character offers some fascinating insights into the design process on the Magoo series and also shows how the films could have been even better if UPA had invested in stronger and more graphically-aware animators.
These sketches are awesome!
We have to learn a lot from them.
Comment by Luca Tieri — May 5, 2007 @ 3:41 am
Can’t get enough of this kind of stuff.
thanks again!
Chuck
Comment by chuck — May 5, 2007 @ 4:33 am
MAGOO EXPRESS is an interesting Magoo. It’s more a genre spoof than the usual misadventure they placed him in. The color scheme in the final picture is particularly interesting, mainly gray’s and browns, blacks and dark blues. They may have changed Gigi’s design to match the comic situations they placed the character in - her original design was too “cool” and aloof. They made her a little more contemporary with a shorter hair cut. With her white skin, orange hair and red dress, Gigi (and Magoo) really pop against the unusually muted backdrops.
Comment by Jerry Beck — May 5, 2007 @ 8:47 am
My immediate thought on seeing the first two drawings posted was that they looked too similar to the character in ROOTY TOOT TOOT. I certainly agree that the redesigned character not only works better but is original (especially given the name GIGI.) Both look like variants of Cyd Charisse at the time.
Comment by Michael Sporn — May 5, 2007 @ 9:04 am
Top notch post as usual Amid. Really interesting. The original design also struck me as being lifted straight out of ROOTY TOOT. It’s a slick design but the re-design is actually MORE appealing.
Wonderful to see this ‘behind the scenes’ stuff.
Comment by Matt Jones — May 5, 2007 @ 9:27 am
Great (like all of your posts) posting Amid. I studied with T.Hee at Cal Arts in the late seventies and remember him talking about Sterling.
She did some great stuff and as well your site is a gold mine for those of us that are fans of this particular era in Animation. The “50’s” design designation has always irritated me - good design is good design period. But I’m resigned to accepting it is evocative of a period in time. Oddly enough people don’t comment on how the majority of Disney heroines (for example) are rooted design wise in Cinderella and the like . Nothing wrong with that. it is what it is, but its not QUESTIONED. In your book however Bill Hurtz (I believe) does comment on how anything “different” - that calls attention to itself - is labeled “Designy”. The only thing I can suppose is, again referencing Disney Heroines, is that they look the way there “supposed” to look and therefore not questioned. Anyway I’m ranting, this is great stuff, keep up the posts and the great work.
Comment by Bill Perkins — May 5, 2007 @ 11:56 am
That initial design looks a lot like the popular approach at the time to drawing a caricature of Greta Garbo. Bill Perkins mentions T. Hee and I’m almost certain he did a Garbo caricature that closely resembles that. Here is somebody else’s caricature that also seems to suggest that possibility. Perhaps that was the original personality they were going for and then changed direction along the way.
Actually, the final design puts me in mind of the French actress/dancer, Zizi Jeanmaire, which would make more sense if Gigi is supposed to be French. (Similar name too!)
Comment by Pete Emslie — May 6, 2007 @ 8:46 am
One possibility you haven’t considered is that it might have been Sturtevant herself who decided late in the day to change the design. It happens; you spend hours/days designing a character, you’re perfectly happy with the end result. You go on to the next thing. Then you do ONE sketch that nails everything you tried to get and spent days on earlier. So you go back and quickly change what you did. And you don’t mind because the new version is so much better.
One thing that supports this theory is that if you look at the variety of Sturtevant’s designs, the final Gigi is like the kind of work she generally did, whereas the previous design is much more abstracted. It doesn’t have the kind of personality she usually displays - and which is evident in the final, quirkier, funnier character. The range of styles over all the sketches shows that progression to greater and greater stylisation as she pushes the design. Maybe Gigi 1 was just Sturtevant trying a different approach - coming from an angle other people were exploring at the time - that ultimately didn’t work for her.
It’s great to see them, as always. Thanks! If the other development sketches are this nice maybe you could post a few more? Please?!
Comment by Woodrow Phoenix — May 25, 2007 @ 7:12 am
My sister-in-law (the “other” Amy Glasband) asked me about this. I follow your blog on Technorati and somehow I missed this! Maybe it was right before I started following it (not sure). I explained to Amy (and my brother Sam) again how you had found virtually everything in the vaults from UPA and Playhouse and this was part of your expertise in bringing the art form back to life.
Pretty cool! I have some ideas as to why Gigi might have been “stiff.” Due to the fashion sense and vanity etc., maybe she was a little conflicted. I know she never did fashion design of any type, though of course she could have. I can just say that when I ever get blocked with drawing something, it’s always some type of emotional conflict or uncertainty. What should this fancy gal look like? Probably the same with a character that was supposed to be a “handsome” man.
Comment by Amy Sterling — January 27, 2009 @ 8:51 am