Whoa-wah-WHOOAA!!!

Although it isn't as popular or as widely-known as the Goofy Holler, it's one of those sounds that becomes about 100 times more annoying when it's used throughout the entire course of a movie. That sound is what I call the "Wart Holler" from the Sword in the Stone (1963), done by either Rickie Sorensen or one of Woolie Reitherman's two sons Robert or Richard. The fact that Wart's voice changes constantly throughout the film always bothered me.

I quickly compiled this while grabbing some footage of Archimedes for the Ollie Johnston tribute I'm working on (which I am about halfway done with, by the way). Enjoy!

Yes, I spelled "compilation" wrong & screwed up the date. So sue me!

"Disney's Gettin' Lazy" 3: Whatever Happened to Bambi's Mother?

To many, the death of Bambi's Mother is the single saddest moment in all of film history. But don't worry folks, Bambi's Mom is alive & well! In fact, she came back to play a role in many movies since then. Personally, I think she holds the record of most appearances in a Disney film.

The big questions from me are 1) Who animated the original scene of Bambi's Mother eating grass, looking up & running away (Frank Thomas? Ollie Hohnston? Eric Larson? Who?...) & 2) Did the animator in question get credit for it when it was reused in the later films? Can anybody answer this for me?

Special thanks to Hans Perk & Michael Sporn!

*UPDATE* - Hans Perk pulled out his animator drafts for Bambi & wrote about his findings in the comments:

"Hi Michael, I had a look at the draft for Prod. 2002 (Bambi), Seq.09.2-"Death of the Mother." Directed by James Algar, layout by Dave Hilberman, animated by (drum roll...) Art Elliott. He animated Sc.8 (21-00ft on a 6½F setup), Sc.9 (9-00ft on 5F setup) where mother whispers "Bambi!" and Sc.10 (5-07ft on 5F setup) where mother says "Quick! The thicket!" (followed by some scenes by Bill Justice).

I did not check the other drafts yet, but normally reuse like this is not credited, as--again--the drafts were not prepared for crediting animators but for tracking the responsible person on any current production. Thus, most likely the person RE-animating the scene will be credited..."

Thanks again for the info, Hans!

More Juggling

I'm back with a little more on cartoon juggling.

These next two clips I'm going to show come from two different studios in two different time periods. These two might not constitute as "real" juggling, but I think they count eitherway.

This first clip comes from Popeye's debut cartoon: "Popeye the Sailor" from 1933 by the Fleischer Studio. Does anybody know who animated it?

I especially like juggling when it's timed to a beat (musical or not) & as everybody knows, everything in Popeye cartoons is timed to a beat. Even when the characters are just standing around they bounce to the music.

Back to juggling... in most cases, the juggling act is the gag itself, like the Donald Duck clip I posted before. In this case, the juggling is an add-on to make the "Hit the Nerd" gag funnier. They could've had Popeye hit the "nerd" millions of other ways, but what better way is there to help introduce Popeye to animation than to show what his muscles can do. Although his arms may be huge & bulky tumor-like lumps, he can still pull off a little style & grace with them. Such dexterity!

Besides, this is a Fleischer cartoon, everything has got to be funny & rubbery!

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This next clip comes from Disney's Sword in the Stone, exactly 30 years after Popeye's animated debut. In this scene, Merlin (transformed into a squirrel for this particular sequence) fiddles around with an acorn.

Even though he's only playing around with one acorn, he's still juggling it up in the air, off his feet, etc. This scene is probably influenced by the Harlem Globetrotters.

Unlike the Popeye scene, there's a lot of things going on here:

First off, this is Disney animation, so everything has to be more realistic (even though there's a blue talking squirrel juggling acorns). While the balls in Popeye felt like weightless ping-pong balls, this acorn has weight. There are no cartoon physics here, there's mass, momentum & inertia in action going on.

This was animated by Frank Thomas, who by 1963 had over 30 years of animation experience. He knows a thing or two about realistic motion, after animating lifeless marionettes, dogs, cats, deer, humans & hundreds of other characters. Besides, Thomas was a perfectionist, so everything he animated had to be perfect before he let it go to final color.

Like the Popeye clip, this juggling is timed to music, but unlike Popeye's juggling, there's a lot of nuances in the action. While Popeye's timing just went "boink! bink! boink! bink!...", this juggling is timed to a unique melody with unique lyrics. Certain actions are done in relation to the music & words of the song. For example, when Merlin say's "explanation", he flutters & spins the acorn to the sound of the word. In "discaboomeration", he catches the acorn on the accented "boom" & rolls it down his arm as the "-eration" rolls out of his mouth.

& like the Donald Duck clip, Merlin is interuppted by an outside force, this time by a homely, love-crazed girl squirrel. Merlin is surprised, embarassed & by the end of the song, know's how this is gonna turn out (just look at that expression on his face in those last few frames!)

Just watching this animation as a normal everday viewer would think that was cute or fun. But when an animator like me watches it, I wonder "How in God's name did he pull that off?!" Frank put a lot of thought into this little scene, & boy did he make it soar!

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& I know what you're thinking... you think I have no idea what I'm talking about, do you. Well, half the time I don't. Still, I put a lot of thought into animation like this. Besides, I'm only a novice when it comes to doing animation myself, so I don't the experience like some people do. Plus, I have a hard time putting them into readable, understandable words & sentences. I'm dyslexic in that way. There are definitely people out there who can do this better than I can.

Now I need your help! If any of you know of any animated juggling scenes that I haven't mentioned yet, let me know & post those too! Thanks!