The Inkling Chronicles

Encore Performance ! R.O. Blechman Christmas bumper

I posted this last year ,  but it's worth sharing again this Christmas . Beautifully designed piece of Christmas cheer from the incomparable R.O. Blechman.

(TV Animation could be so beautiful .  Why isn't there more stuff like this on the television networks ?  (this originally aired on "The Tiffany Network" , CBS.  They could commission something like this in 2007 , right ?  Why not?)    This is from 1966 and it beats the pants off of most of our technologically advanced Flashy Toonboomery . )

Glen Keane Bear Drawing

Here's another piece I've had for years .  This is an animation rough by Glen Keane from "The Fox & THe Hound" .   Odd that in all the years I had this I never asked Glen to sign it ... what was I thinking ?

[Click image to see it larger]

Richard Williams - Abe Levitow "A Christmas Carol"

Here is a cel from my collection.  It is of the Ghost of Christmas Present from the Richard William's adaptation of "A Christmas Carol" which was made in 1971 and won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film .  It was originally aired on television as a half-hour Special (back in the days when television networks still commissioned high-end Christmas Specials and they were actually Special) .   

I had this cel for many years after purchasing it at an ASIFA cel sale in Hollywood .   When Richard Williams came through the Orlando Disney Animation studio to lecture for us as part of his book tour for his master class notes  "The Animator's Survival Kit",  I made sure I brought the cel along to ask him to autograph it.   Dick seemed genuinely surprised and delighted to see this cel and informed me that this was from a sequence animated by veteran Warner Bros. animator Abe Levitow (who worked for many years in the Chuck Jones unit at Warner's) .   Dick said he would sign it "by proxy, on behalf of Abe" , and so he did.

[click the image to see it larger]

The technique used for this film is very interesting . The animator's drew directly on the celluloids with a "grease pencil"  (Mars Omnichrom) in an illustrative style reminiscent of 19th century British magazine illustration such as would have illustrated many of Mr. Charles Dickens's works.    Then the animator's drawings on cel were painted (on the back) as usual and photographed against background paintings.

Here is a closer view showing some of the detail of the cross-hatching on the drawings  ----

[click on  image to see it larger]

The entire film is on YouTube in a much reduced form (dropped frames, sometimes jerky playback, fuzzy , low-res images which don't do justice to the beauty of the original artwork).

For some strange reason this film has never received a DVD release.

The YouTube and Google Video versions are the only way you can see it right now.   It was briefly available on VHS a few years ago,  but is not currently available  as far as I know and never on DVD.

The cel appears around the 14:10 mark on GoogleVideo, during the section of The Spirit's dialogue: (first quoting Scrooge's words back to him)  "What then ... if he be like to die he had better do it , and thereby decrease the surplus population" ...
Oh, God ! to hear the insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry brothers in the dust ."

Here is the entire film on GoogleVideo:

Fun Christmas Card Animation

I just recently saw this really fun animated Christmas e-card done by my friend Jay Jackson (we used to work together at Disney and also at Dale Baer's studio) .

I really like the animation on this . So much more alive than the usual "Flash" type of e-cards.   I hope he does more of them.  What a great short form for traditional hand-drawn animation !  This is the sort of cool animation we used to see all the time on Sesame Street or something like that .   Do they commission that type of work for Sesame Street anymore ?  (is SS even making new episodes anymore ? )

Click HERE to see Jay Jackson Animated Christmas Card