keyleedaud (REAL ESTATE)

Profiles in History is having an auction entitled Icons of Animation on December 17. While the majority of items are out of my price range (maybe all of them actually), you can download a catalog of the auction for free. Even if you're not in the market to buy, the catalog is a mini history lesson by itself. It contains art from Disney, MGM, Warner Bros, Fleischer and Hanna Barbera. There is work by Bill Tytla, Fred Moore, Carl Barks, Bob Clampett, Virgil Ross, Irv Wyner, Mary Blair, Preston Blair, Gustav Tenggren, Charles Schulz, etc. There are worse ways to spend time than by paging through the download and admiring so much beautiful stuff. (link via Disney History )

Most animation fans are familiar with the sequence in Anchors Aweigh where Gene Kelly dances with Jerry, the mouse from Tom and Jerry cartoons. Fewer fans have seen Invitation to the Dance , a feature spearheaded by star Gene Kelly which consists entirely of three dance sequences. The last sequence is "Sinbad the Sailor" and features Kelly dancing with animated characters produced by Hanna Barbera while they were still at MGM. The film will be showing on Turner Classic Movies early in the morning of Tuesday Sept. 20 at 12:15 a.m. Eastern Time. Or if you prefer, late Monday night. In any case, TCM only runs the film every few years, so you might want to catch it if you're interested. Below is an excerpt from the animated sequence.

Here's an oddity. The trailer for MGM's 1935 feature No More Ladies starts and ends with an animated Leo the Lion. According to Steve Stanchfield of Thunderbean Animation , the animator is Bill Nolan, a veteran of the silent era whose previous job was at the Lantz studio in the early '30s. The voice, of course, is by Billy Bletcher, who voiced the Big Bad Wolf in Disney's The Three Little Pigs and also did cartoon voices for Warner Bros. ( Little Red Riding Rabbit ). (Link via The Golden Age Cartoon Forum .)

This Tuesday, March 24, Turner Classic Movies will be running four and a half hours saluting the work of animation director Chuck Jones. The complete schedule is here . Highlights include the TV premiere of the documentary Chuck Jones: Memories of Childhood , as well as such noted cartoons as What's Opera Doc? , Duck Amuck , One Froggy Evening. The evening will also include early works, such as Jones directorial debut The Night Watchman , as well as Prest-O Change-O and Elmer's Candid Camera , two early steps in the evolution of Bugs Bunny. TCM will also screen The Phantom Tollbooth , Jones' feature, based on the book by Norton Juster, made for MGM. The entire program will be repeated twice during the evening, followed by 1001 Arabian Nights , a UPA feature starring Mr. Magoo and directed by veteran Disney director Jack Kinney.

This 1932 photo was taken in front of the Charles Mintz studio. Standing, left to right: Harry Love, Preston Blair, Allen Rose. Kneeling: Al Eugster. Preston Blair is a name that should be known to everyone in the animation business, if only because he wrote one of the first books on how to animate. That book has remained in print for around 60 years, which speaks to its usefulness. Even if you're not in the animation business, you've undoubtedly seen some of Blair's work. He animated on "The Dance of the Hours" and "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" in Fantasia , did some owl animation in Bambi , and worked for Tex Avery at MGM, where his most famous animation is of Red, the girl who prompted sexual fireworks from Avery's wolf character. Tex Avery Uploaded by Texwolf This letter was in response to my questions about his time at MGM. The hand-written comment at the end of the third paragraph says "against Harman Ising." Click the pages t...