This is about the so-called "catalytic personality." In entertainment this would describe people who are lucky in the sense that great things just seem to happen when they're around. Everybody just seems to do their best work when this kind of person's near, even if they're not working on the same project. Lorne Michaels, the producer of Saturday Night Live, is reputed to have had that quality. Very often the catalyst gets overlooked on the screen credits, yet the project would have been much poorer without him.
Clampett (director of all the cartoons on this page, save the stiff Daffy cartoon above) strikes me as someone who was a catalytic personality. Did he create Bugs Bunny? I'm not aware that any single person did, Bugs appears to have had several fathers (especially Tex), but it's impossible to imagine Bugs arising without Bob's influence, at least indirectly. Things happened around Bob. Look at the vibrancy of the other pictures on this page. What does that tell you about someone like Bob?
But this isn't a piece about Clampett, it's about catalytic personalities in general. It's sad to realize that catalytic personalities are so often overlooked and under-rated. There's no screen credit that reads: "The person who goaded, provoked, planted seeds, and gave away gags to friends that he would like to have kept for himself." That credit doesn't exist.
In animation a catalytic personality does more than contribute gags. His gags lead to something. They suggest a vision and and an over-all structure. You ask this kind of person for a gag, expecting to get something like, "How about if he steps on a rake?", and you instead get a gag that suggests a unique character doing something that only that character would do. You get an action that suggests a new way of pacing the scene, maybe the whole cartoon. The gag forces you to re-evaluate your whole way of looking at what you're doing. Catalytic personalities like to wrap up their gags in something larger and more useful.
One of the reasons catalytics can be so helpful is that they're constantly running story ideas and character types through their minds. These people don't offer gags, they offer pre-thought out worlds. The gag is often something deep that's been simmering in the pot for years. It may be a fragment of a structure they'd been painstakingly building for their own use. The risk they run is that you'll run away with the larger idea the gag implies, and then they won't be able to use it themselves. These are generous people who take big risks for no credit.
The person I know who best fits this description is John Kricfalusi. Things mysteriously happen around John. People get lucky around him. Ideas somehow improve. The man has contributed millions of dollars worth of ideas to projects all around town, but is probably officially credited mostly in the cartoons he's made himself.
I wonder what other people this would apply to. The big names are obvious but I'm thinking of less well-known names like Bill (Bob?)Nolan who worked on the early Lantz Oswalds.
This is about the so-called "catalytic personality." In entertainment this would describe people who are lucky in the sense that great things just seem to happen when they're around. Everybody just seems to do their best work when this kind of person's near, even if they're not working on the same project. Lorne Michaels, the producer of Saturday Night Live, is reputed to have had that quality. Very often the catalyst gets overlooked on the screen credits, yet the project would have been much poorer without him.
Clampett (director of all the cartoons on this page, save the stiff Daffy cartoon above) strikes me as someone who was a catalytic personality. Did he create Bugs Bunny? I'm not aware that any single person did, Bugs appears to have had several fathers (especially Tex), but it's impossible to imagine Bugs arising without Bob's influence, at least indirectly. Things happened around Bob. Look at the vibrancy of the other pictures on this page. What does that tell you about someone like Bob?
But this isn't a piece about Clampett, it's about catalytic personalities in general. It's sad to realize that catalytic personalities are so often overlooked and under-rated. There's no screen credit that reads: "The person who goaded, provoked, planted seeds, and gave away gags to friends that he would like to have kept for himself." That credit doesn't exist.
In animation a catalytic personality does more than contribute gags. His gags lead to something. They suggest a vision and and an over-all structure. You ask this kind of person for a gag, expecting to get something like, "How about if he steps on a rake?", and you instead get a gag that suggests a unique character doing something that only that character would do. You get an action that suggests a new way of pacing the scene, maybe the whole cartoon. The gag forces you to re-evaluate your whole way of looking at what you're doing. Catalytic personalities like to wrap up their gags in something larger and more useful.
One of the reasons catalytics can be so helpful is that they're constantly running story ideas and character types through their minds. These people don't offer gags, they offer pre-thought out worlds. The gag is often something deep that's been simmering in the pot for years. It may be a fragment of a structure they'd been painstakingly building for their own use. The risk they run is that you'll run away with the larger idea the gag implies, and then they won't be able to use it themselves. These are generous people who take big risks for no credit. 
The person I know who best fits this description is John Kricfalusi. Things mysteriously happen around John. People get lucky around him. Ideas somehow improve. The man has contributed millions of dollars worth of ideas to projects all around town, but is probably officially credited mostly in the cartoons he's made himself. 
I wonder what other people this would apply to. The big names are obvious but I'm thinking of less well-known names like Bill (Bob?)Nolan who worked on the early Lantz Oswalds.
12 comments:
Grim Natwick was a catalyst to animation, but in a little different way. At just about every studio he worked at, he trained an assistant who went on to do great things... (Walter Lantz, Marc Davis, Chuck Jones, Irv Spence, Steven Bosustow, etc.)
While he was pouring his ideas into the films, he was also pouring them into brains of the kids he worked with. That is incredibly generous, and it ended up affecting the whole animation industry.
See ya
Steve
Hey, Eddie, I wanted to let you know that I quoted you on cartoonbrew.com in the Mario thread and I hope you don't mind. I don't think the comment is posted yet.
I am wondering, maybe you are a catalytic personality
Mr. Uncle Eddie ? this blog speaks wonders.
Oh definitely, and it's true in everything.
Melvin Millar seems to be an overlooked name. His stories are pure warner and very distinctive. And his story drawings are very nice, too.
Rod Scribner seemed to improve the work of every director he worked for. Robert Gribbroek did great work for the best Chuck Jones cartoons. I don't know much about the other studios but Shamus Culhane and Grim Natwick seem to have kicked things up a notch.
Perhaps Walt Disney had the same thing in mind when he raided other studios in the early 30's?
It's true what you say, Eddie. I thought I knew everything about John ( or at least a fair amount ), but everything I credited him with was part and parcel to his own cartoons. I didn't know about all the advances and trends to television animation he evoked, or his triumphs with Rough Draft in Korea, for example.
In Hollywood, I would elect Judd Apatow as being a vibrant catalytic personality. He may not make movies that you enjoy, but a lot of people have made advances with his help, however large or small.
- trevor.
I think that Bugs Hardaway qualifies as a "Catalytic Personality in Animation". He worked with and for Disney very early and good things happened. He worked with the charaters Elmer Fudd and Daffy Duck and good things happened. Most accounts credit him as having created Bugs Bunny and Woody Woodpecker, again good things happened. He was a longtime best friend of Ube Iwerks, more good things. He also fought the Germans in France during WW1 and good came from that. Although perhaps not the most credited or critically acclaimed, he was present during many positive developments.
An interesting concept, Eddie. It seems this is something we should all aspire to. The Selfless Guru. But our desire and fear get in the way. Or perhaps it's just not in some people's nature, while others have it so undeniably that they're compelled to express it. I suppose the fear that hinders this, is the fear of not having enough good ideas, so we want to keep them to ourselves. Yet part of me has a feeling that this very fear may hinder our creative selves and only helps to ensure our ideas be limited. Within the release of creativity can emerge even more ideas. Inspiration and action begetting more inspiration and action. And somewhere among the storm of expression, divine relationships are revealed and one can see the higher purpose of something so seemingly small as "the gag."
Using your analysis, Eddie Selzer could be considered a catalyst but in a somewhat reciprocal way. He told people to do things and they did the exact opposite. I think we've all heard the examples of this before (Sylvetser & Tweety, Pepe Le Pew, the Tazmanian Devil, etc.)
I would think Mel Brooks would be a catalyst for films. Around him, ideas like "Blazing Saddles" and "Young Frankenstein" changed from mere skeletal outlines into ball-bustingly funny comedies. He alsochanged the nature of comedy films, for better or worse.
Otto Messmer?
Steve: Fascinating!
Jorge: Thanks for telling me. I felt the same way you did.
Boo: Who's Judd Apatow? I don't know the name.
Lee-Roy: Interesting point. Everybody in the industry has to struggle with that. I like the way Duke Ellington handled this problem. I posted about it more than a year ago but maybe it's worth talking about it again.
Seattle: I never thought of Hardaway as being exceptional, but maybe I'm wrong.
Great post!
I'd love to read your analyses and opinions about specific classic cartoons in the future!
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