CLAMPETT AFTER WARNER BROTHERS

Fans frequently ask, "What happened to Clampett after he left Warner Bros?" Here's an article by Milt Gray that attempts to answer that. Be sure to click to enlarge.

At first glance, it's hard to imagine why Bob left Warners. In his last year there he directed an almost unbroken string of masterpieces, including: "Piggy Bank Robbery," "Book Review," and "Kitty Kornered." He had an ideal situation there, with Scribner and McKimson animating for him, Warren Foster writing, Mel Blanc doing voices, and the services of Carl Stalling and the Warner Brothers house orchestra...the same orchestra used by Steiner, Waxman and Korngold. So what happened? Why did he leave?

It's my belief that Jones and Freleng convinced the studio that Clampett's flamboyant approach to films was incompatible with the new, more sedate and formulaic studio style that these directors favored. Leon Schlesinger had recently left, and without a protector, Bob was left to face the wolves alone. This is pure and utter speculation on my part, without a shred of evidence, but it gels with my understanding of big studio politics.

I talked to Milt about this and he underscored what was in his article, namely that Bob left because he was hot to start his own cartoon studio the way Lantz and Disney had, and that he was anxious to get in on the ground floor of the new medium, television. Bob had witnessed the birth of radio which had a decade of extreme creativity before executives moved in and put a wet blanket on it, and we can guess that he thought TV would experience a similar creative spurt.

Actually TV had only a brief creative life at the start because it inherited an already existing executive infrastructure from radio. Poor Bob collided with these people early and was forced to make extensive changes in the animated Beany and Cecil at his own expense.

So who's right? Milt or me? Milt knows more about all this than I do, and had a much longer personal association with Bob. My own belief is that we're both right, but my version of the story rests on assumptions and I won't blame anyone who remains skeptical.

Two years after Bob left Warners he got an offer from Republic to take charge of their cartoon division, and make cartoons there. He was promised creative freedom but that never really materialized, and Republic...for reasons having nothing to do with Bob...decided to stop making theatrical cartoons. The closest thing to a finished cartoon in his own style was "Grand Old Nag (above)," which was so compromised and unClampett-like that he declined to use his real name in the direction credit. You can see this film on YouTube, and a version with commentary on Cartoon Brew.

Clampett's next endeavor was Beany and Cecil, and that's mostly what Milt writes about below. The article first appeared in Apatoons magazine.















That's it for the article, but there's more to say. The long awaited "Beany and Cecil Special Edition Volume 2" DVD should be in the stores on September 8th!



But why wait for the stores when you can buy Volume 2 right now from the Beany and Cecil web site? Actually, you can also get Volume 1 there. Rob Clampett says he found a limited supply of Volume 1 unopened in the family warehouse. He's offering to sell one per customer to anyone who buys a copy of Volume 2. Volume 2 sells for $24.95 + Shipping. Volumes 1 & 2 (purchased together) sell for $54.95 + Shipping. Wow! What a deal! Volume 1 is long out of print and gets high prices on ebay. Here's a chance to get it for 25 bucks!

Info on the contents can be had from the new Beany and Cecil web site: www.beanyandcecil.com

Volume 1 was worth twice the price for the special features alone, and Volume 2 promises to be a similar bargain. I've heard the audio history on Volume two, and it's riveting!

CLAMPETT'S "OLD GRAY HARE"

A quick disclaimer: every shot and clip here was stolen from John K's blog, the 12/8/08 installment of "John K Stuff. " John delivered a marvelous analysis of this scene from "The Old Gray Hare," which I won't attempt to improve on.  To tell the truth, I have no idea what I want to say about this animation, I'm only writing because it's one of my all-time favorite Clampett scenes, and I can't let the occasion of seeing it discussed go without comment.

http://www.cartoonthrills.org/blog/Clampett/45OldGrayHare/bugsdeath1short.mov

This is the famous Elmer head roll, animated by Bob McKimson. Bugs is brilliant as the dying rabbit, but the scene is stolen by Elmer's reactions. Elmer underplays the scene, and Bugs overplays it, and yet our eyes are mostly on Elmer...proof, if it was needed, that good reactions are reliable scene stealers.

A lot of directors like to play reactions on a one-shot, which is usually a mistake. People like to see the give and take between the action and re-action, and cutting is a distraction. I remember that Jackie Gleason almost always did his slow burns in two-shots.

Elmer slowly rolls his head right and left in perspective. 2D animators hate this because flaws in the inbetweens always show up when you go this slow. This didn't deter McKimson who was a killer draughtsman.

There are so many delights in Elmer's character design. The big hat emphasizes the head rolls nicely. McKimson could have gone for a perspective distortion by leaning the hat far into camera as it rolled, but he wisely underplayed it. Come to think of it, the whole character design is an example of underplaying the extreme and flamboyant elements. The huge head and tiny, peanut body are sooooo graphically drastic, but Clampett softens them, makes them appealing.

I love the way Elmer reacts to what Bugs is saying. Whenever Bugs has an accent in his animation, Elmer does a quick recoil then drifts back to his previous pose. I love the hand hesitantly patting Bugs' stomach. I love the way Elmer looks offscreen when the delusional Bugs points something out, then drifts back to his original pose. Drifting back after a quick movement is a powerful technique. I love the way Elmer looks at Bugs with those impassive, old-people's eyes. I don't think I've ever seen those kind of eyes in any other Hollywood cartoon.

In the first three pictures at the top, I love the way Elmer seems to be studying Bugs. I'm getting off the subject, but in real life I love the way an irritated person will sometimes study the guy who's irritating him. He'll study him like a scientist for a moment, and it all seems so academic and scholarly, then all of a sudden the irritated person will leap up and try to strangle the other guy. I love it when people on the street try to study each other.

It's amazing that Clampett, who has a reputation for being wild and over-the-top, is also the master of subtle, under-the-top, as in this sequence. Clampett makes you laugh and cry, always in the same cartoon. John K is the same way. No doubt John was influenced by cartoons like this, where subtle acting and broad action go hand in hand.

MILT'S CLAMPETT ARTICLE (CONCLUSION)

An awful lot of Theory Corner people also read John K's blog, so I'll assume that people here are familiar with the excellent article, "Milt Gray on Clampett" that was serialized there recently. If you're not, then try the June 3 and May 12 installments at http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/

Anyway, if you're like me you were frustrated beyond endurance when John wasn't able to run the final installment. He just didn't have time. Well, I have time, so here it is, complete with pictures chosen by the author. It's a preeeety interesting piece, something that oughta stir things up a bit. Enjoy!



MILT GRAY ON CLAMPETT (CONCLUSION)

In 1941 Bob is finally rewarded for his successes -- he is given the best color unit when Tex Avery leaves to go to M-G-M. Bob’s first cartoons are completing the cartoons that Tex had begun. Since it takes about nine months to complete a single cartoon, and a cartoon is in each stage of production (story, design and recording, layout, animation, inbetweening, etc.) only about five to six weeks, that means that each director has at least a half dozen cartoons in production at any given time, each one in a different stage of production. So Bob inherited several Avery-created cartoons, which share Avery’s and Bob’s sensibilities to some degree. But once Bob begins cartoons created entirely by himself, he sets a level of creativity and originality that has never been equaled. Every Clampett Warner cartoon from this time on is a unique new subject. On those rare occasions that Clampett does use an established formula -- like Bugs racing the tortoise -- he adds some really over-the-top elements that lift the cartoon(s) to a whole new level.






Clampett was always reaching for the new and unexpected, and not just copying things that were well done before. He was always focused not only on fresh subjects, but also on eccentric (and precise) acting, and visual surprises for the audience. He was, in his heart, an enthusiastic entertainer.











He never took the easy way, and his animators had to share his ambition or be replaced by someone who was eager to do his very best. For example, Virgil Ross, an excellent animator, admitted many years later that although he liked Bob and admired his work, he just wasn’t willing to do all the ambitious things that Bob always asked for, and so Virgil volunteered to be traded into the Freleng unit where the standards were much lower and the work much easier.

The only other director at Warners to come close to Bob’s level of energy was Frank Tashlin, on his third stint at the Schlesinger Studio, from about 1942 to 1944. Friz and Chuck struggled to try to keep up, and were extremely relieved when Bob left Warners to pursue an independent career. In Bob’s absence, the energy in the Warner cartoons quickly dissipated, as Friz and Chuck relaxed by making mostly cartoons in which the characters just stand around and talk (like Duck, Rabbit, Duck).















Chuck Jones once commented on the Clampett cartoons: “Most filmmakers pace their films by starting with a relaxed tempo, introducing the characters, and then gradually increase the tempo until they reach the climax on a high crescendo. But Bob Clampett was different. Bob would start his films at the top -- and from there he would go up!”









I think one of the biggest reasons that Clampett has so seldom gotten the recognition he deserves, especially for his 1940s Warner cartoons, is that critics and cartoon historians (including myself) have been largely unable to even describe in words what Clampett excelled at. By contrast, Friz and Chuck were primarily concerned with “respectability”, and so whatever the “rules” of filmmaking were -- which were already described in words in books and magazine articles even by the mid 1930s, and therefore ready-made for critics and historians to reference -- Friz and Chuck were anxious to adhere to. Plus, Friz and Chuck were focused on a linear exposition of story structure, with dialog that defined character -- which is also easy for critics and historians to write about. Clampett was certainly aware of these “rules”, but did not make himself a slave to them. Instead, Clampett was much more of an innovator, and his innovations were largely in the visceral areas of expressive movement, and the use of color, sound and cutting, that convey or resonate emotions in non-literal, purely intuitive ways. He let himself be guided by his emotions as much as by his intellect. These are the things that make movies powerful, and unique from books (or even comic books), but they are almost impossible for critics or historians to describe in words. As a consequence, these achievements that Clampett excelled in are almost never written about, while the works of Chuck and Friz are easy to describe and to praise. This, then, has left Clampett relatively defenseless against Chuck’s smug accusations that “Clampett was an irresponsible renegade who never followed the rules.” Frankly, the “rules” are for beginners. =

[That's the end of the article, but you might be interested in a couple of captions Milt wrote for the final five pictures. Check them out below].









CAPTIONS:

About the pictures of Porky and the cats on the doorstep, Milt writes: "From Kitty Kornered: Clampett anticipates color with color: The open door is yellow, reflecting the warm light inside the house; the closed door is white, reflecting the cold light of the winter snow; but the inbetween door is green -- giving an extra snap to the changes of color."

About the final two pictures where the cat bashes into the closed door, Milt writes: "From Kitty Kornered: Two successive frames within the same scene: As the cat leaps at the door, the background changes perspective for additional impact to our senses."

CARTOONING LESSONS BY SCRIBNER AND CLAMPETT

I thought I'd do a whole post on the subject of Clampett's "Buckaroo Bugs," but I quickly realized that the cartoon is so rich that I could scarcely do justice to a whole sequence here, let alone the whole film. Maybe I'll focus in more narrowly, just on the cartooning in one of the sequences.

Clampett was lucky to have an animator, Rod Scribner, who was a terrific cartoonist as well as a brilliant animator. He could draw funny, he could move things funny, he could act a character and project a winning personality, and he had that indefinable thing that's so rare in the industry...charisma. Since Clampett had a lot of these virtues himself, the match was made in heaven.

The title card credits Manny Gould as the principal animator in this cartoon. I wish I could tell which scenes were his. I'm crediting Scribner with the animation here, because it looks like his style, but Clampett's practice of switching animators in mid-scene can make identification difficult.

Anyway, here's the cartoon, starting about a quarter of the way in. Bugs is pretending to be a bandit and has just denuded Red Hot Ryder with a magnet to the belt buckle.


Before we talk about the action, check out what's happening in the drawing above. Bugs is a big guy wearing a black mask, which is a strong graphic symbol denoting mystery and menace. Red Hot Ryder is a tiny little guy with panties and what appears to be woman's shoes (they're actually short boots).

It's a clash of opposites with big, pretending-to-be-mean Bugs attacking what looks like a poor little lady. A third element is the absurdly over-sized hat, which has a life of its own and threatens to overshadow whatever Bugs and the "lady" do.

Bugs makes like he's going to grapple with the little guy but instead comically attacks the guy's hat.


He pulls up on the hat and the little guy is pulled along with it. Look how inert the little guy is! It's funny to see a body that had a will and a structure a moment before, suddenly become a wet sack of potatoes. This is not only a funny thing to do, but it underlines the idea that gravity is attempting to hold everything down and sets up the gravity-gags to follow.

This is a good example of how exaggerated, cartooney handling -- the suddenly inert body -- makes for interesting animation possibilities. If I were an animator I'd kill to get scenes with gravity gags because they're fun and make use of the unique capabilities of animation. Don't expect to find gags like this in scripts written by non-artist writers.

BTW, the long, back part of the hat (above) is a great visual joke. Why are long, sagging things that stretch out behind us funny? Do they remind us of testicles or loaded baby diapers? I'm not sure.

Clampett was a visceral director. He did lots of gags about things that are funny for reasons that are difficult to put into words. Most other artists avoided gags like that but Clampett reveled in them. Life contains zillions of funny but hard to articulate anomalies, but among the Warner directors, only Clampett seemed to be interested in them.


Here (above) the hat as wet bed sheet (or pizza dough) is emphasized. Bugs' earnest, serious expression is a terrific contrast to the absurdity of it all.

How do you like the funny proportions in Ryder's body: a long torso, a bulbous round pelvis, then stubby little legs with girl shoes. Genius!


Bugs (above) suddenly covers Ryder with the stretched out hat.


The momentum (above) causes him to flip over.


Ryder (above) stands and flails around inside the hat.


Bugs (above) needs to run off screen to set up the next gag, but instead of going into an immediate run he instead flails around with Ryder for an instant. I had to cut frames to compress the action so you may not see the scramble here. I mention it because I like it when characters unexpectedly go in and out of synchronization with each other. You see it in Fred Astaire movies and it's devastatingly effective.


When it's time to leave bugs just leans into his run and is offstage in an instant.


More cute pantie shots (above). Notice that Ryder has stepped out of his pants while we was flailing.


He steps back into his pants, which for some inexplicable reason I find funny, and the hat brim takes over as the dominant funny element. Here the brim develops wings, sort of. I always find it funny when a comedic character has a suddenly billowing cape or a loose, blowing skirt. Maybe that's because you don't expect a fleshed-out, three-dimensional character to become, without warning, a graphic symbol.



The big, floppy brim (above) really dominates now. it's like a wet bed sheet.


Ryder (above) pushes up and it pops off.


Now it billows out (above) and settles down. Look at the oodles of energized space that's enclosed between the hat and the top of Ryder's head. Artists love stuff like this. We're constantly amazed at the efficacy of the tools at our command. Only a moment before, the scene was about how much like pizza dough the hat was. Now the scene is about the gracefulness of the falling hat and the power of unexpectedly enclosed and activated space.


Now the hat (above) goes back to its previous shape, which is delightfully drawn. Simultaneously we're reminded of how stupid-looking and funny Ryder is. This sets us up for a bunch of stupid poses that are coming shortly.

I'm just amazed at how frequently Scribner and/or Clampett change the focus of the gag within a scene. One thing is emphasized and then another, and yet the scene retains it's over-all unity of purpose.


I'd intended to comment on a the frames that follow but look how much space it's taken just to describe the few pictures we've seen so far. Clampett cartoons are so rich that you could spend hours analyzing simple actions.

I'll leave up the remaining frames without comment. Remember that I had to drop frames to compress the action.












Oops! I can't help but comment on this one (above)! Ryder puts down his guns and withdraws his hands. That doesn't sound like much, and it won't seem like much in still pictures like the one above, but when you see it in motion it's hilarious!

I associate this technique with Friz because he used it so often. He realized that the simple, understated act of picking things up and putting them down can be incredibly funny when it's done right.