I'M SICK AS A DOG!

I'm so sick from the dizzy pills I'm taking that it's an effort just to sit at the keyboard and type. I hope no one will be offended if I post some of my old drawings without comment.

THEORY CORNER MAILBAG # 3A

MY FIRST ANIMATION JOB

MY INITIATION INTO THE ANIMATION INDUSTRY

On the strength of my portfolio I got my first storyboard job way back in 1979 at Filmation, the studio that did Fat Albert and Flash Gordon for Saturday Morning TV. I was in heaven! I showed up my first day, eager to work, pockets full of sharpened pencils and a cumbersome, giant mirror because the animation books always showed the Golden-Age animators mugging into a mirror and I didn't want to look like a piker by showing up without one.

I think my boss-to-be was amused by all this becuase he made a big show of finding a place for me to sit. "Leeeeet's see...wheeeere shall we put Mr. Fitzgerald?" I've got it! We'll put him in with Paul Fennell!" Every face in the vicinity dropped. People said things like, "No! No! No! It's too cruel!" and "No! Even this kid doesn't deserve that!" I had no idea what they were talking about. 

They introduced me to Paul and he seemed likable enough. He'd been in animation since the days of rubber hose. Now he seemed to be in his eighties, just storyboarding away, biding his time till a late retirement. On the way out my boss said, "Paul's supposed to take heart pills every day but some days he forgets. If he ever forgets, and you find out about it, get out of the office! Work somewhere else! If you don't you'll be sorry!" I couldn't even imagine why he said that.

In the following weeks I immersed myself in the life of the studio. The company did everything under one roof: ink & paint, animation, assistant animation, layout...everything! Every moment I wasn't working I would walk around the halls on some pretext just revelling in the thrill of being with other cartoonists. There were times I thought I'd just burst with happiness. Also during this time one of my new friends introduced me to Bob Clampett cartoons. The effect, to put it mildly, was not subtle. Even though I'd only been working in the industry a few weeks I went around the studio telling the old animators that they were doing everything wrong, that Clampett and Scribner were the only ones who knew how animation works. This didn't make me popular with the old animators and they all complained to Paul.

One day I overheard Paul tell one of his friends that he forgot to take his heart medicine. I didn't think anything of it because it was the day of my first deadline and I was working feverishly against the clock. Paul by this time had gotten in the habbit of going into long, daily rants about what a bum Clampett was and what a punk I was and this day was no different. Usually I listened politely but my first deadline was hours away and I was afraid I'd end up on the street if I missed it. I just couldn't think with Paul's rant going on! Impulsively I turned around and shook my finger at Paul, "Paul, you've gotta give me a break here! I've gotta get this board done!"

I thought Paul was on the other side of the room but it turns out that he was right behind me. When I shook the finger I was suprised to see it happen an inch away from his face. He did a cross-eyed look at the finger then at me then hauled off and BAM!, punched me hard, right on the nose!

I was shocked. Shocked and hurt! The nose is a sensitive spot! I held my bleeding nose yelling something like, "Paul! Are you nuts!? Why did you do that!?" Paul was red-faced, caught up in the fury of it all. On the way out of the room he shouted, "Because Clampett is a punk and so are you!Punk! Punk! Punk! I'm gonna tell my friend Bill Hanna about you. You'll never get a job at that studio!"

Later on at lunch a couple of artist friends said they thought I was a wuss for not hitting him back. A wuss? Because I didn't hit a man who was a half century older than me!? That didn't make any sense. What I was really worried about was that I'd be blackballed from the animation industry. All my friends were of one opinion about that. It was probaly an empty threat and Paul probably didn't even know Bill Hanna. They pretty well talked me into their point of view when I returned to the studio and found Paul on the hall phone saying, "Here comes Fitzgerald now! Never hire that bum! he's a dirty-no-good punk!"

Well, I have to end the story somewhere and this is as good a place as any.

HOMEWORK SUCKS!

Let's face it, homework is a drag. After a long day of fire drills, fund raising drives, political correctness lectures, personal anecdotes by teachers, threats,punishments, uninspired lectures, tedious waiting for things, stupid questions by other students, pointless discussions about the way things are organized, evasion of bullies and trying to fit in with your peers, a kid wants to be free. He wants to indulge his romantic soul. He wants to be with the friends who actually like him and don't try to humiliate him. What's wrong with that?

The way I look at it, the grammar school people had their shot at the kid for five or six hours. If they wasted that time with boring triviality then that's not the kid's fault. Six hours a day in school is plenty of time to impart a good education. Teachers who dropped the ball and failed to do that shouldn't expect kids to make up for that by taking responsibility for their own education at night. Homework is a bad teacher's crutch. As long as teachers have this crutch they have no incentive to improve their classroom technique.


Homework also undermines the family. After a hard day at the job parents want to come home and have fun with their kids. Who can do that when the specter of homework looms? Homework forces parents to become jailers. How can you bond with your kid if you feel every night has to be devoted to threatening them and making them feel guilty about homework. ? No wonder kids retreat into their rooms every night as soon as they're old enough to know the score..

I know what you're thinking, that we live in an advanced society and that education, including homework, fuels that advancement. Well, I guess if I really thought the system produced those kind of results I'd buy into it regardless of the drawbacks. But I don't think the results are so impressive. We waste people and we waste time. Ask yourself this: why does it take 12 years to teach a kid the 3 R's plus a smattering of science and social science? Remember that the first 2 R's (reading and writing) are addressed to a kid who's already a fluent speaker of the language! Why does it take 12 long. long years to do that? You should be a doctor after 12 years of education!

I want to see everybody who wants it get a good, basic classical education. Let's confine homework to the subjects that absolutely require it and improve what's happening in the classroom during the day.!

MY FAVORITE LORRE AND LUGOSI MOVIES

Without a doubt the best weird, vulnerable, sickly little psychopath in film is Peter Lorre and the best Peter Lorre performance is in "Stranger on the Third Floor."




A lot of Theory Corner readers will prefer "M", which is a terrific film no doubt , but I'm isolating the performance here. Lorre's performance in Stranger is far, far better and much more caricatured than the one he did in M! I always admired Norma Jean for creating the character of Marylon Monroe and the whole genre of the blonde bombshell. In the same way I admire Lorre for creating the genre of the fragile, sickly, friendly-when-he's-not-trying-to-kill-you psychopath. This performance has to be seen to be believed!



As a matter of fact Tom McKimson liked it so much that he parodied it in "Birth of a Notion."




The other film I'd like to serve up is Lugosi's black & white version of "The Raven." In this film Lugosi finally got a sympathetic director who realized what beautiful word music the actor was capable of. Lugosi was one of the greatest screen actors of his time but you'd never know it if all you saw was "Dracula." This is by far Lugosi's best film and it gets my highest recommendation. (Blogger may delete my picture of Lugosi but I'll let the paragaph stand).

THEORY CORNER POUR LES FEMMES (NO MEN ALLOWED!) 3

MY INTERVIEW WITH UNCLE EDDIE

by Buelah Pithfuzzy

"Pack up! We're going to send you to Uncle Eddie's House!" the TC for Women editor told me. Wonderfull! Being a fan of the famous theoretcian and renowned ladies' man, I was excited more than I can say!

Pulling up the driveway of his famous villa, I didn't know what to expect. Would he bowl me over with theories? Would he try to seduce me? As it happened, he kissed my hand, which I suddenly realized was exactly what I had wanted him to do. He seemed to be sensitive to every nuance, knowing without having to be told what a woman wants and needs.

Inside we sat down and, while sipping some of the most delicious tap water I ever tasted, I commenced the interview:


TC for W: "You stood on the hood of my car when I pulled into the driveway. Would you say you're impulsive?"

Uncle Eddie: "Not impulsive. Just...how do you Americans say it?...just happy to
be in the presence of a beautiful woman. Excuse me please, while I
stand and adjust the tension on my male bikini...there. Next
question?"


TC for W: "What was the longest time you ever spent making love?"

Uncle Eddie: "One night and a day. More than that and I start getting itchy."

TC for W: "Do you prefer stupid women or intelligent women?"

Uncle Eddie: "Oh, intelligent women, definitely. And if they have buck teeth, then
so much the better. But it's not the teeth so much as what a buck-
toothed woman has in her eyes, the buckness of soul, you know
what I mean?"

TC for W: "Do you ever cook for your women?"

Uncle Eddie: "Oh, yes! That is my pleasure! I make a delicious stew consisting of
oysters, catnip, Viagra and vodka. The woman holds the funnel in
her mouth and I pour."

TC for W: "Are you offended when John K draws you like this (below)?


Uncle Eddie: "Let me see (puts on his glasses) ...Oh, that John! He is such a
child."

TC for W: "Why do you think women are so attracted to you?"

Uncle Eddie: "I hope it's not because I'm a cartoonist or any status thing like
that. I hope it's because they find me a mystery."

TC for W: "Are you a mystery?"

Uncle Eddie: Well...heh, heh!...I won't say yes and I won't say no."

SHODDY, POST-SURGERY ARTICLE #6A

A CHINESE BRIDGE

Actually these are pictures of two similar bridges but I'm having trouble figuring out which close shot belongs to which bridge so, what the heck, for our purpose they're all the same bridge.




What a pleasure it must be to walk on this bridge! The texture and complexity of the wood, the beautiful proportions of the enclosed space, the way the outside world is framed and presented to the walker, the smells and sounds, the moving air....I'm always amazed that architects can repackage reality for us in such a pleasing way.

I love how each step forward reveals new details. I love the mystery of what's behind a corner being gradually unravelled. I love incompletely-glimpsed distant shapes that require us to make sense out of them.

I also like the way architects can make simple tasks, like crossing an obstacle to get to the other side, into profound and insightful experiences. I'll bet people decided to get married while crossing this bridge. I'll bet kids decided what they wanted to do with their lives while crossing the bridge to go to the store.

I love the lack of ornament. The structure itself is so beautiful that no ornament is needed! This is vernacular architecture meant for everyday use by ordinary people.

A glimpse up is like a glimpse into heaven, a reminder of the pleasure we take in the intellect of others and of how good it feels to be part of a community.

WHY I LIKE KATIE RICE'S GIRL DRAWINGS

I don't know if I'm up to the task of explaining why I like Katie's drawings so much. After all she draws beautiful girls wearing girlie fashions and I'm a guy. Guy's aren't interested in fashion! But I am interested in ideas. I love it when someone with talent seduces me into liking something that I wouldn't ordinarily like. It may be something I don't want to like, like fashion, but these seducers invest their their world and their vision with so much magic that I'm drawn in against my will. Katie's one of those people.

Maybe it's because her girls are so doggone happy. Katie makes it seem like being a girl is fun and I guess we're all magnetically drawn to people who are having fun. Even more important, she knows how to draw fun. It's hard. I've tried. It's not enough to draw smiles on people. The quality of the line itself has to be fun. The lines have to playfull. The shapes have to be playfull. The reader has to believe the artist had fun drawing it.



On the other hand, the lines have to have confidence. Most people are intuitively repelled by lines that appear aimless and pointless. You have to know what you want and in a playfull way not know what you want at the same time. It's a tough balance to maintain. You can see why artists like Katie are so rare.


One of the things that makes fun so hard to draw is that the mediums we all work in are so resistant to that subject. All media express some things better than other things. Television seems to favor intimate, Jay Leno-type shows and film seems to favor car chases and broad action. In the same way pen drawings seem to favor the grotesque and pencil favors super-realistic drawings. Whenever you try to draw fun, like Katie does, you'll find the medium you're using attempting to pull you away to its own bias. Katie imposed her will on the medium and tamed it.

OK, I've been saying nice things about Katie and I feel it's my responsibility as an impartial observer to try to find a dark side. If there is a dark side in Katie's future it may come about because she's a thoughtfull person and may one day wake up thinking that she's lived her life wrong and that it's an artist's duty to portray famine and pestilence. It's the serious disease and it's ruined many an artist. She says this is impossible. I hope she's right.

SHODDY, POST-SURGERY ARTICLE #5

My Four Weeks as a Gag Man

Gagman is the most coveted job in the industry but jobs of that description are rarer than hen's teeth and tend not to last very long. A gagman isn't a story man, that's somebody else's responsibility. A gagman's job is to come up with visual jokes that can plug into a pre-existing story. In other words, you get paid to be funny all day. While the poor story people labor over how to stage nine emotionally complicated characters in a scene the gagman draws two people who hate each other but have to wear the same pair of pants. Nice job if you can get it!

Once I almost got a gag job working with a famous gagman of the past, who'll remain nameless here for a reason that'll become obvious. My producer/benefactor knocked on the famous man's door and introduced me as...well, it was very flattering,...and ended with, "You two probably have a lot to talk about! I'm going to leave you two lovable nuts together so you can get to know each other!" And then, mischievously on the way out: "Now don't laugh too loud now!"

Up till now the famous man was beaming with the friendliest smile I'd ever seen but the moment the door closed he raced up to me with clenched fists (OK, I added the fists) and leaned into me with a grimace that was unmistakable. It said wordlessly: "Look buddy, There's only room for one lovable nut here and I'm it! Now beat it!" I was shocked into stammering! Eventually the benefactor came back and hugged us both and said he wished he could have been a fly on the wall so he could have heard the jokes the two of us must have come up with. The famous man beamed a sunny smile and an hour later I ended up on the street, unemployed.

I tell you this so you'll have some idea how difficult it is to get lovable nut jobs. Even lovable nuts don't want to see other lovable nuts.

The time I actually got paid for it only lasted for four weeks but it was a dream. There I was at the same studio that pioneered the concept of gagmen for animation and... Sigh! It looks like I used up my available space with the digression about the famous man. I'll pick up this story later!

Oh, yes! The drawings above are rejected fragments I did from the paid gagman gig.

SHODDY, POST-SURGERY ARTICLE #4

This is a story I've been dying to illustrate with drawings of my own but since that's not possible right now I'll let Norman Rockwell sub for me. Here's the story of ...

MY FIRST DATE

I was in 8th grade and I finally got up the courage to ask Patty Fulweider to go to the movies with me. She was a real nice girl from a good family: pretty and shy, even more shy than I was. Maybe it was her first date too. I don't remember a word of what must have been the excrutiatingly awkward conversation, I only remember how wonderful it was to be alone with a real live girl, someone with thin, tiny little wrists, a fuzzy sweater and a gold locket on an unbelievably thin chain. "Were girls really the same species as boys?", I wondered. They seemed so different!

Inside the theater we watched the movie while nervously shoveling popcorn into our faces. It was something to do with our hands and I wondered what we would do when the popcorn ran out. Really, I'd gotten much more than my money's worth already. Just sitting next to all that mysterious femininity was almost more than I could bear! Even so, I was curious about that other side of girls that guys talk about...the PHYSICAL side!

After about half an hour I made my move. I pretended to cough into my hand and instead of returning it to my lap I put it on the seat behind Patty! Painfully I inched it up to to the far shoulder of her fuzzy sweater and let it rest there. I half expected her to slap me but she didn't! I didn't look at her but I could tell she continued to stare rigidly ahead at the movie screen just like I was. I was in heaven! My first date and I had already scored a shoulder!

Now I was only in 8th grade and it didn't occur to me to push my luck any farther. After all, I'd already exceeded my expectations by a mile! I decided to revel in the luck I already had. Still staring straight ahead I squeezed the shoulder and sort of played with it a lot. I mushed it and puffed it up, I twirled my fingers in the angora, I grabbed it and sort of jiggled it. I was having a wonderful time till it occurred to me that you could never do any of that with a guy's shoulder. Guys have solid shoulders. This girl appeared to be boneless!

I was profoundly shaken! What this meant was that girls don't have the same kind of skeletons as boys! Their shoulders must have lots of little bones like boys have in their wrists. Why hadn't anyone told me this before!? I wiggled the shoulder this way and that and , sure enough, it was soft as soft could be. Finally I could hold it in no longer and I turned around to Patty to ask her to explain to me why girls don't have shoulders. To my amazement she was stiff as a board, staring straight ahead, and frozen out of her mind with fear. I looked at my hand and it wasn't on her shoulder...it was on her breast! I did what I'd call now a Tex Avery take and whipped my hand away like a bullet!I didn't know what to do so I did what she did and withdrew into myself, staring rigidly ahead at the screen for the rest of the insufferably long show.

I haven't the slightest idea what happened after that! My mind is a blank! Somehow we made it home, that's all I know! I don't know if I ever saw the girl again.

OK, that was my first date.

What was yours like?

SHODDY, SECOND-RATE, POST-SURGERY ARTICLE #2

By the time you read this I will have had my eye cut up and I'll be on my sofa sporting a towel-size bandage on my face. I probably won't be in a mood to post anything much so here's the solution, a dip into Uncle Eddie's extensive photo archive. I call these...


MY ''INDIANA JONES'' PICTURES

The man in the first picture (above) is an executioner at the court the court of an Indian maharaja, circa 1910. All of these pictures were taken in the i910s and 20s.

Above, 3 Sikh police officers from the Punjab. Below a Cambodian monarch.



Above a somewhat European-looking Algerian woman. Possibly her mother was a European captured and enslaved by Barbery pirates. Below: I don't know. I've never seen buildings like this before.



Above: a Bhuddist temple in India. Below: a chieftain in Gambia

Above: a sultan of the island of Celebes, surrounded by his bodyguard. Below: a narrow rattan bridge spans a chasm across a Formosan jungle.

Above: an island chief in the Solomons. Below:?

Above: war canoe, Solomon Islands

SHODDY, SECOND-RATE, POST-SURGERY ARTICLE #1

I'm recovering from cataract surgery and so have to foist woefully inadequate and esoteric posts on you for a few days. My hunch is that a few readers are going to like them. The first one has to do with...

THE ASTONISHING DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ANCIENT AND RENNAISANCE SCULPTURE

The top five scuptures were executed in Rome sometime in the 1st or 2nd century A.D. The bottom two are Rennaisance scuptures by Donatello and Michaelangelo. Look at the difference! The Romans seem stern, manly and efficient. The Rennaisance heads seem thoughtful, sensitive and subject to doubt. What a difference! Click on the pictures and see for yourself!







Here are the two Rennaisance sculptures. What are these heads trying to tell us? Would modern heads resemble either of them?