The best Clampett story in print, the best one that I know about anyway, is in Stan Freberg's autobiography pictured above.
A lot of this happens near the KTLA lot (above), off Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood. KTLA is a lot bigger than it appears here but this frustratingly incomplete picture was the best I could get. Leon Schlesinger's outfit was on this lot when Warners owned it. I haven't been on the lot since Bob was alive but I vividly remember the tour he gave us. He bluffed his way past the guard at the gate and showed us around til the security people kicked us off. On the way out he showed us the empty spot in the parking lot where Termite Terrace used to be.Anyway, Stan was a writer and puppeteer on Bob's daily live-action puppet show, "Time for Beany." It was a tough job. When he and Daws Butler finished the show they'd take themselves full of sweat to a restaurant across the street, get a bite to eat, then get started writing the next show right there in the booth. Here's the way Stan tells it (click to enlarge)....
Is that not a great story!? This is one of several reasons why I think Bob had a large role to play in the creation of Bugs Bunny. More than any other Warners director or writer, Bob WAS Bugs in real life. The real Bob did an awful lot of the things Bugs would do.... like moving writer friends into parked cars and condemned buildings!
11 comments:
awwwww >.< i wanna read the rest of it.
it's so funny you'r right clampett sounds alot like bugs bunny.
it makes me wish i'd met him.
Definitely some Bugs in there. Also some Daffy. I can just picture him talking to the car's rightful owner: "Just leaving, okay? Sure appreciate the use of the hall. Hoo hoo! Hoo hoo! Hoo hoo!" and then bouncing, flipping and cartwheeling away.
No wonder most cartoons suck these days. No more balls-y, crazy people out there flim-flaming people to get the job done. I demand more flim-flamming!
Ehere did they set their bottled water and lattes while they were sitting in these cars?
And what is this "tpewriter" thing he keeps mentioning?
This story made no sense!
A cel painter hired as an extra for some of the faked 1940's home movie scenes used in "Bugs Bunny Superstar" (most of those scenes were Clampett's vintage footage but a very few were done in the seventies, with volunteers wearing period clothing)told me that Clampett asked her on the spur of the moment, with the camera running and on her, to paint a background. She said "But I don't have any bristol board to paint it on." Clampett quickly grabbed an 8 by 10 glossy, flipped it over and said "Use this!" And she did. Bob was always ready and willing to improvise, even as a senior citizen.
My adventures with Bob were just like that!
Those were great days!
I heard Freberg tell that same story at an animation event once. (After first making sure Bob Clampett's son wasn't in the audience.)
He didn't seem too fond of Clampett and refused to tell more anecdotes about him. He would only state that "Bob Clampett was a weird guy!" (I think he also mentioned Clampett's penchant for wearing sunglasses at night, too.) Freberg seemed to like Chuck Jones a lot, though.
what a great story!! does it continue?
Anon: Interesting story! I didn't know any of that footage was faked.
Julian: No, it doean't continue. The pages after this deal with other biographical details about Stan.
Now that is a cartoonist ! Weird and not afraid to be so.God I whish I met him.
Some of the cel painting shots were faked. But most of the stuff in "Bugs Bunny Superstar" was actual 1930's and 40's home movies. Fortunately for the industry, Clampett saved everything.
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