Friday, July 30, 2010

Scooby's First Wild Take


These are screen captures of Scooby's first wild take from the very first episode of Hanna-Barbera's "A Pup Named Scooby Doo."  The episode title:  "A Bicycle Built For Boo."  

The storyboard was by Scott Jeralds.  Glen Kennedy supervised the animation on the show at Cuckoo's Nest...and Glen personally animated this opening sequence.   

"Pup" was my first producing job.  I wanted to get it right, right out of the gate.  I knew the direction and timing on this would be crucial.  So I went to the best guy I knew for the job and I asked him to do it, as a favor.  He agreed...and for the next ten days, he locked himself in his office and directed and timed the daylights out of the entire show -- with his metronome swinging back and forth the whole time.   To finish the sheets, it took him over a week...and when he was done, he complained that it had been a ton of work.  But then he had to admit that he hadn't had so much fun in years.  

So who was the uncredited director and sheet timer of the first episode of "A Pup Named Scooby Doo?"

The guy who built and ran the place!  

The Academy Award-winning master cartoon director himself...

Bill Hanna!


                                             "A Pup Named Scooby Doo" (c) 2010 Hanna-Barbera & Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc.

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Animaniacs and the Nostalgia Critic

Recently, the Nostalgia Critic (AKA That Guy In The Glasses) conducted interviews with some of the mixed nuts behind Animaniacs (including John McCann, Paul Rugg and both Slappy and Skippy -- Sherri Stoner and Nate Ruegger).  In honor of that, I cleaned up this Slappy and Skippy cel set-up from the first season's promotional campaign -- and made sure it had that nostalgic sepia tone coloring.

That Guy in the Glasses told me that the Animaniacs piece will be broadcast  on August 10th.  (Hopefully, I can figure out how to send the video clips from the interview to his FTP site by then.) 


                                                                                                                       Animaniacs (C) 2010 Warner Bros.

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Story Basics: Beginning, Middle, End


                                              Companion Piece to "Drippy the Drop of Drool."

Here's a Rarity... .

"Histeria!" on the cover of Daily Variety. Unfortunately, most kids in our target audience did not subscribe to Variety.