40TH Anniversary of My First TV Series in Animation

September 9th, 2018 marks the 40th Anniversary of the first animated show I worked on in Hollywood and at Hanna-Barbera, "The Godzilla Power Hour" (designed by Doug Wildey). I worked as an assistant animator on the show -- along with colleagues Tom Sito, Mauro Maressa, Rik Maki, Bob Wilkie, Rich Bowman, James Tim Walker, Mark Kirkland, Dennis Venizelos, Joanna Romersa, Bronnie Barry, Will Meugniot, Moe Gollub and many others.  Animators on the series included Volus Jones, Dave Tendlar, Rudy Cataldi, Carlo Vinci, Kenny Muse, Lefty Callihan, Bob Hathcock, Mitch Rochon. Al Gaivoto and Roger Chiasson, and our bosses Bill Keil, Bob Goe and Jay Sarbry.

  

 

"The Godzilla Power Hour" also included a separate action adventure franchise entitled "Jana of the Jungle."  Jana -- a female Tarzan with a more refined vocabulary -- was fun to draw.   


 

Fun to draw, yes.  But not always easy to draw.  

And Godzilla's line work was so thick that the xerox machine couldn't properly print it onto the cel.  Alison Leopold and the crew in the ink and paint department had to paint in a lot of the lines. 

As one of the greenest of the new recruits at the Hanna-Barbera studio, I had a lot to learn.  I'd stay late and take work home over the weekends just to keep my footage up high enough to not get the boot.  As assistants, we worked for the animators, and some of the animators, all seasoned vets, drew very rough poses and it wasn't always easy to figure out how to clean up their poses.  The following sketch pretty much summarizes my first few weeks on the job. 

I had A LOT to learn...