The Country Cousin (1936) Breakdown + Mosaics

 

This month I was fully invested with classic disney media. I love alot of the characters, and love the entire style of it. Makes you feel sweet and heartwarming inside.

These are without a doubt the most creative, most pleasing character designs I ever seen in animation history. 

These model sheets helped me improve as a better artist. You'll be excited about the next drawing post. 

I love these models of Pete. While I normally have no opinion on his personality, he's very interesting to look at especially in his 40s cartoons. 

He's useful whenever I draw Ox Fisher.

Find this kid to be cute and well-drawn.

Today's cartoon of the day is The Country Cousin (1936) didn't think it was worth the academy award, but it's still a solid and interesting cartoon.

I'm not entirely going through all of this cartoon because I was investigating something new, called mosaics. These are really cool and worth exploring to see what animators did which scene. 

These pictures are discovered on this website. Here's the link to the original post where I downloaded these amazing pictures.

https://babbittblog.com/2013/03/30/country-cousin-draft-mosaic/

It's extremely fascinating and unique to see what people like best from cinema. The animation and scenery in this cartoon is gorgeous. 

The reason as to why I made this specific topic in the first place is the placement for the dates each animator was assigned to make a scene for. 

The Silly Symphonies were well known for having some complexity and creative ambition literally a few years before they were popular for their movies. 

While yes, short films are not as complicated or driven as feature-film making, it's still alot of work, and a good cast of animators.

In the beginning of the short, Marvin Woodward and Les Clark mostly take action to animate all of the frames. That's it. They are not credited in any of the last 30 seconds. In fact I love the final 30 seconds of this short the best. 

I dunno there's a right way to create a cartoon about a mouse exploring in a normal living house. But here it kinda doesn't work. It's still got some moments though so I wasn't too bored. 

This mouse is inspired by my own mouse, Giggles. It's very interesting. He has such a captivating and overlooked design. 

At least he has some likeabilty. He had a few merchandising efforts. Like this vinylmation figure I find genuinely cool.

Before I leave it here, here's 2 pictures I find pleasing and sure has a vibe to them.

The Best MGM Animator

When it comes to classic animators, I love alot of them. Rod Scribner, John Sibley, Ward Kimball, Preston Blair you name it. 

But is there someone that I feel forced and influenced to the most? 

Yes. 

I was on a spree watching animation reels, Kenneth Muse astounded me the most. He animated most of the 40s Tom and Jerry shorts and was a master of tone and expression in his drawings.

Tom and Jerry may not be the most flawless cartoon in my personal opinion but it's definitely the most witty and lively of the bunch. There's so much unique techniques and principles to the characters. 

What makes Ken Muse's work so much fun is how expressive and action-packed some of his scenes are. He first worked at Disney's. He animated the best Mickey Mouse shorts in my opinion. It's cinematic yet fast and rubbery.

After he left Disney, it was his big chance to prove his animation skills at MGM. He animated more of the slower, dramatic and methodical scenes of the Tom and Jerry shorts. That's what makes him utterly enjoyable and entertaining. When it comes to wacky animators like Rod Scribner and Ward Kimball, they're more or less always funny the way you look at the frames. 

Ken Muse had such maturity to his scenes. 

I think it's important to learn about these people, it's not easy as it sounds but it was completely staggering and geniuely a work of art. It's strength, it's extreme emotion, the way characters interact, Muse is perfect at that.

I'm going to watch Anchor's Aweigh next week. It's 2 hours and 20 minutes. Honestly all I'm here for is some good fun and of course Gene Kelly. He's one of the best dancers of all time.

I love this spin dance Gene does in this movie.

These will always be funny to me. Whenever Tom hits Jerry, Jerry does a funny face and lays flat. It's comedic to the max.

I've seen this in The Cat Concerto and it was also funny too.

Ken Muse is the best MGM studio animator. His animation skills are beautifully influential. He's definitely well loved by other people, and I'm one of those fans. 

There's this unique video of a guide to identifying animators. Tom's design is so cute in one of these clips from the video. While not all of it speaks "special" or convincing, it's still cool to experience for yourself. 

The channel who made this video is one of my favorites. 

Go to the channel. 

https://m.youtube.com/@ibcf

Easter Fun

 

Happy Easter, fellas. Hope it's been a good one so far. 

This gives off pastel color palette vibes. Kaoru Yamada is an artist I'm completely not aware of but I like the art alot. It's very lively just like with other painters I enjoy.

Next is my favorite Easter styled cover from The Saturday Evening Post. Kenneth Stuart must've had alot of inspiration from the classic cartoons because it works perfectly from that range. Still has some great colors though. 

I've been obsessed with these lately.

This is the first shot from Silly Symphonies Funny Little Bunnies (1934). This is fantastic. One of the best 30 second openings to a cartoon. Has some really happy n' gay type music in it which is easy to appreciate.

Here's something tasty. Remember these? 

Last month I talked about Bugs Bunny's Easter Yeggs (1947) feel free to check it out here

https://sngexplorationblog.blogspot.com/2025/03/easter-with-bugs-bunny.html?m=1

Pure nostalgic bliss. 

Well, hopefully you find a few of these images interesting. Happy Easter here's a 3 minute short film I genuinely like

Peter Cottontail (1951)

Background Art Legends - Edward Hopper & Classic Disney

 

Let's talk more pleasing scenery.

I'll be going through painters and cartoonist background artists. Shout out to Edward Hopper for these amazing and extraordinary paintings made a near century ago. He was a realistic visual genius. 

No one there but still is perfectly interesting in on its own. He made some of the best art in human history. The colors have a sense of warmth to them.

Edward Hopper's paintings are what I describe as a breather through experience. They aren't grabbing your attention by some touch of comedy, communication or insanity. It's genuinely peaceful and relaxing.

His paintings are not too abstract or unrealistic either. They feel like their actual places, yet they have a different style to them that fits the atmosphere well. 

This house looks minimalistic but it's a different type of minimalism. It isn't trying to be fresh and extremely polished, it doesn't have that typical square shaped feel. The colors all feel organic yet subtle to the actual palette of the painting. 

This one of my favorite paintings of all time. The sky looks BEAUTIFUL. The road is clear and the green grass is environmental to the highest degree. Look at those houses, the power lines. This is what my state of life looks like and just because of that it's a masterpiece. 

Here's some more infamously heavenly art from the true artist himself.  

Now onto the cartoons. This has more of an abstract, simplistic feel but this has way more nostalgic and charming color to it than anything that came afterward. 

This is from a Donald Duck cartoon titled Rugged Bear (1953), this has an amazing start with some yellow, beige and greens perfectly fitting the style of the forest. 

Ray Huffine made these backgrounds. I'm going to have to start researching alot of the background painters starting along with Disney and Warner Bros.

Most people love the yellowish backgrounds including myself. Easter Yeggs, Robin Hood Daffy are other examples that have similar backgrounds to this particular cartoon.

While I'm not heavily drawn to this era of Disney shorts, it's cool to see that the legendary animators and staff still somewhat care about what they're creating since to about the 60s, animation was slowly reaching to a darker age. 

I need to know who did these backgrounds with the owl in Bambi.  

Whoever did the One Hundred and One Dalmatians scenery needs to have more recognition. This is by far Disney's best looking movie. 

The people credited for the backgrounds are Walt Peregoy, Al Dempster, Ralph Hulett, Anthony Rizzo and Bill Layne. Seriously, incredible work fellas. 

I'll do a second parter sometime very soon. But for now hopefully you find these interesting and remember stay out of A.I.