The Murtah Sisters

 

I recently discovered this obscure but underrated vocal trio called The Murtah Sisters, they're very comedic and energetic. Shame they didn't get more recognition.

Alot of this stuff reminds me of what I like about Betty Hutton, it's so vibrant, and funny for some reason, they also make these weird but suitable faces from time to time when they sing, this mostly happens to Kate. The other sisters are Jean and Onriett.

When I was seeing other reactions to this particular song, people seem to hate it so much! Have no idea why! This was a different period of songs being so silly yet it's quite amusing to me. 

This is their own version of In The Mood by Glenn Miller, enjoy!

After you watched the clip, you can notice the wit and facial expressions, it's very unique, and they're not afraid to show it. While I love other girl vocal trios like The Andrews Sisters, and The Boswell Sisters, I tend to find high-spirited acting like this to be pleasent to me. If you want to know more about this group, it's fairly simple, not a ton has been said about each of the members except for Kate which back in 1955, she introduced her own syndicated one-panel comic strip called Annie and Fannie, so that's pretty cool.

Overall, this was fun to just look into this stellar group of talents, I was on Instagram, and discovered them from there. Like I already said need more acceptance.

Spookley

 

I'm sure someone like me grew up with the book version of Spookley and not the TV specials. I remember having this book as a little kid, it's nostalgic for alot of reasons. The colors, feel like autumn, it's lively and the story is quite memorable and heartwarming throughout it.

Now that we're close to October, and the Halloween season, here's some spectacular and beautiful pictures.

This is still one of the more amusing illustrations of this book in my opinion, I love the different shapes, colors given on each of the pumpkins.

Artmania Girls Drawings

 

Anchor's Aweigh Animation Sequence

 

Animation + Live Action is one of my all-time favorite tropes in film, and there's this gorgeous and fun scene in Anchor's Aweigh as a perfect example of it.

This scene happens when Joe Brady (Gene Kelly) tell as story about how he earned his medal. It opens with imaginary and lively scenery, with landforms and a castle. The effects in this movie are amazing.

The animated characters also move so gracefully, this is definitely that cutesy era the MGM cartoons were mostly forgotten for back in the late 30s-early 40s.

You really have to be professional and accurate in regards to the animated character looking directly at the live action actor.

This is beautiful. This was just decades before there was easy processes like computers and technology to make something like this work.

It was all about composition. We then get to see Jerry from of course Tom and Jerry, feeling lonely which doesn't fit his personality at all, but with a premise like this, it works.

Fun Fact, originally the producers wanted Mickey Mouse to dance but Roy Disney himself rejected it, it was a sign of World War II still happening and that time, there was no business to work for other studios. In my honest opinion, that would be extremely distracting and kinda disrespectful. It was good that Tom and Jerry got enough the recognition they deserved back then.

The conversations are also very amusing as well, they aren't trying to noticeably go for being melodramatic, that would've sucked but Gene Kelly nails this scene easily.

It's also a great scene because he's trying to make Jerry cheer up and be less isolated.

The entire process of Jerry dancing with Gene was done by actual rotoscoping and it's phenomenal.

I can think of many other examples of animation and live action not just with films but moments from those movies that just make the whole experience alot better like Mary Poppins, The Three Caballeros, and a rare short film titled Real Inside. Sure, it may not be the most flawless trope, I agree that it's become stale, and those realistic 3D versions of timeless cartoon characters are terrible, but still it can be really fun.

I made my very own storyboards of a ballerina who fell unexpectedly into a fantasy world. Enjoy!

Bacall To Arms (1946) Cartoon Insanity

 

The title of the post is not a joke. Cartoon Insanity will be a series of posts throughout the upcoming future. 

There's this cartoon I've been thinking about for months. The animation is so rubbery and vivid that I need to talk about it.

It's called Bacall to Arms (1946) it's a Looney Tunes short planned by Bob Clampett, but was finished by Art Davis. As you can tell by what might be happening well...

Right away we get our first reference to Metro Goldwyn Mayer, one of the kings of Golden Age animation. What is this?! The lion is screeching while I guess his baby cub is biting onto his tail. What is he doing with his foot? This is definitely something Clampett or either Art Davis would approve.

 

Various other gags appear before the feature film starts in the movie theater. After that is some stellar frame shots of actress Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart.

This was an attempt to reenact To Have and Have Not (1944).

I like the colors scheme in these scenes. It's not the usual typical clean black and white colors we get in the actual real movies.

The best moments are The Wolf's reactions. He's in similar vain to the wolf in Red Hot Riding Hood (1943) directed by Tex Avery. I'm highly sure that Clampett and possibly Davis loved Avery's MGM cartoons. 

Incredible drawings!

 

I would've loved to see a fully length short film of these two characters, maybe even just the art style, that would've been cool and inspiring. 

There's this walk cycle I admire of Bacall with her cigar and there's flames in her heels.

We get to see more funny and janky movements of the wolf's reactions. I'm definitely thinking Rod Scribner did alot of these scenes.

When The Wolf acts more enthusiastic, there's these simple linear gradient backgrounds. 

 

And also a ton of smears.

While I love the comedic energy, the designs and the more toned-down scenes of the live action style characters, the rest of it is not as great or thrilling as I hoped it would be. This may be just a standard cartoon with not much cohesion but it's still got some funny moments, despite the re-used animation from another Looney Tunes short almost a decade prior.

Seriously it feels like the movie theater is packed with 1930s style characters and 1940s characters at the same time.

The Greatness Of Creating Characters

To me, designing a cartoon character is special since it's been basically my entire hobby for a complete decade. My 3 main characters, Phillips, Szac and Dredd The Moose are my most creative accomplishments as well as making my own series. 

Well, I came here today to talk about why it's so enjoyable and always fun.

When I first watched a classic cartoon, I knew that it looked so different than cartoons I've experienced throughout my childhood. 

My first classic cartoons were the Tom and Jerry shorts, then it continued from there like Jones' Hunting Trilogy and Silly Symphonies.

These were the best designs of animated characters I ever seen. They were advanced but well constructed, I discovered many talented works like Preston Blair and The Nine Old Men for character inspiration.

I'm much obsessed with model sheets, since they're so amusing yet very useful. Here's some interesting Disney models.

They should've fixed Gus's personality description. Number 6 should've been "Eats Excessively".

I like the different poses and directional angles. 

While I do like how animation evolved throughout the years, I do tend to prefer how the characters looked back in the 30s to about 1955. They had more simpler approaches to designing them and there was more anthropomorphic and playful personalities than what came afterward.

This model sheet below is Brave Little Tailor (1938) probably the most iconic role for Mickey Mouse.

I love this entire concept of characters portrayed as classic old fables and imaginary stories. Examples of that are The Scarlet Pumpernickel (1950).  

While not my favorite cartoons, they were the best in terms of the acting, and different roles. I wouldn't binge something like this all the time but it's very useful for inspiration. 

I'm also aware and careful about what's good and lively about characters. I'm not trying to make it bland or something sensory overload. I get most of my influences from Looney Tunes, Tex Avery, Spongebob, Gene Kelly and Crosby movies, the Spyro trilogy games, Garfield, pretty much anything Sherlock Holmes related, The Three Stooges, Song of The South's animated characters, Animaniacs, The Muppets and much more. 

Not sure what you call it but most of these have sense of humor and straightforward premises to them.

You can tell where my leadway to creativity comes from. 

Before this post is over, here's two more model sheets I really like.

Mickey Mouse must be the most modified cartoon characters ever made. What I know from the Disney model sheets made from the 50s to about the 80s was the publication date. For a while, I didn't even know when these were made and was always looking into the older model sheets for the date, but now I kinda know where it's referenced.

Somewhere on the model sheet indicates 

850-8046 

So I'm guessing that this was back in August of 1950. Don't know what the 8046 means. I'm going to have to look more into it.

This was from an unfinished animated short called Plight of The Bumblebee (1951), it saddens me that this film was scrapped, because I've seen moments of this film from storyboards and actual pencil drawings and it could've been the best Mickey Mouse shorts. 

This is an example of an incredible model sheet from Warner Bros! Lots of drawings means more time to invest in the characters.

The model sheets from cartoons directed Chuck Jones are my favorites. 

If you want to see my favorite model sheets, your gonna have to click on the link for the surprises. 

https://www.traditionalanimation.com/wp-content/gallery/donald-duck/donaldmodelsheet8.jpg

https://vegalleries.com/sites/default/files/janmodel20345a.jpg

https://uploads.animationresources.org/pics/ibaverymodel04-big.jpg