Gag Men: Tex Avery and Cal Howard
A funny thing happened along the way and a little mouse hopped up to the cuspidor. Here’s the story behind this Tex Avery gag sketch.
Category Archives: WALTER LANTZ ARCHIVE
Captain Auger, A Giant Mystery
A continuing look at a curious artifact, and whether Walter Lantz ever made a cartoon based on a play by that giant of a man, the circus star George Auger.
Did Walter Lantz Meet the Giant?
Walter Lantz held a cartoon script by Captain George Auger, a famous vaudeville and circus star known as The Cardiff Giant, who died just as he was breaking into the movies.
Woody Woodpecker & the Avant-Garde
Almost seventy years after it closed, an exhibit will open soon to celebrate the influence of a long-ago art gallery that had a big influence on cinema – and especially Woody cartoons.
LaVerne Harding: Drawing with Resolve
Harding was part of a collective effort by the Universal animators that resulted in Walter Lantz taking his studio fully independent, just one of the many understated accomplishments of this remarkable woman.
Cynical Susie, a Fix-it Feminist
What did Susie of the comics pages have in common with her creator, animator LaVerne Harding? She fixed things. And maybe more than anyone thinks.
Grim and Bugs: The Art of the Pitch
A game of horseshoe that started at the Iwerks studio and ended at Lantz, played between two animation legends, Grim Natwick and Bugs Hardaway.
Nellie, Lost in the Clouds, 1939
A cartoon that time forgot and a sequence that was never made, featuring a Buck Rogers rocket ride and an airborne finale way up in the clouds.
Dick Kinney: Taking Falls in a Barrel
A favorite theme of this Lantz storyman was the unusual feat of riding a barrel over Niagara Falls, yet the unlikely path of this river leads all the way to Brazil.
The Birth of a Toothpick, 1939
Burt Gillett made a lost classic that very few are aware of, being the oddball entry within a short-lived animated series, but here’s betting you enjoy watching his delusional hero voiced by Mel Blanc.
