I’ve been thinking about my many interviewees who have passed away, and I see that I had completely missed hearing about the passing of animator Doug Crane in December 2020. I had interviewed him by letter in March 2005 for my book American Animated Cartoons of the Vietnam Era. The book’s chapter on cartoons from 1967 has several quotes from him; I relied heavily on his words for the book’s discussion of Paramount Cartoon Studio’s last years. His recollections were very funny, touching, and poignant.
Anyhow, here are some things he wrote to me, and I think they were worth posting here – with appropriate embeds.
On Paramount’s aesthetic changes led by Shamus Culhane and Ralph Bakshi: “To be totally honest, many of the old-timers found the whole ‘graphic revolution’ to be ‘totally revoltin’.’ Others found it at least a bit—‘disconcerting’ Some, probably most, sincerely tried to turn their thinking around and understand the mindset of these young whippersnapper designs.”
On Nick Tafuri and the film Marvin Digs: “Veteran Paramount animator Nick Tafuri (incidentally, one of the nicest and funniest men I’ve ever met) thought it was for sure that all of the designers of the day had gone to drugs. But his attitude was, ‘It’s work, it pays, and it’s a hell of a lot easier drawing a bunch of purple, green and polka-dotted orange flowers popping on and off screen than it is to animate Popeye and Bluto wrestling in a sea of man-eating alligators.”
On Al Eugster: “Al Eugster, another veteran studio animator, seemed to be thoroughly enjoying this new ‘Peter Max’ craze, as he called it, and indeed he had already dived in with an almost childish glee on his recent animation assignment My Daddy the Astronaut. This was a delightful short film, a ‘child-narrated’ tale of an astronaut, which Al drew in the style of a 6- or 7-year-old youngster and carefully rendered each drawing with actual crayons. It wasn’t psychedelic, but it was certainly a film done in a style far off the beaten track of the Paramount tradition.”\
Crane ended his letter with his feelings about the day the studio closed: “I stood there for a long while—watching my friends walk away… to the north, to the east…
It was a long time ago.
Paramount studio—and all of them—all gone now—
I remember them with fondness.”
And I remember Doug Crane and his work with fondness.
Christopher P. Lehman is a professor of ethnic studies at St. Cloud State University in St. Cloud, Minnesota. His books include American Animated Cartoons of the Vietnam Era and The Colored Cartoon, and he has been a visiting fellow at Harvard University.
It was very kind of Doug Crane to share his memories of the Paramount animation studio’s final year with you. He must have been sad when it finally closed its doors for good, but then he was still a young man and had a great career ahead of him.
If the trends displayed here had been allowed to continue, by 1968 Paramount cartoons would have consisted of nothing more than stick figures accompanied by a kazoo. By 1970, audiences would be sitting in front of a blank screen in total silence for six minutes (and John Cage could claim, “I did it first!”). There comes a certain point when there are no corners left to cut. The studio’s closure was not nearly as sad as its long, irreversible decline and senescence.
Sadly, we will all watch our friends walk away and the people and places will be long ago and all gone. I think that’s what drives historians and preservationists; a desire to keep in our memories and culture even just a little bit of all of those people and all of those places.
I read Cartoon Research daily and this one really touched me; a first hand account of a very unique time in history (in animation AND in general).
I brought Shamus and Juana Culhane to Toronto in 1986 for a week long symposium on his career with each night dealing with a different phase. It was supremely exciting. I don’t think that approach had ever been done before and it hasn’t since. A highlight was MY DADDY, THE ASTRONAUT. On the night we dealt with television animation and, in particular THE NIGHT THE ANIMALS TALKED, some local animation artists only there because I had asked one of them to introduce the evening, spoke disparagingly about Shamus. At once I ran MY DADDY. That left them in awe. “HOW DID YOU DO THAT?! PEOPLE HAVE TRIED TO DO THAT AND FAILED! HOW DID YOU DO THAT?!” they asked. That remains one of my favorite moments. Great post.
Cool, Dr. Lehman! I’d like to check out your books!
Shamus Culhane’s attempts to upgrade the studio (which interestingly he still called Famous in his memoirs) weren’t entirely successful because the Paramount executives didn’t want “that UPA crap” but wanted him to come up with a funny animal like Bugs Bunny (he should have made a cartoon spoofing 1940s screwball animal characters and how they’re seen by 1960s children). The lauded style of “My Daddy the Astronaut” had already been done years before in “The Story of George Washington.” Also, it doesn’t sound like he knew how to talk to people who worked for him or whom he worked for, and managerial diplomacy is 80% of running a company. But it was a doomed studio anyway, if only because all the old studio animation departments’ days were numbered.
I’m glad “The Night the Animals Talked” hasn’t been forgotten. Having first seen it as a Catholic schoolboy, I’ve always had a fondness for it, bad animation (and much of it repeated), Jule Styne’s Broadway-style songs, and all.