Suspended Animation #295
It was the animation studio and entertainment company that most people have never heard of when the history of animation is discussed. Tom Carter Productions was founded in early 1981 by Tom Carter who was a former Disneyland entertainment employee who “struck it rich” in the investment field.
“Ol’ Mudd”
Carter primarily made his fortune through “factoring”, basically purchasing unpaid bills for a small percentage like from doctors awaiting slow medical insurance payments. Doctors received immediate cash and Carter then made a significant profit when the bill was paid in full.
His mistake was that he starting selling shares to “investors” in this part of his business promising to make them a fortune that led to an investigation into “investment fraud” since it was similar to a pyramid scheme. The studio closed almost overnight with a trail of bankruptcy councils, legal activity and more. In 1990 Carter began serving a jail sentence.
However, back in 1981, the future looked bright. Carter’s business plan in addition to the animated feature and other projects like comics and animated theatrical shorts also included Huck’s Landing Regional Theme Parks which would utilize the Huck’s Landing characters.
An “Ol’ Mudd” maquette
The first one was planned for Las Vegas. In addition would be The Huck’s Landing Resort Project designed to include a hotel; theme park; shopping center; golf course and many different themed elements.
It would all generate from the animated feature that would be handled by Phil Mendez who was also interested in promoting and producing his own animated project based on a character called Kissyfur.
Mendez set up a studio on Ventura Boulevard in Studio City and brought on Leo Sullivan and Floyd Norman to develop a storyboard. That initial story told how as a child Huck was accidentally dropped overboard into the Mississippi River and was rescued by Old Mudd the turtle and had to deal with an evil Quadroon, river pirates, river rats and more.
Carter liked the visuals but not the story. It went through several different versions but never quite gelled. Carter’s main headquarters was in Newport Beach and that staff began to question the lack of progress on the feature while the animators seemed to be spending their time finishing Mendez’s Kissyfur theatrical short.
The animation team moved to a larger building in Burbank close to the airport. Carter wanted more input into the film. Mendez gave up his claim to Huck’s Landing and Carter gave up his claim to Kissyfur. Mendez left and was briefly replaced by Leo Sullivan.
Carter’s Newport team came up with a new story that Carter liked. The story was now about a gigantic riverboat disaster with Huck as the only survivor. He grew up in the wild basically raised by animals. When he sees another riverboat he makes a raft and heads to a nearby town to reconnect with other humans.
Once there, a fire causes him to remember his past including the man who created the ship’s disaster, a distinguished man called “Baron”. He is chased through the river country where his animal friends come to his rescue. It is Huck who finally overcomes the villain and bidding farewell to his friends goes back to civilization.
Any similarities to Disney’s animated feature The Jungle Book (1967) was intentional. Gerry Ray was brought in to direct the feature and Carter decided the entire operation should be moved to Newport Beach.
Scot Shaw at Tom Carter Productions
Scott Shaw! was in charge of the Saturday morning crew and comic book division. He worked with Mike Sekowsky, Floyd Norman and Dawn Miller. Among those projects was Alex in Wonderland where a young boy falls into his television set. Another proposal was about an obnoxious whale and his inept hunter. Even a comic strip featuring the characters from Huck’s Landing was developed.
Carter would often shift work suddenly to something he considered important, setting up a disjointed work schedule in terms of developing the feature. In addition, he would have new ideas frequently that he demanded be incorporated into projects.
He tried moving in multiple different directions so nothing ever got completed and the public never saw anything other than a brochure for potential investors. At one point, he considered making the feature in 3-D. Some tests had animation that composited hand-drawn and painted cel animation over real miniature sets, much like the process in some Fleischer Popeye cartoons.
Mike Sekowski
Things came crashing down on the 1983 Thanksgiving weekend when a local newspaper published a story about Carter being investigated. Employees were phoned and told to extend their holiday on the following Monday. Then they were told to come to the building and pick up their personal belongings.
Some also picked up other things like computers, recording equipment, furniture and more. Artists were allowed to take some samples of their artwork for their portfolios.
Most people would never see the high quality material these artists had produced over the years. Several other studios expressed interest in a number of Carter’s ideas but the legal entanglements prevented any of them being continued elsewhere.
Tom Shannon (later of Filmation and Disney) at work on Huck’s Landing. Click to enlarge.
Gerry Ray was diagnosed with cancer during the production and offered to withdraw. Carter and his team agreed to keep him in charge as long as he felt well enough to do so. Ray was convinced once he got out of the hospital he would continue but he passed away without knowing the turmoil that was happening at the studio.
Tom Carter Productions employed many familiar names including Ray Aragon, Chuck Harvey, Michael Humphries (background painter), Chris Bailey and others. My friend and former writing partner John Cawley was a significant contributor to Tom Carter Productions and shared many stories with me, most unprintable.
He was the Director of Animation Services responsible for setting up the animation studio and comic book divisions in Orange County. He oversaw the creation, development and production of the feature film Huck’s Landing, a TV special, a Saturday morning series, comic books and newspaper strip at the original Burbank studio and the Newport Beach studio. He was a co-writer of the feature, and contributing writer to the comics. Once things fell apart, he was hired by Don Bluth as head of public relations and created the fan club.
Today, Tom Carter Productions has been forgotten by most people. Those few who remember it have some interesting stories.
For instance, in 1982, Carter entered into discussions to purchase Harvey and its library of characters like Casper, the Friendly Ghost. He passed on the deal when he discovered the film library was tied up for another five or more years so the only way he could generate revenue was to go into production on new material.
SPECIAL THANKS to John Cawley for providing all the images used in this post.
Jim Korkis is an internationally respected animation historian who in recent years has devoted his attention to the many worlds of Disney. He was a columnist for a variety of animation magazines. With his former writing partner, John Cawley, he authored several animation related books including The Encyclopedia of Cartoon Superstars, How to Create Animation, Cartoon Confidential and Get Animated’s Animation Art Buyer’s Guide. He taught animation classes at the Disney Institute in Florida as well as instructing classes on acting and animation history for Disney Feature Animation: Florida.
Huck’s Landing reminds me of the aborted Disney animated feature Catfish Bend. Both projects looked promising but were never made.
When you start planning the theme park before the main product has got off the ground, you’re asking for trouble.
Would the film have been any good? I suspect that if your boss keeps insisting on messing with the script, throwing stuff out and plugging new stuff in, the end result show it (see: Richard Williams).
I hope these guys were paid well at least. The backgrounds look nice.
The theme park and hotel were planned prior to the movie. In working for a character program for the theme park it was then planned to go ahead and use the characters in a film. The changes that were made to the script seem to have been extremely beneficial if Ollie Johnson and Frank Thomas thought it was one of the best scripts they had ever seen and were similar to the old Disney classics.
I agree with this analysis – Hucks Landing should begin on the scenario of Huck being saved by O’l Mudd the turtle …and go on from there! Also, This idea of Hucks Landing should be embraced by some thoughtful animation executive. Music for it, endorsed by Quincy Jones, I am a musician myself and know that this plan would work. ( ie; pay off). Music from someone like John Hartford would be sensational! Martin S.
Tom Carter set up a website a few years ago, apparently still trying to get Huck’s Landing produced. The domain’s for sale today, so I guess nothing more came of it.
Here’s more info, from someone who worked there in the 80’s: http://www.cataroo.com/010204.html
The huckslanding site is still owned by Tom Carter and is not for sale.
Readers can find a bit more in “Cartoon Confidential” by Korkis and Cawley (1991). The chapter on Carter included some more art, including — tellingly — a printed piece to lure investors.
Funny to see somebody trying to go from zero to Disney, theme parks and all, on the strength of an unfinished first feature. It’s almost “The Producers”, except they were banking on “Huck’s Landing” being a “Star Wars” level hit. Even if it was good, could it have been good enough? And could Carter have gotten a distributor who’d throw sufficient weight behind an independent aiming for Disney’s market?
A possible Silicon Valley ending: Carter takes the company public, cashing out with an IPO just before anybody sees the film, or lack of same.
A distribution agreement was in the process with a major studio before the film stopped production. The same distributor is still interested in going forward after all these years.
Here’s an archived version of his site: https://web.archive.org/web/20160207133218/http://www.tomcarterproductions.com/
I read about the rise and fall of this studio in the out-of-print “Cartoon Confidential” book by Korkis and Cawley. There was a whole chapter dedicated to Tom Carter Productions that went further into the history and the sort of projects it had planned, and it provided quite a bit more artwork as well.
If I remember right, it seems Carter had attempted to get this project restarted in the online era as well, though I wouldn’t know if it was a legitimate attempt or not.
Tom and I worked together for a while in order to obtain financing for his project and get out of bankruptcy. On the day his loan was approved, he was arrested by then sheriff of Orange County Bob Gates and made prime time news. All our efforts were in vain. In 1990 he was eventually sent to a minimum federal security prison at Fort Leavenworth.
The loan was never approved but was in progress. No, I was not sent to Fort Leavenworth as the SEC dropped all charges. The only charges that I pleaded to in 1990 was selling unregistered securities. All other charges were dropped and this was a State charge and again not Federal.
Tom, You have a convenient memory. In the state securities/grand theft case, Superior Court #C-65319, on September 23, 1991 you pled guilty to felony Grabd Theft (Penal Code 487(a) and pled guilty to sale of a Security by means of a False Statement (Cal. Corporations Code 25401), and you were sentenced to 2 years in state prison. This information is in the public court records of the case.
Working for Tom Carter Productions and being there when the SEC shut it down was like being a suspect in a murder mystery but the final chapter had been torn out of the book. Floyd Norman described it as “the white version of the Watts riots.” The pay was good, the talent was tops, but unlike the rest of us, Tom and his team had no experience in entertainment and it showed. That script that Thomas, Johnson and Bluth supposedly praised, if produced, would have been a nine-hour film. Wealth doesn’t mean good taste, creative ability, or management skills, but I suppose it provided a fantasy for management until Tom’s scheme collapsed, with most of his pals losing their homes. At least us cartoonists quickly landed elsewhere; back in the age of in-person interviews, everyone wanted to know about the Newport Beach animation implosion.
Hey, Scott. You won’t remember me as you knew me by my maiden name. I worked at Tom Carter, being let go just weeks before the SEC swept in. As I recall the big issue was that Carter was not investing in factoring at all. There was a room set up at that flashy Irvine location for the “factoring” part of the business but I never saw anybody in there nor did I ever meet anybody on staff that was the individual responsible for factoring. It was, it seems, “for show”. My understanding was that the money investors invested in factoring went instead into production expenses. It was bizarre. I was told that, in court, the defense brought in boxes of alleged medical factoring documents only to have it revealed that they were all bogus. Investors’ money was NOT being used to fund factoring but was instead used directly for production expenses.
There was a problem with constantly shifting focus. Too many projects simultaneously going on seemingly launched on whims. Tom spent money like water: he returned from a vacation to Europe and was said to have purchased every beer stein in a German beer hall just because. He also bought a London cab right out from under the driver and had it shipped to Irvine (yes, I DID see that car). The halls and the offices at the Irvine office were covered with collectible art and autographs for no apparent reason other than to impress. Many of his upper level staff, most of whom were former Disney park characters with no business experience (theatrical or otherwise) were gifted with Mercedes Benzes, randomly and without explanation or fanfare. He would, allegedly, call someone into his office and toss him the car keys with a simple “here’s your new car.” In the short time I was there (6 months?) I believe this happened 3 times. Scott, do you remember that?
I came to Tom Carter Productions directly from Disney studios and felt things were odd from the beginning. I believe I was let go as they realized my film connections could cause them to be flushed out when I began to get legitimate industry production companies interested in meeting regarding new projects. By then I was glad to be let go as I had growing suspicions about the operation. I even advised a friend who was an investor to take his money out because I felt there was something fishy going on. Sadly, he did not listen to me and lost his money. I don’t know where Tom spent time but I recall my friend, a victim who attended every court date, telling me he was found guilty and spent time in prison somewhere. Maybe not Fort Leavenworth, but somewhere. A lot of people got burned.