Cartoons Considered For An Academy Award – 1961
The sorriest set of submissions from any year, thus far. Ward Kimball, Jules Engel and Chuck Jones must have pulled their hair out.
The sorriest set of submissions from any year, thus far. Ward Kimball, Jules Engel and Chuck Jones must have pulled their hair out.
An incredible mix at this years screening: foreign films, independent animation, studio shorts (some of which cross the border into the realm of TV cartoons).
This year’s Oscar snubs include an independent film from John Hubley, new wave Terrytoons from Gene Deitch, a few last gasps from UPA… and What’s Opera Doc.
Sorry Disney, Warners, Lantz and MGM. If you were UPA this year – you got nominated. Everyone else: Not Nominated!
Steve Bosustow told a newspaper in 1959 that work on a feature-length cartoon about the African American jazz artist Jelly Roll Morton was underway.
We continue our research into what cartoons were submitted to the Academy for Oscar consideration – but failed to make the cut.
These internal memos – I believe from the files of CBS – I post for no other reason than they’re just a few more pieces in the jigsaw puzzle of animation history.
Man Alive! is a strikingly designed and executed short by UPA produced for the American Cancer Society. The story has as much thought as the design.
In the early ‘40s, while he was animating for Warner Bros., Gil Turner was one of the first artists recruited by Jim Davis to freelance in funny animal comic books.
Steve Bosustow traveled to New Orleans to promote the premiere of UPA’s 1001 Arabian Knights. He spoke at Tulane University, which in 1959 had no African American students – ironic, considering UPA’s earlier work like Brotherhood of Man.