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.
This is the second of a series of posts that look at the animated shorts submitted to the Academy for Oscar consideration but didn’t make the cut.
Perhaps the first classic film that UPA made was The Brotherhood of Man. The short was produced for the United Auto Workers to help with race relations in their factories.
“Columbia did not like the cartoon at all,” said Bill Scott of UPA’s Rooty Toot Toot. “They really would have liked for us to go back to just doing more Fox and Crow”.
This week’s breakdowns are a Pete Burness double feature. Burness directed the UPA’s Magoo and was an animator on MGM’s Barney Bear.
What’s that? A UPA draft, featuring Mister Magoo? This draft for Grizzly Golfer was sourced from the papers of Pete Burness; however, the document has only partial animator credits.
To say that Willis Pyle, who celebrated his 100th birthday in 2014, has had a long and productive career in animation and art is something of an understatement.
The first animated series broadcast in prime time was probably UPA’s “Gerald McBoing-Boing Show” on CBS in 1956. CBS was so excited about the show that they took out a seven year option on the series – but it only lasted three months. So what happened?
Steve Stanchfield takes a well-deserved break this week and I fill in with a look at the theatrical one-sheet posters for the classy Columbia UPA cartoons of the 1950s.
Conventional or far out. Cheap or extravagant. Phil Duncan did it all and it did it superbly. Today we take another look at the work of mighty Mr. Duncan, animator…
