Steve Bosustow (left) discusses a scene from “The Tell-Tale Heart” (1953) with director Ted Parmelee (holding the art).
Parmelee, already an avid student of design, began working at Disney in October of 1938 as a layout artist. He contributed to Pinocchio (where he also served as assistant animator).
Historians beware: There is disinformation about Parmelee’s career at Disney online. He was not a Disney director, nor did he contribute to any films after Pinocchio.
This misinformation would not be the first time I have found the internet to be untrustworthy, nor will it be the last. I know I am preaching to the choir on this site, but be certain to have voluminous printed references, including a stacked animation library, video material available, and access to archival information before totally depending on any online sources. Rant over.
Parmelee left Disney in 1941 during the contentious studio strike. There is evidence that he was already becoming disenchanted with the ultra-realism that predominated the studio’s style. As Parmelee described the state of animation in the 1940s in an article he wrote for Telefilm:
Parmelee adapted the Johnny Appleseed segment from “Melody Time” for Golden Books in 1949
Zack Schwartz recalled how Walt Disney came to his office in 1938, casting around for ideas for the Cydalise (later the Pastoral segment of Fantasia). Schwartz presented Disney with stylized art from Greek vases and Persian miniatures, as well as ideas for color and design for backgrounds and characters that did not reflect realism; Disney declined them all. In 1940, Schwartz found himself fired.
Parmelee, a graphic artist and designer, decided to break with “traditional” animation and wade into a sea of new visual ideas.
It’s no surprise that Parmelee joined the staff of Industrial Films and Poster Service (later United Productions of America) in 1944, or that Schwartz eventually joined him there. His affinity for flat backgrounds, creative use of color, and angular style were evident in the first Mr. Magoo cartoons Parmelee designed (Rant cont.: Getting tired of this, folks. Some sources credit Parmelee for the 1949 Magoo cartoon The Ragtime Bear, the first Mr. Magoo short. He had none. And now, back to our piece).
It was at UPA that Parmelee’s talent for writing and directing came to full bloom. His predilection for modernism in animated films also led to a career in commercial art, producing TV ads for such companies as Bar-S Meats and Campbell’s. Parmelee had strong feelings about the use of modern art in advertising. As he wrote in his Telefilm article:
“The best animated commercials today are designed and executed by artists (cartoonists) able to comprehend, invent, and employ art, graphics, i.e., of the most current kind. These pieces of art will reach the public under the guise of funnies, but in reality are first cousins of some very creditable gallery material, later to be reprinted with the blessing of an art director’s annual. By this process they become yesterday’s art, add the common denominator of tomorrow’s commercials.” (Quotes from Telefilm Vol 2 Number 3).
An examination of three of the four cartoons Parmelee directed (or wrote) for UPA bears Parmelee out: His final film, Four Wheels, No Brakes (1955), seems to be a parody of contemporary animated commercials, even including a television game show announcer. Parmelee’s protagonist, Pete Hothead, is the closest thing to a non-UPA character in his films. With a design that presages George Jetson, Pete could easily be a limited animation figure in a car commercial.
In his 1954 short The Man on the Flying Trapeze, the figures are flat and rarely seen in full or three-quarter profile. When they are, a line divides their facial features. The backgrounds are either sparse or highly stylized. The Emperor’s New Clothes (1953) features two swindlers with exaggerated noses that take up their entire faces and shrouded bodies that suggest people rather than depict them, suggestive of the freedom of form present in animated commercials.
It is in Parmelee’s most famous UPA short, The Tell-Tale Heart (1953), that his talents merge best with those of star background designer Paul Julian. Together, they produce an animated version of Edgar Allen Poe’s horror tale. In what amounts to almost a series of stills, the two artists confirm the practice of merging post-realistic style with graphic art to produce a true classic.
But Parmelee had another chapter to write, and the setting would be the Jay Ward Studio in 1959. The story of Rocky and his Friends (Later The Bullwinkle Show) is a long and rich one, but Ted Parmelee has a special place in it, along with former UPA colleague and longtime friend Bill Scott. One segment of the show featured an erudite, time-traveling white dog, Mr. Peabody, and his naïve but eager pet boy, Sherman. The series was the brainchild of magazine cartoonist Ted Key, but Parmelee directed all 91 episodes, while Scott did much of the writing. This, on top of also directing episodes of Rocky and Bullwinkle!
There are comparisons between the Jay Ward productions and UPA, some of them unintentional. The simple, stylized design and sparse backgrounds are similar, but in Ward’s case, poor animation and limited budgets accounted for the difference between the cartoons. There is virtually no violence in the Peabody episodes, as in UPA’s cartoons.
The differences are far more interesting. Both Peabody and Sherman are well-developed characters, unlike the one-shot protagonists of most UPA shorts (excepting, of course, Mr. Magoo). The cleverness in the Scott/Parmelee episodes shows up in sophisticated, pun-filled dialogue and wild settings rather than innovations in graphic art.
Parmelee and Scott also made contributions to other Jay Ward productions, including the beloved Dudley Do-Right cartoons. Scott was a fantastic voice artist and writer; when paired with Ted Parmelee, the duo could be considered a major creative force at Jay Ward Productions.
In August of 1964, Parmelee and his wife hosted Scott and his spouse, Dot, aboard his boat when the craft became entangled in weeds. Parmelee jumped into the water to remedy the situation and suffered a heart attack. Despite Scott’s efforts to save him, Parmelee did not survive.
He was 52 years old.
Parmelee left behind a legacy of freedom from ultra-realistic animation, several notable cartoons while at UPA, and a major role in one of the best-remembered animated series in television history. Millions of people watched his imaginative TV commercials without ever knowing who was behind them. His place in animation history is assured.
Martin Goodman is a veteran writer specializing in stories about animation. He has written for AWN and Animation Scoop – and lives in Anderson, Indiana.
If Ted Parmelee was born in 1914, then he would have been 49 or 50 when he died in 1964, not 52. Please check your figures.
I’ve read Ted Parmelee’s Telefilm article in full; a scan of it can be found on an old Cartoon Brew post from 2011. Meaning no disrespect to Parmelee or his achievements in animation, he strikes me as having suffered from the same sense of hubris, the same “Everything was crap before we came along” attitude, as many of his fellow artists at UPA. He takes digs at Disney masterpieces like “Fantasia” and “Bambi” while celebrating that the animator’s highest artistic fulfillment is now making TV commercials for Ford and Cheerios. Toward the end of the article Parmelee makes a valid point that anything new in the fine arts is destined to be eventually supplanted by something even newer. Since the UPA style was inextricably linked with that of postwar Mid Century Modern, it’s not surprising that the studio itself didn’t last much beyond mid-century.
I also find it interesting that, for all his vaunted modernism, only one of the four cartoons that Parmelee directed for UPA has a contemporary setting. The other three are all based on stories written in the nineteenth century.
And with all due respect to Zack Schwartz, a “Fantasia” segment based on Attic Red Figure designs would have been a bad idea.
Ted Parmelee is credited on the “Jolly Frolics” DVD collection. This post provides more information than I knew about him before. It’s fascinating to learn more about the person behind the name in the credits.
I was interested to note that Ted Key was behind the concept for the “Peabody’s Improbable History” segments. Mostly what I’ve known him for is the “Hazel” comic strip and the “Diz and Liz” feature in Jack and Jill Magazine. It’s also interesting to learn that Ted Parmelee directed all of the Peabody and Sherman segments. There does seem to be a coherence and consistency in that series.
It’s unfortunate that he died relatively young, just as the era of Saturday morning cartoons was getting underway. Certainly the legacy he left is worth honoring.
In between his time at Disney and UPA, Ted worked as a layout artist (uncredited) at Screen Gems by 1942-43. By October 1947, Ted had been hired by UPA. These dates originate from THE ANIMATOR, the West Coast animation union newsletter, before it was renamed THE PEG-BOARD. (Tremendous thanks to Vincent Alexander for helping provide those pieces of obscure information.)
Plus — Keith Scott’s The Moose That Roared notes that Parmelee directed the show’s opening titles, animated in Los Angeles, and a Fractured Fairy Tale (Cinderella Returns). Bill Scott only wrote the first two Peabody segments (the second with Jay Ward himself), and Chris Hayward ended up writing most of the segments after that (with Lloyd Turner on a few of them).
Ted Parmelee did a great job directing “The Tell-Tale Heart.”
For me, animation leaves a good legacy if there’s a certain intrinsic quality about it (ultra realistic or not) The “Tell Tale heart” is a freaky short that doesn’t work for me (no disrespect to Ted Parmelee)
There are those left cold by “The Tell-Tale Heart,” as imaginative as it was. There were other reactions; when the short was initially screened, the audience (probably through prior conditioning) expected a funny cartoon. During the screening, they laughed at various times during the short at moments when there was absolutely no humor to be found. I doubt that Parmelee was as amused as they were.
Some sidebars:
The Hollywood Citizen-News of Aug. 3, 1946 has an article on Parmelee, who set up Graphic Educational Productions, which I gather was an off-shoot of Graphic Films. The idea was to produce a children’s picture book with a record with narration to be played as the child read. Parmelee provided the illustrations and his daughter Julia inspired the first effort, “Why Are Bees So Busy?”
Radio actors William Johnstone, Doris Singleton, Betty Moran, Virginia Gregg and Hy Averback provided the voices, with additional artwork by Barbara Begg, Marjorie Jasper and Jean Miller.
Parmelee also co-directed the 1963 political short The Great Rights, where other Ward people like Gerard Baldwin and Skip Craig are credited.
The main character in UPA’s industrial short Man Alive! is named Parmelee.
Pete Burness paid tribute to his UPA colleague in WHEN MAGOO FLEW. The movie theater that Magoo walks past is showing a picture called “The Tattle-Tale Heart” starring Theodora Parmalee.