{"id":18527,"date":"2015-06-15T00:01:27","date_gmt":"2015-06-15T07:01:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cartoonresearch.com\/?p=18527"},"modified":"2015-12-07T11:14:08","modified_gmt":"2015-12-07T19:14:08","slug":"famous-studios-1945-46-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cartoonresearch.com\/index.php\/famous-studios-1945-46-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Famous Studios 1945-46 (Part 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome back to the Famous Studio Archive. Before we move on to 1946-47 season, a few more items from the 1945\/46 era to observe. For example, this…<\/p>\n

The Noveltoon Jack-In-The-Box Opening<\/strong>
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This iconic signature open for the Paramount Noveltoons made its debut in 1943 and was used for about twelve years. It was an attempt to brand the miscellaneous one-shots and to link the cartoons as a series. However, several times during the 1940s, this generic Jack logo wasn’t used. For some of Noveltoons (for example, The Friendly Ghost, The Enchanted Square, The Wee Men<\/em>) the studio was aiming for some kind of prestige by not using the common opening. <\/p>\n

Steve Stanchfield shared this information about the man who actually animated the Jack-In-The-Box opening, Gordon Sheehan:<\/p>\n

Sheehan said he animated the sequence to me and many others- I asked him about it in 1988 or so. He said it was one of the first assignments at the ‘new’ studio… so it’s less of a speculation than a remembrance. He was upset that the prints that he had in 16mm were missing the logo and thought it was a nice way opening for these cartoons.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sheehan wasn’t a person to misremember things- if he knew, he knew- if not, he would state so immediately. The inbetween notes are very similar in writing to his writing as well in later years, so this seems to confirm it. So, I would say it’s certain (he did it). He was one of the last animators that continued to work in New York for a while (after the Fleischer’s moved to Miami), and said a lot of (the Popeye two-reeler) “Aladdin And His Wonderful Lamp” was produced there, and that David Tendler’s unit was producing some cartoons there as well as finishing his duties on the two-reel color short.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sheehan was very clear to state he animated the *original* Jack in the Box, and designed the character. He said that the scene was drawn large to allow for a ‘truck’… and of course seeing the drawings confirmed that. He also said the name ‘Noveltoon’ started out as something like ‘An Animated Novelty’. Paramount asked them to do a series to test various properties that they considered licensing for the studio. He said that the war caused Paramount to cut as many expenses as possible, so some of those were never produced, or produced after the war (the “Snuffy Smith” (Spree For All) is the only one that comes to mind as being possibly part of that).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Click to enlarge some of the surviving animation art from this opening, below: <\/p>\n