Monday, February 9, 2015

Walt Disney and Benny Goodman


One of the best postwar Disney shorts in my opinion is All The Cats Join In from the 1946 feature Make Mine Music. It is only four minutes long, but highly enjoyable because of Goodman's energetic music and fantastic animation by Fred Moore, Milt Kahl and others. Each time I watch this short, it puts me in a good mood.



A couple of Moore model sheets with loose, but solid and appealing drawings.




I am not sure who story sketched the film, but these drawings presented terrific inspiration for the animators.





The one thing that doesn't quite work for me are close up scenes, where the characters' black dot eyes look somewhat unsettling.



A design concept for the film's poster.


5 comments:

  1. Hi Andreas, what was Milt and Fred's relationship like in general? Two huge figures in animation and design, would the earth shake when they shook hands?

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    1. Milt had a ton of respect for Fred's talent. He kept a Moore print showing three college girls framed on a wall in his condo, just north of San Francisco.

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  2. Hello Andreas, I've just come across an old Art Babbitt documentary that you were featured in a long time ago, as did Richard Williams.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAtCxAh0tHs

    Would you happen to remember which year this was filmed? I imagine sometime in the mid 1980s judging by The Black Cauldron poster.

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    Replies
    1. I forgot if this was filmed before or after Roger Rabbit, I think before. Great documentary on Babbit.

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  3. Not 100%, but judging from the drawing style, I can say with a fair level of confidence that those story drawings could be the work of Tom Oreb.

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