Toon Geek

Gator Boards - Version III

2010-09-20T09:15:00.000-07:00

I have just finished a long project I gave myself - these 91 panels of a fully revised storyboard I dreamed up. I have put a lot of effort into this portfolio piece to represent my best storyboarding skills

-- Please click on each Jpeg a couple times to make it larger.

... and once LunarPages starts working again, I'll be posting even better images on my website.

2010-05-24T17:03:00.000-07:00

I did it! I finished my (or 32 panels of) my REVISED Gator Boards.

Check em out HERE.

House of the Roses - Global

2010-05-20T14:22:00.000-07:00

An image I drew up for "House of the Roses" - an organization that brings dance to kids in shelters.

Life Drawings - Feb/March 2010

2010-04-07T16:15:00.000-07:00

I've started using old brown paper shopping bags as a canvas for life drawing, as well as a white pencil and a sharpie.

Pastel Portrait - March 19

2009-04-13T17:18:00.000-07:00

Life Drawing- 4/1/09

2009-04-07T18:38:00.001-07:00

I can't remember being so satisfied with one session of life drawings.

This last batch is a single page, and I like all the drawings in it, so I scanned it as is. I think that's pretty cool.

Pastel

2009-03-05T20:49:00.000-08:00

"Amanda Lee"

I just started taking a new class at the Art Students League. This is the result of day one, and it took about 2 1/2 hours to do.
I think the head's too big. Darn it!

Wedding Portrait for L&A

2009-03-01T20:39:00.000-08:00

Here's a pastel wedding portrait for a couple friends (L. and A.) that I've been working on for some time. Now I can safely say is finally finished. It took many many weeks to do.
This is the first time I picked up my pastels in a while. It was a daunting task ahead of me ... until I visited the home of an older lady. On display there was a charcoal self-portrait by her granddaughter, and you could clearly see the Squares she used to resize the image from a photograph. I had always considered that cheating, but hell, the world's best muralists do just that. So with that tool I set out to tackle the double-portrait.
From start to finish it took about 2 months. And that's not counting the time it took to overcome my fear of "can I DO this???" and then "okay, it's not perfect, but it's not bad. I should just quit while I'm ahead." In the end I didn't quit and the result is something I'm pretty content with. Which is indeed saying much.

Life Drawings

2008-12-18T10:56:00.001-08:00

Life Drawings this week.
My teacher, Terence Coyle, saw these drawings and said in mild surprise, "Your proportions are very good." He said this a couple times in that 5-minute time frame, recollecting a student who is great with shadow and color but "his heads don't look like they're stuck to the body. He doesn't use a center line and you think that if the figure gets up, the heads will just fall off." I told him I work very had on my proportion, thinking of all the time spent on Posemaniacs.com and on NoseGoblins, my exercise blog.

Happy Holidays!

2008-12-17T22:13:00.000-08:00

More Life Drawings

2008-12-11T21:02:00.001-08:00

Life Drawings

2008-12-10T15:31:00.001-08:00

I wasn't feel ON today. Gotta stay sharp, even during the holidays.

Life Drawings

2008-12-04T15:50:00.001-08:00

Sexy Girl

2008-12-04T15:49:00.001-08:00

Delivery Men

2008-12-04T11:20:00.001-08:00

Two different variations of Miguel, the delivery man

Life Drawings

2008-12-03T15:38:00.001-08:00

More Life Drawings

2008-11-21T20:49:00.000-08:00

Life Drawings

2008-11-19T15:04:00.001-08:00

more life drawings

2008-11-13T15:59:00.000-08:00

Life Drawings this week

2008-11-12T20:51:00.000-08:00

Life Drawings this week

2008-11-08T22:25:00.001-08:00

doodles

2008-11-05T14:44:00.000-08:00

It's fun to have 2 characters interacting. It also poses its own challenges.

Life Drawings this week

2008-10-30T22:19:00.001-07:00

Life Drawing- 10/23/08

2008-10-27T07:19:00.000-07:00

Sita in New York

2008-10-20T10:58:00.000-07:00

My pal, Nina Paley, is receiving accolades all over the world for her film that I worked on, Sita Sings the Blues. Folks at Cartoon Brew have touted her skills, and now that she's done her World Tour, she's soon going to have her film screen at the IFC here in NY.

A couple years ago I had the honor of being the one and only apprentice to Nina, and she let me animate some cool scenes of Monkeys battling Demons in "The Battle of Lanka." All me, baby.

Life Drawing- 10/2/08

2008-10-06T10:31:00.000-07:00

Life Drawings this week

2008-09-26T16:24:00.000-07:00

Jake on CBS's The Early Show

2008-09-24T18:42:00.000-07:00

---> View me HERE <---
---> or just the pumpkin HERE<---

Me with Beth, my contact at DKC PR

Me with Matt, the grower.

A real live TV crew, all for me!

The Pumpkin will be painted in full and displayed at J&R Music and Computer Center in lower Manhattan. For each brush stroke, a dollar will be donated to public schools' art programs. Ten thousand brush strokes are expected.Official Publicity photos HERE

It's the Great Pumpkin!

2008-09-23T06:02:00.000-07:00

Today my art is on CBS's "The Early Show."
It's not produced animation, but it IS produce. I drew a 3x5 ft black ink illustration on a half-ton pumpkin this morning.
I'm even ON LIVE TV doing so!

This is not the pumpkin, but it looked like this:

I heard of this job yesterday afternoon via a friend of a friend of a friend (no exaggeration). I was almost not going to do it, but then i thought, "What would
Ward Kimball do?" No I'm not even kidding. I also spent a few valuable minutes watching a vid on him on youtube.

Pix to come asap!

My Finished Boards!!!

2008-09-16T13:19:00.000-07:00

My new boards! "Attack of the Sewer Gators."

101 Dalmatians

2008-09-04T10:00:00.001-07:00

Thanks to Michael Sporn, I have here some Dalmatian storyboard art.
Pt.1

Pt.2

The sequence: 1:29 - 7:15

Farm doodles

2008-09-03T21:30:00.000-07:00

I drew these last week when I visited an awesome farm in Maryland.

This is Fred. He wears a harness because his neck is fatter than his head so a collar is useless.

Horse studies -- they're always grazing!

Gators Galore!

2008-09-03T20:52:00.000-07:00

Gators

2008-09-02T18:58:00.001-07:00

Gators for an upcoming personal project.

Doodles on Public transportation

2008-08-17T20:54:00.000-07:00

train and subway.

Kinky Friedman

2008-08-11T11:08:00.001-07:00

When I die, I want to be reincarnated as this guy.

Preston Blair Assignments

2008-08-11T10:58:00.000-07:00

So I'm taking the initiative from a 2-year-old post on John Kricfalusi's blog to sit down every day and work on my drawing fundamentals a la Preston Blair.

I'll be logging my progress on a different blog that you can visit HERE.

"Tempest" Storyboards

2008-08-05T17:50:00.000-07:00

A cartoony version of Shakespeare's "The Tempest" is something I've been wanting to do for a long time. Here are some brand new storyboard panels - this takes place in Act 1, Scene 2, right after Prospero parts ways with Calaban for the day.

View it HERE.

Meeting a legend

2008-07-31T19:48:00.000-07:00

Sometimes being a freelance magazine writer has some perks beyond equal.

Today I was invited to the "Fly Me to the Moon" premiere in New York, a film about houseflies in 1969 that stowaway in the Apollo 11 spacecraft. The film might be called "groundbreaking" for being the first animated film produced specifically for 3D viewing.

There are many things about the film itself that deserve criticism, though the science behind it is not one of them. In fact, it attempted to be so true a reenactment that the filmmakers even cast one of the Apollo 11 astronauts to play himself.

Here I am meeting THE Buzz Aldrin.

Look below. See that right hand? That's the hand I shook.

Life Drawings

2008-07-28T09:55:00.000-07:00

I never cease to be amazed at how ON you can be on some days, and how OFF on others. In the top file we have one page compiled from 2 separate drawing days with 3 semi-solid drawings on it, and below it another page with 5 passable drawings from one day. Sheesh!
All these drawings were done within the last month.

What I'm Doing

2008-07-24T14:52:00.000-07:00

Well, this is a busy few weeks for yours truly. Besides going to the animation block party festival this weekend, I'll be reporting on it for Animation Magazine.

I also recently signed on to be a "Research Associate" on an upcoming book by and about one of my animation heroes. I can't talk too much about it, but it will occupy my time til early August. To buy the last book I was a research associate on (under Jerry Beck), go HERE.

Down the road I'll be reporting on Disney's new Fairies line, making Tinkerbell into a corporate symbol. Well... more so, anyway. And who knows, maybe I'll be on top of "Little Mermaid III." I'm not saying I was asking Disney to make such a movie, but now that it's out, I'd like to talk to the filmmakers about the process. Believe it or not, they take their jobs very seriously.

Other than that, I'm still working my 9-5 at "Languagemate" and inching along on a new Obama cartoon to throw onto Youtube.

Website Update

2008-07-23T20:32:00.000-07:00

I done did some major updating to my Art page on my website.
Check it out HERE.

Weird Science

2008-07-22T19:55:00.000-07:00

Guess what series I just got on DVD. Viva los early 90's! (Please forgive the rushed coloring job.)
Can you picture this show as an animated series, or what???

Life Drawings

2008-07-21T21:15:00.001-07:00

J.J. Sedelmaier Has Class

2008-07-21T20:38:00.001-07:00

I received this today. How's this for class? A thank-you letter for working on a project that is picking up accolades. Heck, I was just doin' my artistic duty.
Bet you can find a clip of it on Google that NBC hasn't taken off-line yet.

Avatar

2008-07-21T14:03:00.000-07:00

If you haven't noticed, I have a new avatar image. Here's a hi(gher)-rez version of it . It sums up my two loves - writing and drawing. This was done completely in Flash.

Duck

2008-07-15T14:34:00.000-07:00

The re-design for my Duck character came to me in my sleep a few days ago.
The other face is just playing around with geometric shapes.

Storyboards

2008-07-14T10:11:00.000-07:00

Here are some boards to my upcoming project featuring Senator Obama.

Spoofing Les Miserables

2008-07-08T15:22:00.000-07:00

My friend Gil Varod's site Broadway Abridged is filled with great Broadway in-jokes and spoof scripts. When he asked me to do some VOICE ACTING for a podcast of his Les Mis script on Broadway Bullet, I couldn't be more thrilled.

DOWNLOAD THE PODCAST NOW (We're about a third of the way through the entire program.)

I love voice acting, but it's a lot harder than reading lines into a mike. It's even harder than acting to the camera or a theater audience. I'd compare it to acting for silent films, in which emotions and motives would have to translate without dialogue and only body language. Voice acting is the complete reverse, of course, and when listening to a talented voice actor like Terry McGovern or the great June Foray, you can close your eyes and still believe the character is there in that cartoon room, rather than in a recording booth. Hopefully I did Jean Valjean justice, but you be the judge!

Beach Sand Sculpture

2008-07-06T20:21:00.001-07:00

Special Thanks to the Lovely Joanie for modeling for me for 90 minutes. Yay SPF 50!

Control room - take 4

2008-07-03T15:06:00.001-07:00

A more vegetabley high-tech control room

Carrots

2008-07-03T15:00:00.000-07:00

Control Room - Take 3

2008-06-26T08:26:00.000-07:00

The same assignment with a little more of a Nickelodeon look (and more active as a room)

Background Layouts

2008-06-20T14:30:00.001-07:00

THE ASSIGNMENT:
Make a pyramid-shaped control room

Above: This is a little retro.

This is a little more modern.

2008-06-19T19:54:00.000-07:00

If you haven't read it yet, check out my interview with Lisa Davis, voice of Anita in 101 Dalmatians.

Interview with Marvel Comics Assistant Editor

2008-06-18T12:35:00.000-07:00

My interview with Alejandro Arbona, as printed in this month's issue of "aNYmator," the official newsletter of Asifa-East.

Obama Numa

2008-06-06T16:39:00.000-07:00

Barrack celebrates winning the democratic numanation -- i mean nomination.

Democratic Nomination

2008-06-05T20:48:00.000-07:00

I still from the next Jake Friedman short toon I'm working on.

Tree ... Looking up

2008-06-03T15:02:00.000-07:00

I spy with my little eye something that begins with the letter T.

Playground

2008-05-30T14:10:00.001-07:00

Let's try to make a friendlier urban playground, shall we?

Wheelbarrow

2008-05-23T14:16:00.000-07:00

Gazebo

2008-05-21T14:02:00.000-07:00

Above: My finished gazebo. Took about 2 days to do. Click to enlarge!

Above: A rough version of the same gazebo. I counted 3 issues:
1) needed some foliage to liven it up
2) the roof does little to suggest shingles rather than something from Super Mario Bros.
3) How are you supposed to get inside???

Sketches

2008-05-21T07:28:00.000-07:00

Above: Life drawing with an exaggerated head. Just to shake things up.

Above: In meetings, you can draw girls with carrots in their hands

Above: Sometimes it's oh so satisfying sketching on paper bags.

Finished Tomato Land

2008-05-16T14:32:00.001-07:00

Above is my finished Tomato Land

Above is a Disney Lilo and Stitch background (borrowed from AnimationBackgrounds.blogspot) that helped inspire the layout of Tomato Land.

Tomato Land -Step 1

2008-05-15T14:56:00.000-07:00

Lemon Tree Forest!

2008-05-15T07:13:00.000-07:00

Apple Forest

2008-05-08T11:51:00.001-07:00

Forest Art

2008-05-05T13:59:00.001-07:00

A redo of my playground scene. It's all about layout.

Characters and Background

2008-05-02T08:04:00.001-07:00

Below are some kids and their magical friends.

My final in a series of playground images. I've never considered myself a strong background artist, but I've been having a lot of fun with these Illustrator images of inner-city playgrounds.

Two previously-posted background paintings with more traditional colors.

--This I did last week and forgot to post. Experimentation in color.

Park Bench

2008-04-28T15:01:00.001-07:00

This took about 4 hours from pre-sketch to what you see now, which I still wouldn't say is 100% complete. But I'm likin' it thus far, so I'm sharing it anyhow. Done in illustrator. Can you believe this time last week I could barely tiptoe thru the program without stumbling over myself?

Sandbox

2008-04-25T14:34:00.000-07:00

More art on adobe illustrator. Come play!

Slide!

2008-04-24T14:30:00.001-07:00

Trying to give a playground slide Kid Appeal. Done entirely in Adobe Illustrator.

Exercises in Photoshop BG painting

2008-04-18T08:02:00.000-07:00

More Doodles

2008-04-09T13:03:00.000-07:00

What else are meetings for?

2008-04-08T06:50:00.001-07:00

Doodles

2008-04-07T08:30:00.001-07:00

Some people I know ... The old lady I don't.

She's Got PMS

2008-03-16T22:41:00.000-07:00

My latest cartoon. I think my next one will be a little more serious than this, though.

Anti-Valentine's Day

2007-12-26T20:51:00.000-08:00

My upcoming short cartoon has started production. "She's Got PMS." Tasteless? Ok, yeah. It's anti-Valentine's Day, though. So in context, maybe it will make a little bit of sense.

Oh, did I mention it's a 2-minute bluegrass musical?

Cesar y Gustavo

2007-12-16T23:04:00.000-08:00

Here is a prospective character I was asked to design for a foreign-language TV project. The chances of this design getting to production are slim to nil, but I think it's cute. Can you pinpoint my Chuck Jones influence?

My Newsworthy Party...?

2007-12-14T11:31:00.001-08:00

Read it all HERE

After Effects Certified!

2007-12-14T11:11:00.000-08:00

So after passing the Adobe Certification Exam in After Effects, I can now call myself an ACE ... an Adobe-Certified Expert.

The test itself was nothing like using the program -- it was a series of multiple-choice questions accompanied by almost no visuals whatsoever. You could be a pro and still have a hard time with the bloody test.

My First Book Credit

2007-11-06T12:29:00.000-08:00

Last summer i worked as an assistant to Jerry Beck for a book on Nickelodeon cartoons. My first book credit is now in print. Great American toon book, here I come!

Read about it HERE.

Jake and Jane Henson

2007-10-22T19:46:00.001-07:00

Jane Henson and myself (sporting my Wheezer/Muppet shirt)

Jane Henson's Advice

2007-10-18T12:24:00.000-07:00

"Make sure you make it your own," she said, in reference to the artwork that will be used in the doc, "Who IS Jim Henson?" which I'm trying to produce. "Don't use his drawings, but be influenced BY them. Because you're a young go-getter filmmaker and there's no need to tie you up in legal copyright problems."

I was at the Henson Carriage House last night for a small event and I got a chance to talk about the project with a few other people. Said Fran Brill: "What an original concept! It sounds great." Bonnie Erickson also liked the sound of it. Craig Shemin seemed more interested in my new Animation Supervisor, Pilar Newton. Pilar has been in the NY animation industry for 11 years, is a huge muppet fan, AND has been friends with Heather Henson since her days at RISD. Of all things, she and Craig were talking about their common ground working on "Courage the Cowardly Dog."

My main contact, Aruthur Novell, who invited me to the house last night, is the Executive Director of the Jim Henson Legacy. He says he appreciates my efforts and adds, "Not to worry, you are moving in the right direction."

So I personally gave all the aforementioned people a copy of the video pitch and the written prospectus, and I'll find out what they discuss. I'm also officially incomunicato with Heather Henson, who I'll be talking with after her busy week is over.

In addition to local animators, I'm emailing other Sesame Street animators - people who have been contributing their unique style since, say, 1982.

And I met with an experienced friend to discuss the prospect of applying for grants. The process sounds hard and gruelling and filled with red-tape ... but I've managed my screwy bill with the Cable Company for a while, so I'm looking forward to the challenge.

Will I Write the Art Babbitt biography?

2007-10-14T20:31:00.000-07:00

Ever since my first Animation Magazine article promoting women in the NY animation industry, I had wanted two things: First, to write for AWN.com; and Second, to make steps towards writing a book on the subject of animation.

Nearly a year ago, author John Culhane recommended me highly to Barbara Babbitt, widow of the late great Art Babbitt, when she said she wanted someone to write the biography of her husband. Art Babbitt was many things, but history will remember him mostly by being a master golden-age Disney animator who risked (perhaps sacrificed) his career to lead the infamous Disney strike of 1941. Since last autumn, I've talked and corresponded with Barbara on many occasions, I've interviewed some people, I've garnered input from Jerry Beck and John Canemaker, and I've gathered some research material online. Still, it's one huge undertaking, especially for a young pro trying to make rent in New York City.

Unbeknownst to me, Ron Daimond, a founder of AWN.com is tight with Barbara, and he called me up yesterday. I had contacted him about submitting Stoned Wheat to his "Animation Show of Shows," but he wanted to talk about the Babbitt Bio. He said he sees several big projects coming out of this, not just one book, and that there are several hundred hours needed to interview Barbara and folks like Bill Melendez and other prominent people of Animation History who knew Art and are all situated on the west coast.

There are few people on this side who worked with Art later in life, like Michael Sporn, who had talked to me in-depth about Art when i was interviewing him for "aNYmator." But Ron insisted I hold off on any further work on the Babbitt Bio until we gather a game plan and organize our efforts. After all, while I can only donate spare time to the project with my limited funds, Ron and his team can back it up with tens of thousands of dollars - not to mention their brand new AWN publishing company. At the end of the day: more pro's are jumping on, and I'm going to help however possible but I'm glad I'm not responsible for a solo mission.

Regarding Ron Daimond, he suggested that I might want to start contributing to AWN's new blogspot site. Cool, eh?! I haven't blogged like that since I was a freelancer for toon producer Fred Seibert and his website, Channel Frederator.

Jim Henson Doc update

2007-10-11T09:58:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week I got a phone call - the directors of the Jim Henson Legacy are interested in pursuing my animated Jim Henson Documentary further. Jane Henson herself gave it the thumbs up. Right now I'm collecting a staff, drawing up a budget, and I have meetings coming up with Henson people.

One of the people now interested is Candy Kugel, whom I interviewed last year. She's one of the longest-running NY indie animators and one of the heads of Buzzco Associates, having created the Moon MTV spots, not to mention memorable Sesame Street sequences, like "It's Hip to Be a Square."

Love E-cards

2007-10-09T17:24:00.000-07:00

Voila - my Valentine's Day E-Card and My Anniversary E-Card

Enjoy!

"Who IS Jim Henson?"

2007-10-08T07:58:00.000-07:00

Who IS Jim Henson is a proposed documentary I intend to produce. In a word, it's a collection of anecdotes about Jim animated in Jim's drawing style. Last week I was on the phone with the director of the Jim Henson Legacy, the branch of the Henson company that deals with museum exhibits, tributes, and anything else commemorative. When we left it, he was going to share the Video Pitch to the executive director of the legacy, and I volunteered to write up a new, formal Written Pitch. Stay tuned for the outcome.
If you are interested in helping out with the project, please contact me!

Jake Loves Bruno Bozzetto

2007-09-30T17:03:00.000-07:00

I just got a letter from famed Italian indie animator Bruno Bozzetto, in regards to my recent e-cards:

"I found your animated cards absolutely amusing and rich of beautiful gags!!
Really good work! I'm glad you like Flash, that I find excellent for small things, in
which the idea must be 90% of the work. And you did it.
Congratulations!"

Read my 2006 interview with Bruno Bozzetto HERE, in which he talks about his inspirations and theories of story.

Studio Head Jeff Nodelman

2007-09-17T18:44:00.001-07:00

Click HERE to read a recent Animation Magazine interview had with Jeff Nodelman, head of now-defunct ANImagic studios

Birthday E-Card #2

2007-09-16T17:25:00.000-07:00

Click HERE to see another birthday E-Card that I made last month for my other bro.

Birthday E-Card #1

2007-09-12T06:20:00.000-07:00

CLICK HERE to see an e-card I did a couple weeks ago for my brother Aaron's birthday.

Stoned Wheat in New Mexico!

2007-09-11T19:22:00.000-07:00

"Stoned wheat" is a finalist in "BEST IN THE SOUTH WEST" animation festival.

Holiday Card

2007-09-09T15:38:00.000-07:00

Here's the Holiday Card I had made last winter that I only yesterday uploaded to my website. Hope you enjoy the pun! Get it? "Drop"? "Warm'?

Meeting Composer Richard Sherman

2007-07-16T21:24:00.000-07:00

6/21/07

"Mr. sherman, it's a pleasure to meet you," I said, snagging a free moment of his time."
"Hi. richard sherman. Your name?" He was eager and ever-so-nice, towering over me at about 5'11.
"Jake. Jake Friedman. Should I call you richard? Or Mr. Sherman?"
"Richard. Richard. Call me Richard," he smiled.

Here was the man in full form, as seen on the Mary Poppins DVD and Peter Pan DVD. I complimented and thanked him for his work on the Poppins DVD, and I told him I loved the work on the Peter Pan song. He proceded to tell me the story like I was buying him a drink.

"...And i just sat with those lyrics on my desk for day after day, because the words just ended at '...in Never land.' and it just died. and then I just threw in an extra 'Never' so it became 'Never neverland.' and it just flowed. But i talked about all this on the DVD."

"You touched upon it," I lied. I was all smiles. Who was I to say not to rehash an interesting story? And he was telling it TO ME! Suddenly one of the PR folks readied him to prepare for his performance -- a live performance by Richard Sherman!

"Break a leg," I said.

"Do you know what that's from?" he asked. "That's not backwards luck, wishing someone harm. That's for the deep bow. You should bow so deep that you break a leg." And he proceded to bend one leg in front and one behind, as if he were halfway to a kneel, with his arms full out. This was a man in his 70's ful of vim and vigor.
"I never knew that!" i said, and he laughed and squeezed my upper arm affectionately as I took my seat.

I had reserved the closest seat to the man, thanks to my handy food-filled plate. The baby grand was in the corner, and my chair was on one side of the wall, about 4 feet from his seat. After a brief formal introduction, Richard Sherman walks casually between the rows and stand at his piano.

He starts his performance by saying he and Bob had the pleasure and fortune to work with Walt Disney, the greatest story teller of the last century, and to work with the famed nine-old-men. "I can't rememebr their names now, and we didnt know that they were the nine old men then, they were just the talented animators we worked with."

He takes his seat, and begins with his first works at Disney: A Poppins Medley; about 30 seconds each from Spoonful of Sugar, Let's go Fly a Kite and It's a Jolly Holiday, and Chim Chim Chiree. He then told the story of how one artist's sketch of a chimney sweep inspired the song, as well as that artist saying that it's good luck to shake a sweep's hands. [He identified the aritst. I cannot recall who it was, but i'm sure it's on the dvd somewhere.]

"This was Walt's favorite song," he says reverently. "Not just that my brother Bob and I wrote for him, but that anybody ever wrote for him." And he proceeds to play Feed the Birds. BUT before he begins the chorus, he goes straight into Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. he plays the first verse, And right before the repitition of the chourus, he stands up. "Can anybody say it backwards?" I scan my memory like a maniac, but he jumps on it. "docious-ali-expi-istic-fragil-cali-rupus." and begins to play the next verse, "...When I was just a lad, me father gave me nose a tweak and told me I was bad..."

After brief applause, Richard stood up. " Well, now that we got the Poppins medley out of the way... one of our next assignments was to musicalize another popular children's book series, one by A. A. Milne." He proceeds to play "Down in the hundred achor wood, where Christopher Robin plays..." into the verse beginning with Eeyore, letting his piano keys gallumph like a donkey gait, and then kind of hop-skipping during the "Winnie the Pooh" chourus. "Tubby little Cubby all stuffed with fluff... Willy nilly silly old bear."

Something occurs to me while hearing him play his tunes. This man and his brother had such a great FEEL for fun, nonsense, musical and lyrical language. Not only do the words fit the tone of the character and writing, describing the hum-hum-doodle-dum style of a bear of very little brain, but the melody is just fun and very descriptinve of each character, like Peter and the Wolf.

"Now, Pooh likes to excercise, but his reasons are vey different than yours or mine." He proceeds to play "Up down, touch the ground, puts me in the mood... for food." He then asks us, "Do you know what kind of animal is Tigger? ... He's not a Tiger. That's right, I heard someone say it in the back. He's a Tigger." And he plays "The wonderful thing about tiggers, is tiggers are wonderful things. their tops are made out of rubber, their bottoms are made out of springs..." And his caps it off by laughing like Paul WInchell. "Hoohoohoohoo!"

Richard then stands up and tells a story of getting the assignment for the Aristocats. He and Bob wrote the introductory song, and he told director Woolie Reitherman, "you know, it would be great if we could get Maurice Chevalier to sing this." Woolie suggested he record himself doing a Chevalier impression, send Chevalier the record, and see if he comes out of retirement. So he made the dummy recording, and Richard demonstrated how he sung the song in an awful French accent at his piano. Sure enough, Chevalier agreed to come out of retirement to record the song. Later, Richard was in France and happened to see Chevalier. "'I want to apologize to you for singing that song with that outrageous accent,' I told him. I'll never forget, he looked me dead in the eye and said, 'What accent?'"

"Looking around here, I'm reminded of another project Walt gave us." he said, referring to the jungle shrubs around us. Richard then tells the story of being brought to the Enchanted Tiki Room as it was being built. "It had some wooden totems saying "ooga Ooga and flames coming from torches, and it was interesting, but it really didnt' make any sense." In the presence of others, Walt asked Richard what he thought of it. "'It's nice, Walt, but I don't really know what it's about.' And Walt ponted at me and said, 'and YOU'RE going to write a song that explains what it is,' 'Ok, well, we'll it's enchanted, so we'll have them singing about it. It would be great if there was a parrot or something to help connect it all.' and Walt said, 'yes, four parrots, a French parrot, a Mexican parrot, a Dutch Parrot...' That was Walt. He had a way of always plussing an idea. And that's the way the Tiki Room has been for ...40-something years, in every Enchanted Tiki Room in the world. It was the first singing animatronics and it's still around 40 years later."

He then performs "A great Big Beautiful Tomorrow" from the Carosel of Progress," and "Imagination" from the Imagination pavilion at Walt DisneyWorld.

"Now sometimes the best productions can go sour." he says, and begins to talk about The Jungle Book, how Bill Peet boarded the whole thing, how he worked with Peet on Sword in the Stone and other projects, and how, due to Peet's dark observance of Kipling's original text, Walt was disatisfied, scrapped a year's worth of pre-production, and caused Peet to walk out. Walt then had a story meeting and held up the book: "'Did any of you read this?' no one did. 'Good.'" He then proceeded to act out the entire movie, Kaa, the tiger, the boy, the bear, "and by the end, we were all pumped and excited about it." In his explaining to the audience, Richard relives the moment, and there's a glint of excitement in seeing Walt, even in his memory, acting out the whole movie with zest and youthful enthusiasm.

"And then Walt came up to Bob and me and said, 'I want you to write new songs for this movie. But we're going to keep this one song from the other guy. you don't mind, do you?' 'oh no, of course not.'" and Richard rolled his eyes and gritted his teeth for us to see. Walt told them to find the scariest parts of the script and make it fun and light [which would become the King Louie scene].

The Shermans wrote all the songs except for "Bear Necessities," "It's a wonderful song by Terry Gilkyson, but I didn't write it, so i'm not going to play it, but i will play this one," and he begins with Col. Hathis's march. "we wanted to lampoon a military march with this one. And this one, we threw in all the S's we had," and he proceeds to play Kaa's "Trussst in Me" song. "And we were given the assignment to make an overall theme of the picture, so we made that the song that the little girl sings at the end, which Darleen Carr sung beautifully in the movie. I'm not going to sing it, but the words are --" and he proceeds to read the lyrics at the silent piano."...mother's cooking in the home, I will go and fetch the water, 'til the day that I am grown. ... It's about the whole cycle of growing up." Then he explains he will play the melody, and he does so, beautifully.

He also says he wrote the vulture song with the Beatles in mind, but they weren't up for doing the film. "We never met an an animal we didn't like -- I always liked that line best, because of course they haven't, they're vultures, they'll eat anything!"

Then he stands up, announces he will tell a funny story, and talks about "I wanna be like You" - starting with the Ooo Ooo Ooo gutteral grunt that monkeys make becoming "oo oo oo, I wanna be like you-oo-oo. Well, what monkeys do - they swing! ... he's the head honcho, the.. VIP. SO he's the king of swingers, the jungle V.I.P. Richard starts playing the song, and divulges a lost verse in the middle of the song, singing about Louie and Mogli being so close as like twins, that people won't be able to tell the difference, but currently Louie peels bananas with his feet and wants to learn etikeet.

And Richard tells how Louie Prima and Phil Harris weren't able to record on the same day ever, so Louie recorded first, with his right-hand mea, who repeated Louie's scat word for word. When Phil listened to it with the headphones, he got really upset, "I don't scat like that. That's not me." so Woolie said, "just do whatever you feel comfotable saying," and it resulted, as Richard said, "in this great double talk jibber jabber between the two of them. They're having a real dialogue, and then we told phil to add some words, so he says things like 'take it home, daddy.'"

Richard is ready to wrap up, and he then concludes by saying, "this is a song we wrote for the 1964 world's fair. I think you'll recognize it. Feel free to sing along if you know the words. We wrote this as a prayer for peace." And he begins very sollemnly to play "It's a Small World" on the piano, "It's a world of laughter, a world of tears..." with the humble sensitivity that only its composer - not a cavalcade of suger-high robot children - can give.

He stood up, we applauded [i was grinning ear to ear throughout and he winked at me a few times. i was clapping twice as fast].

Afterward, i got the chance to ask him a couple questions. Did Walt hear the Pooh songs? Yes. The Aristocats songs? "No, that project started after he was gone." When I was on the Carosel of progress, it played "This is the time, this is the best time, this is the best time of your life..." He said, "yes, we wrote that, too. There was new management, and they wanted a song that was more about the present instead of the future." Finally, i asked him about that moment in "Lion King" where the bird starts singing "It's a small world," and Scar says, "anything but that." Richard kid of rolls his eyes in mild annoyance and says, "well, i can see how that song could drive people crazy. Some people wouldn't want to be stuck on that ride. I know i wouldn't."

His hands were shakey when he wasn't playing, he voice was a bit shakey and sounded a little hoarse with age. His body is aging. But he had the youthful spirit of a man who was touched by the gift of letting his dreams come true.

Walt gave him that opportunity. Richard could have easily stayed at home and let us fools entertain ourselves. But it became clear that he wasn't playing for us. He was playing for Walt.

Don Duck and Larry David

2007-07-16T20:54:00.000-07:00

Donald Duck. Larry David. Seperated at birth?

I was thinking about why I love the HBO show "Curb Your Enthusiasm." Some people hate the show, which, if you don't know already, holds a very humbling mirror up to our daily neurotic moments - the moments that eat at us for the rest of the week. Instead of letting things go, swallowing his pride or simply not expressing his own annoyance at every person around him, Larry David's character loses control on a regular basis. We watch him because deep down, we want to behave the same way, as ugly as it is. To get worked up because your wife makes fun of you for packing a jacket to a beach engagement party, then getting annoyed when the bride-to-be at the beach party puts on the the jacket without asking while you stand there freezing. This is the life of Larry David.

Ok. Then I was thinking about why I love The Duck. Don is, I admit, my favorite cartoon character. There's a place in my heart for Bugs, Scrooge McDuck, Samurai Jack, and countless others. But Don is my favorite, and I think it's for the same reason I love Larry David. When Don bursts a vein trying to open a window -- only to realize it was locked the whole time -- we laugh because we know we've done the same thing. When Don freaks out because a clock spring won't settle, we relate it to every technical mishap we've ever undergone and lost our cool over. And we've had to have done it a lot, because Don's not only still as popular as ever, but he holds the Disney record for the character with the most footage in film or shorts [according to the book "the Encyclopedia of Disney Animated Characters"]

Both these characters allow themselves to lose control. They do and say what, deep down, we know we're capable of if only social dictum didn't stand in our way. They live adult lives with adult relationships, and then when something falls short of their expectiations, they raise hell. Why? Because they followed the rules to the best of their ability and things still get all FUBAR in their hands.

Ah, the human condition.

Welcome to my New Blog!

2007-07-14T23:06:00.001-07:00

Hi. Jake the Animator here. I'm a toon geek. That means I animate my own short films, I hire myself out to animate professional projects, I write for websites and publications like "Animation Magazine," have helped animation historian Jerry Beck research for upcoming toon literature, and up until recently I was a professional blogger for a pretty awesome cartoon producer. And all here in New York City, birthplace of Felix the Cat, Betty Boop, Popeye, Mr. Magoo, Beavis & Butthead and Codename: Kids Next Door. Due to re-shifting, that role as professional blogger is no more, so I'm opening up my own blog today!

Stay tuned for hot goings-on, news, interviews and animation adventures, as well as updates on my personal uphill climb to the top of the heap.