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Sunday, November 20, 2011

Goodbye, Golden Age Cartoon Forums..

And welcome back!

The longtime GAC forums, in various incarnations, also known as the Termite Terrace Trading Post, which since 2004 had been under the GAC name, has been discontinued as of last month.

However, it lives on in GAC Archives. There is also the GAC Facebook as well. Also, IAD - Internet Animation Database - Forum has carried on the tradition of the forums, which started around 1997 as just The Termite Terrace Trading Post, after the old 1930s-1960s Warner Bros.cartoon unit [actually, THAT name started in the mid to late 30s for the more outrageous Tex Avery type cartoonists..:)]...I post under Pokey J.Anti-Blockhead [neat, no?:)] on that forum.

Friday, November 18, 2011

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MICKEY MOUSE!




One of most beloved but eventually blandest, sadly, cartoon characters had a birthday, in 1928: Walt Disney's loved little barnyard scrawny whiskered rat, known as one Mortimer Mickey Mouse. Mickey has been made a goody goody two shoes through the decades, all the way to the asinine [They Might Be Giants's presence notwithstanding] CGI [not the only reason for the bad quality] "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse" almost ten years, where Mickey talks babyish. But there was a time, yes there was a time, back to "Plane Craxy","Steamboat Willie",etc. when there WAS a BRAVE and ADVENTUROUS Mickey Mouse.


Mickey came out of an irony when Walt had been riding on the train, legendarily, with wife Lillian, according to a fable straight out of Walt's animated feature movies themselves, when he thought up the character, or in his studio in another alternate universe, when a little mouse and him shared food, either way after his Oswald fiasco with Universal, whoi'd gotten that earlier rabbit which just a few years back Disney glot back, and who had then given Walt Lantz the character [the *&%$#hole that stole the pre-Bugs Bunny rabbit from Walt, Charlie Mintz, would move to Columbia, ironically, a 1930s distributor of...DISNEY films...]. But like Lantz's Woody Woodpecker it seems that this is not exactly true..but unlike the honeymoon versus Woody production at the Lantz studio that busts the honeymoon of Walt and Grace Stafford Lantz, it still seems shrounded in mousy msytery as to Mickey creation, only that Ub Iwerks had done the actual creation and design. The character eventually after auditions got Walt's voice, one of many in house voices, and then went to a major debut of sound in animation after Warner Bros. before their own animation entry a few years later with the Harman-Ising studio, had AL Jolson ushering the sound era in [the subject of the upcoming indie flick "The Artist"] at all.

Mickey Mouse is maybe the most misunderstood 1930s-1940s American classic theatrical cartoon character of all time.

During the thirties, Mickey, with Donald Duck, Pluto and Goofy [nothing like a dog who stands up and a dog who walks in one cartoon, eh?:)], went on straight adventure, but by the mid thirties became so popular he became the male Shirley Temple. To put into context Disney got so many letter from angry parents that Mickey wanted to kick ass [LITYERALLY], that supporting cast nonethless [Leonard Maltin and others writing noted the surperior supporting cast issue here], it wasn't as much fun to watch the mouse.



Technicolor wasn't needed, nor Eastman or Cinecolor [THOSE were for the competition!!] for the black and white mouse even after color entered the new;ly started 1928-1939 "Silly Symponies" starting with "Flowers & Trees" on. But from "Band Concert" [1935], the studio did color cartoons, but sitll had exclusive "3-Color Tech." rights.However the mosue by 1939 was, well, fading.


He did get into The Major Expirment in November 1940--"Fantasia": in the second sequence "The Sorcerer's Apprentice", which brought him new fame, playing the title character. But kit wasn't tioll; mid 1940s, ironically when Disney retired playing his character but then in 1953 with "Simple Things" retired Mickey, with Bugs, Woody, and even Disney's own supporting cast outshining The Mouse [and sound effects guy Jim MacDonald took over the voice] by "Fun and Fancy Free". '

However 1955 brought the first [and REAL in my humble opinion] "Mickey Mouse Club", the first TV adaptation of the old `1930s theatrical and radio clubs, and he appeared on the opens and throughout, and in 1972 "The Mouse Fsctory debuted", but after 1958 it was just "symbol time"..Supermouse..Happy Hamster [he could be a great straight man to the Kia sports car hamster..] Fortunately the public and The Walt Disney Company havben't forgot and built him up in historical recongition though in one of  the slight inaccuracries, the originally silent-made 1927 "Plane Crazy" and "Galloping Gauchos" predated the 1928 "Steamboat Willie" which was the first with sound.
and that is what got added to the others once Warner Bros. found Al Jolson "Mammy-ing" in "Jazz Singer" [1927] to be a major turning point.

Attermpts WERE made, from "edgy" to "BABYISH" [the aforementioned "Mickey Mouse Clubhbouse"] to continue the mouse, who in 1983 DID get a comeback with a filmed version of the 1974 "Mickey Christmas Carol".

What's the REAL reason for historians's hysterical misinformation??


A post on the legendary Joel Whitburn's music stastistics Record Research/Billboard books on here

http://bsnpubs.websitetoolbox.com/post/Whitburn-mistake-5552011?pid=1271091327[ and a few entries in his famed Billboard Record Research books that turned out to be red herrings has instigigateed this topic.

We all know that the kids stuff rep of cartoons, sweet or violent, got the shorts tarred in America thru the 1960s.

We also know that skimpy credits led to wrong credits [five words: "Voice  Characterizations by Mel Blanc." And this "Film Editor" Treg Brown.The contractual or idiosyncratic practices. Short subjects like the Three Stooges at Columbia, which, showing the studio's own cheapness, only listed the stars, ntot he character actors/leading ladies of the live Stooges, so it wasn't just cartoon shorts with skimpy credits, likely stock-cues and sound effects on TV shows of the 1950s never got credited for the most part..]

Of course, then, it was okay, to deny credit for legal and contractual or other reasons, or to give somewhat undersating credits, this extending to not mentioning outisde "Now Hear This", 1963, that Treg Brown did SOUND EFFECTS, as well.

It seems any kinds of reason emrge from Jeff Lenburg: Example: "'Snoopy Come Home' [1972] ended tragically".[Not verbatim]. Many miscredits in the Lenburg books and in others. The usually accurate Graham Webb has, despite what animation fan "Sogturtle" has said in the old Termite Terrace Trading Post, wound up sadly wrong on voice credits. Not all, but a handful.

 All of this, of course, due to sloppy research, in short, or l.ack of interest, just wanting to show a hatrred or boredom of the subject [I know how that can be ] so as not to give any accurate data on the topic

BUT there is another, LEGITIMATE reason, getting back to showbiz, to animation, for having WRONG information. The attempt to stop plagiarism. [The link above at the start of this post would be the case, if you  wind up at "Whitburn Mistake"].


Many showbiz historians apparently have admitted to using false info to keep their books, in short, disctinctive, to track down those who would run off with the information.

[Keith Scott may take note here regaridng Graham Webb, that guesswork-both men certainly liked the cartoons, so ignorance wasn't a factor here!-may have not been the only reason for incorrect information in that Webb "The Animated Film Encyclopedia',2000, McFarlane Press].


In Gindlemann's Hi-Q cues aliases, and code names


During the 1960s, when the former John Seely, now Ole Georg [sic] Capitol Produciton Music aka Media Music service was
being reorganized, a younger composer, Ib Glindemann, was retsained, after composing music since the middle 1950s used in
many older Hi-Q library era shows [and in the later era in "The Night of the Living Dead" [evil laugh]. Some of these were used on
low-low budget cartoons and in stop motion shows of producer-creator-director-writer-voice Art Clokey, in both Gumby and Davey and Goliath.

Like many, he used pseudonyms, such as Dan Kirsten, Robert Ascot, and a few others [if I may]. The compositions had many composers's cues letter-numeral
codes [not just there but at other libraries, and often "bland names", LOL]. Various letter-number codes for different monickers,too.

This is a recap of what has been written before [others like SpeedyBoris and Yowp have written of this on their own blogs..]

Ib Glinemann himself had these.
CM=Robert Ascot
GM=Ib Glindemann
VM=Dan Kirsten
All of them were, again, the same person, with Ib Glindemann being the real name.

For Clokey episodes, I heard for Davey and Goliath's 1971 episode "Finders Keepers", GM ? "Vacation Time", while Gumby seems to use three,
again all written under the [real] Ib Glindemann name:
GM 592-"Western Saloon"-heard in "Gold Rush Gumby" @both the title card and the end
GM-598-"Yankee Doodle"-heard at the end of "A Bone For Nopey"
GM-??   "Travel Spain" interlaced with other cues in "El Toro".
All of them "Prickle and Goo" era 1967-69 Gumby shorts.

The Night of the Dead at the time used Glindemann" cues from the 50s while "Ren and Stimpy" in the 1990s seems to use Glindemann cues under all three names [Ib Glindemann [GM], Dan Kirsten [VM], and Bob Ascot [CM]].


There were other pseudonyms for Ib, as "Neil Amsterdam", but I don't seem to remember the codes for those.

A handful of other and earlier composers and codes:
Ole Georg's own code I have no memory of

Earlier counterpart (1) John Seely was TC, always teamed with
(2) Bill Loose-C, himself in turn also in the later 50s, teamed with (3) Emil Cadkin [JB], this latter-named himself
teamed with  (4) Harry Bluestone [CB],[also for his own solo works] --- or with (2), with (5) Jack Cookerly [OK/PMS] or with (6) Phil Green, who
was usuaally a solo composer for his own EMI Photoplay [PG] or [EM], but who with (2)&(3) was PH or also
wrote with (7)Geoff Love & (8)Ken Thorne as PE.

Spencer Moore, aka "L"
George Hormel, aka "ZR"
As an example recap above.


There were many Sam Fox [SF] composers as well as Ed Lund's Tahiatian music and the various works for Jack Shaindlin.


Back to Ib Glindemann, as gathered from the first paragraph he was a transition from the Seely-Loose-Cookerly to the Georg/Neilsen era of Capitol.

As a result of both his staying later and also his work with Sam Fox as well, resulting in Carlin Library, Ib Glindemann's music has been more licensable and avialable now than some of the other Capitol composers .

The whole searches from screen titles to label-credited, if you will, composers, to the ghostwriters, to all of these "fake names", and such can leave me regardless and others seeming like we're being confusing on credits just for the fun of it. Not that historians on entertainment and such HAVEN'T put "false" info..the Record Research books being examples of that..

The Capitol Ib GLindemann cues, at least 64 and onward, are currently being still owned by OGM music itself while Carlin has the Sam Fox ones.:)

Heinz-57 varieties of music


What do Three Stooge cartoons from the early 60s, "It's Alwaays Sunny in Philadelphia", movie intermission [even today..], radio and TV ads to this day, old test cards, and
many televiison sitcoms have in common that I haven't mentioned as a post topic?

Yet another composer.Heinz. 57 varieties of music and of property sassociatons."


Heinz Kiessling was born in 1926 in Germany, and became associated with many studio orchestras of the day. He worked for radio shows, hit records, and--you guessed it--stock cue libraries. One of these would be Southern, and another KPM. Like other composes, he'd be likely or others woud be likely, to assign different titles to the same cues, especially if you're a "Always Sunny..Philly" fan on FX or just like the read the titles, heard the cues, and known the titles from various blogs such as Bryan's Lounge, Schadenfreudian Therapy,etc.

At least for the "Sunny in Philly" current TV show
For instance:
Tandam Holiday="On your bicycle"
Haute Couture="Temptation Sensation", the "It's Always Sunny" theme.
The First Flirt = "Stepping Out".That makes sense.

THE TUNES AS ON "SPENDING SPREE" on BRYAN LORD's BLOG, "BRYAN'S L:OUNGE": [<a href="http://totalrod2.blogspot.com"]Bryan's Lounge</a>]
That second tune was on Bryan L.'s homemade "Spending Spree" collection under that name, and other renaming was done for a handful of other cues-Phillip Green's "Augie Doggie" Capitol cue "Bush Baby" aka in Capitol, [circa 1957] "Comedy Movement PG-149" is listed as "Curious Kittens"[and don't even get me started on what CARLIN's "Classic Cartoon Fun" CAR 404 - see either PLAY PRODUCTION MUSIC or APM.COM and go to CARLIN PROD.MUSIC - did--calling it "Animal Magic"-as happens to a lot of old produciton cues. Even composer credits were changed for that "Spending Spree" collection: A Dennis Farnon tune called "Bring on the Girls" in the KPM librsary  popularized by Ideal Toy Corproation in  a 1960s "Rebound" ad, been re-credited on that "Spending Spree" list of tracks on Bryan's Lounge, to George Steiner as "Tater Tot Parade", in the "Spending Spree" colleciton. Coincidentally, both Dennis Farnon and George Steiner had a Rocky connection, to Bullwinkle..both composed for the seerioes and did cue stock cues..].

Back to Heinz.. Like others, he collaborated, in this case, with a pianist named Werner Tautz. Compositions, as I know them, are besides those mentioned,
and these are just some favorites,
"Happy Forest"
"Fruling in Stockholm"
"Poppy"
"King of Krug"
"Busy Amadeus"
"Epsom Derby"
"Good Choice"
and the two mentioned in reference to the R-rated adult-com [the Lisa Lampanelli of cable sitcoms, if you will] current FX show "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia".


The tune "Sunny" people know as "Get on your Bike", which I know as "Tandem Holiday", is a favorite, so is "Visit to Amsterdam" & "Green Island".

All of them were used in  various 1950s-1960s American TV cartoon shows. I believe The Quick Draw show, the Augie ones  "Skunk You Very Much" & "High and Flighty", may have used one, as <a href="http://yowpyowp.blogspot.com">Yowp</a> mentioned, though it's only a VERY wild guess,  through KPM or somewhere else, through Capitol.

As mention at the start, "The New Three Stooges" used these, as well.

So there you go....comments definitely welcome here.