Monday, January 8, 2007

Iwao Takamoto, R.I.P.

Hasn't been a good couple of weeks for those who made the classic Hanna-Barbera cartoons. First, Joe Barbera leaves us and now, this morning, Iwao Takamoto has died at the age of 81. And come to think of it, Ed Benedict — who was responsible for the design of so many early H-B shows, died last August. (And Alex Toth, who was the main designer of their adventure shows, passed away last May.)

In a sense, Iwao took Ed's place at H-B. Iwao (pronounced "E-whoa") was born in 1925 in Los Angeles to parents who had immigrated from Japan. His family spent much of World War II in an internment camp, an experience that he only spoke about later on rare occasions. When he did, he admitted one — and only one — upside: It was in that camp that he met some men who were professional art directors and they encouraged him in his drawing. Around 1945, not long after his family's release and aided by the encouragement of the men he'd met in the camp, he easily secured employment at the Disney Studios. There, he worked primarily as an assistant animator to Milt Kahl on all the great animated features of the day, including Peter Pan, 101 Dalmatians, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty. He is often credited with the main design of Lady in Lady and the Tramp.

Some time between 1960 and 1962 — accounts differ — he left Disney and joined Hanna-Barbera, where he quickly became one of their key designers. He had at least a supervisory role, if not an active design responsibility, for most of their shows from the mid-sixties on. His most notable credit came with the designs he did for the characters in Scooby Doo, perhaps the most popular cartoon series ever created for daytime television. He held various titles at the studio that all fell under the general heading of "Art Director."

Iwao was a quiet, soft-spoken man who was generally well-respected in the business, both as an artist and as a gentleman. I had the honor of working with him on a few projects and I found him to be very serious about his work and motivated by a great love of the form. It's sad that even before we finish saying goodbye to Joe, we have to lose yet another fine man who was very much a part of that studio.

• Posted at 6:05 PM · LINK

me on the radio

Yesterday, I had a nice one hour chat with the folks at Fanboy Radio, a weekly podcast about comics.

Well, actually, it didn't start out so well. They phoned me at the appointed hour and placed me on "hold" to await my introduction...and somehow, I got dropped. I'm sitting here waiting to go on the air and suddenly I hear that annoying lady saying, "If you'd like to make a call, please hang up and try again..."

So I logged into the Internet site for Fanboy Radio to listen to the program. Got on just in time to hear them introduce Mark Evanier...who was not on the line. First time I ever missed an entrance.

But it all got corrected and we talked for the rest of the hour. You can hear or download the show in MP3 at this link.

• Posted at 12:01 PM · LINK

Happy Soupy Sales Day!

Very few topics bring hits and e-mail to this site like a mention of Soupy Sales. Until I classed up and stopped posting them (i.e., when I ran out), photos of Julie Newmar in skimpy clothing was the big draw. But now it's Soupy. Every time I mention him, I hear from folks who were kids in Detroit (1953-1958), Los Angeles (1959-1962) or New York (1964-1967) and have never lost their affection for him and his shows.

As I tried to convey in this article, Soupy's show just exuded fun. It was fun to watch and I used to wish I was one of the people on the crew. You heard them laughing off-camera, especially when Soupy was in trouble and attempting to ad-lib his way out of some bit that wasn't working. As we mentioned when we recently linked to a Soupy clip, he was not only a very clever, likeable man but a very brave one, as well. His show was half improvised (some days, well more than half) and he did it without a huge cast or budget. Much of the time, it was just him out there, thinking of entertaining things to say and do. I never missed his show and was heartbroken when he left the Los Angeles airwaves.

Today is Soupy's 81st birthday. I don't think he's on the web but maybe White Fang or Black Tooth have Internet access and will let him know that a lot of us are wishing him well...today and every day.

• Posted at 1:57 AM · LINK

Today's Video Link

Got a good one for you today, though it's a little long. It's a whole half hour of Time for Beany, the puppet show produced by the late, great Bob Clampett. The show originally starred Daws Butler and Stan Freberg but they had left by the time this episode was produced, which I'm guessing is late 1954 or early 1955. The cast in this one consisted of Walker Edmiston (as Beany and Clowny), Irv Shoemaker (as Cecil), Jim MacGeorge (as Cap'n Huffenpuff and the announcer) and I'm assuming that's Bill Oberlin in the gorilla suit. On the animated version produced a few years later, Shoemaker did the voices of Cecil and Dishonest John while MacGeorge voiced Beany and Huffenpuff.

The script for this one was written by Lloyd Turner, a fascinating gent who started his professional career as a gagman for Warner Brothers cartoons and ended it writing situation comedies including All in the Family, The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Mork & Mindy. He was also one of the more prolific writers of Dell funny animal comics in the fifties and early sixties. The one time I met and spoke with him, he didn't seem to think much of his years on Time for Beany but I think that, despite the meager production values, the shows hold up pretty well...

• Posted at 12:36 AM · LINK

January 9, 2007 • Current • January 7, 2007