A. Film L.A. test

One of the animators mentioned in my previous posting was Dick Lundy. Richard James Lundy was born in Michigan on 8/14/07 and died 4/7/90 in San Diego County. Starting as cel painter and inbetweener in 1929, he worked at Disney until 1943 (though his IMDb credits also include Mickey Mouse Disco in 1980, but this "clip show" used his early work). After Disney he worked on lots and lots of Hanna-Barbera series, as well as features like Charlotte's Web, and even Bakshi's Fritz the Cat. We have, of course, encountered Lundy many times on this blog. We didn't see Lundy at bat in the winter 1930/31 Disney studio Softball game . But above image links to a caricature of Lundy at bat, so we know how that looked. I do not know who drew the caricature - but it is obviously contemporary and came from Jack Cutting's files. My old mentor Børge Ring once asked Bob Maxfield , animation director on the first Dutch animated feature " Dexter the Dragon & Bumble the Bea...

Directed by Burt Gillett. Released 10/23/30, this FINAL draft dated 9/13/30. Animation by Dave Hand, Jack King, Charlie Byrne, Norm Ferguson, Dick Lundy, Johnny Cannon, Les Clark, Ben Sharpsteen, Tom Palmer, Wilfred Jackson, Jack Cutting and Frenchy de Trémaudan. Found on the Treasures DVD Mickey Mouse in Black and White, Vol. 2 Disk 1 or on YouTube, though in very low quality here . A cute little film, this is actually a landmark in animation history. "Can I bring Rover?" Little Rover is, of course, none other than Pluto! Fergy's scene 27 is often "quoted" when discussing the origins of this the most famous of cartoon canines. It is very interesting to see the difference in drawing styles. Fergy tries to draw a dog and mostly does a very nice job. Compare this with e.g. Palmer's attempt in the final scene. It is a "funny cartoon balloon animal," a much more simplistic and symbolic way of drawing. Palmer, Cannon and Lundy seem not to be quite up to...

Here is another reason I love paper shows! Here we have a rare postcard of the interior of Walt's Gulfstream airplane, his much-loved toy that he had the fun Mickey sign made for that I showed you recently ! The card even shows that the plane had its own logo! "In flight aboard Walt Disney Productions' Gulfstream N732G!" The front bottom right reads "© 1964 Walt Disney Productions." (To see the image more correctly, I have descreened it: ) Note that the N-number N732G has NEVER been assigned to Disney; it is currently assigned to a 1969 Beech aircraft registered in North Carolina. Before Disney took it over, the plane was registered as N707MP and then it became N234MM , a tailnumber it still has to this day, as seen on the images in my previous posting . Where, then, does the number N732G on this postcard stem from?? What is interesting to note also, is the fact that Walt had this exact image in his working office at the time of his passing. Here is the pe...

Directed by Burt Gillett. Released 8/13/32, this draft dated 4/20/32. Nearly four months!? Could it be because this film was the first Mickey in the United Artists series? Animation by Norm Ferguson, Jack King, Tom Palmer, Johnny Cannon, Gilles Armand "Frenchy" de Trémaudan, Ben Sharpsteen, Les Clark, Hardy Gramatky and Dave Hand. Another classic with the animators unknown - until now!