ub iwerk's chick artist pt 2

cont'd from last post....
mary's other known appearance was in Insutin' the Sultan. an obvious copy/remake of Coo Coo,the Arabian-styled short has the same plotline as the flip cartoon except the ending:willie and mary are about to have their victory kiss,but the ex-sultan's harem girls jump on willie and cover him in lip prints. also willie's cartoons seem to have slight irony in them:willie tells his friend goofy (not the dis.char.)"..and was my face red!" the joke is often hard since it's a b&w short,but the teacher catches him,puts a dunce cap on him and puts him back to work.as it ends,we get iris out on goofy laughing. the cartoon is an intrersting iwerks specimen,as the hero+maid+villan conflict is set in a different country.

Chapter 2:Fashion
Grim's special sense of design made him a must-get on the animator's rooster.he was signifigant
in clothing of his characters.as i pointed out min part 1 of the post,he was quentisential in the making of FiFi and Mary.the dresses of the period were styled the way the dressmaker,tailors,etc
wanted them.one example is how dolls were styled after little girls.this was noticed especially in
th Van Beuren Aesop's Fable cartoon A Toy Town Tale.(yes,i know we're talking about grim here
but this is important too!)the said short starts out in a toy store on a snowy night(take a hint!)so
after a toy cop is pushed into a glue pot,the festivies begin.we get down to the real story when a
group of soldiers pass a doll's house and the lead soldier stops to woo the said occupan-ess.a lot
of Fleischer-like gags follow:the doll's face does all sorts of affection sign:her lips and eyes form
hearts,she winks at the soldier flirtatiously and her pupils turn into little versions of his head.the
olden-time toY G.I joe takes his new-found beau over to a piano,where they perform a hit classic
Oh,you Beautiful doll.(again,take a hint!)all the while during their Woofest,a oddish looking jack
-in-the-box keeps disturbing them.after the song,the soldier tries and succsessfuly,gets the gal to
do the old-bench-act.then they make out.all the while,the doll's bow growing bigger and her feet
twitching.unfortunatly,our so-called hero turns out to be a coward when an elephant attacks him
and his troop.the other toys hiss-and-boo him,but his gal kisses him for his non-bravery.a monkey(sadly,not our friendly george-like variety.)attacks the girl and hero/coward makes a run
for it.a sheperd doll saves her and they dance happily.the jack-in-the-box claps in admaration for their relationship but the toy cop comes back and clobbers him with his billy club.a fair one,
but today's print is out of shape:the doll's voice can hardly be heard!

To be continued....

ub iwerk's chick artist

this is not myron "grim"natwick. this is berny wolf,
one of the many animators at the ub iwerks studio.
as many of ya know,ub left walt disney's studio beacause of personal and work
differences.he opened his studio,with distrbn.by MGM.his first series was
Flip the Frog.flip was a easy-going character,but many of his Depression-era
shorts were filled with..um,shall we say,unnmetionable themes.and with the arrival of grim,they became even more risque! however,just as he had made a contribution to
Fleisher Studios:Betty Boop,he did the same for the flip series and the iwerks studio in general.

1:Girlfriends
Flip the Frog
Flip had gone thru an assortment of girlfriends.the first(and obviously longest running)was a cat.
Clarice(a fan name,mind you)was a cutie,with lipstick lips that changed color thru the shorts she
appeared in(but sadly,never came off on flip's face),a skirt looking like an upside-down bowl and
a daisy-hat.and of course,high-heels! but mgm wasn't satisfied with her,as bestilty was a no-no.
(think Bimbo from the TKs and BBs replaced by fred) so ol'grim decided to help ub out.starting
with Funny Face,flip's new girlfriend,fifi became a regular for about the rest of flip's series.FiFi
was dressed like the little girls of the period:sleevless dress,often visible undies(apoligizes to PC
group),little black socks and stubby little mary-janes.she was a grim-styled gal:ready to defend
herself when nessasary,occasinaly tough(to villans,that is),but sweet and loyal to flip.(oddly enough in funny face,she rejects him for a real boy).her only other known apperance is an Araibian-styled short(a specialty in grim's case,especially when it to females).the plot is simple:
flip and fifi go to afore-metioned continent,but a magician ala-kazoops fifi to the city's sultan.of
course,she lets the creep have it and tries to escape,but the guards stop her.and it's flip to da rescue! CooCoo the Magician was animated by longtime fleisher,disney and currently at the time iwerks animator:Shamus Culhane.
Willie Whopper
after flip was dropped,ub made Willie Whopper,a little boy who, true to his namesake,told unbeilevable but brillianty animated fables.as usual,grim made him a girlfriend.starting with the
reworked version of an earlier stab,The Air Race,Mary made her first apperance in Sprite Flight.
mary was styled and modeled after fifi,but the changes are obvious:
-she was blond,whereas fifi was a brunette
-her dress was light gray,whereas fifi's was black
-her lipstick lips are more-seen then fifi's(again,they never came off on willie's face)
willie himself went thru change too. first of all,grim made him tall and lanky,like a boy version of flip.but he changed to fat in Stratos Fear.

to be continued...