ub iwerk's chick artist 3

3.Design.
one thing about ub's studio,their style of movement is startlingly similar to today's animation:the
motion of most characters are often fast and quickly-timed in their actions.many of the FTFs are an example of this.the main thing,tho,is that the char designs must cooperate with the quick
moving
animation.grim,along with shamus,berny and al were partial to this,al eugster especially.one example of al's good designs is the ComiColor The Headless Horseman.this is a animated version of
Washington Irving's classic tale of romance,rivalry and fear.the first thing we see(besides ub and
carl's[stalling's]credits)is the well-established love triangle:katrina van tussel(who is an obese-looking woman),brom bones,muscular and quite hansome,and the protaganist,ichabod crane,tall and lanky.after an example of how the LT goes,we see icky at work:a teacher at school.he reads the
same book the short is based on and is horrified.we see the same image outside(strangly,it is in broad
daylight),but it quickly dissolves to a African-American messanger on a donkey,who delivers a
letter to icky,who at first thinks it is the HH is after him as pictured in his thought cloud,but when came
to,takes it and smiles at said messanger,who smiles back.the invatation is the cue for the main
story to begin.it reads:
Dear Icky,
tonite there's a brawl at Van Tussel Hall.
Katrina.
icky is,of course delighted and sends the kids home early,at which they pour out of the building in glee.after washing up,icky goes on his way over,brom too.
at afore-mentioned shindig,brom brings katrina her boquet,dispatching our homely hero in the
process,but katrina glares at him and lets icky in.another black is seen:he rings the dinner bell,as
packs of guests stampede into the room and leave the table bare and matless.icky and brom sit
with katrina and share with her their meals.one thing to note is how icky and brom's meals consist of cake and some-probably ice cream-white substance,wheras the other guests dine on more elaborate foods.after, they profess their love for her,then Gomez Adams-style kiss her up
her arms,but upon reaching her head,she ducks and they kiss each other instead.upon realizing
this,brom declares a fight against our nerdy-friend,but icky's got a few tricks up his sleeve;he
emerges from a brief self-huddle wearing glasses,so he can't get hurt.much later,the three-black
man-band strike up a country tune and everyone starts dancing.icky cuts brom out of the picture for a while so he can cut a rug with katrina.while they do,brom imagines icky as 3 unlikable beasts:a snake,a skunk,and at the end of the dance,a mule(you can guess the joke asso-
iated with icky's head on a mule's body).
much later,some old geezer-tpye tells the title tale.upon hearing it,brom conducts a hostile plot
against icky.after that,the grandfather clock chimes for everyone to go home.when brom tries to
say goodbye,katrina spurns him.however,after he storms out,she imagines him as Clark Gable.
icky too tries to make a play for her,but is thrown out.while riding home in the dark,icky meets
up with his feared foe:the Headless Horseman.he tries to escape on his own mediocre nag,but the
HH thows a pumpkin at him,knocking him off his horse,after which,icky jumps out of a puddle and runs off into the night.of course,we learn it was all brom's doing as retaliation,and he laughs
heartly-if not sadisticly-after the whole she-bang.with icky out of the way,brom can finally get
down to more important things:marrying katrina.as the iwerks-styled bells say "bong" several
times,brom bones and katrina van tussel are married.at that moment,the HH reappears,and both husband and wife flee,as well as the guests and the preacher.in the end,however,it turns to
be none other than Ichabod Crane,who laughs at his somewhat revenge as we iris out.an early
entry in the ComiColor series,but icky's revenge-it's not fair that brom married katrina and all he did was scare everyone out of the churchhouse.then again,it's an Ub Iwerks cartoon;sense and comeuppance come second often.availible on The Ub Iwerks Collection DVD.in supposedly
good shape and self-opinioned enjoyable.

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...