Børge on Babbitt
This in from my old mentor Børge Ring:
When the production of theatrical cartoons dried up during the late 1950es a lot of Disney-trained animators moved over to the studios that made limited animation for TV series.
One who did not was Arthur Babbitt...no Flintstones for him. He opted for animating commercials because they had budgets that allowed for full animation. For some years he was heading a department for commercials at Hanna-Barbera winning 80 Awards for them.
"How big was the department, Art?"
"You mean the staff and the whole staff?"
"Yes."
He got up from his chair and into a soldier's pose, arms stretched down the sides and said: "You are looking at it right now."
Sitting down again he recounted: "I had everything made in free lance, even camera. My favourite animator was Irving Spence and I let all commercials be done in full animation regardless of the design style."
After some years he moved to London to the studio of Richard Williams to train Dick's young staff all the while animating on Williams's feature about "The Cobbler and the Thief" and incidentally directing a few commercials.
One day I asked Richard Williams what Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera were doing about their commercials with Art Babbitt over here in London. "Oh" said Dick, "They are so big they don't even know they have a department for commercials."
Here, at the 2007 Disney Legends, 10/10/2007, is Roy Disney introducing Art's bubbly widow, and her acceptance speech.
When the production of theatrical cartoons dried up during the late 1950es a lot of Disney-trained animators moved over to the studios that made limited animation for TV series.
One who did not was Arthur Babbitt...no Flintstones for him. He opted for animating commercials because they had budgets that allowed for full animation. For some years he was heading a department for commercials at Hanna-Barbera winning 80 Awards for them.
"How big was the department, Art?"
"You mean the staff and the whole staff?"
"Yes."
He got up from his chair and into a soldier's pose, arms stretched down the sides and said: "You are looking at it right now."
Sitting down again he recounted: "I had everything made in free lance, even camera. My favourite animator was Irving Spence and I let all commercials be done in full animation regardless of the design style."
After some years he moved to London to the studio of Richard Williams to train Dick's young staff all the while animating on Williams's feature about "The Cobbler and the Thief" and incidentally directing a few commercials.
One day I asked Richard Williams what Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera were doing about their commercials with Art Babbitt over here in London. "Oh" said Dick, "They are so big they don't even know they have a department for commercials."
Here, at the 2007 Disney Legends, 10/10/2007, is Roy Disney introducing Art's bubbly widow, and her acceptance speech.
Labels: Børge_Ring, News, Other Disney, Video
posted by Hans Perk at 2:00 PM
1 Comments:
As for Dick Williams' comments, as quoted by Borge, the first time Art Babbitt came over to teach (July 1973), he was officially on holiday from Hanna-Barbera. When Art returned in the summer of 1974, he had resigned from Hanna-Barbera, and took up the post as the Director of the commercials at Richard Williams' Studio. As far as I can recall, this was around the time Borge was making frequent trips to London, and bringing tantalizing drawings from his collection of Disney artwork that amazed those of us (few I can reveal) that were extremely enthusiastic about traditional cartoon animation.
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