Wednesday 28 December 2011

Extra Special Quick Draw

Some layout sketches and drawings from the Quick Draw McGraw cartoon ‘Extra Special Extra’ (1961) have surfaced on-line. I suspect they’re by Bick Bickenbach, though there are no credits on any of the copies of the cartoon I have. But the little newspaper editor and unibrowed bad guy resemble incidental characters in earlier cartoons Bickenbach worked on.

Let’s compare the layouts to what was in the actual cartoon. Again, I don’t know who the background artist is due to a lack of credits and I’m not confident enough to guess (other than it’s not Art Lozzi).

Several Quick Draw, especially El Kabong adventures, started with a left-to-right pan over a western town. You can see how Bick (or whoever) changed the diner and eliminated the outhouse.





This is from the second scene. The cartoon features a running gag with the editor misspelling “Daily” on his front window.





This layout doesn’t quite represent a scene in the cartoon. The editor’s head is up like that only in a closer shot that doesn’t show the whole printing apparatus.





And here’s Bat Belfry greeting Quick Draw, who knocked on his door.





Now, an extra special extra. Here are what I suspect are models of the Quick Draw McGraw show characters for promotional art, signed by Ed Benedict. Seems to me I’ve seen at least one of these in an old newspaper ad.


8 comments:

  1. Quick Draw, Baba Looey, Augie Doggie, Doggie Daddy, Snooper & Blabber! What a neat piece of art!

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  2. "Daley Blunder" may refer to Richard J. Daley, iron-handed mayor of Chicago who lost many a subordinate to corruption charges.

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  3. Thanks Don, it's a privilege to see this rare stuff (makes me start dreaming again about that Quick Draw DVD set...foolish mortal I)!

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  4. I just discovered your blog a few days ago and I have spent hours reading and enjoying your posts - old and new. As a life-long fan of Hanna-Barbera, I just want to say THANK YOU for making all of this material available. Incredible stuff, endlessly fascinating!

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  5. I really enjoy stopping by here every so often. I for one cannot stand later HB stuff that is always run on Boomerang channel: Wacky Races (pointless), Perils of Penelope Pitstop (dreck) and the like. Waste of cell material.
    But they do run Yogi and the better stuff tho, so the channel is not a complete waste of digital space!
    I think Tony may be right about the Daley sign.
    Jack

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  6. The layouts and character positioning of the original H-B characters and designs look so much more alive than what came after them, in part because Bick's layouts and Benedict's designs still maintain their MGM linkage (I.e - they wouldn't look all that out of place in one of the later fully-animated CinemaScope cartoons). The sad part is even as this cartoon was being made, the downhill slide was beginning behind the scenes, with the "updated" designs for the New Hanna-Barbera Cartoon Show.

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    Replies
    1. Please explain what you mean by 'updated'. I'm not taking umbrage, just curious.

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  7. Janet Waldo also provided a memorable turn in "I Love Lucy" opposite a young Richard Crenna in "The Young Fans", in which a pair of teens are lovestruck for Ricky and Lucy, respectively.

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