Thursday 6 November 2014

Frog Mouth

If you were to make a cartoon about a frog mouth, you couldn’t do better than to have George Nicholas animate it. He loved drawing big mouths with big floppy tongues.

It just so happened the tenth Flintstones cartoon that aired, “Hollyrock, Here I Come,” involved Fred being cast in a TV show about a loud guy with a big mouth. Guess who animated it?

Here are some of George’s poses. They’re a lot of fun. He liked drawing little beady eyes, too, when a character was excited or stunned, and cashew eyes in crying scenes.



Animating a half-hour show (roughly the same footage as four Yogi shorts) solo was a bit of a chore, so some walk cycles and other animation are re-used. You’ll notice the last drawing is the same as an earlier drawing; it’s just turned over then inked and painted on the other side.

Alan Reed does a really nice job on this cartoon. Next time you watch it, listen to how various emotions come through in the dialogue. And Jerry Mann’s pretty good, too, as the TV producer. Mann had been doing cartoon voices almost 20 years earlier but was never credited on screen and you likely don’t know a lot about him. We’ll have a post about him next week.

6 comments:

  1. Alan Reed does amazing acting work where ever he goes: ''Allen's Alley'', ''Lady and the Tramp'', ''Life with Luigi'', ''The Life of Riley'', ''Touche Turtle and Dum-Dum'', ''The Postman Always Rings Twice'', ''Breakfast at Tiffany's'', ''The Addams Family''...everywhere.

    A post about Jerry Mann!!! Cool!!!!

    Georgi.

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  2. H-B sure got a lot of mileage out of that Phil Silvers impression that first season. It was not only employed here for the TV producer character, but by Dino (!) in "The Snorkasaurus Hunter" and (appropriately enough) for a sergeant in "The Astra' Nuts".

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  3. Alan Reed DID do an amazing job as Fred. George Nicholas did the perfect job with the loud mouth. You don't need any audio. Just look at the pictures of Fred " exploding " and you can hear it. Always enjoyed Daws' Phil Silvers routine.He got a lot of mileage it. Looking forward to the blog on Jerry Mann.

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  4. Check out that Nicholas congruency in that arm waving drawing!

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  5. Please, pretty please..let's see the Mann article! Nicholas did the animation for, if I'm CORRECT, the majority of Season 2's "Mailman Cometh" (about Fred thinking that Mr.Slate cut him out of a raise and a la the influence show "Honeymooners" sending a nasty letter to the boss before realizing otherwise, then after a subplot at the mailbox with a snoopy cop, when the cop shows the Sargeant who's in the box only no people there, the cop crawls begging for no ultimatimums (Sarge:'..or you'll be pounding the beat at'')..in George Nicholas animaiton after the Sargeant (John Stephenson, Herb Vigran as the cop). Erroll, agreed with you on your comment. Don;t forget Arnold Stang, who had HIS OWN DISTINCT voice, also imitated Silvers as Top Cat.SC

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  6. Gene Hazelton also knew drawing Fred with his frog mouth in the Flintstones comic strip.
    Gene Hazelton and George Nicholas were both from Disney.

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