Run and walk cycles in front of a repeating background was not something unusual in cartoons. The theatrical studios used them. It’s no surprise Hanna-Barbera would have them.
The number of drawings depended on the cycle. Some were four, some were six, some were eight. I’ve even seen three and five in some H-B cartoons.
Here’s a cycle of the Sheriff of Nottingham by Ed Love from the Huckleberry Hound cartoon Nottingham and Eggs (1959). It has four drawings and Huck returns to the same spot in the same position after 16 frames. We’ve slowed it down.
This is as close to the speed you see it on screen as we can get.
The background is by Joe Montell, whose stop at Hanna-Barbera wasn't long. He decided to work for Jay Ward, supervising at Gamma Productions in Mexico City. Walt Clinton drew the layouts from Warren Foster's story.
Ed's beaver-tooth mouth makes an appearance.
And, as you can see above, this is the cartoon featuring a naked Huck.
Ed told Harvey Deneroff that everything he did at Hanna-Barbera was freelance. His first cartoons on the Huckleberry Hound series showed up in 1959, and he seems to have an animated a bunch of commercials featuring the studio's characters, as well as the little cartoons between the cartoons on both Huck and Quick Draw McGraw.
In 1940, he was at Disney (making $4,900 a year) and lived two doors down the street in Van Nuys from cartoon producer Paul Fennell. He was let go after the Disney strike, ended up in the Tex Avery unit at MGM before being fired by Fred Quimby (who tried to rehire him, but Love had gone to work for Hugh Harman), and spent several years during a real glory period at Walter Lantz. When that studio closed down, he went to work as a manufacturer's agent, before animating commercials for most of the 1950s.
Despite him not being under contract at the time, Love was one the best animator who adapted into the limited animation system, he seemed to put so much effort in 5 Huckleberry Hound’s including this cartoon,
ReplyDelete“Tin Pan Alley” (Ed Benedict)
“Nuts over Mutts” (Rivera)
“Cop and Saucer” (Rivera)
“Science Friction” (Rivera)
Most of the animators that worked for Hanna-Barbera have their distinct styles (Lundy is more geometric, Kenneth has the “teeth” and the oval eyes, but usually on-model due to his work ethic). The smears from his Avery days was there, he even wasn’t afraid to push the boundaries unlike most of the other animators (Bob Carr, Hicks Lokey, Lew Marshall, Robert Bentley come to mind), although Carlo Vinci, George Nicholas, Ken Southworth, Don Towsley also did the same thing with their own distinct traits without making it look so similar to other animators that prioritize on just being on-model & speed. And if we’re talking about freelance animators, he’s one of my favorites. even up there with John Boersema, who is one of my personal favorites that came around this time period for his efficiency, the walk cycles & the way he drew Blabber Mouse & both of the “meeces” in the 3 S&B’s & 2 P&D’s he worked on. with my honorable mentions going to Don Towsley, Gerard Baldwin (who left with Montell to Mexico), Ken O’Brien, and LaVerne Harding.
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Sidenote: I don’t know if Tony Rivera, the layout artist behind the 3 Hucks i mentioned is just freelancing or under contract but i’m assuming he only freelanced as well for the company (Rivera also did layouts for UPA around 1960 for Mr. Magoo) because he wasn’t retained after THHS / TQDMS / TYBS ended it’s run. Rivera did layouts for over 10+ Huckleberry Hound cartoons total since Rivera began working for the company around 1959-1962 (Rivera was working with Ed Graham in the mid-1960’s when Hanna-Barbera was doing Atom Ant / Secret Squirrel)
— Corbin
Mark Kausler has commented about Ed Love here before. I'm hoping he has some time to add his insight.
DeleteOne cartoon, I counted nine different head positions Love used in an H-B scene.
Hopefully he’ll have time to revisit. I don’t recall any other animator besides Ed having the time to put this many head positions in the 7 minute cartoons or even commercials. (though Don Patterson is the most closest I recall due to his trait of moving the head when the character speaks)
DeleteThere’s not too much info about Love besides his animation work, or friends (James T. Walker, who worked with Ed as his assistant before being promoted to an Animator at Hanna-Barbera in the 1970s. a great person in his own right who interviewed with other people) and his appearance in a Tex Avery-related documentary.
— Corbin