The late Bobby Fischer was a World Chess Champion. Later, he was totally out of his mind.

Widely considered a “chess legend”, at age 13 Fischer won a “brilliancy” that became known as The Game of the Century. Starting at age 14, he played in eight United States Championships, winning each by at least a point. At 15½, he became both the youngest grandmaster and the youngest candidate for the World Championship up until that time. He won the 1963–64 U.S. Championship 11–0, the only perfect score in the history of the tournament. In the early 1970s he became the most dominant player in modern history—winning the 1970 Interzonal by a record 3½-point margin and winning 20 consecutive games, including two unprecedented 6–0 sweeps in the Candidates Matches. According to research by Jeff Sonas, in 1971 Fischer had separated himself from the rest of the world by a larger margin of playing skill than any player since the 1870s.^[3] He became the first official World Chess Federation (Fédération Internationale des Échecs) (FIDE) number one rated chess player in July 1971, and his 54 total months at number one is the .third longest of all time.

As in many entries in Oregon Movies, A to Z, there turns out to be more than one Oregon connection. The primary connection: Bobby Fischer Against The World was the last editing project of Portland born and raised Karen Schmeer.

The second Oregon connection is not to the film so much as to the life of Bobby Fischer. In the mid-1960’s, he joined the Worldwide Church of God, a radio ministry which began in Eugene, Oregon as the brainchild of Garner Ted Armstrong.  (Strange but true: Basil Wolverton was also a member of Worldwide Church Of God.) Fischer left the Worldwide Church Of God in 1972 after Armstrong was accused of sexual misbehavior.

This HBO documentary explores the way things started to really fall apart for Fischer after that.

I hereby claim Bobby Fischer Against The World as a Oregon film, on the basis of the editing contribution made by the late Karen Schmeer.

Strange but true: The legendary underground cartoonist Robert Crumb cites two Oregon artists, Carl Barks and Basil Wolverton, as crucial early formative influences. Yet no one ever asks him to be more specific. Just how did Disney comic book auteur Carl Barks and Mad Magazine illustrator Basil Wolverton influence the creator of Mr. Natural and Fritz the Cat?

Oregon Cartoon Institute asked Patrick Rosenkranz, the author of Rebel Visions: The Underground Comix Revolution, 1963 – 1975, and Charles Boucher, the owner of CounterMedia, to walk us through the specific aspects of Barks’ and Wolverton’s work which Crumb incorporated into his own. Karl Lind captured this avalanche of Crumb scholarship in the above video.

Readers of Oregon Movies, A to Z already know Crumb’s Book of Genesis, currently on display at Portland Art Museum, was directly inspired by Wolverton.

Reminder:  You have until September 19, 2010 to see rooms and rooms of  original artwork by Robert Crumb at Portland Art Museum. His entire Book Of Genesis is there – the original hand drawn, hand lettered artwork — making it possible for you to walk, page by page, throughout the first book of the Bible.

Basil Wolverton displays his pioneering “spaghetti and meatballs” approach to human anatomy.

As Oregon Cartoon Institute heads into its fourth year, I sat down to retrace the steps that led to its creation.

This timeline of development was originally written for Jill Hartz, at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art. Thank you, Jill, for providing me with the impetus to pull this together!

1990’s in New York

As I fly back and forth between Portland and New York, I begin noticing the way Oregon press underplays the fame of Oregon’s most well received artists (Chuck Palahniuk a great example ) while at the same time New York press omits the Oregon citizenship of an artist all together. I begin to understand the way this has created a misperception that Oregon does not produce artists.

At about this same time Columbia sportswear begins showing up on the subways. The Simpsons are becoming a cultural mainstay. Elliott Smith, the Dandy Warhols, Courtney Love, Gus Van Sant — I start to feel  surrounded by Portland even when I am 3,000 miles away.

1999 visiting Portland

David Chelsea tells me about Basil Wolverton.

I knew about Homer Davenport, the Hearst newspaper cartoonist from Silverton.

I’d heard about Mel Blanc, Portland’s most reknowned voice artist.

But I am stupefied by Wolverton. How could a guy from Central Point (pop: 12,000)  influence an entire generation of  Americans? And do it via Mad Magazine ?

A seed starts to sprout in my mind.

2001, in Portland

Dennis Nyback and I teach an avant garde film survey course at Northwest Film Center. Preparing for it, I discover avant garde animator Harry Smith was born in Portland.

Smith was both the disciplined, insightful, completely original collector behind Folkways’ enormously influential Anthology of American Folk Music and a self taught, extravagantly experimental, completely original filmmaker. I never dreamt he had anything to do with Oregon.

In my previous understanding, Oregon rarely produced nationally known artists.

Now with Harry “High Brow” Smith and Basil “Low Brow” Wolverton in the picture, I am completely confused.

2003 in New York

Standing in Kim’s Video, I stumble across a footnote in a book about Robert Crumb which identifies Carl Barks, creator of the comic books which were a huge influence on Crumb, as being from Merrill, Oregon.

I turn the book over to see who wrote it — D. K. Holm, from Portland.

At this point I compile a list of living and dead Oregon cartoonists and animators and send it to John Canemaker, asking what he thinks. He calls me, excited and impressed.

He adds two new names.

He tells me Marc Davis, one of Disney’s Nine Old Men, graduated from high school in Klamath Falls

and that Pinto Colvig, an early animator turned voice artist, is from Jacksonville.

2006 in Portland

Dennis and I interview Portland cartoonist  John Callahan for The Portland That Was.

Callahan is surprised to learn that Mel Blanc, a life long hero, is from his own home town. Our intern, a graduate of Lincoln High School, the school Blanc attended, tells us she never heard of him.

About this time, graphic journalist  Joe Sacco returns home to live in Portland, bringing with him his 1996 American Book Award.

Dennis and I return home too.

2007 in Portland

We hold the first Oregon Cartoon Institute public event, a three week screening series at Disjecta of 16mm animation from Dennis’ collection. Jim Blashfield and Rose Bond come and speak. Both have conducted far ranging film careers from Portland.

Blashfield made his acclaimed music videos here, and Bond her monumentally scaled installations. Both use animation.

Our model for engaging audiences emerges  — we will use living artists as interpreters as we raise awareness about the dead ones. Chel White, Bill Plympton, Joan Gratz, Joanna Priestly, Marilyn Zornado and Will Vinton loan us 35mm prints for the final night of the Disjecta series, which takes place at the Hollywood Theater.

Second Oregon Cartoon Institute event: Dennis conducts video interviews with visiting and local artists at the Platform International Animation Festival. We put these online.

At this point, I thought we had found all the historic Oregon animation and cartooning figures there were to find.

I was wrong.

In the course of researching Oregon film history for the Oregon Sesquicentennial Film Festival, I stumble across George Bruns, a four time Oscar nominee for animated film scores, from Sandy

and Dennis stumbles across Ralph Wright, who won the Golden Bear in Berlin in 1957. He’s from Grants Pass.

2009 in Portland

Third Oregon Cartoon Institute event: we co-sponsored Bill Plympton Day at the Oregon Sesquicentennial Film Festival at Marylhurst.

Bill is as fascinated with this history as we are.

Not all our research comes from history books. Some comes from the news. Just when we weren’t looking,  Brad Bird received first one, then two Oscars.

Looking ahead:

An interview about Oregon Cartoon Institute’s next public event, which will take place in 2011, can be found online at  KBOO.fm. Conducted by S. W. Conser as part of his Words & Pictures series, this interview introduces our first artist in residence, Heather Perkins.

Oregon Cartoon Institute is all about partnerships. As soon as the details get finalized, we will announce our upcoming partnerships with others who share our goal of raising public awareness of  this state’s rich animation and cartooning history.

“In theory, the project may strike some as perverse, like having Charles Bukowski pen the script for a remake of “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Reed Johnson, in the LA Times

From June 12, 2020 to Sept. 19, 2010, the original pen and ink drawings made by R. Crumb for his latest work, an illustrated Book of Genesis, will be on exhibit at the Portland Art Museum.

You can see Crumb talking about this project with Francoise Mouly last fall. He explains that he was inspired by The Story of Man, an illustrated Bible series drawn by Basil Wolverton for the Radio Church of God’s magazine The Plain Truth , and that he adopted Wolverton’s approach, which was to use the complete biblical text, with no editing.

Here’s a page of Wolverton’s The Story of Man, which he began drawing in 1958.

Basil Wolverton ( 1909 – 1978 ) was born in Central Point, Oregon. He conducted his national career as an cartoonist and illustrator entirely by mail, from Vancouver, Washington. Hmmmm, perhaps that’s another influence. Crumb now conducts his career from the south of France.

Here’s Wolverton’s thumbnail bio of himself:

Strange but true: Basil Wolverton is one of two Oregon cartoonists much beloved by Crumb. Carl Barks, the auteur behind the Donald Duck comic books, is the other.

This post brought to you by the Oregon Cartoon Institute.

I read my growing list of historic Oregon animators and cartoonists to  John Canemaker in New York. There was a long silence. Then he said “You’ve left off two” and gave me more names. Canemaker, an animator and a historian, had no explanation for why Oregon has consistently produced such greatness in these fields. He did affirm that we had a disproportionate number of artists to claim.

Dennis Nyback and I started the Oregon Cartoon Institute to explore that mystery. On Feb. 25, 2010, the Institute had its first public meeting, hosted by Dan Ackerman of Ackerman Films. Dennis Nyback and I served tea, brownies, and rare cartoons to the scholarly group who arrived eager to be divested of their ignorance.

The small but highly wonderful crowd received a brief orientation speech from me, and then a presentation from our artist in residence, composer-musician-sound designer Heather Perkins. Heather described the focus of her work for the institute, and the form her labors will be taking.

The project will be, basically, a musical tribute to Mel Blanc – and since Mel always said that Bugs Bunny is basically him, it will also (really) be a celebration of Bugs Bunny. The attitude, the character, the jazzy inflections of his voice, the casual “What’s Up Doc?” insouciance, the classically American sense of sassy independence. All that. It will be primarily musical in nature, including samples of Mel’s voice as musical elements, but no spoken word per se.

She also took questions.

We then gave a multimedia introduction to the nine animation and cartooning figures who inspired the founding of Oregon Cartoon Institute, and Dennis showed films featuring the work of two: Pinto Colvig and Mel Blanc.

The nine artists are:

Homer Davenport, newspaper cartoonist (Silverton)

Vance DeBar “Pinto” Colvig, animator turned voice artist  (Jacksonville)

Carl Barks, animator turned comic book artist/author (Merrill)

Mel Blanc, voice artist  (Portland)

Ralph Wright, story board artist and writer (Grants Pass)

Basil Wolverton, comic book cartoonist (Central Point)

Marc Davis, animator (Klamath Falls)

George Bruns, composer (Sandy)

Harry Smith, animator (Portland)

Stunned and humbled by the size of their newly discovered inheritance, most of the new members of the Institute were unable to move for a period of time after the presentations, which condition we took advantage of by asking for some marketing advice. Very useful for us!

The only things that went wrong with the evening were that a) we didn’t have t-shirts to sell, and b) we forgot to ask for email addresses, so now we don’t know who our new friends and members are.

Nevertheless, we consider the event very successful. Among the crowd we spotted S. W. Conser (KBOO’s Words & Pictures), Marc Moscato (Ye New Dill Pickle Club), filmmaker Larry Johnson, and Richard Herzkowitz (Pacific Rim Film Festival ). Very gratifying in the afterglow: Paul Bingman tweeted about us the next day. Thanks, Paul!

Thank you to Dan Ackerman of Ackerman Films for hosting the meeting. A big shout out  to Tom Fitzgerald and V for their help.

For more information about the Oregon Cartoon Institute, contact me, Anne Richardson, at mrs.nyback -at – gmail -dot – com.

Born and raised in Central Point, Oregon, Basil Wolverton conducted his career as a cartoonist entirely by mail from Vancouver, Washington.

Animation Archive reprinted an article Basil Wolverton wrote for The Oregonian in 1948.  I’m reprinting their reprint. Animation Archive thanks Marc Schirmeister, so I will too.

ACOUSTICS IN THE COMICS
By Basil Wolverton

The so called comic strip on my drawing board showed a heavy horse stepping on a bozo’s bean. The horse was tramping on the guy’s head in a delicate way, of course, so the situation would be more entertaining than grusome- depending on the reader’s sense of humor. But, like an old silent movie, the cartoon needed something, and that something was sound. There had to be a heavily lettered word oozing out from the exact point of contact between the horse’s hoofs and the man’s head. Thus the reader, pronouncing that sound word to himself, would actually hear within his mind the excitingly comical noise that would eminate from such action.

Summoning both brain cells hurriedly together, I tried desperately to imagine just what sort of sound would ensue if a nag were to step on someone’s skull. The word CRUNCH popped into my mind. Then CRONCH. Then CRANCH. I settled for CRANCH because somehow it seemed more refined. But before I could letter the word on the cartoon, I suddenly recalled my latest unhappy interview with the person who publishes my comic strips.

“I want realism!” he had bellowed. “No more of this wild imaginitive stuff that’s causing some people to want to ban our comic books! From now on, get that realism in there, and your strips will be horribly funny! Then the readers will go into hysterics and laugh like crazy, and our books will be acclaimed the most laugh provoking on the stands!” That meant that an imaginative word like CRANCH was taboo. It was up to me to get the real sound word. I looked furtively about as a preposterous plan permeated my pate.

It was easy to rent a horse. It wasn’t as easy to argue my brother in law into placing his pan on the pavement, and letting me ride the nag over his noggin. “Horses are so heavy!” he foolishly kept countering. “Besides, I have a cold sore.” As he waddled away, I realized my plan was hopeless- until he stumbled over something in the street. Before he could pull his chin out of the asphalt, I had steered the rented mare over him, and her hind hoof scored a bull’s eye on his bare bean.

The sound? It was far from CRANCH. The real thing turned out to be SLORNK. It was a sort of a slippery liquid sound. That was probably because my brother in law has oily skin and a thin skull. With the noxious noise fresh in mind, I streaked into my studio and feverishly lettered the word SLORNK boldly across the cartoon.

Weeks later the fan mail began pouring in. They all said the same thing. In fact, both of them were worded the same. The first one read “I want to congratulate you on that completely true to life cartoon you drew of the horse stepping on a man’s head. The word SLORNK describing the sound was absolutely accurate. I know, because I am always getting my head stepped on by some careless nag.” The second letter was the same as the first, except for the signature. I figured when I wrote them that there should be some difference. Otherwise the publisher might get wise when I showed them to him.

He was dumbfounded when he saw them. After recovering, he slapped me on my sunburn and rammed one of his dollar cigars into my mush. Unfortunately, he stuck the wrong end into my mouth. Besides, he was smoking it. “Two fan letters in eleven years” he murmured incredulously. “My boy, you have arrived! It’s just like I predicted,” my publisher beamed, “your horribly realistic sound words are paying off!”

I leaped on his desk. “Then I’m ripe for a raise?” I queried. peering so anxiously and closely into his red-rimmed readers that I could detect his wife’s fingernail scratches on his contact lenses. Anticipation was causing me to quiver like a rat terrier with radio-active fleas on a cold day. The suspense was terrible. Finally he opened his trap. He was grinning. This was the day for which I had waited eleven long years. “It does not!” he roared, brushing me off his desk. “I was merely feeling pleased that at last you may be worth almost as much as I’ve been paying you!”

While I gathered my teeth up off the floor, he pointed at me demandingly. “If you want a raise, every one of your sound effect words will have to be absolutely authentic! In other words, don’t draw a single sound word into your strips until you’ve actually staged the cartoon situation with real people and things!”

(Incidentally, you readers should stop worrying about my brother in law. Ever since the day the horse stepped on his head, he has had nothing but good luck. Why shouldn’t he, what with a horseshoe embedded in the back of his bean? Furthermore, he’s the only living person who can slide his head inside those record-in-the-slot phonographs without crushing his ears.)

My publisher pointed at me demandingly. “If you want a raise, every one of your sound effect words will have to be absolutely authentic! In other words, don’t draw a single sound word into your strips until you’ve actually staged the cartoon situation with real people and things!”

As for my publisher’s demands, they resulted in my running out of friends and relatives within a week. Neighbors complained about howls and screams emanating from the studio. People sued. The ASPCA hounded me. My wife and fourteen kids swore sudden allegiance to the Progressive party, then fled to Siberia.

Meanwhile, however, I managed to catalog hundreds of authentic sound words- enough to last me for a lifetime of cartooning, and enough I thought, to cover any and all comic situations, regardless of how terrible. I was so proud of my achievement that I showed the lengthy list to my publisher. Here are some of the more subtle sound words describing various clashings, crashings, slashings, bashings, hashings, mashings, etc. Read the situation, then voice the accompanying sound word to yourself, and note how vividly the picture then comes to your mind:

• Pinheaded person pullingg pate out of a pop bottle: FOINK!
• Glass eye falling into tomato soup: PLOOP!
• Glass eye falling into a pitcher of thick syrup: PLOFF!
• Man sitting on short tack: SQUINCH!
• Man sitting on long tack: SQUONCH!
• Uppers dropping in gob of putty: FLUP!

• Hungry cannibal filing eyetooth: FWATCH!
• Man with calloused feet crossing rough linoleum: SKIRP! SKIRP!
• Thumb gouging eye: SPOP!
• Hot lava speweing on WCTU convention: FOOSK!
• Hot lava spewing on Elks’ convention: SSSCRISH!
• Person skidding on hot stove in bare feet: SCREESH!
• Beaver biting into wooden leg: CRASP!
• Car crashing into large vat of frogs’ eggs: SKWORP!
• False teeth falling through skylight: TWUNK!
• Sock in the face with Sears Roebuck catalog: PWOSH!
• Sock in the face with Montgomery Ward catalog: PWASH!
• Octopus slapping a tentacle on bald bean: SPOOP!

• Man dragging toenails over No.2 grade sandpaper: SKARP!
• Man falling on face in a barrel of wet teabags: FROMP!
• Sock in the kisser with a wet codfish: SCHALAMPF!
• Person socking wet halibut with his kisser: SCHLOOF!
• Lowers falling into a bucket of cup grease: UNPH!
• Man with small head drowning in a glass of tomato juice: GOIK!
• Woodpecker hammering on human head: DUD-DUD-DUD-DUD-DUD!
• Cannon ball landing in mush of toothless man: FWOCK!
• Two bald men colliding headon: KROCK!
• Garter snapping on varicose vein: SCHWIPP!
• Single BB shot landing on a cow’s udder: PWIP!
• Person pulling ponderous pate through a puny porthole: SPOOCH!
• Bear trap springing on human noggin: SPROCK!
• Rat trap springing on person’s big toe: SPACK!
• Man falling into a garbage can full of spoiled caviar: CROFF!
• Surgeon tossing gallstones into empty garbage can: KRANG!
• Man with one hair getting a haircut: WHICK!
• Person being kicked in the neck: PFWUMPFPH!
• Person getting kicked in snappers: PWACK!
• Measle germ snapping at skin: SCHLOPP!

If you’ve been able to struggle through the foregoing list of cartoon words, perhaps now your acoustical sense has been sharpened to the extent that you can readily guess a situation just by reading a sound word. To test your ability, hee is a list of cartoon words denoting various noises. If you can guess the action by which even one of them is produced, then your extremely something or other.

SNIKK / SPIRP / FAMP / SWORP / SPITCH / KANK / IKK / SPRATCH / PWOT / YOTCH / KZEEP / KLISH / FEEMP / SHZWOP / KOPYP

Now check your definitions with the following list. Even if you missed defining all the words, it’s no reflection on your intelligence. Fact is, the more you miss, the brighter you probably are. On the other hand, the more you can guess, the better comic strip cartoonist you can become- unless, unfortunately, you’re already one.

• SNIKK: The sound made by an African pygmy idly snapping his fingernail against his skull
• SPIRP: Nose being caught in an orange juicer
• FAMP: Corpulent person falling on back in a vat of peanut butter
• SWORP: Meteor hitting obese dame on back of neck
• SPITCH: Man sticking his head inside huge dynamo in action
• KANK: Crazed horsefly crashing into dome of empty-headed man
• IKK: Person with protruding eyeballs falling face down

• SPRATCH: Court plaster being yanked off polose chest
• PWOT: Wet socks being tossed into the corner of the room
• YOTCH: Post office pen forming the letter O
• KZEEP: Man with rusty eyelid winking at gal
• KLISH: Man falling on chin on thin crusted beetle
• FEEMP: Mole (on chin) being hit with stray buckshot
• SHZWOP: Obese dame’s girdle splitting out
• KOPYP: Skin pore snapping shut on contact with cold air

“Good work!” my publisher mumbled two days later, when he had finished reading the list. “Then I get the raise?” I gurgled hopefully. His brows knitted. (He was working on a pair of socks at the same time.) “Not until you complete that list by adding one more sound word! The word that’s missing is the one that describes the sound of a railway train running over a cartoonist’s conk!”

“That should be easy,” I chirped. “I’ll just-” Suddenly, the awful significance of his demand dawned on me. My publisher had conceived of this diabolical plan to prevent my getting a raise. But I would fool him.

A half hour later my noggin was resting uncomfortably on a railroad rail.

They told me later at the hospital that it wasn’t too bad. Only 22 cars, plus the locomotive had been derailed. “The train crew wanted the day off anyway” my doctor said. “They will be up later to thank you.” While he poured glue in the cracks in my conk, I struggled to recall the exact sound of the locomotive passing over my pate. I became frantic at the thought that it had eluded me. Then I remembered. How could I forget something that had been so forcefully crammed into my mind?

I raced out of the hospital and downtown to my publisher’s office. When that man saw the Scotch tape on my skull, he blanched a little. “Did you find out what the sound of a train running over a cartoonist’s head is?” he asked. “I did.” I announced triumphantly. He leaned expectantly so far forward that his rear suspender buttons flew off, zipped out the window, and nailed a burglar who was ransacking a safe in an office across the street.

“What is the sound?” he asked shakily.
“It is GJDRKZLXCBWQ.”
“GJDRKZLXCBWQ?” he queried doubtfully.
“No. It’s GJDRKZLXCBWQ. The L is silent.”

My publisher is not emotional. I have never known him to be moved to tears. But now his lips quivered violently. Or perhaps he was just trying to get something out of his teeth. “Now I have heard everything!” he blubbered.

“The raise.” I reminded him. “How about it?” “The raise? Oh yes. To show my appreciation for collecting the most complete and authentic list of cartoonists’ sound words, I’m going to double your salary!” Whereupon he reached into his wallet and tossed me twice as much as I had been getting previously per week.

Then I realized that my list of sound words wasn’t quite complete until that moment. In all my life I had never heard that lush, lovely sound. It was a mild, whispery sound, barely audible.

Here it is: FMNW!

It was the sound made by my new doubled salary- two $1.00 bills brushing lightly together.

Basil Wolverton is one of the historic figures who inspired the founding of the Oregon Cartoon Institute. Come to the first public meeting of the Institute on Feb. 25th 7:00 PM at 13 NW 13th (Ackerman Films) in Portland to learn more about the rest.

Q: How did it happen that Disney, famous for guarding copyright, happen to lend Mickey Mouse’s short tempered sidekick to a football team in Eugene?

A: In 1947 Walt Disney himself made a handshake deal with Leo Harris, the first U of O athletic director. After Walt’s death, Disney lawyers contested the legality of the arrangement.

Here’s the photo which U of O used to prove that Walt gave informed consent. That’s Walt, wearing a Duck jacket, on the right.

But where did the Duck come from? Walt said he introduced Donald after Mickey Mouse, domesticated by the love of millions, lost his mischievous edge.

How bad is Donald? He started off just lazy. His short temper came later. Here’s Donald’s “Bad Boy” debut ( around 2:05):

Click here to view the embedded video.

For animation history nerds, yes, that’s Oregonian Pinto Colvig voicing Peter Pig (around 1:09).

For comic book history nerds, there is another Oregon connection.

In 1942, Oregonian Carl Barks collaborated with Jack Hannah on the first  Donald Duck comic book, Donald Duck Finds Pirate Gold. Barks continued to draw and write Donald in comic books, populating an entire world (called Duckberg) in an tour de force series which now is internationally revered. The most unabashed fan of Barks’ intensely imagined Donald Duck comic books is underground cartoonist and professional outsider R. Crumb, who continually cites early exposure to them as a formative influence .

Crumb adores a second Oregon cartoonist, Basil Wolverton, but that’s another story, for another post.

Other strange but true facts about Donald Duck:

He is more popular outside the US than in. In some countries he has been accorded supernatural powers, and his name translates to “Super Duck”.

I haven’t read Ariel Dorfman’s How To Read Donald Duck: Imperialist Ideology in Disney Comics, but he might explain this phenomenon.

I have no explanation for why Walt Disney decided to give Donald Duck, gratis, to the University of Oregon. It is one of the greatest things about living in Oregon, that everything around you doesn’t quite make sense.

This post brought to you by Oregon Cartoon Institute, your source for Oregon animation and cartooning history since 2006.

]]> http://www.talltalestruetales.com/2009/12/history-of-the-duck/feed/ 0 http://www.talltalestruetales.com/2009/04/who-framed-roger-rabbit-1988/ http://www.talltalestruetales.com/2009/04/who-framed-roger-rabbit-1988/#comments Wed, 22 Apr 2009 18:15:41 +0000 Anne Richardson http://www.talltalestruetales.com/?p=6092 Click here to view the embedded video.

Zemeckis had Walt Disney Pictures’ enthusiastic backing, producer Steven Spielberg’s pull, Warner Bros.’s blessing, British animator Richard Williams’ ink and paint, Mel Blanc’s voice, Jeffrey Price’s and Peter S. Seaman’s witty, frenetic screenplay, George Lucas’ Industrial Light & Magic, and Bob Hoskins’ comical performance as the burliest, shaggiest private eye. Desson Thompson of  The Washington Post

Mel Blanc was 70 years old when Roger Zemeckis asked him to voice Daffy Duck, Bugs Bunny, Tweetie Bird, Sylvester and Porky Pig in this live action/animation mashup which took the box office by storm.

All the voices Blanc contributed were ones he had originated decades ago when he worked for Leon Schlesinger  at Warner Brothers, making Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes. Yosemite Sam and Foghorn Leghorn also make appearances, but Blanc’s original voice characterizations for those two were too demanding for him, at age 70, to replicate. So they were done by someone else.

Two Oregon connections in the cast in addition to Mel Blanc: the character Goofy, who was originally voiced by Oregonian Pinto Colvig,  and Lena the Hyena who was first drawn by Oregonian Basil Wolverton. To my knowledge this is Lena’s first and only movie role. She was the cover girl of the October 12, 1946 issue of Life magazine.

I hereby claim Who Framed Roger Rabbit? as an Oregon film, based on the presence of Mel Blanc in the cast.