Tuesday, January 29, 2013

What!! No Dessert?


Old Educational ad from the Film Daily. No mention of cartoons ... but captures my sentiments perfectly. It's healthful!

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Animation Station De-luxe


A while back, over at Mark Mayerson's blog,  Mark did a post on the varying standards of equipment used during animation's 'golden age' and linked to an article by JJ Sedelmaier on his collection of vintage equipment in which he disassembles a mid-30's Fleischer disc. That reason alone makes it worth mentioning here but it also reminded me of this entry in the Fleischer 'Animated News'.


When I first happened upon this I though it might be a gag. The Animated News is full of them-many gently ribbing Max for his low bowling scores, mandolin playing etc. I took this to perhaps be a joke on Max's mechanical obsessions but once I saw JJ's disc with it's unique clamping mechanism I realized that it was a possibility that the set-up above could have indeed existed - Flip-O-Scope and all!


Don't see it here though in (I think) the inking department of the Fleischers New York studio

Or here in (presumably) the animation department of the Miami studio

Whether it did or not though remains a mystery (well, to me anyway). I've never seen a photo of it if it did. Still, I'd be curious to know if any of those desks with their distinctive trim and name card holders ever survived?