Monday, November 27, 2006

Compleat Bob Clampett


I recently wrote an article for a fanzine about "The 1970s and the Dark Days of Animation Fandom". And it's true --animation as an art form went underground in the during the '70s both literally and figuratively. If you could find ANY info about classic cartoons you were batting 500...and odds were you would find it in a fan-produced magazine. Arguably the best of what was around was David Mruz's pocket-sized digest mag Mindrot. It regularly boasted such contributors as Jerry Beck, Jim Korkis, Mark Kausler and Paul Etcheverry among others.
Issue twelve (from Nov. 1 1978) was a full issue dedicated to Bob Clampett, containing rare interviews with Bob himself and analysis of some of his best-loved classic cartoons. Also in that issue was a complete listing of all Bob's cartoon work from 1937 - 1962. (Just no decades' worth of the Time for Beany Puppet Show episodes, unfortunately ) So without further ado, here's the full Bob Clampett cartoon listings, as they originally appeared in Mindrot--compiled by Mark Kausler and Paul Etcheverry, with some extra and color artwork thrown in by me. Revel!

















Bravo! Just too bad for all of us that this already-prolific list isn't twice as long.
To provide some balance I have some clips from Time for Beany I may just have to You Tube here sometime soon. Sure would be great to see a DVD release of all those long-lost shows.

My thanks to this post go out to David Mruz, Mark Kausler, Paul Etcheverry, Sody Clampett, and the Norse God of the funny and ridiculous, Robert "Bob" Clampett!

8 Comments:

Blogger Robert Pope said...

I simply adore how in the "Credit Riddle" Bob refers to himself in the third person, like the Hulk, or Bob Dole. Great, great stuff.

10:33 AM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I've been looking around for info on the Beany and Cecil puppet shows...are there any good webpages or references about these shows? I worked in video games/efects for several years and have started working with puppets over the past few years, so I'm interested in seeing some of these shows.

Thanks,

Brian (bwindsor@accad.osu.edu)

11:05 AM

 
Blogger David Omar said...

This is great! Any chance you can scan the rest of the issue's content for us? Thanks for posting this.

-David O.

1:19 AM

 
Blogger Chris Sobieniak said...

Still, neat to have a list of the Beany & Cecil cartoon episodes on the order of the cartoons in each one (not that it matters, but it might help someone in wanting to do something in a fanboy/geeky way like reconstruct the series based on the old VHS releases from the 80's and such, I know people who are that dead-on about it).

1:38 AM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hi there! Saw your comment on the "Holy Grail" of animation and wanted to drop you a line. You're right -- somebody, somewhere, probably has a few 16mm prints of Here Come the Beagles. For example, there are some screen grabs and a brief clip of the intro to an episode that recently surfaced on ToonTracker:

http://www.toontracker.com/beagles/beagles.htm

Thanks also for posting that old article from Mindrot. I'm from Minneapolis and Dave Mruz is an old buddy of mine. He currently puts together a program of animated shorts that is shown on weekends at a local cinema cafe (they advertise it as "Cartoon Brunch").

2:10 PM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

P.S. to Brian Windsor:

If I recall correctly, the entire run of Time for Beany is in the hands of the Clampett family, who are very protective of Bob's legacy. I recall that Jerry Beck managed to get permission to show a couple episodes at the San Diego Comic Con many years ago, but that was a rare exception. That means the existing prints are in good hands. But when or even if they will ever see a home video release is anyone's guess.

In the meantime, you'll have to settle for the Beany and Cecil DVD that was released a few years ago. It includes a couple episodes of Time for Beany, plus the pilot for Thunderbolt the Wondercolt.

2:23 PM

 
Blogger Chris Sobieniak said...

Tim Kangaroo said...

Hi there! Saw your comment on the "Holy Grail" of animation and wanted to drop you a line. You're right -- somebody, somewhere, probably has a few 16mm prints of Here Come the Beagles. For example, there are some screen grabs and a brief clip of the intro to an episode that recently surfaced on ToonTracker:


Hell someone stuck up a full episode on YouTube before they got kicked off! I think I saved the FLV's of it already.

P.S. to Brian Windsor:

If I recall correctly, the entire run of Time for Beany is in the hands of the Clampett family, who are very protective of Bob's legacy. I recall that Jerry Beck managed to get permission to show a couple episodes at the San Diego Comic Con many years ago, but that was a rare exception. That means the existing prints are in good hands. But when or even if they will ever see a home video release is anyone's guess.

In the meantime, you'll have to settle for the Beany and Cecil DVD that was released a few years ago. It includes a couple episodes of Time for Beany, plus the pilot for Thunderbolt the Wondercolt.


Well someone did stick this up on GoogleVideo!

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-77309197317842502

Let's see the Clampett Family beat that! :-)

4:12 AM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Well,

Somebody did beat the Google posting.. -<{8-(( ..' cause it's no longer there!

I think it's a Fracking Shame that whoever owns the rights to these Pearls of History REFUSES TO SHARE THEM WITH BOB'S FANS! There are still MILLIONS of Fans of Bob Clampett's works out here and I think Bob himself would be VERY DISAPPOINTED that his work is being kept from his fans!!

You wanna get RICH off the sweat of Bob's brow? Well, put together some DVD's of Bob's work and SHARE IT WITH US!!

Just to show you what I think of HORDERS who refuse to share history with the rest of us, I intend to procure a copy of everything available from Bob's body of work and distribute it FREELY to anyone who asks for it!

-<{8-D ~ Merlin

1:07 AM

 

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