On Wed, Sep 16, 2015 at 11:08 PM, PGage <[email protected]> wrote: > I am wondering what folks here (especially those who know about animation) > thought of the 4-hour Disney doc this week? I enjoyed it a great deal, > though do not know enough about the pre-war Disney to judge who accurate or > comprehensive it was. > > My most direct knowledge of the man came 10-20 years after he died, from > friends who worked at D-Land in the 70s and 80s. They were also rigid and > almost paranoid, and my mother always said that was an echo from the man, > and it seems like there is some evidence to support her. But the doc did a > good job I thought of showing what was great about the man too. > > I appreciate touching on the good and the bad, and noting the various > perspectives. But in a project that was so long, and had so many talking > heads, I would have preferred having at least two voices which took and > defended specific POVs about the guy; it seemed like everyone they had was > giving some version of "well, some people say he was great, others that he > was an asshole" >
>From the animation history side, what was lacking was context. I will note that I only saw the first two hours as I was at the Pirates-Cubs game on Tuesday night and I haven't looked at the PBS website yet to see if they put the show up for streaming. When Disney brought his friends from Kansas City to Los Angeles to start an animation studio, three of those friends were Hugh Harman, Rudy Ising, and Friz Freleng. Harman and Ising left Disney to found Leon Schlesinger's studio for Warners and then left Warners to found the MGM animation studio. Their successors at those two studios (Avery/Jones/Clampett at Warners and Hanna-Barbera/Avery at MGM) were clearly better artists and animators so it looks like the two were itching for greener pastures but were stuck in an old style. After his split from Disney Freleng seems to have cut all ties, which might shed light on Disney's sense of loyalty/betrayal or Freleng's temperament - he directed Yosemite Sam cartoons and the consensus among Warner Alumni is that Sam is a caricature of Freleng. So Disney was not only a pioneer with his own animation studio but also seeded studios across Hollywood and this was not acknowledged. Disney was always considered the best studio for animators but there was a lot of flow of personnel among the studios. Disney paid the best and made the highest quality cartoons and young writers, animators, and directors all aspired to work there. And the strike of 1941 meant that some well trained Disney artists were available to other studios. It is worth noting that it was during the depression that Disney built the studio in Burbank with offices and all kinds of modern amenities while the Avery unit of Schlesinger's at the Warner lot was housed in a decrepit building they called Termite Terrace. -- -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
