Frank Tashlin’s VAN BORING (HE NEVER SAYS A WORD)
September 30th, 2008 by Scott Marks
An after work cocktail was never far from Van Boring’s (or Tashlin’s) thoughts.
An article in this morning’s edition of The Stripper’s Guide (a blog dedicated to the history of the American newspaper comic strip) caught my attention. It had been ages since I considered Frank Tashlin’s early work as a comic strip artist and the time seemed right to talk about this chapter in the career of my favorite comedic filmmaker.
Where I come from, Francis Fredrick von Taschlein (no wonder he went by the name Tish-Tash) is a cultural icon. I was with Tash in diapers, watching his Looney Tunes on my parent’s ancient black-and-white Philco. The films he made with Jerry Lewis followed me through adolescence and as a budding young cinephile, and his CinemaScope masterpieces The Girl Can’t Help It! and Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? forever changed the way I look at movie comedy. As an adult, nary a day passes where I don’t view some aspect of our modern world through Tashlin-colored glasses.
Tashlin’s strip was so popular that it spawned its own doll!
Everyone knows that Frank Tashlin was a brilliant animator who later went on to apply his squash-and-stretch sensibilities to live-action features. He began his career in animation on Paul Terry’s Aesop’s Film Fables. In 1932, after a brief stint with Amadee Van Beuren, Tashlin moved to Termite Terrace where his rapid ability to crank out drawings made him one of Leon Schlesinger’s star players. What many of you may not know is that while at Warner Bros., Tash started up his own “silent” comic strip in 1934 called Van Boring (He Never Says A Word).
At first glance, the squat, bald-headed Van Boring resembles jazz band leader Paul Whiteman. In a 1971 interview, Tashlin told animation historian Michael Barrier, “We used to make cartoons (of our) bosses all the time, of Van Beuren, around the studio. We were always doing anti-Van Beuren things. We developed a character, which looked something like him. Well, I started using him in magazine cartoons, as a throwaway character, and then when I came out (to L.A.), I developed him as a pantomime comic strip.”
To the best of my knowledge, Tashlin never appeared in any of his live action features, but a fellow named “Tish-Tash” was a regular in the Van Boring strips. According to Michael Barrier, Van Boring’s lanky, stringy-haired accomplice “was a recurring character in Van Boring, especially in the continuity that made up its last few months, when Tish and Van were marooned on a desert island with two children, Nip and Tuck.”
Tashlin was fired from Warner Bros. when he refused to give Schlesinger a piece of his comic strip revenues. “He wanted a cut of it,” Tashlin remembered, “and I said go to hell. So he fired me.” At that time, Tash had his sights set on bigger fish: “The thing that I had in mind then was to have my own cartoon studio. That’s what I wanted.” After leaving Warners in 1934, Tashlin worked for Ub Iwerks’ animation studio and as a gagman for producer Hal Roach. In 1936, after Van Boring had been put to rest, Tashlin returned to Warner Bros. where he went on to direct several comedic masterpieces, most notably the existential antics of Porky Pig’s Feat.
See more Van Boring comic strips here.
Frank Tashlin’s “Porky Pig’s Feat” (1943)
Tags: Animation, Animator, Cartoon, cartoonist, Comic Strip, Frank Tashlin, frank tashlin van boring, porky pig's feat, van boring, VideoFiled Under Image Blog
Dig A Hole: DAVEY AND GOLIATH co-creator Richard Sutcliffe
May 22nd, 2008 by Scott Marks
Gee, Davey, Richard Sutcliffe died.
Along with Gumby creators Art Clokey and Ruth Clokey Goodell, Dick Sutcliffe devised the religious claymation TV show Davey and Goliath. He died May 11in Dallas of complications from a stroke. He was 90.
If it looks like a Gumby and walks like a Gumby, it must be a Gumby, right? Not necessarily. I don’t ever remember Gumby feeding his orange ass Pokey a theological dissertation before mounting him.
Davey and Goliath was a Christian-themed children’s show that creeped the hell out of me. While Gumby was a source of great entertainment, even as a kid I could smell D&G’s religious propaganda a mile away.
In 1959, the United Lutheran Church contracted with Clokey Productions to produce the series. The stop-motion sermon about a suburban boy and his talking dog aired early Sunday mornings on Chicago’s Very Own WGN. The Church provided the show free of charge to any station willing to air them, so no wonder ‘GN took them up on their offer. The shows were aired without commercial interruption.
Sutcliffe launched the series to spread a religious message without losing younger viewers with overly complicated concepts, his daughter, J.T. Sutcliffe, told The Dallas Morning News. By “overly complicated concepts” I assume Ms. Sutcliffe meant character animation, narrative structure and moralist decla(y)mation.
The stories followed a dim formula that was even more rudimentary than it’s brightly lit backgrounds. Each week Davey would encounter a moral obstacle that could only be resolved through inspirational dogma that was generally delivered by a dog.
To a five-year-old Jew, these characters offered more dread than solace. Long before I grasped the concept of Valium, these brainwashed zombies appeared to be self-medicated.
Church leaders approached Sutcliffe about using television to reach young people when he was director of Lutheran radio and television ministry in New York. He chose a format that would offer sound theology while being entertaining, his daughter told the newspaper. One out of two ain’t bad.
Ironically, the voice of Davey’s father was provided by Hal Smith, better know as Otis the Drunk on The Andy Griffith Show.
Tags: Animation, Cartoon, Claymation, DAVEY AND GOLIATH, Dick Sutcliffe, Hal Smith, Obituary, Propaganda, Religion, Richard Sutcliffe, VideoFiled Under Obituaries
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