‘Pat’ Ventura’s George & Junior.
In anticipation of the publication of our book, I thought it might be interesting to pull out a few of the memorable pieces and tell my side of the stories behind them.
I had been formulating the idea of doing a bunch of short cartoons starting in 1989, but it wasn’t until some wacko made me president of the venerable Hanna-Barbera studio (at a time when I had zero experience in cartoons) that I was able to really started to plan.
John Kricfalusi suggested that I speak to the uniquely talented Pat Ventura, an animation artist working under my nose as a writer who was working on Tom & Jerry Kids. Pat had been working as a gag man at Disney features, but he wanted the experience of working for a master, so he signed on to Joe Barbera’s last major project. John thought that since Pat loved Tex Avery (along with Laurel & Hardy, Buster Keaton, and the Fleischers) he might be interesting for my shorts notion.
I talked to Pat, and he was the one who convinced me to change my idea from a bunch of 3-minute shorts to classic length 7-minutes. His remake of Tex’s George & Junior was his first picture for What A Cartoon!. And this promotional poster was our weak attempt to participate in the revolution in poster making brought about by Frank Kozik in the 90s.
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On November 2nd, 2005 at 12:00 am
On November 3rd, 2005 at 12:00 am
Oh Yeah!; I gotta tell ya. Pat’s one of the funniest, energetic guys I know. Pat was one of the first people i met at Cal Arts in 1982. (He showed me how to animate smoke efx.) But besides that, Pat does take cartoons to the edge, and sometimes beyond. That’s the beauty of a Pat Ventura cartoon. Less is more with Pat. But, less is harder to do and still retain a strong story and rythm. I agree that the classic seven minute format was the way to go. Just like the classics! Pat and I worked together developing the Woody Woodpecker Show at Universal in late 1996 into early 1997. Pat was already there. Then I showed up to work with him. We did it our way, but somehow it later took a left turn at the K-Mart and kept going. It was a great experience.
Anyway, I’m a big Pat Ventura fan and share the same phylosophies in regard to cartoon making.
(And forget about my first comment, where I didn’t say anything. I was tired last night and hit the enter key by accedent. Heh! Heh!)