Bob Inman, 1927-2016

I'm sorry to report that Bob Inman, one of the two main background painters on Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol, has passed away.  Bob was one of animation's unsung talents, largely because he spent his career painting for television animation which has never received the kind of recognition theatrical animation has.  He was part of a generation of highly trained artists who were nominally known in the industry as background painters but who might be more properly defined as color stylists, using color boldly and expressively, oftentimes outshining the low quality animation that served as the foreground.


Bob started at Bob Clampett's Snowball Productions, churned out BGs by the dozen for Hank Saperstein's UPA TV productions of Mr. Magoo and Dick Tracy, painted numerous backgrounds in the manner of various French Impressionists for the stylish feature, Gay Purr-ee and served as one of two main color stylists and painters on Christmas Carol. 

Stylish yet spartan BG from an unknown Magoo TV short

When work at UPA dried up, he followed Christmas Carol producer Lee Orgel over to Cambria for The New Three Stooges and then moved to Chuck Jones' incarnation of the MGM studio, working under Maurice Noble on such productions as Tom & Jerry and How the Grinch Stole Christmas.  Bob later styled and painted The Pogo Special Birthday Special and reunited with Christmas Carol director Abe Levitow for We're Off to See the Wizard.
 

Moody BG likely from a Magoo GE comercial

He had brief stints with Jay Ward on the George of the Jungle series and with Abe Levitow on B.C.: The First Thanksgiving.  Later years were spent on seasonal work at Hanna-Barbera along with stints for Bosustow & Associates and freelance for most of the commercial houses in LA.  Bob returned to UPA in 1970 to once again work for Lee Orgel and Abe Levitow on Uncle Sam Magoo, where he was chief color stylist for the special.

Shortly before retiring, he freelanced for Chuck Jones on his stylish TV special, Mowgli's Brothers, below is one of his color keys for the show.  He finally left animation in 1976, tiring of the on again, off again nature of the industry and spent the rest of his time pursuing his passion for fine arts painting.

Bob's unorthodox approach to color in Christmas Carol

While the Saperstein years at UPA were without a doubt a factory system, the painters were left alone to style and paint as they saw fit.  Being able to paint using various techniques and unusual color schemes were the hallmarks of Bob's time at UPA as evidenced by his work on Christmas Carol and The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo.


 
Right, one of Bob's more painterly backgrounds from the 4 part Robin Hood episode of The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo. Below, a background from the Cyrano De Bergerac episode from the same series. You can read a little more about Bob and see some more of his work here from a profile I did over 5 years ago here on this blog. 

Bob, like so many of his contemporaries in TV animation (David Weidman, Gloria Wood, Jack Heiter and Sam Clayberger among many others) has remained "in the background" of animation history.  I was fortunate to have met and interviewed Bob Inman and, because he saved so many examples of his work, highlight his legacy for future generations.  Thanks for the memories, Bob.

Pitching The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo

Pitch art for Robin Hood, artist unknown

My last post, Mr. Magoo and the Features That Never Were, featured some rare UPA pitch art for the studio's unproduced Mr. Magoo features.  Considering the lineage between the feature concepts and the concept for the 1964 TV series, The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo, it seemed only fitting to do a post on the artwork produced to pitch the show to NBC.

Pitch art for William Tell, possibly drawn by Bob Dranko

The 1962 broadcast debut of Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol had performed well beyond expectations and the network was looking for a followup.  The special had featured Magoo playing a role in a piece of classic literature and considering that all of UPA's previous proposed feature vehicles had done the same, Robin Hood, Don Quixote and 1001 Arabian Nights, it was not a big leap to suggest an entire series based around the premise.  Hank Saperstein was a consummate salesman but despite his skills, he still needed some visuals to clinch the deal.  It was most likely Lee Orgel that put together the art that sold the series, turning to Shirley Silvey, who was on layoff from Jay Ward at the time, and Corny Cole, who had produced the concept art that had previously sold Christmas Carol.

Pitch art by Corny Cole

How many drawings were done by Corny Cole is unknown but about half a dozen have surfaced.  It appears that Shirley did a much larger number of images for a wide variety of stories, although most of the original drawings and setups have been lost.  Below is a scan of many of her pieces that were photographed for early promotion, this image is from a brochure sent to NBC affiliates.

When I was going through the boxes of her surviving artwork, I found photocopies of a few of her thumbnails; it's possible that some of these were never taken to full-sized color artwork.  The quality is poor so click on them to enlarge:

 

Captain Kidd

Don Quixote

 

Treasure Island

The final rendering for the left thumbnail for "Treasure Island" is reproduced in the pamphlet image above.  Recently discovered in Ray Bradbury's collection, and sold at auction, was the following piece of pitch art for Famous Adventures, also by Shirley Silvey.  The background is done with cut paper and colored pencil:

The setup below, which was reproduced in my book, was listed as artist unknown.  Looking at the breadth of the art done by Shirley as well as her drawing style and the use of cut-out background elements and color pencil, it appears that this piece can now be attributed to her.

Special thanks once again to the Mago0 Admirer for the idea behind this post.

Mr. Magoo and The Features That Never Were

Those who read this blog or who are up on their animation history will know that Mr. Magoo starred in an animated feature, the 1959 release, 1001 Arabian Nights.  But how many are aware that it was not the only vehicle considered for a Magoo feature?  As with most of film production, there are fits, starts and even different directions taken before arriving at the final destination.  So it was with Mr. Magoo and his feature career.

The UPA studio had built their reputation in animation on three things--contemporary art, contemporary situations and the use of human characters, rather than animals, to tell their stories.  It was a deliberate rejection of Walt Disney's approach to the medium but when they began to contemplate producing a feature, they unconsciously followed Disney's lead when it came to subject matter.  All of their proposed features involved non-contemporary or mythical settings and several went back to classic literature.  The first to be generate much pre-production work was based on James Thurber's 1945 children's fairy tale, The White Deer.  Although the story dealt with something that had become Disney's stock-in-trade, the fairy tale, the studio was quite excited about adapting the work of a contemporary artist like James Thurber.

But it was not to be.  It wasn't long before Columbia, UPA's distributor, let it be known that they would feel much more comfortable if the studio built a film around the highly popular character of Mr. Magoo.  Seeing the Golden Rule in play here--he who has the gold, makes the rules--UPA acquiesced and announced a feature version of Miguel Cervantes' classic novel, Don Quixote of La Mancha with Mr. Magoo in the title role.  Although development work was done on the project, Columbia had subsequently entered into an agreement with a Spanish producer to do a live-action film of the novel and sidelined the animated version.

 

Pitch art for Don Quixote, artist unknown.

To take its place, two other Magoo vehicles were developed, Robin Hood and 1001 Arabian Nights.  When it came time to pick between the two, studio head Stephen Bosustow chose 1001.  Jim Backus was aware of the Robin Hood project and in an interview promoting 1001, he provided a small peek behind the scenes, saying  "We used to talk and we thought Magoo would be funny in ... maybe  Don Quixote.  He would be wonderful ... because he is tilting (at) windmills and we finally, I think, hit upon the one universal character, the Aladdin theme of the Arabian Nights. So it's the first feature  and I hope not the last. We are also toying with doing Robin Hood ... (Magoo) as Robin Hood ... which would be kind of funny, I would think."   

However, the box office failure of 1001 Arabian Nights doomed the notion of any future Magoo features and so decimated the studio's finances that shortly thereafter Bosustow sold UPA to Hank Saperstein.  The concept of a Magoo/Robin Hood theatrical feature was lost in the mists of time until a few years ago when a few pieces of the pre-production art for the film first surfaced:

Although a theatrical feature was never produced, "Robin Hood" did later see life as a virtual feature length production,  covering a span of 4 episodes for The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo just five years later.  This time, though, Magoo was no longer playing the role of the title character and was recast as Friar Tuck.  Saperstein later edited the four half hours into a complete story and released it theatrically and later the same way on home video.  Which leads to an interesting conjecture--was a script written for the proposed feature and did it serve as the basis for the four part TV episode?  Saperstein was known for maximizing his return on investment so the idea of recycling an unproduced script would not be far fetched.  And innterestingly enough, "Don Quixote" was the only other Famous Adventure to last more than one episode--was this another example of salvaging material from UPA's proposed features?  With so little of either the pre- or post-Saperstein UPA archives available, we will probably never know. 

Lee Mishkin's models for the four part Robin Hood episode

To read more about UPA's foray into feature films, check out Adam Abraham's essential history of the UPA studio, When Magoo Flew.  Special thanks to the Mago0 Admirer for his assistance on this post.

Titles for The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo

The title sequence for Famous Adventures, newly released on DVD, is an enjoyable romp through history featuring Mr. Magoo in classic artistic and historical tableaus.  If one could trace its genesis, the concept might have had its beginnings in UPA’s feature, Gay Purr-ee.  Within that film is a memorable sequence in which one of the key production designers, Corny Cole, painted the cat Mewsette into a number of French Impressionist paintings by Lautrec, Van Gogh, Cezanne, Rousseau, etc.  A few years later, when asked to create a title sequence for the new Magoo series, two UPA production designers expanded the concept, painting Magoo on a Greek vase, into a Japanese painting, rendering him as the Mona Lisa and dropping him into several other well-known styles and works of art.  It’s a witty beginning for the show and sets the tone for Mr. Magoo to appear in literature through the ages.  The two artists, Jacques Rupp and Don Morgan, received credit for the title sequence on every single episode although they did much more on the series.  Hank Saperstein had a rule that each person could only receive one credit so they opted for the credit that would appear every week, giving them the most exposure.

Jacques Rupp

Jacques was the more senior of the two, having already spent a decade in animation, while Don Morgan had only recently entered the business.  Rupp started at Disney in 1953 as in inbetweener and moved into the layout department as an assistant on Lady and the Tramp, working on sequences at the dog pound, the zoo and the classic spaghetti eating sequence at Tony’s restaurant.  He spent time in the Disney commercials unit as a background painter and also worked in Ward Kimball’s unit for the Man in Space series and Magic Highway USA.   

Rupp was moved off of production to work on the new theme park, Disneyland, and is credited with designing the Snow White shuttle bus which ran from Los Angeles to Anaheim, logos, popcorn boxes and cups used throughout the park and selecting costumes for the Jungle Cruise, Canal Boats and Frontierland.  Jacques went on to become something of an immortal in the Disney pantheon, designing the classic Disneyland logo as well as the opening titles for the Disneyland TV show featuring Tinkerbell and Sleeping Beauty’s castle.

One of Jacques Rupp's layouts from the Cyrano episode

Jacques probably left Disney during its mass layoff in the late 50s and arrived at UPA in time to design the title sequence and promotional materials for the Magoo feature, 1001 Arabian Nights.  When that picture finished, he went on to do television commercials for one of the many animation production houses in Los Angeles, Animation, Inc.  Many artists working in animation during the early 60s have recounted how difficult the job market was at the time and artists often found themselves hopping from studio to studio picking up work wherever they could.  Rupp was no exception and finally landed at Hanna Barbera as a layout artist working on The Flintstones, Hey There, It’s Yogi Bear!, Ricochet Rabbit, Punkin’ Puss and early development on The Jetsons.  When that gig ended, he found himself doing animated titles for Pacific Title before coming back to UPA for The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo.  As mentioned above, he and Don Morgan collaborated on the title sequence but both also laid out episodes for the series, Cyrano De Bergerac being one of Rupp’s episodes.

One of Rupp's personal works

Unlike theatrical animation, the television animation business was largely a freelance affair and it became more so as time went on.  Jacques continued to move from studio to studio, next stopping at Lee Orgel’s production of The New Three Stooges , then to Depatie Freleng for The Super 6, and Super President, Filmation for The Batman/Superman Hour and finally back to Depatie Freleng for The Pink Panther series before leaving the industry altogether.  Rupp moved to Seattle where he worked for the University of Washington doing graphics and storyboarding and later freelanced for the Seattle Times, where he designed their masthead.  He retired in 1986 and passed away in 2000.  You can see some of Rupp's Disney print work here.

Don Morgan

Don Morgan got his first job in animation when he went to apply for a job at Bob Clampett’s Snowball Studios only to find that it had closed.  Fortunately, another animation studio had opened in the same space, one run by Dave and Phyllis Bounds Detiege (Walt Disney’s niece and later wife of animator Milt Kahl) to produce the animated feature, The Man from Button Willow.   He began as an assistant animator to Ken Hultgren and, due to his background in industrial design, was pushed into layout by Phyllis Detiege.  His tutors there were Erni Nordli, Tony Rivera and Bruce Bushman.  When layout ended, Tony Rivera recommended him to Abe Levitow at UPA, who was just starting up The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo. 

Morgan and Rupp conceived and executed the title sequence for the series and Saperstein was so taken with the titles that he asked Don to paint a series of 8 images inserting Magoo into famous paintings for use as corporate gifts. In addition to the title sequence, Morgan did the individual episode titles and worked on the Moby Dick, Frankenstein and Dick Tracy episodes, among others, and would also design or paint on any episode that needed a helping hand.   During production on the series, Morgan also picked up freelance on the Magoo GE commercials, earning a little extra on the side.  When production was complete on Famous Adventures, the entire staff was laid off and Saperstein closed the studio.  Abe rejoined his old friend, Chuck Jones, over at Tower 12 Productions, which soon became the newest incarnation of MGM Animation.  Don followed Abe over there to lay out Tom & Jerry cartoons under Maurice Noble’s tutelage.

Morgan continued to work with Noble on the studio’s next project, the classic Christmas special, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, laying out sequences such as the Grinch’s thefts in the village, the sleigh sequence on the top of the mountain and the end sequence with the Whos singing in Whoville.  Later, he was excited to work with longtime comic strip hero, Walt Kelly, on The Pogo Special Birthday Special, in which he laid out the entire picture brush inking all the layouts in the style of Kelly’s iconic strip.  Morgan also served as a friendly ear for Kelly, who was less than enchanted with Jones’ interpretation of his characters and would blow off steam over drinks with Don.  When Walt Kelly later fell ill, Morgan ghosted Walt Kelly’s Pogo strip until he died, when Walt’s widow, Selby, took over.

Morgan worked again with Abe Levitow on Off to See the Wizard, The Phantom Tollbooth, ABC’s The Curiosity Shop and later back at UPA for Uncle Sam Magoo.  After a few turbulent but stimulating years working with Ralph Bakshi on three features, he served as layout Supervisor at Hanna Barbera for all the Saturday morning TV productions; while there, he worked with director Gerard Baldwin on developing The Smurfs animated series.  In later years, he worked at Marvel as Studio Art Director and at both Turner Animation and Nickelodeon as Layout Supervisor.  Don spent his last years in the animation business at Dreamworks, working on such hand-drawn features as The Road to El Dorado and Spirit, Stallion of the Cimmaron before retiring to a ranch in central California where he and his wife, Maggie, teach the arts and skills of Early American frontier living to their many grandchildren.  You can see Don interviewed in the featurette, Oh Magoo, You've Done It Again!, included on the Magoo on TV boxed set.

Special thanks to Gord Wilson for his Jacques Rupp interview

Color Styling in The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo

Paul Revere

With the long awaited release of the complete The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo, it’s finally possible to get a clear overview of the series.  While this show will be nostalgic for those who grew up with it, probably the most intriguing aspect to be revealed by this release is the production design and color styling.  There were hints of the quality of the production design in previous bootleg copies and in the few backgrounds that were discovered during the research process for the book on Christmas Carol.  However, this set of discs shows  that despite the abbreviated schedule, the layout and backgrounds put a high sheen on otherwise factory-level work.

Treasure Island

Many of the same artists responsible for the look of Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol were responsible for Famous Adventures-from character designer Lee Mishkin to layout artists Dick Ung and Bob Singer to painters Robert Inman and Gloria Wood.  Due to the intense demands of production, seven episodes out of the 26 were sub-contracted to GrantRay Lawrence (the studio set up by former MGM animators, Grant Simmons and Ray Patterson):Three Musketeers, Snow White, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Count of Monte Cristo, Captain Kidd, Sherlock Holmes and Don Quixote, Part 2.  There are three distinct blocks of credits for the shows and they are most likely generic; in many cases the credited artist may or may not have worked on that particular show and others who did, might not be credited.

Gunga Din

The first in the series, William Tell, although nicely styled is rather traditional in its palette.  By the second episode, a bit of the artistic flair the studio was once known for begins to creep into production.  Gunga Din has a limited palette but with its broad vistas and rocky hills devoid of vegetation, it gives a good visceral feel of the unrelenting heat of India.  Contrast the hot oranges in the landscape dramatically accented by purple shadows with the restful, cool palette used for the interiors. 

Moby Dick

 Colors in Moby Dick are less dramatic but are striking in their harmony-note the warm accent in the otherwise cool palette in the example at right.  It’s also the first episode with both the subjective and expressive use of colors on the characters.  Characters are often made more interesting simply by the use of color and certainly took full advantage of the new medium of color television.   

Treasure Island

Cyrano de Bergerac

Treasure Island features strong layouts by Bob Singer and some very painterly backgrounds by Gloria Wood.  Here, too, characters are colored in a non-literal fashion adding to their appeal.   This episode has a particularly epic feel to it with its styling.





Cyrano DeBergerac has a strong architectural component to it, featuring strong draftsmanship by Jacques Rupp, about whom you'll hear more in an upcoming post.  Color palettes feature a diversity of looks, with some very clean palettes like the one at right along with some very dramatic palettes (see page 100 in my book.) 

Noah's Ark

The backgrounds by Bob Inman in Noah’s Ark are more traditional in painting technique but utilize unusual colors featuring hot pinks against cooler colors.  This episode features nice design styling by Bob Singer.

King Arthur

Showing that the artists weren’t into color for its own sake, there are some nicely subdued color palettes in King Arthur  and Rip Van Winkle, Rip being a bit more painterly in execution.   

Robin Hood

Robin Hood, perhaps the most epic  episodes in the series, was designed and laid out by Bob Singer and painted by Bob Inman.  Some sections, like the one pictured at right, were fairly conventional in painting technique.  Scenes of the exterior and inside the castle dungeon feature palette knife work for texturing the stone walls.

Doctor Frankenstein

One of the stronger entries, Doctor Frankenstein features Gloria Wood’s Expressionist painting style which adds immeasurably to the eerie feel.  More than any other episode, this one closely approximates her work in the graveyard sequence in Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol.  It also comes the closest to the kind of stylistic expression UPA was once known for, in films like The Telltale Heart.  You can buy The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo as part of the boxed set Magoo on TV here.

Magoo on TV DVD boxed set

The demise of DVDs has been forecast for several years now due to streaming but as anyone who’s tried to stream much content through the various services can tell you, the bulk of filmed content can still only be found on DVDs.  Not only that, but some aspects of the DVD market are thriving as companies continue to release material that can’t be found anywhere else.  Tomorrow’s release of Magoo on TV, an 11 disc boxed set is one such item.  Someone at Shout Factory saw an unmet need and decided to fulfill it by releasing Mr. Magoo’s entire television career on one complete boxed set, featuring cool retro-inspired cover art.

A rundown of what’s in the box:

The Mr. Magoo Show-All 130 five minute shorts from the 1960 syndicated series, including the original opens, closes and bumpers.  Commentaries in this set include animation historian Jerry Beck on Beatnik Magoo, Blithering Heights, Magoo and the Beanstalk and Magoo Meets Boing Boing while I add my two cents on Magoo Meets Frankenstein.

The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo-All 26 half hours from the 1964 series, including the original titles and show lead-ins with Mr. Magoo, which have never before been released in their entirety to home video.  For years, the multi-part episodes were cut together as single longer episodes and released as a single unit, much like the Robin Hood episodes were only available as Mr. Magoo in Sherwood Forest.  Commentaries on this set include Don Morgan, series layout artist, discussing Moby Dick; Bob Singer, series layout artist, discussing Robin Hood; and me discussing William Tell and Doctor Frankenstein.

Uncle Sam Magoo-The 1970 NBC special along with a new 16 minute featurette produced especially for this set, Oh, Magoo, You’ve Done It Again! which discusses TV animation production and includes interviews with layout men Bob Singer and Don Morgan, production head Richard Krown, production coordinator Paul Carlson, animation historian Jerry Beck and me.  There’s also a small gallery of still art and images of Magoo.

What’s New, Mr. Magoo?-All 16 half hours of the awkward 1977 De-Patie Freleng series.

18 page illustrated booklet on Mr. Magoo’s TV career, including the special, Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol.

And now for the inevitable questions:

Have Benny Rubin’s comic Cholly tracks for The Mr. Magoo Show been restored?  Solly, Cholly, I regret to report that Shout Factory was unable to gain access to the original negatives and had to make due with the 1980s USA Network transfers.  Only about a third of the shorts feature the original Charlie voice.  

Has this material been re-mastered or restored?  No, Shout Factory was only able to use existing transfers.  The expense of re-mastering from the original negative is more than special interest releases like this can afford.

Have Mr.  Magoo’s television commercials been included?  Unfortunately, no.  Most of them are difficult to find, some may even be lost.  There has been no archive kept of any of his commercial work, including the hundreds of GE spots he made over several decades.  Once the material is found, permission must then be obtained from often apathetic corporations for its use.

Why wasn’t Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol included in the set?  Classic Media just released a new Blu-Ray transfer of the classic special last year and preferred not to compete with itself by having it included in this set.

The two highlights of this set for me are the documentary in which some of the last remaining artists from UPA discuss the production of the TV cartoons and the complete, never before released series,The Famous Adventures of Mr.  Magoo.  You can buy it here.

Coming next summer from Shout Factory, a new boxed set featuring the complete series of Mr. Magoo’s theatrical cartoons including the long out of print,1001 Arabian Nights and rare bonus material.

UPDATE! As a promotional giveaway, Shout Factory is offering a boxed set to the first one to correctly answer this question:

There were three credited actresses who provided the female voices for the Famous Adventures series but only one appeared only once.  Who was she and in what episode did she provide the voice? 

David Weidman, painter

What ultimately became the book, Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol, The Making of the First Animated Christmas Special, started simply enough.  Production Designer Michael Giaimo and I, who both had fond memories of the show, decided to interview David Weidman, one of the credited background painters on the special, to see what we could find out about the making of the film for ourselves, nothing more.  After the recorder was setup and I pulled out my list of questions, I showed David stills from the film to tweak his memory and start the interview process.  He stared and stared at the images and told me that not only didn’t he remember the film, he didn’t think he even worked on it.  

It was a bit disheartening to say the least, but after we began going through some of his artwork collection, the painting in the above photo surfaced making it clear that although he may not have remembered the film, he did indeed work on it.  With a bit more interviewing, David began to recall painting a Christmas tree in the finale of the film but he only remembered it because he felt guilt over not painting it the same green as it was painted earlier in the film but instead chose a hue that he felt worked better for the environment.  Because Weidman couldn’t answer any of my questions about the production, I began pursuing other leads and after several other interviews, it became apparent that there was a book waiting to be written on the making of the special.

What I did learn that day was that David Weidman was an incredibly prolific artist outside of his career in animation.  David didn’t remember working on the film, not because of memory loss but because his mind was elsewhere at the time.  Weidman had been classically trained as an artist and entered animation as a means to an end rather than an end in itself.  His primary focus was on his own art, which he pursued after hours and between gigs at the studios.

Weidman in his early days

Like many of the animation artists of his era, David Weidman attended one of Los Angeles’ well regarded art schools, in his case, Jepson Art Institute where he acquired a solid grounding in art training.  His two biggest influences were Bill Moore, who taught design at both Chouinard and Jepson (and who influenced many of today's leaders in animation when he taught at CalArts in the 70s and 80s) and Rico LeBrun, who taught animal anatomy and drawing for the artists on Bambi.  It was LeBrun that had the biggest impact on David’s personal work and the school itself was a pioneer in the art of serigraphy (silk screen printing), which would have a significant impact on Weidman's later efforts.

 He began his career in 1955 with John Hubley at Hubley’s Storyboard Studios working on commercials before assisting as a designer on the animated version of Finian’s Rainbow, which ultimately was never produced.  David next found work at UPA as part of the hiring binge for The Boing Boing Show in 1956.  He was one of several future Christmas Carol artists who found employment on the 1957 version of Crusader Rabbit and then spent time at TV Spots (later renamed Creston Studios) working on such sub-contracted productions as Jack Kinney’s 1960 Popeye TV shorts, King Leonardo and his Short Subjects, Jay Ward’s Fractured Fairy Tales and the wholly Creston-produced Calvin and the Colonel.  In 1962, he was briefly back at UPA, helping to finish the background paintings for Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol.  David is also credited as a background painter on The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo, which he did through Grantray Lawrence, who subcontracted a number of the episodes from UPA. 

Around 1965, Weidman began to feel the itch to do something that reflected his own vision, rather than participate as one part of a commercial enterprise.  As he told his wife back then, “I feel like I keep making sentences but I’m never able to finish the paragraph.  Someday I just want to be able to finish something!”  In an effort to follow a project through from beginning to end, he chose serigraphy, or silk screen printing, as his medium of expression and began innovating new techniques and processes to realize his designs.  He opened his own gallery on La Cienega Blvd. in Los Angeles, the street where many interior design shops and suppliers cater to the trade. 

Starting in the later 60s, designer Walt Peregoy took over as head of the background department at Hanna Barbera and began looking for people to shake up the look of the backgrounds.  One of his first calls was to David Weidman, whom he felt shared his artistic aesthetic.  Some of the series David painted on were Wacky Races and Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines. The two images from Wacky Races at right show how Weidman's serigraph work began to inform his background painting at the time.  He returned to UPA as a freelancer in 1969 to work on Mr. Magoo’s last TV special, Uncle Sam Magoo.

Weidman has recently experienced a resurgence of interest in his prints, now deemed “Retro” although they were actually produced at the time and many of his prints are still available today.  A book documenting his work and career was published and last year, Urban Outfitters produced a line of decorator pillows featuring his work.  If you are interested in owning your own Weidman print or in buying a signed copy of his book, you can purchase both here.  For those on a budget who would like to own both, I recommend buying the package that includes a signed copy of his book AND a miniature silk screen print of one of his designs.

UPDATE!  If you live in the Southern California area, David Weidman's works will be exhibited at Bermudez Projects in downtown Los Angeles starting November 11 through December 1st. David Weidman, Modern Master: Prints 1967-1974 is part of Pacific Standard Time, an initiative of the Getty celebrating the birth of the LA art scene with over 60 cultural institutions across Southern California.  David anticipates being there for the VIP opening next Friday, November 11th from 6-9 PM.  Please RSVP here if you plan to drop by to meet him in person and pick up one of his amazing prints.  For more information, click here.