Daws Butler week continues, and today, I'm sharing with you all a newspaper article dated the first of March, 1974. This story appeared in the Ventura County Star, and covers a trip to a school in Thousand Oaks Daws Butler made. During the occasion, Daws put on a puppet show, explained the animation process, and of course, demonstrated his most famous voices. Joining him for the event was Art Scott, a production manager who worked at Hanna-Barbera from the late sixties to the late eighties.
Yogi Bear, friends give lesson in animation
By Neal Twyford
Yogi Bear and Huckleberry Hound dropped in at St. Paschal Baylon School.
They hobnobbed with the sixth through eighth graders, threw a few one-liners at the kids, sang a song or two and got in return ecstatic laughter and plenty of applause from the Thousand Oaks Catholic Schoolchildren.
As a sidelight Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound and their friends from Hanna-Barbera Productions Inc. gave the kids a quick lesson in how those Saturday morning cartoon television shows are made.
Putting on the informative show was Art Scott, studio production manager, and Daws Butler, the voice of countless Hanna-Barbera cartoons including Yogi Bear and Huckleberry Hound.
Scott told the kids that Hanna-Barbera made half of those Saturday morning television shows and when he asked how many of the students watched those shows, there wasn't a hand in the house that remained down.
Hanna-Barbera pioneered the technique for making television cartoons, according to Scott. He explained that the old motion picture studio method of making cartoons that showed every detail of action was too expensive for television.
Using an example of a boy riding a bike and crashing into a wall, Scott explained that in the non-television style of animation, every detail of the crash would have been shown. That meant drawing perhaps hundreds of separate frames to show the crash.
"On television we would have the boy ride the bike off-screen, where the crash would occur. You'd hear the crash. We try to get a lot of effects with sound effects. In the next shot you'd see the boy sitting on the ground next to the bike. He'd probably have stars above his head," Scott explained. "In television, you can't afford to do much more."
Even with the cutting down on detail, Scott said it cost more than $50,000 to make a half-hour animated cartoon and that it takes around 16 weeks to make such a cartoon.
"First, we get the idea or script," Scott said as he held up a stack of cartoon panel drawings. "This is the story board. Each scene in the story is sketched including the dialogue."
Next, Scott continued, the script is recorded by the voice character specialists, such as Daws Butler. The taped dialogue track is then put on a clear strip of film on which the dialogue is written in grease pencil. The grease pencil film is then used by the animation director to make a master sheet. The master sheet shows frame-by-frame where each letter in the dialogue is spoken.
Only then does the animator begin work. Using the master sheet and a cassette recording of the dialogue track, the animator begins rough drawings matching lip movements of the characters to the dialogue. These paper drawings are then checked against the track and the line drawings are transferred to clear celluloid cells.
"This used to be a tedious process. Now they are transferred to the cells by a Xerox process," Scott Said.
Next, each cell, which represents one frame of action, is painted by hand. Finally, the cells are photographed against a painted background one frame at a time. There are 24 frames a second.
Then the animated print is synchronized with the dialogue, music and sound effects tracks and placed on one master print. That print is sent to New York, where it is transferred to magnetic tape.
It is the tape that is telecast on Saturday mornings. The tape transmission is sent by the wire to the West Coast where it is taped and played back three hours later for Los Angeles area viewers.
Besides presenting a puppet show to the kids with Huckleberry Hound and Yogi Bear -- in which Butler demonstrated the wide range of voices he has created -- Scott and Butler teamed up.
Scott created a character in chalk on the blackboard while Butler simultaneously developed an appropriate voice for it. After the presentation, the kids surrounded Butle for autographs, and in a way the show went on. Those kids just had to have Butler do some of his commercial and cartoon voices.
For starters there was Captain Crunch, the Waffle Whiffle, Quisp, Quick Draw McGraw, Boo Boo Bear...
They hobnobbed with the sixth through eighth graders, threw a few one-liners at the kids, sang a song or two and got in return ecstatic laughter and plenty of applause from the Thousand Oaks Catholic Schoolchildren.
As a sidelight Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound and their friends from Hanna-Barbera Productions Inc. gave the kids a quick lesson in how those Saturday morning cartoon television shows are made.
Putting on the informative show was Art Scott, studio production manager, and Daws Butler, the voice of countless Hanna-Barbera cartoons including Yogi Bear and Huckleberry Hound.
Scott told the kids that Hanna-Barbera made half of those Saturday morning television shows and when he asked how many of the students watched those shows, there wasn't a hand in the house that remained down.
Hanna-Barbera pioneered the technique for making television cartoons, according to Scott. He explained that the old motion picture studio method of making cartoons that showed every detail of action was too expensive for television.
Using an example of a boy riding a bike and crashing into a wall, Scott explained that in the non-television style of animation, every detail of the crash would have been shown. That meant drawing perhaps hundreds of separate frames to show the crash.
"On television we would have the boy ride the bike off-screen, where the crash would occur. You'd hear the crash. We try to get a lot of effects with sound effects. In the next shot you'd see the boy sitting on the ground next to the bike. He'd probably have stars above his head," Scott explained. "In television, you can't afford to do much more."
Even with the cutting down on detail, Scott said it cost more than $50,000 to make a half-hour animated cartoon and that it takes around 16 weeks to make such a cartoon.
"First, we get the idea or script," Scott said as he held up a stack of cartoon panel drawings. "This is the story board. Each scene in the story is sketched including the dialogue."
Next, Scott continued, the script is recorded by the voice character specialists, such as Daws Butler. The taped dialogue track is then put on a clear strip of film on which the dialogue is written in grease pencil. The grease pencil film is then used by the animation director to make a master sheet. The master sheet shows frame-by-frame where each letter in the dialogue is spoken.
"This used to be a tedious process. Now they are transferred to the cells by a Xerox process," Scott Said.
Next, each cell, which represents one frame of action, is painted by hand. Finally, the cells are photographed against a painted background one frame at a time. There are 24 frames a second.
Then the animated print is synchronized with the dialogue, music and sound effects tracks and placed on one master print. That print is sent to New York, where it is transferred to magnetic tape.
It is the tape that is telecast on Saturday mornings. The tape transmission is sent by the wire to the West Coast where it is taped and played back three hours later for Los Angeles area viewers.
Besides presenting a puppet show to the kids with Huckleberry Hound and Yogi Bear -- in which Butler demonstrated the wide range of voices he has created -- Scott and Butler teamed up.
Scott created a character in chalk on the blackboard while Butler simultaneously developed an appropriate voice for it. After the presentation, the kids surrounded Butle for autographs, and in a way the show went on. Those kids just had to have Butler do some of his commercial and cartoon voices.
For starters there was Captain Crunch, the Waffle Whiffle, Quisp, Quick Draw McGraw, Boo Boo Bear...
How nice! :)
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