More From Iwao Takamoto

 Well, it sure has been a minute. I'm sorry for the lack of posts this month. Work has been ramping up (and will probably get even crazier as the summer continues), I got a promotion, and I was down with the flu for over a week. With all of this going on, you probably won't be shocked that the blog got kind of lost in the mix. But I've got some cool stuff for this week, starting with a short newspaper piece on Iwao Takamoto. 

I originally meant to post this shortly after his 100th, but then all of the above happened. Better late than never, though! The following appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald on May 16th, 1997. Beyond being an intriguing look at how Takamoto operates as an artist, this may be the only time I've seen Velma referred to as Thelma.

Scooby who? Just ask Iwao Takamoto

By Richard Jinman

    Dogs have been good to Iwao Takamoto. The 72-year-old creator of celebrated cartoon canines such as Dick Dastardly's sniggerting comrade Muttley and The Jetson's space-age pooch Astro, admits a well-drawn dog can transform an animated film.
    So when CBS commissioned Hanna-Barbera to create a "teenage mystery" in the late 1960s, its primary designer was told the human cast—Fred, Daphne, Thelma and token beatnik Shaggy—needed a pet dog to inject some humour into proceedings.
    "Rather than a cute little dog, we decided to go for a big do,g and the biggest I could think of was a Great Dane," said Takamoto, who is in Sydney to open an exhibition of Hanna-Barbera animation art at the Silver K Animation Art Gallery in Parramatta.
    "I found out what made a prize-winning great dane and went in the opposite direction. The legs were supposed to be straight, so I made them bowed. I sloped the hind-quarters and made his feet too big. He was supposed to have a firm jaw, so I receded it..."
    Scooby-Doo was born.
    Today, the show is enjoying a resurgence in popularity, particularly in the United States. Its 60s fashion sense fits the prevailing retro-sensibility, and Scooby Snacks has even entered the language as street slang for narcotics.
    Takamoto's animation career began in 1945 when he secured a job at Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California.  
    A move to Hanna-Barbera in 1960 saw him playing a major role in the design of literally hundreds of animated characters. The Jetsons, Atom Ant, Precious Pupp, The Banana Splits, Wacky Races, and Grape Ape. Wacky Races' svelte damsel in distress, Penelope Pitstop, was a particular favorite.
    According to Takamoto, Pitstop—who was based on an old movie character called Pearl White— presented particular problems for his team of male animators.
    "As an animator, you become fascinated by movement," he said. "I'm not a woman, and there are so many nuances and bits of timing [peculiar to women] that aren't natural to me. It can be nothing more than a little gesture of frustration, but getting it right became an intellectual process."
    A fan of The Simpsons and the "craft" demonstrated by Ren and Stimpy, Takamoto denies there has been any radical shift in animation in the '90s.
    "Whether it's The Simpsons or The Flintstones, it's a reflection or caricature of the world we live in," he said. "The way we conceive or want the world we live in."