Today's post is going to be quite an interesting one. I've posted several newspaper articles on Daws Butler here, but what about a time Butler wrote in? Today's focus is on a piece from Butler himself, sourced from the October 9th, 1977 edition of the Los Angeles Times. Before I show it, let me give a quick backstory.
This writing is in response to a piece that ran in the paper a month earlier by Charles Solomon. He's a well-known animation historian, but the focus of this particular story was the state of children's animation. Solomon didn't hold back in trashing much of that season's programming and pointed out Hanna-Barbera as the most notable offender. Daws has his disagreements, but I find his response to be a very intriguing look at how much the television animation industry had changed since the fifties. I'll let him take over now.
I've been an actor in the animation field (among others) for many years. I was the original "Reddy" mentioned at the top of Solomon's article as being the template of the whole limited animation syndrome. Don Messick, a gifted colleague, was "Ruff." Charlie Shows wrote all of the episodes, funny concepts with comedy rhythms which today seem to be supplanted by a humorless quest for "continuity" and the dry pithiness of a mundane "storyline." Unfortunately, it is usually the same story, told again and again, year after year, with a "new" character doing an imitation of an imitation. Let the writer create.
There are funny writers around. I can hear them breathing. I can sense their presence—but they aren't allowed to write "funny"—to create provocative character complexities, which sensitive comic-actors can interpret. Let the writer write."
Beverly Hills
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