Sam Clayberger 1926-2018

I'm sad to report that one of the very last of the original Jay Ward artists, Sam Clayberger, passed away May 4th after a short illness.  Sam's influence on the studio's product was huge, starting at the very beginning when he freelanced with fellow designer Roy Morita on the Rocky the Flying Squirrel pilot in 1958 and continuing his association with the studio until it closed its doors in 1984. 

Although ostensibly a color stylist and background painter, Jay relied on him for much of his in-house design work, everything from the certificates and membership cards for the Bullwinkle fan club to the art and standees inside the Dudley Do-right Emporium, from the lettering in the original Rocky and Bullwinkle titles to virtually all of the publicity art featuring the original series characters (see below).

I first interviewed Sam at the age of 83 and his recall was exceptional, easily answering questions on the studio's history and the artists that populated it.  We were in regular contact as I was researching and writing the book but at the 11th hour, as I was putting the finishing touches on the manuscript, I got a call from him asking if he could drop by my office.  When he walked in, he was carrying over 2 dozen original backgrounds dating from Dudley Do-right up through myriad Quaker Oats commercials.  While cleaning out his files, he had come across these long forgotten gems from the past and thought they might be of interest.  I immediately went back into the book and shoe horned in as much new art as I could and still managed to meet the press deadline.  A year after the book was published, he discovered a cache of color keys from his career including episodes of Fractured Fairy Tales, numerous Cap'n Crunch commercials and even keys from Hoppity Hooper.  You can see many of those keys in the archives here, here, here, here, here and here.

Although Sam had a huge impact on kids of the 1960s, probably more than he realized, his primary interest was his fine art.  Sam worked freelance while at Ward so he could pursue painting and continued to draw and paint long after his work for Jay came to an end, even renting his own art studio with weekly model sessions so that he could follow his passion.  He was most proud of his nudes while admitting that his landscapes were more likely to sell.  Some of Sam's paintings can be seen here and here.  A brief bio as well as many of his backgrounds can be seen in the now out-of-print, The Art of Jay Ward Productions.

Sam Clayberger was a warm and generous man and I will miss him. Au revoir, Sam

Life at the Jay Ward studio, as seen by Bill Scott, part 6

In the early days of the Ward studio, what success there was felt both ephemeral and transient to Bill Scott and Jay Ward.  After its initial run, Rocky and His Friends was renewed for a second season and although it was good news, it wasn't quite enough to calm the angst felt by the two producers.  

 Scott measured that success through a series of barometers:

 

 

Bill Scott was a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat so JFK touting the competition was tantamount to treason.  At the time Scott drew the above right cartoon, Amos and Andy had been in reruns for about 8 years; seeing an old show garner higher ratings than their newly produced show was tough to take.

Then, there was the agency's perception of Jay Ward's success; in their eyes, Ward & Co. were practically stealing their money.  The cartoon below was not drawn by Bill Scott but given to him by the artist.  Betty was Betty O'Hara who was Dancer-Fitzgerald-Samples' West Coast contact for Ward.

Life at the Jay Ward studio, as seen by Bill Scott, part 5

Jay Ward and Bill Scott, starting with nothing more than an idea for a single series, built a scrappy little independent animation studio from virtually nothing. And with fortuitous timing, they sold their pilot, Rocky The Flying Squirrel, to a major corporate sponsor, General Mills, as a series.  The future looked bright but, as they soon discovered, there was a dark side to the good news.

Through more chicanery than I can list here*, the duo was backed into a corner by General Mill's agency, D-F-S, and forced to produce the show for about half of a comparable Hanna-Barbera series, do the work in a foreign country where much of the staff lacked production experience, find talent to fly there and oversee the work, locate Hollywood animation talent to shore up the ragged edges, fight off constant agency meddling and deal with indifferent broadcasters (ABC and NBC).

It's no wonder that there were days when they felt they carried the weight of the world on their shoulders.  Just how much they felt that way became apparent when I discovered the cache of Bill Scott's gag cartoons.  Success was never guaranteed and they both knew it; the fledgling enterprise could have failed at any time.

Harmon-Tichton Studios was a producer of animated industrials & commercials.

Before 24 hour networks, TV animation was a largely cyclical business where animation talent would experience at least a 3 month hiatus while waiting for the networks to decide which shows would be chosen and/or renewed for the coming Fall season.  That maddening indecision was equally hard on the show's producers, which Bill Scott memorialized in the cartoons below.

Hanna-Barbera (The Huckleberry Hound Show, The Flintstones) and TV Spots (King Leonardo and His Loyal Subjects, Calvin and the Colonel) were two of Ward's chief competitors.

*I touch on that chicanery in The Art of Jay Ward Productions but for a more in-depth view, see The Moose That Roared by Keith Scott.

Life at the Jay Ward studio, as seen by Bill Scott, part 3

 Jay Ward and Bill Scott had what could be politely called a "challenging relationship" with General Mills' agency, Dancer-Fitzgerald-Samples.  Not only had the agency insisted on a ridiculously low budget from the outset (which had necessitated setting up production in Mexico) but key agency personnel were also the primary investors in the that same Mexican studio.  Keeping costs low ensured that those investors made a return on their investment, which in turn affected the quality of the studio's output.  The one person at D-F-S who seemed to be the consistent target of Bill and Jay's ire was agency exec, Gordon Johnson, pictured below in the first two cartoons. The the man holding the sign is Peter Piech, president of Producer's Associates of Television, who often found himself caught between the two adversaries.

Agency interference was a recurring theme.  Bill Scott took special joy in illustrating portions of their memos:

Several others in this series can be seen in The Art of Jay Ward Productions.  To read about more zany agency antics, check out Keith Scott's history of the Jay Ward studio, The Moose That Roared.  Anyone running a business today will recognize the situations depicted in the cartoons below; apparently some things never change.  (My apologies for the missing part of the third scan.)

Next week, dealing with NBC.

Life at the Jay Ward studio, as seen by Bill Scott, part 2

Last time, you may remember, our heroes had sent their shows to Mexico City hoping for the best; unfortunately, their dreams were dashed on the rocky shores of reality as shows came back looking nothing like the producers had imagined.  Bill Scott was especially unhappy with the results, having had much more animation experience than his partner, Jay Ward.

This week, the frustrations of long-distance producing a show south of the border.  Compounding the lack of local control over the production, there were also language and cultural barriers, severe inexperience with animation production by the locals and vastly different conceptions of urgency.  Retake requests were steady but, as a result of the studio having pushed up against the deadlines, the error-riddled shows were often forced to air as is.  Viewing the finished product, Bill Scott could only speculate on what was going on in Mexico City and scribbled out these gags for Jay Ward expressing his aggravation. 

Life at the Jay Ward studio, as seen by Bill Scott, part 1

With the benefit of hindsight, it is easy to view the Ward studio as an animation success story, of the little studio that came from nowhere and succeeded, almost as if it were preordained.  But appearances can be deceiving and after all my interviews, research and combing through file after ancient file, the most revealing insight to the history of the Jay Ward studio came from a sheaf of gag cartoons drawn on legal pads and animation paper by Bill Scott, the producer, head writer and voice of so many of Jay Ward's cartoon shows.

In those drawings were Scott's wry observations of life in a struggling animation studio; commentary on agency perfidy, holding onto talent, the frustrations of producing a show across cultural and linguistic barriers and even whether or not the studio would survive.   Those cartoons are unguarded moments, meant to be shared only with Jay Ward; none of those emotions ever surfaced in any interview I found.  Press interviews of the time were often filled with bravado, with Jay and Bill taking on either the ABC or NBC networks while later interviews, after success was achieved, seemed to focus primarily on the shows themselves.

For those who are new here or who haven't read my book, The Art of Jay Ward Productions, most of the animation on Rocky & His Friends and The Bullwinkle Show was produced by a studio in Mexico City inexperienced in TV series production and at a fraction of the cost of shows by competitor Hanna-Barbera.  It was a situation forced on Jay and Bill by the sponsor's agency, Dancer-Fitzgerald-Samples, and it was perpetual source of aggravation for them.

Although the duo had low expectations given all that they were saddled with, even those expectations appeared to be overly optimistic.  Shows came back riddled with the kinds of errors that never should have left the production facility--characters missing body parts, painted the wrong color, walking on a ground plane different from the background, etc.  And then there was the matter of animation being executed by people who had never animated before.  Bill Scott, who had come up through the ranks of classic animation, was mortified by what he saw.

 

Next week, Bill Scott attempts to explain what happened behind the scenes at the Mexican studio.