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 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.

Rocky and Bullwinkle shill for the US Treasury

The advertising agency behind General Mills' decision to sponsor the Rocky and Bullwinkle shows, Dancer-Fitzgerald-Samples, worked out a deal with the US Treasury to use the Jay Ward characters in a campaign to promote US Savings Bonds*.  Timed to coincide with the premiere of The Bullwinkle Show in September of 1961 was the Hollywood-produced short, Rocky and Bullwinkle Savings Stamp Club, promoting US Savings Stamps to school children, who would ultimately grow to become US Savings Bond purchasers.  Sam Clayberger color keyed and painted the backgrounds for this short (inexplicably giving Sherman blonde hair!) and a few of these keys can be seen in a previous post on this blog.  Art Diamond created this membership card for the club:

Allan Burns did these gag panels to promote buying US Savings Bonds:

which became the basis for this Sam Clayberger art for Boy's Life to encourage Boy Scouts to buy US Savings Bonds:

Allan Burns also created these promo comic strips aimed at getting adults to buy those same bonds:

*Jay Ward and Bill Scott had a tempestuous relationship with the agency, for more behind-the-scenes info read The Art of Jay Ward Productions and The Moose That Roared.

The Bullwinkle Fan Club

Not only did the Jay Ward staff produce a lot of material to promote The Bullwinkle Show, if you were really hip, you could become a member of The Bullwinkle Fan Club.  Sam Clayberger designed the now classic membership card and certificate for the Bullwinkle Fan Club:

Allan Burns drew the art for these fan club cards which were designed and lettered by Sam Clayberger:

Does anyone still have their original membership cards?

Sam Clayberger, Rocky & Bullwinkle and Mr. Peabody

As I mentioned in a previous post, the Rocky and Bullwinkle shows were largely produced in Mexico so very little art has survived.  Fortunately, the titles and bumpers were produced locally and one can see Shirley Silvey's whimsical layout drawings for The Rocky Show on pages 75-77 in The Art of Jay Ward Productions.  Below are some very loose color keys by Sam Clayberger for those same opening titles:

In 1961, Jay Ward produced a film aimed primarily at school children promoting savings stamps using Rocky & Bullwinkle, Boris & Natasha and Mr. Peabody & Sherman.  Here are a few of Sam's color keys from the production:

All but one of the Mr. Peabody episodes were produced in Mexico City but the Mexican studio refused to do the Pancho Villa episode so Jay brought it back to the States.  Below, two of Sam's keys from that episode:

Color keys for some of the early Cheerios spots featuring Bullwinkle and The Cheerios Kid, in order of appearance, Bowling Judo, Mother Hubbard and Trapeze:

Next week, Sam turns his talents to commercials for Quaker Oats.  Stay tuned to see color keys for Cap'n Crunch and Quisp & Quake!

March Madness for The Art of Jay Ward Productions!

Yep, that's right, during the month of March you can buy a copy of The Art of Jay Ward Productions for 40% less than on Amazon!  This limited time offer ends April 1st; so you don't forget, order by midnight tonight, operators are standing by!!  And if you've wondered what's inside the book, check out this awesome commercial featuring  the supremely talented Keith Scott channeling William Conrad, Bill Scott and Paul Frees all in one rapid-fire 30 second spot:

 You can see a higher res version of the spot at artofjayward.com which, conveniently, is also where you can buy the book!  And stay tuned to this blog, there will be regular updates with lots of eye candy starting March 23rd.