Friday 19 October 2012

Cartoonland, and Anson Dyer's animators in the late forties


Peter Hale has forwarded me this extract from Cartoonland, a 1949 documentary about Anson Dyer and his studio, asking for help in identifying the artists shown in the film. The man in the first of the photos below is Harold Whitaker; if anyone recognises the rest, let me know.

Len Kirley, Laurie Price, John Garling, Tony Guy, Sid Griffiths, Bob Privett, Vic Bevis, Betty Smith and Mollie Zambra are all candidates.






 
Another curiosity regarding the documentary is its focus on a cartoon entitled Ronnie Rabbit. Peter tells me that an earlier part of the documentary, not included in the extract, shows Dyer reading a book of the same title to his niece before deciding to adapt it into a cartoon.



Ronnie Rabbit by T. Payten Gunton and Frank Rogers, published in 1949 - possibly the inspiration for the animated character.


However, there does not appear to be any kind of record of a cartoon called Ronnie Rabbit ever being released. It may be that the footage was commissioned specifically for the documentary and the entire scenario staged, but this itself raises questions - for one, the clip of animation is not shown in its final state, only as a pencil test followed by individual cels.












7 comments:

  1. Working down the pictures below Harold: Kay Pound, Dennis Gardiner, and Len Kirley (Left) and Ron Nielsen (Right). The book in the film is a mock-up as the drawings look exactly the same as animated character and nothing like the book you have found. The Dyer studio was in lean times in this period and I would agree that there is no finished "Ronnie Rabbit" cartoon. The opening scene does have a sequence of an animated Ronnie Rabbit over a still photo - as per your final screenshot.

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    1. Can anyone put me in touch with whover has a copy of this film? I am related to Anson Dyer and trying to collate some of his work, which is proving hard to do!

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  2. Thank you to Neil for posting this, and to Jez for identifying the people shown. I was afraid that if we didn't identify them soon there might be no-one left who could do it!

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  3. Thanks for the information - I've edited out my tentative (and wrong) identification of Bob Privett so as not to confuse anyone.

    Was the animated clip at the start the footage of him jumping and blowing a raspberry?

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    1. From memory, no. He appears in a puff of smoke and clowns about, smashing into a cigar box (or similar) and talks to Dyer.

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    2. Can anyone put me in touch with whover has a copy of this film? I am related to Anson Dyer and trying to collate some of his work, which is proving hard to do!

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    3. Hello Anon - if you drop me a line at the email address on the right I'll be happy to try and help.

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