Ub Iwerks, Gran'pop Monkey and Cartoon Films Ltd.

While leafing through John Grant's book Masters of Animation I came across this tidbit in the chapter on Ub Iwerks:

Iwerks then [after leaving Columbia] made a brief sojourn to the United Kingdom, about which not much is known save that he produced there a couple of short-lived and extremely obscure cartoon series: the Way-Out shorts, which were probably parody travelogues, and the Gran'pop Monkey shorts. There were at least three of the latter: A Busy Day (1940), Baby Checkers (1940) and Beauty Shoppe (1940). The central character was a wise and wily old chimp who had been created for a popular series of postcards by the prolific British illustrator (Clarence) Lawson Wood.

Some of Lawson Wood's illustrations can be seen at the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive website. I knew that Iwerks had been involved with the British animation industry - he directed the 1935 Boots advert See How They Won, which was scripted in the UK and animated in America - but I didn't realise that he had actually set up shop in Britain.

All three Gran'pop Monkey cartoons can be found on the DVD compilation Cultoons volume 3. Unfortunately, the films themselves shed little light on their history as only one person is named in the credits: producer David Biedermann. Denis Gifford's comprehensive British animation filmography says nothing about either the Gran'pop Monkey or Way-Out series; however, the Gran'pop cartoons are listed in Graham Webb's book The Animated Film Encyclopedia: A Complete Guide to American Shorts, Features and Sequences, 1900-1979. Here are the complete credits for them (Iwerks is conspicuously absent):

Cartoon Films Ltd. for Mono

Producers: David Biedermann, Lawson Haris

Director: Paul Fennell

Editor: Almon Teeter

Voice: Danny Webb, Bernice Hansel (Hansel is only credited for Beauty Shoppe)

Music: Clarence Wheeler
Photography: Richard M. Ising

I'm not sure exactly what involvement the British industry had with these cartoons, if indeed it had any. The few sources covering the Gran'pop series that I know of are inconsistent: some claim that Iwerks made them in the UK, others indicate that the only British contribution was Wood's source material. I can find very little information about Cartoon Films Ltd. (this old issue of Business Screen is one source), but it was definitely not a British studio.

1979 Pippin annual

I've never really covered the classic animated series by the likes of Oliver Postgate, Peter Firmin, John Ryan and Gordon Murray. I certainly don't have anything against Bagpuss or Trumpton, it's just that other sites such as Toonhound and Little Gems have already done a perfectly good job of covering them.

Something I haven't seen much coverage of online, however, is the array of comics and annuals that were released to tie in with these series. One example is Pippin; I've scanned some strips from the 1979 annual that are based on Camberwick Green, Ivor the Engine, Toytown and Mary, Mungo and Midge, along with the live-action puppet series Rubovia, Sooty and Andy Pandy. The annual also features the French character Colargol (known as Barnaby in the UK, and seen on the annual's cover) along with two strips - Sally and The Moonbeans - which, to the best of my knowledge, are not based on television series.

According to this fansite, the Rubovia illustations were provided by Neville Maine.
























The Ivor the Engine illustrations look like Peter Firmin's own work - either that or a close imitation.









The Mary, Mungo and Midge stories are downright odd-looking. The title characters are modelled closely on John Ryan's designs, but everyone else is drawn in a completely different style.









(I love Sooty's expression at the start of the page below...)



The latter two Sooty and Sweep strips look to have been drawn by Fred Robinson. He drew the annual's Pinocchio-inspired endpapers, the only art in the book to be signed.

Charley Says

Here we have probably the UK's most iconic series of animated public information films. The most reliable sources that I've come across indicate that the films were officially identified as the Charley series, but they have entered pop culture under the title of Charley Says.

There were a total of six films in the series, all made in 1973 and animated by Richard Taylor, director of numerous other public information films and the Crystal Tipps and Alistair series. The shorts saw a cat named Charley (no relation to an earlier propaganda character of the same name created by Halas & Batchelor) who would dispense safety advice in the form of bizarre meowing noises, which his young owner would then translate for the audience. Charley's unintelligible yowling was provided by, of all people, Kenny Everett.

Taylor discussed the films in BBC4's documentary Animation Nation:

I was using cutout animation and the same littery bits of cut-out paper could be transferred from one film to the next so it was a very economic job from that point of view. [Everett] volunteered to do the entire soundtrack, in fact - music, effects, everything. The only thing was that the voice he provided for the boy was terribly transatlantic and not at all nice, and so I used all the work he'd done except the boy's voice, and I recorded a neighbour's child to do it.

The BBC website has an article on the series, complete with comments from readers ("I found it extremely menacing and disturbing", says one). All of the films are available on the National Archives website:

Matches
Falling in the Water
In the Kitchen
Charley's Tea Party
Strangers
Mummy Should Know

More public information films: iced ponds, housefires and explosions

Iced Ponds was released in 1969. This anonymous webpage - which, as far as I can tell, got its information from the liner notes to the Charley Says VHS release - attributes it to the Larkins studio.

"Once upon a time, there was a pond covered with ice. The children who played on it were perfectly safe so long as they followed three simple rules."

"One: take an adult with you."

"Two: wait 'till he's tested the ice."

"Three: keep away from the centre where the ice is thinnest."


"As for the children who didn't follow these three rules, some of them were never heard of again."



"So the good children who were left made very certain that there was always a grown-up with them, that he tested the ice first, that thy kept near the shore. And as a result, they lived happily ever after."







Tidy Up at Night is another 1969 film. According to the site mentioned above it was made by New Decade Films.

"When you've come home from work and decided you're very tired, ready for bed..."



"...think safe."

"Tidy up at night. Settle the coals. Put the guard in front of the fire."


"Empty the ash-trays. If clothes are airing near a boiler, remove them."


"And any oil heaters should be turned off."

"Take out electric plugs, especially heaters and electric irons - not forgetting the TV set"



"All these are sources of danger, especially at night. Don't gamble with lives and property - you're bound to lose in the end."




"So when you're ready for bed, think."








And finally, here's Talking Gas from 1978.

"I'm fed up - being a gas means you want to keep moving."

"In the cylinders there's no room to expand at all!"


"And anyway, in a mobile heater the most you can hope for is a short trip up the tube and the heady excitement of being a controlled flame."


"I do get out sometimes, you know. And in fact... yeah... there's a leak! Now's my chance!"


"Time to build up a nice surprise. Here we go..."