Kathleen Quaife, one of the best 2D effects animators that ever lived, passed away in her sleep last week, way too young. I first met Katie in the late eighties, doing commercials for Duck Soup Produckions in Santa Monica. We would work together again on the feature Rover Dangerfield, on which she headed the effects department. Katie was the adult in the room full of goofy animators. Did she enjoy our antics, or did she just tolerate us patiently? There was a little glint in her eye that makes me think the former was the truth.
After Rover, I would run into her now and then, either at Dave Spafford's Friday night house parties, or Bill and Sue Kroyer's Christmas parties. She was part of my animation family, back when the industry was small and everyone knew each other. I last saw her in 2018, at Rebecca Rees' art show at the Animation Guild. She was there with her boyfriend, Mike Cedeno, and she seemed so happy, still with that little glint in her eye.
After two years of working in fits and starts, I am very pleased to present "PeaceTime: A Royal Frog".
I got this idea a while back (2017-ish?) as an answer to the loud and obnoxious programming that is fed to kids, ad nauseum, through 24-hour cable and streaming video - yes, the stuff that pays my mortgage. I wrote the idea down in a sketchbook and let it ferment.
At some point, I talked about it with my old friend Winter Reign, a far-out progressive gal with two small kids and no TV. She loved it, somewhat surprised it came from such a Three Stooges loving, blue collar guy. She invited me to a Kundalini yoga class deep in the heart of Topanga Canyon. It seemed like a dare, and so I went.
Last night there was a story on the local news about Harold Rees, a luthier (maker of stringed instruments) who was still at it at the age of 100. For years, concert violinists have purchased his work, or entrusted him to repair and restore their precious instruments. It was a really wonderful story made more wonderful by the fact that I know this man.
Harold Rees is the father of my longtime friend and animation colleague Jerry Rees. Over the past 35 years, I have seen Mr. Rees at Jerry's house on many occasions. I've also seen many of his handmade instruments - violins, violas, banjos, and ukuleles. After one such visit to Jerry's with my wife Donna, she commented on the incredible craftsmanship in Mr Rees' work. I confessed to her that I had always wanted to buy one of his ukuleles but was afraid to ask.
Our family moved to Hollywood in 1968. We discovered hippies, unconventional life styles and PINKS. We ate at PINKS all the time. It was cheap, really good, and legal. We would order our hot dogs and eat them in our car, which was a 1949 Ford.
About two years ago, I was driving my dad around looking for a place to eat lunch. We were on LaBrea in Hollywood and my dad suggested McDonald's....which sounded horrifying to me. I just kept driving hoping we didn't pass a McDonald's, and then I saw PINKS up ahead. Neither of us had been there in years, even though my dad only lives about 6 blocks away. So I pulled over and parked, extremely happy that he forgot all about McDonald's.
I was very sorry to hear of Harold Ramis' death today. He was one of my favorites on SCTV in the '70's. Watching that show as an 8th grade super 8 filmmaker, I never dreamt I would one day get to work with Moe Green himself.
Thirteen years later, Tom Wilhite at Hyperion Animtion hired me to direct the feature Rover Dangerfield. I was only 26, and had more hubris than experience. It was Rodney Dangerfield's baby, and he got Harold Ramis to write a script. It wasn't a horrible first draft, though Harold did not put his name on it. With story artist Rebecca Rees, who was pregnant with her son Ian, we started working to improve the script.
I had a meeting with Rodney in his suite at the Beverly Hilton. Just me and him. He started to read the script aloud - a 120 page script. He would read a little, stop and talk about it, then read some more. Feeling trapped, I tried to talk about some of the broad strokes changes I wanted to make, as if the 69 year-old comedy genius gave a firm crap about the story ideas of a 26 year old kid. "I thought you liked the script." Rodney kept saying. I backpedalled like Ralph Kramden, "Hamina hamina hamina…." Not only was this not a first draft for him, it was the shooting script.
Rebecca today with dog Charlie and the lamppost she saved. She never did get its name.
Photo by Roger Wilson, Glendale News-Press
You weren't expecting that title, now were you?
Back in 1994, animator Rebecca Rees was well on her way to producing her second son, Wilder, when she found herself in the center of a chapter of Glendale, California history known as "The Adams Hill Rebellion". Don't Google it, I just named it that.
In a timely find, animator and story board artist Rebecca Rees has unearthed a series of sketches done by Dan Haskett in 1978 which caricature Rebecca as the Pontiff. These were probably done sometime during the election of John Paul II, after the death of the first John Paul after only 33 days on the job.
Toaster Crew in Taipei, 1986. From left: Joe Ranft, Sanvy from Cuckoo's Nest, Steve Moore, Randy Cartwright, Brian McEntee, Jerry Rees, Chuck Richardson. Photo by Rebecca Rees
In January of 1986, eleven Americans travelled to Taiwan to work on The Brave Little Toaster. There was Jerry and Rebecca Rees, Chuck Richardson, Brian McEntee, Kevin Lima, Tanya Wilson, Chris Wahl, Ann Telnaes, Randy Cartwright, Joe Ranft, and 23 year-old me. The studio was called Cuckoo's Nest, a cartoon factory which had been churning out miles of Saturday morning cartoons for Hanna-Barbera and Ruby-Spears. The studio's owner, James Wang, paid to bring out about half of the American crew to shore up his talent pool. Toaster raised the bar for his studio in every capacity. Just compare Cuckoo's Nest productions such as The Smurfs to Toaster to get an idea of how far they were pushed.
I recently found a letter I wrote to my parents from Taiwan, which unearthed some forgotten memories. So if you ever wondered what it was like to make a great American cartoon in the land of Chiang Kai-shek, read on!
Back in the day, Rebecca and I were delighted to receive an invitation to attend a gathering at Ward Kimball's house. Kelly Kimball was there of course. Brian McEntee and Chuck Richardson were there. Ward and his crew fired up full size steam engines and gave visitors rides back and forth across his property. What a blast! And what a shock it must have been for people passing on the neighborhood street, seeing steam engines racing toward the fence, then slowing at the last moment and edging up to the bumpers at the end of the tracks. Most of the day was spent chatting, eating and riding the trains. But Ward saw several of us peeking at the building where he kept his vast collection of miniature trains. He let us in and asked "you want somethin' to run?"
He fired up several trains at once and got everything chugging. You could tell he was having a blast! Boy did his eyes twinkle...
Later that day he wanted to see the tapes I'd been recording. He said he liked the footage better than the stuff a news crew had staged and shot earlier. He found it more candid and fun.
That VHS tape has been sitting on a shelf for a whole lot of years. After intending to digitize it for a long, long time, I finally gave it a shot. Some of it is still in decent shape. But there are segments lost to tape degeneration. I could kick myself for not doing it sooner! But over the next few weeks I plan to go back and salvage as many scenes as possible - both the big trains, and the miniatures - and post it all on my site.
The piece I shared today was just the first test (before the digitizer broke!). I've ordered a new one and will be back at it in a few days.
Mr. Hollywood with James Wang and Rebecca Rees in Taipei.
It was January 28th, 1986, and I had just arrived to work on The Brave Little Toaster at Wang Film Studios, a.k.a. Cuckoo’s Nest. I had been put up at the China Hotel, and must have arrived on the weekend as the studio was closed during my first full day there. After breakfast at the hotel, I took a walk to check out the town.
I was just 23 years old, and found the city of Taipei to be like the land of Blade Runner. The buildings, the lighting, the smells, and the noise let me know with no uncertainty that I was far from the animator's safe haven of Burbank. Taipei was very loud, and on the eve of Chinese New Year, firecrackers went off constantly throughout the city, with rolls running the height of three story buildings. Most all signage was in Chinese, rendering me illiterate. American fast-food was there; Wendy's, Pizza Hut (with ketchup in lieu of tomato sauce on their pizza) and of course, McDonald's. As I approached a life-size, fiberglass Ronald McDonald on the sidewalk, a small boy puked a strawberry milkshake at his feet - a National Geographic photo-op missed. It was all so intensely bizarre and exhilarating, I strolled around like a Replicant, drawing stares for being a strawberry-blonde haired, green-eyed freak.
Day one in Taipei.
Walking past a large, shiny department store, my green eyes caught a bank of TVs in the showcase window with footage of what appeared to be the space shuttle exploding. I stopped short, taking a closer look next to a couple of locals. The footage was on a thirty second loop, the shuttle exploding, then back intact, then exploding, then back intact. The locals were talking about it, but in Chinese, so why was I eavesdropping? I went into the store to hear the TV commentary. It was an American news report dubbed in Chinese. I could hear a familiar voice (Brokaw?) reporting, but Chinese translation transposed on the tape made it very difficult to decipher. The Chinese news also added musical score for dramatic effect. Really.
Hours later, I met up with some of my American Toaster crew mates and learned that the shuttle had, indeed, exploded killing the entire crew. Every January 28th since, when reminded of the disaster, I flash back to the front of that Chinese department store and that bank of televisions, luring people to come shop with a loop of the Challenger exploding during Chinese New Year. Shin yen kwai le!
