Looking Backward

I'm writing this as a bit of an addendum to the VANITY FAIR article on the early years of Cal Arts.

I'm pleased and honored to have been included in the list of interviewees, and think that the article is a good snapshot of that time. But like a snapshot, it only shows a few details, while others are fuzzy, and there may be distortions to the image. This post will attempt to bring one issue in particular back into focus.

One attitude that prevailed at that time was that if you weren't going to Disney you weren't going anywhere. After all, the Cal Arts program had been set up to retrain artists for the Disney studio as the older artists retired. We ate, breathed and learned from Disney films (This monolithic attitude began to crack in our second year, thanks to my classmate Darrell van Citters, who arranged visits after hours from artists Michael Maltese, Mike Lah, Maurice Noble and Ed Love as a hint of what else was out there.) Cal Arts sponsored a talk by Chuck Jones and another by Richard Williams.

Dig

There are certain shows from my childhood that have stuck with me over the years despite not having seen them since.  Ken Mundie's Hey Hey Hey, It's Fat Albert special is one of them.  Fred Wolf's The Point is another.  And then there's Dig.

Dig is a special that ran on Saturday morning a couple of times in 1972.  It was the story of a boy and his dog who go on 'a journey into the Earth" guided by a large rock.   I was nine going on ten when it aired, but it stuck with me.  I remembered the main characters, and I remember the song "Take a midnight ride - down the rock bottom road - bumpty bumpty bump bump."

Memorial for Tissa David in NYC

A memorial for Tissa David, who worked on many animated films including Raggedy Ann and Andy will take place at the Academy Lighthouse Theater in New York City on Tuesday October 23rd at 7pm. 

The program will include five speakers and will include clips from the many films that Tissa worked on, including: Eggs, Everybody Rides the Carousel, Cockaboody, Raggedy Ann & Andy, Candide, The Soldier’s Tale, The Red Shoes, Lyle Lyle Crocodile, The Marzipan Pig, The Dancing Frog and POE.

Where: Academy Lighthouse Theater, 111 East 59th Street, NYC
When: Tuesday, October 23rd, at 7pm. Admission is free

--- Alex

Remembering Tissa David

Every animated feature film director has a handful of animators that they know they can rely on to deliver the goods, the people you know will get the job done on time. On Raggedy Ann and Andy - an animated musical which my father directed in the late 1970s - that animator was Tissa David. Tissa was fast and good, a terrific draughtsman and a skilled actor. She animated many of the scenes of Raggedy Ann, and she delivered a beautiful sense of girlish innocence to the character. You can see some of her pencil tests here:

Raggedy Ann was animated in New York City, and at the time I was just ten years old and living in London, so I didn't see much of the day to day business of the making of the film. But I remember the names of the animators that Dad depended on to get the film finished, and I know how much he respected Tissa's work.

Tissa died this week in her home of New York City, aged 91, having lived a long life and having earned the respect of her colleagues.

--- Alex