Boxoffice-July.1997

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in a surreal, first-person style derived
ing fine artists as disparate as Lautrec and
rtuous seven-minute nightmare rendered cartoon short, and UPA's two attempts at fea-
Daumier as well as contemporary mannerists equally from Dali, expressionist theatre
from Thurber to Hirschfeld. The brainchild of
a generation of Disney animators who had
been hired out of the art schools as opposed to
being brought up within Disney itself, UPA
was bom out of an eclectic group of artists'
and UPA's own evocative house style.
By 1953, the somewhat pejorative term
"limited animation" had been applied to
the UPA technique (some insiders blame
Disney for the term) owing to UPA's interdesire
to expand the
graphic boundaries of animation
into realms that
had been largely off-limits
at Disney, but which were
the bread and butter of
modem art.
A bitter labor strike at
Disney in 1941 pitted the
younger, more sociallyconscious
generation
against the more established
Disney loyalists,
and many of the new
breed went to work for director
Frank Tashlin at the
upstart animation studio
Screen Gems. From there,
members of this breakaway
unit formed their
own company, run originally
by Steve Bosustow,
Zack Schwartz and Dave
Hilberman, with a stellar
animation team including
at various times the likes
of John Hubley, Bobe
Cannon, Bill Hurtz, Bill
Melendez and Ernest
Pintoff— all legends
within the animation field,
and each of whom continued
to work out ideas fu^t
expressed at UPA in subsequent
work of groundbreaking
achievement.
Though most famous
for its enduring "serial"
character, Mr. Magoo,
UPA's output was as varied
as the visual sources it
drew upon. "Gerald McBoing Boing" (1951)
was only the eleventh UPA cartoon produced
and IS widely beUeved to be the first full articulation
est in stylization. To aficionados, the term is a
misnomer; in its audacious and restive desire
to re-invent animation with each new cartoon,
of the UPA house style . In an irony that UPA's output of theatrical cartoons was as
probably wasn't lost on Walt Disney, it boundlessly adventurous—as unlimited, if
grabbed the Academy Award for Best Animated
you wUl—^as any body ofcinematic work ever
Short Subject, which created the un-
created.
likely Oscar spectacle of UPA's Bosustow
standing shoulder to shoulder with Walt Disney
himself, who was accepting an Oscar for
uch a group of free spirits was bound to
waft apart over time. There were man-
'agement difficulties which resulted in
"Madeline," the popular French children's Bosustow taking full control ofthe studio; over
book series, made it to the screen in a Bobe the course of the 1950s, key creative talent
Cannon-directed short from 1952 that flaw- drifted, often into the then-nascent field ofTV
work (where UPA itself was a pioneer). The
TV medium was uniquely configured to take
unique vision of New Yorker cartoonist James advantage of UPA's ability to make arresting
Thurber to life in his 1953 adaptation of visual material out of fixed resources; as a
Thurber's "A Unicom in the Garden." The result, the UPA approach defined a whole generation
of TV's animation style, even when
1953) was a UPA highpoint—an aerie
UPA itself wasn't directly involved.
and But TV soon ended the era of the theatrical
' !j( "Beaver Valley," 1 95 1 's best live action short.
,
lessly replicated Ludwig Bemebnan's singular
, .;
graphic style, while Bill Hurtz helped bring the
James Mason-narrated rendering of Poe's
J , 'Tell-Tale Heart" (directed by Ted Parmelee in
AND EFFECT: Oscar-winning animator Ernest Pintoff got his start at UPA. His later, highly
personal works reflect the UPA influence. ABOVE: Study based on Pintoffs 'Flebus, " made
at Terrytoons. TOP: Study based on Pintoff's self-produced 'The Violinist.
ture length animation (the
Magoo-starring "1001
Arabian Nights" and "Gay
Pur-ee," based on a story
co-authored by Chuck
Jones) were boxoffice
flops. Core UPA personnel
continued to flourish elsewhere;
such veterans as
Parmelee and Hurtz helped
create Jay Ward's popular
"Rocky and Bullwinkle"
cartoons, while Bill
Melendez went on to become
the producer behind
such seasonal TV favorites
as "A Charlie Brown
Christmas" and "It's the
Great Pumpkin, Charlie
Brown" — part of a series
of "Peanuts"-derived cartoons
which, in their flawless
emulation of the
Charles Schulz originals,
were pure UPA. Ernie
Pintoff followed perhaps
the most exceptional trajectory
of all, going against
the pattern for animators in
the '50s and '60s by getting
his first break as an animator
in UPA's TV division
and then moving into theatrical
cartoons, where his
Mel Brooks-narrated "The Critic" eventually
won him an Oscar as producer/director of the
best animated short of 1%3.
Though UPA survives as a company, its
days in the artistic vanguard are a distant memory
today, and the company's achievement is
all but forgotten except among professional
animators and animation devotees. UPA's influence,
however, is as available as the latest
"Ren and Stimpy" or 'T)r. Katz" cablecast, and
can even be said to be reflected in part in
Musker and Clements' recent Disney efforts.
It's startling to look back and see just how far
one small studio managed to expand the visual
possibilities of the American cartoon. In this
era, when more and more money is being
invested by a variety of studios in animated
features designed to look as much as possible
as if they were made by Disney in its "golden
era" prime, the UPA paradigm may be not just
worth celebrating, but worth revisiting, as a
model for the unlimited possibilities of color
and line.
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