Ray Harryhausen

I owe quite a bit of my childhood, which is still going on according to my wife Patty, to a great man named Ray Harryhausen. If you don't recognize the name, surely you must recognize his work as the stop motion genius behind such fantasy classics as "The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms", "Mighty Joe Young", "The 7th Voyage of Sinbad",  and one of my all time favorites "Jason and the Argonauts". In fact Patty and I went to see a Harryhausen double feature showing  those two films at the the old Newart one evening along with Tim Burton when we were students at CalArts in the mid 1970s. It shouldn't surprise anyone that Tim was a big fan of his work as evident in many of his later stop motion films such as the "Nightmare Before Christmas."

That evening we were in for a very  special treat for sitting directly in front of us was Ray Harryhausen himself! He was so kind and since there were only about 10 of us in the entire audience (yeah, pretty weird) we were able to converse with him about the films we were screening while they were being shown. He even signed our programs when the films were over! I quickly realized that pretty much the entire young film community at that time was a big fan of his amazing work. The admiration of the film industry is even more evident when you see in jokes like the Monstropolis restaurant named "Harryhausen" in PIXAR's 2002 animated feature, Monster's Inc.".

Ray was in the audience when "King Kong" first roared to life in stop motion at Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood in 1933 and at 13 years old he was hooked. "I haven't been the same since." he used to say concerning that screening. Ray was somehow overlooked by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce but thanks to a letter writing campaign that included Hollywood heavyweights such as Steven Spielberg he was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. As Steven himself stated, "Without Harryhausen's effects work over the last five decades, there would never have been a "Star Wars" or a "Jurassic Park".

Today sadly Raymond "Ray" Harryhausen passed away in London at the age of 92. I'm grateful I had the chance to meet him and spend an evening with him discussing his work in such an intimate setting . I'm just as grateful that I have been allowed to enjoy his drawings, paintings, sculpture, animation and in the end- his films which will serve to attest to Ray's talent and creative energies  for future generations.

Walter (Woody Woodpecker) Lantz

Walter Lance with his animated alter-ego Woody

April 27, is the birthday of another famous animation giant by the name of Walt. If you can recollect the laughing bird call of his most most famous cartoon creation Woody Woodpecker you would probably also recognize his poppa- Walter Benjamin Lantz. He was born of Italian immigrants who like many at the time arrived in New York to start a new life in America. 

A couple of Universal "birdbrains"

Although by the 1920s he had already worked for various film chieftains  such as George Bray, Frank Capra and Mack Sennett, his big break came in 1928. It was then that he was hired by Charles MIntz as the director of "Oswald the Lucky Rabbit", the property that Mintz had been able to swindle away from the original creator, a young genius named Walt Disney. Eventually Oswald, seemed to wane in popularity and according to legend, Walt Lance and his wife Grace had been pestered during their honeymoon by a woodpecker who constantly pecked on their roof and the tree outside their window. As Lillian offered Walt Disney encouragement during the birth of Mickey, Grace did likewise for her husband regarding the bird and the result was a brash new animated personality named "Woody Woodpecker". 

Walt Lance went on to create many more characters to keep Woody company and enjoyed a long relationship with Universal Studios only interrupted with a management change in the late 40s eventually reconciling in 1951 although with the phrase, "Faster Cheaper" in force by the new Universal Studios bosses. Walt and his wife Grace spent retirement painting and visiting children's hospitals where he would draw Woody while Grace did her famous Woody laugh to cheer the kids. Before he passed away in 1994 at the age of 94, he established a scholarship for animators at California Institute of the Arts while we celebrate the memories of a lifetime of animated creations.  BURBANK BUGLE-MP

Then and Now

Things have certainly changed at Disneyland since the days of the old orange groves.