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dalt20 · 5 months

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Tooning in 6. Greg Bailey part 1 of 7

DL : So who are you and what are you best known for?

GB : I am Greg Bailey and known best as the director of the PBS series, Arthur.

DL : So growing up, how was your childhood?

GB : I had a pretty average north American suburban middle class upbringing and grew up in a family

of 5 kids. I lived most of my childhood years in Windsor Ontario under the Detroit skyline.

DL : When did you discover that you wanted to work in cartoons?

GB : I do remember being about 8 or 9 years old and discussing with a friend about what we wanted

to be when we grew up and I mentioned "cartoonist" since no one new the word animator

back then. My friend was shocked and pointed out that you had to draw like a million

drawings just to make the character blink. But I didn't really know it was that bad but it

made me think that it might be a pretty cool thing to do. I think more practically it wasn't

until late high school that I learned that some schools were teaching it and Sheridan

College in Oakville was pretty close to home and sounded like a possibility.

DL : So what were your favorite cartoons growing up?

GB : Popeye, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Beanie and Cecil, George of the Jungle, and any of those old

shorts they used to run early on Saturday like from Fleischer Bros or Merry Melodies.

DL : So no "canadian cartoons" like Spider Man or Rocket Robin Hood?

GB : I never thought of Spider Man being Canadian. I remember Rocket Robin Hood and would watch

it ,but either I was a bit old for it or just the quality didn't interest me. It was like

Hercules, I would watch it but it seemed like animation had gone down hill a lot in that

Time.

DL : Well, these cartoons were from american producers but made in canada for cost and laws there.

GB : I think another reason not to have followed them much was that they weren't funny. I really

prefer comedy animation and there were some pretty good funny cartoons at the

time. I wasn't much into superhero animation or realistic style characters.

DL : Ah makes sense, not really an action guy myself. So how was Sheridan College?

GB : Sheridan was quite small when I started the course and it was quite a risky course to take at the

time since there weren't really many studios in Canada. My graduating class in third

year had only 14 students. The school increased enrollment a lot even in the 2 years

after I was there. I was very hands on. you had your own desk that no

one else used and we basically just went back and forth from the animation room to the

life drawing studio. All the instructors were from outside of Canada from the US or the

UK and I guess Kaj Pindall was from Denmark. He came in the final year I was there. But

it was a very small compact group of students and teachers in the class I graduated

With.

DL : So you attended in 1976 right?

GB : Yes my first year was 76 I believe. I think I graduated in 79.

DL : So you knew John Kricfaculsci or Lynne naylor? They were in the same class as you.

GB : John was always a real character for sure. At school I remember is that he was a Sunshine Boy

in the Toronto Sun one time and I remember overhearing a big fight he was having with

the instructors when they were reviewing or grading the group project he was doing at

Sheridan. He left after that. I didn't see him much after that except at DIC when he

was fired. He was doing Beanie and Cecil. I was supposed to meet him for dinner but

he got fired that day and I remember him taking his belongings out of the studio

including a big moose head that was on a little dolly that he was pulling. It was just

kind of a nice image that stuck in my head.

DL : That was something. So anything on Lynne?

GB : I don't remember her much except she was with John. They went to LA together and she worked

at Filmation but I was at Hanna Barbera so I didn't see them in that period.

DL : Ah ok. so at sheridan, did you have an assignment where you drew your favorite cartoon

character? Because John said for the assignment where he drew Merlin from Sword

in the Stone and Lynne also drew Merlin.

GB : Yeah probably I did the same, Merlin. I guess we didn't have much to draw from in those days.

DL : Wow you all like Sword in the Stone, huh?

GB : I guess. I don't really remember it much. The course was very focused on Disney Style classical

animation. I don't remember anyone doing anything that was Disney now that I think

about it. Maybe they made it a requirement otherwise I would have done Olive Oil or

something more interesting and comedic character.I meant no one did anything

that wasn't Disney.

DL : Also was Glen Kennedy in the same class?

GB : I know Glen but he was a year later than me.

DL : So when did you leave for the states for the only time?

GB : I went to Hanna Barberra directly after Sheridan so that was 1979 and was there for a year. In

1984 I worked for the LA company DIC but I was working in Tokyo. I did that for

about 4 years. I was returning home from that when I was working at DIC LA and

saw John with his moose head. Last year I was working for Bento Box in LA but

I am working from here remotely. Other than that, I have been in Canada.

DL : So how was Los Angeles when you got there?

GB : I loved it. I still like LA a lot though it is really crowded now compared to when I was there. It was

a very interesting place to start working in animation. It was a very unionized kind

of workplace. It's the only place I ever worked that had a firm lunch hour break and

15 minute coffee breaks at the same time twice every day. It was a huge studio with

about 500 people so it was very interesting and lots of fun for a young person just

venturing out into the world. I found the people friendly and it was easy to strike up

a conversation with strangers. It was also very smokey in September because they

had fires all around Hollywood and the smog was incredible. I was trying to get by

with only having a moped for transportation and everyone there thought that was

crazy because you had to have a car. The shows we worked on were quite bad

when I look back at them now. It was Scoobie Doo and Casper and the Space

Angels and Flinstone remakes. It was a real factory kind of environment but I

figured that was how things were in animation since I was just starting. I had a lot

to learn so I look back on it fondly and was able to learn a lot in that first year.

DL : So how was Hanna Barbera? Did you like it? How was Joe barbera?

GB : Joe I never met. Bill Hanna was more the guy who looked after the animation studio. Joe's daughter Jane Barbera was a producer that kept tabs on the studio. I don't know her title but it would be something like a line producer. I bumped into Bill Hanna in the hallway a few times but mostly I just remember him assembling all the Canadians and other foreigners on visas and said they would not be able to renew our visas next season. I remember he suggested getting married to someone if you wanted to stay in the US. More interestingly though was that Tex Avery worked there as a designer and he was very old but he would also be standing in line with us at the coffee truck at break time. I think I was always too star-struck to say anything more than hi how are you to him.

DL : wow! John said he left the country illegally in a documentary. So he was an alien.

GB : We were all aliens but I was there with a work visa. I think he always was illegal down there. He went down on his own without a job offer or a work visa when I went there. He is more of a risk taker than I am I guess. John was not at Hanna Barbera.

DL : Yeah, he still doesn't have dual citizenship after he left Filmation and Hanna Barbera. And John

isn't deported yet puzzles me.

GB : I don't think he ever worked at Hanna Barbera unless it was after I was there. I do remember on

the day he left DIC with his moose that someone said he was upset because he

couldn't find the visa application papers that he had in his office when he left. I

think by that point he could have even applied under the amnesty that they had

down there in the early 80's. He should have been there long enough to get that

if he had tried.

DL : Oh ok. So how was Casper and the Angels?

GB : I just used that as an example. There were about 10 series that I must have worked on in that one season at HB. One was Casper and the Space Angels, another was The Harlem GlobeTrotters, along with Scooby Doo and Flintstones. All Saturday morning was made up of either Filmation or HB shows. Both companies' shows looked exactly the same. The shows like Casper were completely generic and forgettable and the characters and props and even the stories were exactly the same on each series. So I guess Casper was very generic except it had the character Casper the ghost in it. But everything then was really stiff and they all had the same blinks, the same mouth charts for lip sync . It made it so animators and ink and painters could easily move from one production to the another without learning to draw a new style. You could even hop from studio to studio without any significant drawing learning curve. The characters didn't move or walk forward in perspective and things were very flat. The big actions all happened off screen and they reused as much animation as possible using a xerox machine. All this got destroyed when DIC came along and started making shows with more perspective and effects because they were making the animation in Japan. It destroyed HB and Filmation quickly because their shows were too dull.

DL :

yeah, one person reviewed casper and summed it up perfectly "what is popular? uh charlie's angels. What's a character we haven't used in a long time? uh casper the friendly ghost? What are the kids into now? outer space!"

GB : Everything was a space something or other that year. Sales run by marketing people never makes a memorable show.

DL : like Buck Rogers or the Star Wars hype train? Or Battlestar Galactica?

GB : There was something with the Shmoo from L'il Abner as well. The Harlem GlobeTrotters all had some super hero power. Like one guy would pull objects out of his afro like bulldozers or ray guns. They all had some bizarre and ugly super power.

DL : the Harlem GlobeTotters! One of them had a basketball for a head!

GB : Another one was rubbery or could get really tall or something. I've tried to block out the memory of all that. I only remember drawing someone that turned in a big plate of spaghetti noodles for some reason. I only remember because it's a nightmare to draw all those lines of spaghetti.

DL : It's hard to draw lines in general!

GB : One thing about HB was that I learned how to draw perfectly clean lines through. It is still a struggle through. They were really fussy about perfect lines especially in the facial features and hands. So it was necessary at least for me to learn that still after Sheridan.

DL : So, did you drew anything off model at Hanna Barbera?

GB : Not after I handed in my initial scene to the supervisor. They sat you down pretty quickly and showed how they keep it in model. I am surprised now when people say HB shows were badly drawn and off model. I don't remember anyone getting away with that or maybe I was just not aware of others.

DL : Oh well, I guess some must slipup or it just smear frames or inbetweens.

GB : Maybe they were done at outside studios. Sometimes they sent extra work out to places like Ruby and Spears and they would handle surplus. At one point I picked up some extra freelance work there. I remember fixing a scene that was very fully animated scene of a character flying and rolling in and turning in perspective. It was ok but it just needed to be put on model on all the inbetweens. It was a lot of drawing like 200 full figure drawings. It was something from Filmation but I got it from Ruby and Spears.

DL : How was The New Shmoo?

GB : Same as everything else. Maybe they did it because it kind of looked like Casper. Round and white. It was probably a space something I don't remember it much , although I did a scene that kept some model sheets for a long time that had a waitress but she had some Jetsons type of features in her costume.

DL : Ah ok. Was Scooby Doo and Flintstones more happier and familiar?

GB : Scooby and Flintsones were more the high end show for them . They ran more than a season and they had lots of designs from previous years. Scoobie had been running for a long time when I got there. Remember they had the voice from Casey Cassum(?) doing Shaggy. We used to see him around the coffee truck sometimes and people would point him out. But I think they were more fussy about those 2 shows though and it was really the bulk of the work that I saw. Perhaps they kept those shows more in house and we would only see the other shows when they didn't have enough work for us on Scoobie for the short term. All the other shows I can only remember working really briefly on them like a few weeks at most. After the season at HB a studio Canimage opened in Toronto and we did work on Scooby and the Flintstones. By that point the HB LA studio was not doing animation anymore. It was done in Toronto and Taipei.

DL : Wait, what was canimage? Was that a new Canadian studio Hanna Barbera opened like Wang Film in Taiwan?

GB : An animation company in Toronto that was around for a few years. 3 guys from a few years before me at Sheridan had been working at HB and when we got sent home they opened a studio in Toronto. They did HB for one season and then they did some overload work on Heavy Metal and I think that was all they did before it closed.

DL : Did you work on Heavy Metal? That film’s production was spread across Toronto, Montreal ,London and Los Angeles!

GB : Yes I did. In Montreal at Mike Mills and some freelance from Potterton Studio. The main production was centered in the main studio in Montreal. It was also in Ottawa besides the ones you mentioned. There were 3 studios in Montreal plus Ryan Larkin in his own studio.

DL : Oh ok. What segment did you animate on?

GB : I was at Mike Mills and there was a legal dispute that arose so our parts got redone at Halas and Bachelor really fast right before the delivery. We were animating the opening sequence where the car comes to earth and goes to the farm. And then there were parts that connected the different stories with Grimaldi. We were animating a carousel that was turning and had characters from each of the segments in the film. The carousel was growing and growing each time we saw it. Anyway this was all locked away and they made it really simplified with a green ball instead of the carousel and they made the car falling from the space station a really simplified-looking car. I animated a scene that I kept that was used for a publicity still in the Heavy Metal magazine. It was a guy in a space suit putting his helmet in the trunk of the car.

DL : Very interesting! So I can find anything from 1980-1983. Why is that? From IMDb credits.

GB : You mean I don't have Heavy Metal and Canimage listed in my profile. I should update that.

DL : Yeah or on imdb!

GB : I should go on IMDB and fix it.

DL : Do it! So what did you do in those years after Heavy Metal?

GB : I did commercials at Mike Mills which was really why I wanted to go there. It used to be an interesting job in animation because there was a good variety and the quality of the animation was often good and you got to work on the entire film including shooting it on the Oxberry. You would do everything from design and storyboarding and editing unlike working at a studio like HB where you only ever did one job like animation or in-betweening. For one year I went back to school to study in a technical engineering program because animation really fell apart in the early 80's. I started a film with a grant that I never finished, before I went to Tokyo.

DL : Well, wasn't Nelvana a thing?

GB : They were but not so much in the early 80's. That would have been when they pretty well lost it all on Rock and Rule . At least my timing was never good for going there.

DL : Oh yeah, I almost forgot. At least they were working on Inspector Gadget and Care Bears for DiC and American Greetings. So how did you get to Tokyo?

GB : Since I had worked in an American studio I knew how the lip sync system worked. And a company Aces in Toronto was doing some track breakdown and voice recording for DIC. When DIC in LA couldn't find animators willing to go to Tokyo they asked Aces if they knew anyone and I found out through a friend of a friend. About the only requirement they cared about was if I knew how to do lip sync in the US system of Saturday morning shows. I worked over there in the same little space with the creator of Gadget in fact. Bruno Bianchi.

DL : How was Bruno Bianchi?

GB : A nice person and very funny. He would spend a lot of his time drawing caricatures of people he worked with. He was really talented and had a great track record of creating new shows. He had started long ago with Jean Charlopin when he started DIC in Paris. So Bruno was a real old timer at DIC. DIC was an American company when I started there and it was partnered with DIC Tokyo.

DL : So how was Tokyo? Did you learn to speak japanese?

GB : Very interesting place. It was in the 80's as it was really the center of the universe and it looked like things would never slow down for them. It was definitely the hot spot in the world for animation. They were so far ahead of the west or anywhere else for that matter. The economy did collapse really shortly after I left because of the real estate bubble. I did learn to speak and I would take courses during the off-season or slow time. I forget almost everything now though. I could probably pick it up quickly again if I had a use.

#animation #animation interview #tooning in.#Greg Bailey #Arthur #pbs #DiC #hanna barbera

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moonlightreal · 1 year

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Witch series books

Let’s read some witch series books! The library only gave me one new series to add to the older series I had spread all over my floor last week, but it was a great one.

Ruth Chew witch books 1969

This isn’t really a series, though my library has them listed a “matter-of-fact-magic series.” they’re unconnected books with similar themes. Children encounter harmless magical items and have fantastic adventures. If you are a magical being who enjoys childrens’ books, these are a must. I think What the Witch Left was the first one I read.

Witch Saga 1975

Phyllis Reynold’s Naylor’s classic series about a girl’s battle with an evil witch. Lynn believes her neighbor Mrs. Tuggle is a witch, but she’s a kid and nobody believes her. So it’s up to Lynn and her friend Mouse to keep Lynn’s family safe.

Spell Casters 1998

Eleven year old Sally is surprised when a mysterious girl arrives at her house. It turns out Lucinda is a witch who’d like to live as a normal girl, or at least live away from her strict grandmother! But Grandma doesn’t want to lose her powerful grandchild and sends Lucinda’s nasty cousin to bring her home. The two girls and their friends get into mildly fun witch-at-school escapades. This series isn’t brilliant but it’s a fun little series.

T*Witches 2001

Twins Cam and Alex were separated at birth, because together their magic is immense and the villainous Thantos wants to control them. They meet at age 14 and the fun begins!

My memory of these books is that they were good but a bit bogged down with teen issues and lots of characters-- the girls have the nonmagical friend posse, witchy friends, boys, their parents, and their magical guardians who all get screentime. The magic is rhyming spells and concentration, with no potion recipes or other witch”craft” that I remember. There’s also a whole witchy world with witches at different levels of education. And the girls are as angsty as anyone would be if they just found out they’re adopted witches under threat from a villain. I wanted to love these but found myself getting lost in the details.

There was also a movie. Or two, even.

Magical states of America 2001

John Peel is a wildly prolific author (he also did the Diadem series) but this silly little series is my favorite of his. It’s lighthearted fun.

The premise: there is an alternate America where it’s magic instead of science and everyone is the opposite gender from in this world. Chris in the magic world has become aware of an evil plot and who can he call on for help if not… himself? Chrissie is quite surprised to be pulled into a magic world but soon she’s got a familiar critter of her own and the alternate-universe twins and their friends are off to stop an evil sorceress!

Night Witches 2001

aka The Witch Trade and sequels. Abby is the last child in town after the other kids were kidnapped. A mysterious boy washes up and soon the two of them are swept up in an adventure to find the missing kids and help the Light Witches stop the evil Night Witches from stealing the Ice Dust that gives witches their magic. There are two more books, we get into time travel along with lots of sea travel and wacky characters. This series is “fine” in my book-- it’s not bad but it didn’t grab me. Instead you should pick up:

The Everyday Witch 2002

Beatrice is twelve, and ready to be judged as an Everyday Witch or a much awesome Classical Witch. But the testers can’t decide, so what should they do? Send Beatrice and her friends to break a curse cast by an evil sorcerer of course!

These books are crackerjack! They’re fun to read, funny without being childish, have friendship without friend drama, worldbuilding, goofiness without being too goofy… they are great.

Fortune Tellers Club 2002

Not exactly witches but published by the big witchy publisher Llewellyn, the one wiuth the lil moons on the spine. Most of Llewellyn’s attempts at kids and YA books fall flat in my opinion-- and theirs too, the website’s YA section currently lists 2 books-- but this series works. Juniper and her friends are fans of fortune telling and use different divination methods, some they invent themselves, to figure out their kid issues. Because this is fiction every fortune telling method works perfectly and the girls encounter other mystical events like a ghost and a pair of magic sunglasses. The series isn’t amazingly brilliant but it is a solid good read if you want to inspire yourself to try some divination. Or just, you know, enjoy some books.

Thirteen Witches 2021

Rosie lives a sad life, until she finds herself suddenly able to see the magical world! It turns out that she is the last of the witch hunters, heroes who try to fight the thirteen witches responsible for all the evil in the world. Soon Rosie has found her own good magic and she and her friend Germ set out to save Rosie’s mother and end up on an adventure to destroy all the witches with the help of a ghost, a few other witch hunters, and a tardis whale.

These are very well done. The witches are uniquely evil, the characters are great. I immediately grabbed the second book next time I was at the library.

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