Ed Benedict , 1912-2006

Posted on May 09, 2008 in Ed pump

This looks like a caricature of Ed. So does the guy in Tex Avery's Field and Scream. It's amazing to me that a guy with such a crusty exterior can make drawings this cute! Well I have some really sad news today. Ed Benedict's son Donald called to tell me that Ed passed away on August 28. He was 94. Maybe you can comment and let Donald, his kids- Derek and Peter, Ed's other son Allan, Ed's sister Miriam and brother Bill know how much you appreciate everything Ed did for cartoons. Ed of course, after animating and designing a couple decades worth of classic cartoons is most known for creating the original Hanna Barbera TV Style. Ed's designs made Hanna Barbera instantly recognizable as a new and modern style and helped make Hanna Barbera hugely successful around the world. These frame grabs are from the original 1960 season of the Flintstones. Ed did all the character and background layouts. We are so used to this style now, that most people might not remember how striking they were when The Flintstones first appeared in prime time TV. By the way, these background paintings are great, aren't they? I think they are painted by Art Lozzi. I wish I knew more about the guy. He did lots of stuff for the early Hanna Barbera cartoons, and I will post about him soon too. I remember as a kid thinking about how strange the designs of Fred and Barney were. They were futuristic even though they were cavemen. Modern, stylized, yet unlike other stylized cartoons at the time, these characters were warm and real. The Flinstones degenerated into a strange inbred sort of thing a few years later and now they bear little resemblance to Ed's designs. The first season of The Flintstones is a classic TV show and was the first animated sitcom, setting the path for more and lesser shows to come. I have a million funny stories about Ed. I first met him in the mid 80's when Lynne Naylor, Bob Jaques and I went on a trek to northern California to meet him. He was a super curmudgeon who couldn't believe anyone even knew who he was, let alone loved his cartoons. We brought up tapes of his work for Tex Avery, his Hanna Barbera cartoons and he was completely disgusted by them! But then he demanded copies of them all so he could write me letters telling me everything that was wrong with them. Over the last couple decades I kept visiting him and rifling all his files of fantastic cartoon drawings he did for cartoons, commercials and comic strips. He also would show me lots of photos he took of the MGM studios in the 1950s. He would point to an animator and tell me all about him. "See that guy with the suave mustache? That's Ken Muse, a nice guy, a real slick operator. Couldn't draw worth a crap! Hanna loved him cause he could really 'pump out the footage'! But a good guy to go bowling with, one of the guys." (By the way the animation in this clip is by Ken Muse! Ken really watered down Ed's designs and poses-I remember recognizing his style as a kid and thinking of him as the 'bland animator'.) Ed had a great collection of Golden Books and magazine illustrations and we would pour over them and he'd give me all kinds of design theories. Every time we visited we would watch old cartoons. Ed loved UPA and Disney (he pronounced it "Dissney".) He didn't think anyone else did anything else worthwhile and we had some great arguments. He would sometimes put his fists up and threaten to beat some sense into me. He had a huge pointy tuft of grey hair sticking out of his chest and it would stand erect and fill with blood when he was in scrapping mode. It's funny, 'cause he would crab all weekend about everything and then when we'd leave he'd be all choked up, which would always kill us. He was the soft-hearted curmudgeon. I showed him a bunch of Clampett cartoons and he was amazed at how wild and inventive they were. "Damn ugly though!" He could still draw really well into his eighties and I got him to do many background layouts for Boo Boo Runs Wild and Day In The Life Of Ranger Smith. After we finished the cartoons and brought them up to show him, he stared at me for about five minutes getting madder and madder. He said, "Well there was some funny stuff and really inventive things in there, but why in Hell can't you draw on model?!" Ed and his wife Alice (who passed away a few years ago) used to watch Ren and Stimpy together and actually became big fans of it to my surprise and delight. Ed is one of the true giants of animation. I think he was the greatest character designer in the whole history of the medium. He was a wonderful guy to boot and always lots of fun to hang out with. I had an awful day yesterday after I got the news. I sure am gonna miss him. Flintstones_titles Uploaded by chuckchillout8 http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2006/04/design-3-ed-benedict-and-fred.html I have lots of interviews I did with him on tape. I need someone to transcribe them though. Anyone out there do that? Preferably in LA. generic cialis generic viagra online buy cheap cialis viagra

Tags: cartoon, guy, hanna, design, barbera

CYBILS: Five days left...

Posted on April 17, 2008 in Impotence young men

...to nominate your favorite Middle Grade/Young Adult Nonfiction book published in 2007. I know some of you are busy polishing the silverware and preparing the nut cups for Thanksgiving next week, but please consider taking a break to give the nod to your favorite book. Some titles still awaiting nomination: The Voyage of the Beetle: A Journey around the World with Charles Darwin and the Search for the Solution to the Mystery of Mysteries, as Narrated by Rosie, an Articulate Beetle by Anne H. Weaver Einstein Adds a New Dimension (from The Story of Science series) by Joy Hakim; Psst, Rebecca! The geeky physics post can wait. Your nomination can't (unless of course there's another title you'd prefer to nominate). Carol, did you get it yet and read it? The Many Rides of Paul Revere by James Cross Giblin The Trailblazing Life of Daniel Boone and How Early Americans Took to the Road by Cheryl Harness The Remarkable Rough-Riding Life of Theodore Roosevelt and the Rise of Empire America by Cheryl Harness Who's Saying What in Jamestown, Thomas Savage? by Jean Fritz When Fish Got Feet, Sharks Got Teeth, and Bugs Began to Swarm: A Cartoon Prehistory of Life Long Before Dinosaurs by Hannah Bonner The Dangerous Book for Boys (US edition) by Conn Iggulden and Hal Iggulden Daring Book for Girls by Andrea J. Buchanan and Miriam Peskowitz The Art Book for Children / Book Two , compiled by Amanda Renshaw and the editors of Phaidon Press Amazing Ben Franklin Inventions You Can Build Yourself (from the Build It Yourself series) by Carmella Van Vleet Great Pioneer Projects You Can Build Yourself (from the Build It Yourself series) by Rachel Dickinson Amazing Maya Inventions You Can Build Yourself (from the Build It Yourself series) by Sheri Bell-Rehwoldt Down the Colorado: John Wesley Powell, the One-Armed Explorer by Deborah Kogan Ray Up Close: Robert F. Kennedy, Crusader: A Twentieth-Century Life by Marc Aronson One Thousand Tracings: Healing the Wounds of World War II by Lita Judge; I know Chris Barton at Bartography thought highly of this one. And Karen, who knows a thing or two about good World War II books for children, calls it "fascinating". Of course, Mary at Our Domestic Church could nominate it too. Yoohoo.... River Roads West: America's First Highways by Peter and Connie Roop Tales of Famous Americans by Connie and Peter Roop Stories of the Zodiac (from the Dot to Dot in the Sky series) by Joan Marie Galat 600 Black Spots: A Pop-up Book for Children of All Ages by David A. Carter (I'm not 100 percent sure about the category for this one, but it's definitely fun for all ages) Labels: art, children's historical nonfiction, children's nonfiction, Cybils, science books Cheap Viagra Generic Viagra viagra buy cilais

Tags: book, build, children, series, life

Cartoon dads

Posted on April 15, 2008 in Generic biologicals

I spell I've figured out why I don't enmeshed the unequal two Fox Sunday night cartoons (Human race Body together with American Dad) mid leniently considering standby The Simpsons. It's the dads. Homer Simpson is handsomely stupid. Peter Griffin conjointly Stan Smith are maliciously stupid. generic viagra online generic cialis buy cheap cialis cialis

Tags: dad, cialis, stupid, cartoon, simpson

High-Fat Diet Is Only Unhealthy In Tandem With A High-Carb One

Posted on April 14, 2008 in Diet

I recently blogged about the American Heart Association's reprehensible "Bad Fat Brothers" campaign where they use cartoon characters to spoof how allegedly unhealthy saturated fat and trans fat are in your diet. Absolutely abhorrent! Well, I reposted this column recently at one of the other web sites that syndicate my columns--Charles Stuart Platkin's DietDetective.com. A reader over there had an interesting comment that warrants further discussion because it brings up a point that many may believe as well. Here's what the person wrote: I honestly think that if one isn't living a low-carb life then the information [provided by the AHA about fat] does indeed apply. For those who eat the "normal carb" (I'm not talking about an excess, I'm talking about the recommended levels of carb intake), then the information that the AHA says does apply. Hmmm, interesting concept this reader has brought up. Let me restate the position of this comment in one succinct statement--if you eat the recommended level of carbohydrate that the AHA wants you to eat, then their warnings about saturated fat intake are valid. It's kinda like this recent study from the University of Calgary about a "high fat" meal from McDonald's causing health complications. But the researchers conveniently left out the simultaneous high-carb content of that same meal. So a high-fat diet is harmful only in the presence of lots of carbs. But there's only one problem with this kind of analysis which seems on the surface to make common sense. Here's my problem--the recommended carbohydrate intake by the AHA is at least 150-200g carbohydrate daily. Who says this is a healthy amount of carbs to eat? I haven't eaten anywhere close to this carb total in over three years. Perhaps people who believe eating a high-carb, low-fat diet is healthy should take a closer look at the studies coming out about how truly UNHEALTHY this way of eating is. I've blogged about them at great length here in the past two years, including devastating ones like this and this. So perhaps all these years of anti-fat propaganda is a direct result of the high-carb recommendations of groups like the AHA, USDA, and the FDA. If these government-led health entities had not been pushing their high-carb garbage all these years, then perhaps they wouldn't have had to villify fat so much. Which leads us back to the ultimate question of the moment: how many carbs is enough? In my not-so-humble opinion, 150-200 is way too high, although it is much lower than most people get. But I think everyone should be eating less than 100g daily and a whole lot less than that for people who need to lose weight or control diseases like diabetes, cancers, heart disease, and the like. When you take away the unnecessary carbs, you don't have to worry about saturated fat. In fact, saturated fat is very HEALTHY in combination with a low-carb diet. What's so wrong with this dietary plan? Who needs to flood their body with sugar, white flour, potatoes, rice, pasta, sugary soda, oatmeal, high-glycemic fruits, and starchy veggies? It's just junk, pure unadulterated junk! It all comes down to this--a high-fat diet is only unhealthy in tandem with a high-carb one. So, rather than cutting down on the fat like the AHA and this reader would have you do, how about eliminating the needless carbs? Revolutionary? You betcha! Innovative? Oh yeah! That's why so many of us are livin' la vida low-carb and happily so. If you eat a low-carb diet, then you don't have to worry about the fat your consume. You just don't and the research is proving it. Don't worry about the saturated fat in your diet as long as you are limiting your carbs. Got it? GOOD! Now, tell me what you think. Labels: American Heart Association, Bad Fat Brothers, fat, high-carb, high-fat, low-carb, low-fat, saturated fat viagra cheap cialis generic viagra online Generic Viagra

Tags: fat, carb, high, diet, low

Sponsors

Search