Kenneth Muse animation style

[Frank]

How did Kenneth Muse's animation style change over the years? I'm sure his animation style changed quite a bit when he animated the HB t.v. cartoons but his animation style during his Tom and Jerry years was great!

[The Spectre]

Well, I haven't seen any of his H-B stuff, but after they took over the animation division of MGM all the animation in the Tom and Jerrys is pretty bad, and Kenneth Muse's stuff isn't very noticable.

But in the cartoons produced by Fred Quimby, I agree his animation's great. Some of my favorite scenes of his are (but are not limited to):

- Raiding the fridge in "Part-Time Pal"
- Giving Butch (Spike) knock-out drops and drumming on his head in "Quiet, Please!"
- Pleading with Jerry to sign the form in "Heavenly Puss"
- singing to the girl in "Solid Serenade"

Here's a question I think Sogturtle might be able to help with: What was the first Tom and Jerry cartoon Kenneth Muse worked on? The earliest screen credit he gets is on "Fine Feathered Friend" but that's the earliest where any animatos get screen credit. IMDb and BCDb both claim he worked on "The Night Before Christmas" but I don't see any of his animation in that.

For that matter, I don't see any in "Fine Feathered Friend" either, except perhaps the very last shot. The earliest one where I can see any of his work is "Suffering Cats" where he seems to have done the scenes where Tom reels Jerry in and scares him off, where Tom invites Meathead to stick his head into the hole in the fence, and the final "Make All Deliveries In Rear" bit.

[Sogturtle]

Well, I haven't seen any of his H-B stuff, but after they took over the animation division of MGM all the animation in the Tom and Jerrys is pretty bad, and Kenneth Muse's stuff isn't very noticable.

But in the cartoons produced by Fred Quimby, I agree his animation's great. Some of my favorite scenes of his are (but are not limited to):

- Raiding the fridge in "Part-Time Pal"
- Giving Butch (Spike) knock-out drops and drumming on his head in "Quiet, Please!"
- Pleading with Jerry to sign the form in "Heavenly Puss"
- singing to the girl in "Solid Serenade"

Here's a question I think Sogturtle might be able to help with: What was the first Tom and Jerry cartoon Kenneth Muse worked on? The earliest screen credit he gets is on "Fine Feathered Friend" but that's the earliest where any animators get screen credit. IMDb and BCDb both claim he worked on "The Night Before Christmas" but I don't see any of his animation in that.

For that matter, I don't see any in "Fine Feathered Friend" either, except perhaps the very last shot. The earliest one where I can see any of his work is "Suffering Cats" where he seems to have done the scenes where Tom reels Jerry in and scares him off, where Tom invites Meathead to stick his head into the hole in the fence, and the final "Make All Deliveries In Rear" bit.


Frank and The Spectre~

Hmmmm... Kenneth Muse was most often used as a character animator by Bill and Joe doing "personality animation" especially on Jerry. As to the precise moment he arrived in the MGM Hanna-Barbera unit, it's a little tougher than anybody likes to admit. What is a FACT is that he quit Disney in late Jan. 1941, a couple months PRIOR to Hugh Harman packing it in at MGM. I've been working trying to determine whether Ken was actually placed in the HB unit on being hired or possibly in Hugh Harman's at first. There's even the question in my mind of if he was hired as a full animator at Metro orrrrr like Walter Clinton later, as an assistant animator till a vacancy came up (of course he was a full-fledged animator at Walt's...).

Back to the earliest Tom & Jerry part of the question... It's extremely, massively unlikely Muse worked on "The Night Before Christmas". The MGM cartoons of 1941 where I have records show almost exactly 12 months from model sheet to copyright/release (whichever is earlier). Thus despite our friends at BCDB and Imdb (and one author), Muse would have been at Metro barely 10 months at the time of copyright of "TNBC", insufficient time to have worked on it... (Unless it was somehow moved up in the production pipeline, but very, very unlikely).

On "Fine Feathered Friend" Muse's name is listed on it in the Copyright Catalog as well as on screen, however there IS a difference in the order of the names...!

Soooooo anyway, in between "TNBC" and "Fine Feathered Friend" are four HB cartoons ("Fraidy Cat", "Dog Trouble", "Puss 'N' Toots", and "Bowling Alley Cat") in which you see no sign of Kenneth Muse's handiwork... Right? Our friend Larry T. once remarked to me that a full 50% of the animation of Harman's next to last cartoon ("The Field Mouse") looked to have been done by Don Williams. When Harman quit, Williams bounced over to Ising's unit... Do you see what I'm getting at? Maybe a review of Hugh's final couple of cartoons is in order (and if Muse isn't there...)

[The Spectre]

Yeah, no sign of Muse's work in any of those four. I checked "Fine Feathered Friend" again - there might be one or two scenes he did (probably close-ups of Jerry and the chicks - nothing or very little with Tom, whose complicated design akes it very easy to spot who's drawing him) but mostly the animation is recognisable as that of George Gordon, Jack Zander, Pete Burness and some other guy (Bill Littlejohn if BCDB is to be believed).

As a side question, which was the first Spence worked on? It seems to have been a while before Muse's.

[Larry T]

As a side question, which was the first Spence worked on? It seems to have been a while before Muse's.

Irv Spence was at Warner Brothers' in the late 30s, and possibly into early 1940. I believe Soggy has a good estimation onhand of Irv's migration to MGM.

I'll pick out some scenes he did in Tex Avery's WB cartoons later on if we can't come up with an approximate date. :cool:

[Sogturtle]

Spectre and Larry T.~

Foist ;) off... On "Fine Feathered Friend" yes, Bill Littlejohn actually animated on it before going into the service, his name is listed on it in the Copyright records. He was another Harman unit animator who as best as I can tell right now was assigned to the HB unit shortly after Hugh walked (and he was very highly regarded in the animation industry of the time, and for that matter, ever afterwards).

On to Bill Hanna's boyhood friend Irven Spence... He jumped from Ub Iwerks studio to Schlesinger's I believe in very early 1937 (despite one source claiming 1936, it appears Irv animated on Ub's 1936 "Two Lazy Crows"). An amusing sidelight is that of course Bob Clampett and Chuck Jones were pulled from Tex's unit and sent over to Iwerks' studio, but they were replaced in Avery's outfit by Spence, newly arrived from... the collapsing Iwerks studio!!

In the Nineties, Irv indicated that he spent only the year 1937 in the Schlesinger Avery unit, with the credits showing him there from July '37 to May '38 . However with the habit of removing employees names after they quit Leon's, then it's possible he had animation in at least one Avery cartoon after quitting. In either late '37 or very early '38 he quit and went directly to the troubled MGM studio, which was already starting to fall apart, and somehow managed to survive there! As such he did animate on some of "The Captain And The Kids" along with people like Emery Hawkins and Dick Bickenbach (both of which were fired when Harman & Ising came in) yet they kept Irv on and he was assigned to Hugh Harman's unit.

When Tex joined Metro he took over the surviving Harman unit, including his old Schlesinger friend...Irven Spence (and harking even further back his old Lantz pal Ray Abrams). With WWII in full swing the draft soon slimmed the ranks of MGM animators and it was at that point that Spence shifted over to the Hanna-Barbera unit. This shift occured in just about mid-1942, with the first TJ with Spence animation coming out a full year later.

A final point, Irven Spence for whatever reasons quit Metro in the mid-Forties and was gone for a full TWO release years (1946 and '47).

This any help???

[The Spectre]

Now this is weird. There are T+J cartoons dating back to at least 1941 with what looks a lot like Spence animation. Is there any record of who was in the H-B unit for the few years before the on-screen animation credits?

BTW, when Spence left was when they brought Michael Lah in to replace him, right? Any idea why he left, and why he came back?