Fun With Layouts and Storyboards

There are many animation fans, I suspect, who like preparation artwork for cartoons as much as the cartoons themselves. Model sheets, storyboard panels, layout drawings, pencil reels, they’re all fun to look at and compare with the finished cartoon.

A couple of readers directed me to an on-line sale of some of these that were created by artists at Hanna-Barbera Studios and I thought I’d pass on some.

First up are three layout drawings from The Flintstones. I don’t know about the first two but the third was used in ‘Monster Fred’ (1964). The first and second are signed by Dick Bickenbach (and the second by Bob Singer, ex Warners BG man) so it may be safe to assume he drew it, though the writing above looks like Walt Clinton’s.





Next comes part of a storyboard from ‘The Social Climbers’ (1961), written by Warren Foster, who drew his own boards. It’s interesting to compare this to the finished cartoon; whoever did layouts didn’t stick to the way Foster set up the scenes. The first scene of the cartoon, incidentally, was animated by Don Patterson.





Here are three pairs of storyboard panels that were apparently used to pitch the show to advertisers. Two are from ‘The Snorkasaurus Hunter’ cartoon, the other is from ‘The Swimming Pool,’ the first Flintstones to be put into production. The character designs are closer to the Ed Benedict originals. The sketches are more polished than Foster’s work; I suspect they were drawn by Dan Gordon, who Joe Barbera said was involved in doing the first boards.





This still of what looks like the Hanna-Barbera projection room was used in something, only I didn’t make a note of what it was in.



The auction had several model sheets and my favourite is this one of Mr. Jinks, initialled by Dick Bickenbach and dated May 1960. Jinks, in the hands of a good animator, could be pretty expressive, even in limited animation. I love the drawing of him playing the drums. I wonder if it was to be used in a Kellogg’s commercial. The three-quarters-from-behind drawing must be unique.



There are a bunch more of these I’ll post later.

That’s Quick Draw McGraw? And That’s Gene Hazelton?

There’s something fascinating about seeing cartoon characters in development before they hit the screen—model sheets, storyboards, conceptual drawings and that sort of thing. Thanks to the web and the old-fashioned printing press, we can get a peek at something more than the finished product in the first Hanna-Barbara cartoons.

A while ago, a site called Comicrazies re-posted a bunch of stuff the Cartoon Network had on its site at one time. Included is this early drawing of Quick Draw McGraw and Baba Looey.


You have now reached the part of the blog where you will shake your head in disgust and mutter “Is he stupid? Can’t he tell?” I am presuming this is an Ed Benedict drawing, though it’s not initialled. The site also has this 1958 model sheet by Dick Bickenbach.


The actual design process at H-B is still a little unclear to me. I don’t know if Bick and Ed worked independently, or if one worked on the other’s designs, or if it varied from series to series.

Even more interesting is some of Ed Benedict’s work featured at Mike Van Eaton’s on-line gallery.

We all know that Snagglepuss appeared as a naked orange mountain lion on several different cartoons before he got his own series and his starched theatrical collar. It isn’t clear whether this drawing was of the original Snag or the series Snag (note the lack of a collar).


Mike’s site also has these great design drawings for Yogi Bear. The final one is the most puzzling.




The last one is supposed to be of Yogi, Boo Boo and Cindy. But by the time Cindy showed up, Yogi had been on the air for two seasons. Why H-B would consider changing the design at that point is a puzzler.

There’s lots of great stuff, some of which found its way into Jerry Beck’s The Hanna-Barbera Treasury, which never surfaced in my local book store (grrrr). Included are storyboard pages, like this:


The story board is the work of Warren Foster for the 1961 cartoon Ice Box Raider. The credits on the H-B cartoons are a little confusing to an outsider like me. Paul Sommer is listed as the story director on that cartoon (Alex Lovy got a “story director” credit on others) but I don’t know what the story director actually did.

The Comicrazy site has some great story panels as well.


This one is for Slick City Slicker. Mike Maltese wrote the story but Dan Gordon was credited with “story sketches” on some of the other series on the Quick Draw show. However, someone over on John Kricfalusi’s website says this board was done by Gene Hazelton who, of course, worked on cartoons with Joe and Bill (and Tex) at MGM. Writer Jeff Lenberg claims Hazelton was at Hanna-Barbera when the studio started in 1957 but I don’t recall seeing him credited anywhere and am at a loss to explain exactly what he was doing there.

Of course, we have far more knowledgeable people reading this blog and I’m sure they can comment and fill us in.

Yowp Note: As an added bonus for you Hazelton fans, here is a newspaper ad from April 1962 featuring the Gas Genie. Hazelton developed the cute character in 1957 for the natural gas industry to be used in newspapers and on billboards. Click to enlarge and see the “©GH”.


Hazelton, according to Billboard of May 20, 1957, was creative supervisor of Grantray-Lawrence, known in the 1960s for the cheesy TV Spiderman cartoons. The same edition notes Lew Marshall had been added to the staff of Animation, Inc., run by Earl Klein. Marshall couldn’t have been there long as he, presumably, was at the newly-formed H-B Enterprises that year.

Huckleberry Hound Show Model Sheets

These were snagged from somewhere off the internet. I’m sure the experts reading this blog can add a bit of insight.

First is a Yogi Bear model sheet from March 1960 signed by Dick Bickenbach.


The next two sheets are undated and unsigned. They came from the George Nicholas collection. I guess the Jinks and meece sheet is for size comparisons; I’m not an expert on these by any means.



And, finally, is my favourite part of the whole collection. This would be from 1959 or 1960 before Yogi got his own show, because Yakky Doodle still has his original name of ‘Biddy Buddy.’ It still has some marginal characters that never really got too far—the two crows who battled Huck in two cartoons; the boxing kangaroo who belted Jinks in, I think, only Boxing Buddy and, naturally, the star of this blog—me. It’s too bad the quality isn’t better so you can see what’s surrounding the Joe and Bill caricatures a little better.


Was this used for publicity posters? It strikes me as a bit much for stationery.

Nick and Bick and Model Sheets

There’s something attractive about model sheets and pencil tests, when you can look at cartoon characters and see how they’re created from geometric shapes, without backgrounds, sounds or anything else to distract you.

This is about as good a place as any to put in a plug for Kevin Langley’s blog, which features model sheets and other fun cartoon stuff.

Someone awhile ago was selling model sheets that were billed as being from the George Nicholas collection. Nick’s obit from a Pennsylvania newspaper, likely the source of an L.A. Times story a couple of days later, may not be altogether accurate.

George Nicholas, 85.
Worked as an animator for Walt Disney.
George “Nick” Nicholas, 85, of Edinboro, formerly of Los Osos, Calif., died Saturday, Nov. 23, 1996, at his home.
He was born in Vermilion, Ohio, Dec. 14, 1910, son of the late Isaac William and Frances Hatch Nicholas. Mr. Nicholas’ family moved to Los Angeles when he was 10 years old. He was hired as an animator at the Walt Disney Studios in 1931. He was an animator for Hanna Barbera, Chuck Jones, and many others including Walt Disney. He was honored for 50 years of service to the cartoon industry at the Motion Picture Screen Cartoonist Guild Golden Awards banquet in 1986. Among his accomplishments are screen credit on the Disney features “Lady and the Tramp,” “Cinderella,” “Sleeping Beauty,” Church [sic] Jones’ “Riki Tiki Tavi” and “The White Seal,” and also the 1971 Academy Award-winning animated version of “The Christmas Carol.” Mr. Nicholas was also a painter and wood sculptor.
He was preceded in death by his wife of 56 years, Dorothy McMannamy Nicholas; a sister, Mary; and three brothers, Fred, John and Bill. Survivors include his daughter, Donna, with whom he resided; two nieces, Lynn Nicholas of Salt Lake City, Utah, and Marjorie Jane Albin of Sacramento, Calif.; three nephews, Jack and Bill Nicholas of Los Angeles, and Fredrick M. Nicholas of San Francisco, Calif.; two brothers-in-law; and many friends.
Calling hours will not be observed. Funeral services will be held Wednesday at 11 a.m. at the Thompson-Smith Funeral Home, 345 Main St., Conneaut, with the Rev. Clyde A. McGee of the Good Shepherd Lutheran Church officiating. Burial will be at Kelloggsville Cemetery. Memorials may be made to the Conneaut Station No. 3 Rescue Squad.

The factoid about “Disney in 1931” may be a trifle premature. Nick appeared on credits at the Lantz studios in the mid-30s, and he’s even in a staff picture circa 1933 found in Joe Adamson’s biography on “the other Walt.” He seems to have moved to Disney by 1939-40, then on to Hanna-Barbera in time to work on the first season of Quick Draw McGraw. So he wasn’t at H-B when the models of the studio’s first stars, Ruff and Reddy, were drawn.


I strongly suspect the sheets are by Dick Bickenbach, who drew these model sheets of Quick Draw and Baba Looey (they are signed “Bick”).


Richard Frederick Bickenbach was born in Indiana to Fred and Emma Bickenbach on August 9, 1907 but spent his boyhood in Freeport, Illinois, in an eight-room home at 124 North Green Avenue at Douglas. The family (Bick had a younger sister, Lois) moved to Glendale in October 1922 where he went to high school (graduated Class of ’25) before attending UCLA (Fred Kopietz of Disney was there at the same time), then studying art at Chouinard. In the 1930s, he found employment animating for Ub Iwerks (he was there by 1933) and then at Schlesinger/Warner Bros. under Friz Freleng, then in Frank Tashlin’s unit before moving over to MGM in 1946. He replaced Harvey Eisenberg doing layouts for Hanna and Barbera then moved with them to their studio 11 years later.
Animation wasn’t Dick’s sole interest. He was a baritone and sang on KTBI in Los Angeles while a teenager in 1926. It’s conceded he provided a Frank Sinatra-style singing voice in Tashlin’s Swooner Crooner (1944). To my not-exactly-trained ear (and I’ll stand corrected), it sounds like him again in Tex Avery’s Little ’Tinker (1948) when the two of them were at M.G.M. His wife Dorothy Mae Baker was a singer as well. They married in October 1933, likely due to their involvement in the Grandview Presbyterian Church in Glendale where they both worked with the children’s choir. He was a soloist at an installation ceremony of Tujunga Chapter of the Order of the Eastern Star in 1949 (a co-ed group connected with the Masons) and sang at other Star functions; Dorothy was a member of the Star but Bick likely was not as the Grand Lodge of California reports he was not a Mason (men in the Eastern Star must have Masonic membership).
Newspaper clippings also show an interest in photography and he won a photo contest sponsored by the L.A. Times in 1938.
Bick is reported to have had a quote of Mark Twain on his wall at Hanna-Barbera: “Truth is such a precious article. Let us all economize in its use.”
During the ‘30s and ’40s, Bickenbach lived at 1161 Rosedale Avenue in Glendale. Perhaps coincidentally, that address (actually 1161B) was, in 2003, the home of an animation studio where The Toy Warrior was produced.
Bick retired to Palm Desert in 1975 where he and Dorothy continued to be active in church work, and then moved into a retirement home in Redlands in 1984. He died in San Bernardino on June 28, 1994.