Ava Thursday: Kitty-cat

Like any typical 4 year-old girl, Ava is fascinated by pets, and more importantly, cats. She loves kitty-cats. We have a cat at home, named Baby, so you'd think that Ava just adores her, right? Sadly, this is not the case. Ava is terrified by the daunting feline. And Baby totally and completely despises her. In fact, Baby despises everybody that enters our household, save for Andrea and I. Considering that we saved Baby from being abandoned by her mother back when she was a tiny furry ball of a kitten, I can see why the cat has an innate desire to protect us from any potential harm possibly caused by outsiders. And our own offspring are no exception.

Ava and Baby (or "Baby-cat," as Ava sometimes calls her) have this intense on-going power struggle that is engaged on a daily basis. Sometimes Andrea or I are suddenly jerked awake by the shrill of a little girl, offset by a low, gutteral growl that sounds almost inhuman, as one of the two foes probably tried to pass the other in the dining room, wherein Baby-cat probably hissed and violently batted her paw out at Ava (the cat's been de-clawed, so no blood loss, thankfully), and Ava reacting in horror. It's sad for us, being the parents of this sweet and quiet-natured little girl, to witness Ava having to face the harsh reality of hatred on a day-by-day basis from the menacing house-cat, who is obviously going against the whole concept of being a nice, sweet "pet." Not what Ava usually witnesses on Seseme Street, that's for sure.

But that doesn't keep Ava from drawing a sweet little doodle of a kitty-cat on a sheet of paper that had some of my own doodles on it done while at work. She's drawn this type of cat many times since, eventually adding an extra line or two on the bottom of the stick-legs for feet. I just love the way she drew the ears and face here. And check out the tail! Very cute.

As for Ava and Baby-cat, not to worry. They still have this silent agreement to hate each other, but Ava's found a feline friend in this tabby that hangs around our neighborhood. This cat allows Ava to touch and pet her, thereby giving Ava the satisfaction of owning a true loving pet, even if it is vicarious.

TOOT WHISTLE PLUNK & BOOM

TOOT WHISTLE PLUNK & BOOM is one of my favorite Disney shorts of all time. Point blank. And so, I was elated beyond belief when I found out it was FINALLY out on DVD a couple of years back when it was listed as part of the bonus features on the FANTASIA 2000 DVD. (It is now also available on the Walt Disney Teasures: Rarites set.) Originally released in theaters in 1953 as part of an educational series titled, "Adventures in Music," TOOT was directed by the one and only Ward Kimball. Well, he was listed as co-director with Charles Nichols, but it can be said that it was all Ward. It was cool to note that the Academy honored the short for the Award for Best Short Subject Cartoon of that year. Icing on the cake, I guess.

And what great animated icing! The overall color and character design is pretty much top notch. The short film garners a closer look, so I've had this idea of grabbing some screenshots for you all to check out -- something I've always wanted to do ever since I started this blog. But fear not -- I didn't want to skimp on the quality of the images. Oh no! I'm a generous guy, so I've got nice, big. 800 pixel-wide screenshots of the short for everyone to enjoy. To ease the page loads, they're posted here as thumbnails so you can simply click on the thumbs to download the larger images.

Some background first:

You can check out specifics on TOOT WHISTLE PLUNK & BOOM here, but there were some brilliant minds at work here and oftentimes these incredible talented guys get overlooked. The art director was Ken O'Connor (scene layouts and continuity, mostly), with Vic Haboush as assistant art director to Ken. The major stylist on the film was Thomas Oreb, a "lost legend" and true artistic hero of the time. He was the one responsible for all the fantastic character design on the film. Working in tandem with the characters was background artist and designer, Eyvind Earle. He's often mentioned for his gothic/medieval backgrounds in SLEEPING BEAUTY.

After seeing all the thumbnails of TOOT here, it's interesting to note the color scheme of the entire film. There are a good amount of warm reds and purples that stand out to me, offset by cool blues and indigos. When you look closer at the images, take special note of the flatness of the characters, typical of the early- to mid-50's design of the time. You can thank UPA for spawning a great interest in this limited, yet modern style, as they had that look pretty much cornered. But here, Oreb almost out-UPA'd UPA. I love how the musicians have white lines with no color fill for their heads. Brilliant stuff.

DISCLAIMER: The following images are owned and copyrighted by Disney. I am not making any money off of this presentation, just posting these wonderful images merely for the sake of resource and historical purposes. If you have any questions about all this, please feel free to email me. Thank you.

Onto the images:
























And now, for the Special Edition part of this post: the following rare story sketches are by Tom Oreb for TOOT, along with their respective scenes from the final film for comparison. Some great fluidity in the pencil lines here. (And please don't ask me where I got these, as I have so many animation drawings, model sheets, sketches, and resources accumulated throughout the years, it's sad that I can't remember. Sorry.)

The story sketch:

And now the final:


The story sketch:

The story changed a bit and so I found two instances where the scene was similar to the story sketch:



Well, there ya go. If this proves successful, I plan on doing more posts like this, where I'll grab more images than humanly needed from other great animated short films. Up next: MELODY, the first of the "Adventures in Music" series, also from 1953, and also directed by Ward Kimball. Enjoy!

UPDATE: I've now posted 46 wonderful images of MELODY. You can check it out HERE. Hope you like!

You can help me out by ordering TOOT through Amazon directly here: