A Little About The Firehouse Five Plus Two

I recently got verbally beaten up over my last post featuring The Firehouse Five Plus Two because I didn't provide enough information about the group. So in order to right that wrong, here's the full story.
Back in the 40's, a group of Disney animators (Frank Thomas and Ward Kimball included) liked Dixieland Jazz and during lunch hours, would play some records on the studio record player of Jelly Roll Morton, Baby Dodds and Louie Armstrong. Kimball, who learned trombone in grade school, would play to the records. Other people; who also played an instrument, would come in and join Ward playing to the records. Finally one day, when a group of these guys were jazzing along to 'Royal Garden Blues', the record player broke down, and they kept on playing and according to Ward, "...to our amazement, sounded pretty good all by ourselves!" They got to be tight as a group and eventually drew crowds at lunch time. The band was first called the Huggyjeedy Eight, and later on they changed their name to The San Gabriel Valley Blue Blowers. When the local horseless carriage club asked them to play for their auto tour in San Diego, Ward found a 1915 Fire Truck, restored it, and with the group now dressed as firefighters, they changed the name of the band to The Firehouse Five Plus Two.
The FH5+2 ended up playing a good amount of local gigs around Los Angeles, while maintaining their day jobs at Walt Disney Studios, and were discovered by Les Koenig, who was a writer at Paramount Studios and had dabbled in producing Jazz records. Koenig liked their sound and offered to produce some records for them for Good Time Jazz. From 1949 to 1971, the band recorded 12 full albums of material which was distributed around the world, most of which have been available on CD and can be purchased here...The Firehouse Five Plus Two Story
The FH5 played many gigs in the 50's and 60's and appeared in movies, radio and on television!
The fact that this was all done on their spare time is even more impressive. Ward once told me that Walt Disney felt a certain amount of pride that his group of animators were equally talented as a famous music group! Between 1955 and 1971, the group could be found playing around Disneyland, but most often at Plaza Gardens (to the left of the Disneyland Castle, off Main Street) or at The Golden Horseshoe in Frontierland. The group even released an album entitled, The Firehouse Five Plus Two at Disneyland, from one of their Golden Horseshoe performances.
In the clip above, Directing Animator, Ward Kimball (Jiminy Cricket, Jaq, Gus, Tweedle Dee and Dum, The Mad Hatter) is on Trombone, Harper Goff (the designer of the Nautilus from 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea and The Jungle Cruise attraction from Disneyland) is on Banjo and Directing Animator, Frank Thomas (Pinocchio, Queen of Hearts, Tramp, Baloo) is playing the piano. Interesting to note; if Thomas looks a little like Roger playing the piano  from 101 Dalmatians, that's no coincidence. Milt Kahl who animated most of those scenes caricatured Thomas as Roger in the film!  Other Disney studio personnel is George Probert is on clarinet, Danny Alguire on Cornet and Ed Penner on Tuba. Jim MacDonald, the studios sound effects man and voice artist responsible for Jaq, Gus, Evinrude and in later years Walt Disney's stand in for Mickey Mouse, plays the skins.

Some Disney Animators; The Firehouse Five Plus Two - Firehouse Stomp

Here's some real Disney animators led by Ward Kimball, playing some hot dixieland jazz. Back in the 50's and 60's they were very much in demand, so much they could have left their day jobs. Instead, they used it to blow off steam from Disneys. I know it seems romantic to think that things were more fun and simpler back then...maybe they weren't...but it sure seems like they were.

Bear and another bear drawing....

I decided to go through some animation related stuff today and came up with some drawings that I did for a video project that was being planned about ten years ago. All that I had left were some of these clean ups so I decided to post them here rather than let them collect dust in the old archive.

Media on these two were simple sanford light blue for the roughs, then rubbed down with a gum eraser and cleaned up with a standard number two pencil; like the ones they used to use in schools. The Sanford colerase pencils can be purchased at any Michaels art and craft store.
I used to use blackwings until they stopped making them...now I hear they're back, but I'm so used to using regular number 2 pencils to clean up my work, I hardly step into an art store anymore....unless I absolutely have to....

Scrooge McDuck & Money

I'm posting this, mainly because I don't remember ever seeing it before. I've known about the short for years but never thought it was worth watching until cartoonbrew.com made mention of it. Although I liked the Scrooge McDuck character in Mickey's Christmas Carol, I loathed the miserly fellow in Ducktails.
This was because I was never a fan of the latter Disney television product. I always saw Disney Television productions as Bastardized Disney. This tainted my view of old Uncle Scrooge...until now.
Scrooge McDuck & Money was a 16 minute short subject released in 1967 and is pleasantly entertaining. Written by Bill Berg and Directed By Hamilton Luske, it has some nice animation by Art Stevens, Charlie Downs, Julius Svendsen and (mostly in part two) features some cool animation by Ward Kimball. This short, pretty much in the same vein as Donald & The Wheel, is one of Disney's neat Edutainment shorts and was shown in schools for years. I'm pleased to present it here.

Some Disney Animators playing Dixieland

Here's something pretty rare...a bunch of Disney personal playing Dixieland Jazz! It's the Firehouse Five Plus Two and they were really something...take a look...see if you can spot Animators Ward Kimball and Frank Thomas. From what I hear they were pretty popular in their day recording 20 record albums. The band stayed together for over 20 years and it was just a sideline or hobby for these guys. Some hobby...these guys had TWO careers!
You can still buy a bunch of their albums on CD! Enjoy...this clip is from the old Mickey Mouse Club. Oh...and the kid who's playing the drums is really playing the drums. He's Cubby O' Brien and to this day still plays the drums professionally!

The Wonderful World Of Color

Here's two Disney Anthology Show openings. The first is from the Wonderful World Of Color with host Walt Disney. Color ran on NBC from 1961 through 1967 broadcasting some original programming, but mostly material from the Disney library of Feature films, cartoon shorts and nature films. Walt Disney shot informative lead ins and closing footage giving us a glimpse of next weeks show. Unlike the Hanna Barbera title sequences in my previous post, Disney's opening sequence to his show was just a sampling of the fun to follow.

The second opening is from the The Wonderful World Of Disney, which ran on NBC from 1967 through the late 70's. The name change was obviously a tribute to Walt after he passed in 1966 and the idea of a host was eliminated almost entirely (probably because it was thought that nobody could fill Walt's shoes). Occasionally, there would be certain shows that would be hosted by various Disney celebs like Dean Jones, Annette Funicello or Kurt Russell, but most of these shows would have no host at all. This particular opening was well known in the 1970's and would be edited each year to feature a clip from a new Disney movie or theme park attraction. In this particular clip, Space Mountain and The Rescuers are featured prominently, which would date it to 1977. Both clips here are great openings, with theme music by Buddy Baker (a great Disney music man) these openings have a magic that cannot be put into words.

Another sketch....

I did this sketch the other night and just happened to clean it up a little while ago. As you can see by the rough, I noodled a bit with re-working different areas of the drawing, but the pose pretty much remained the same. If this was a piece of animation with this guy walking, the left arm and leg would be opposing each other in the animation. However, when I drew this up the other night, it didn't bother me. Maybe it should, though I still like the pose. Any comments?
I kinda liked this sketch for a number of reasons. Mainly because it had a neat little attitude and has nice appeal.
Everybody talks about the appeal factor and how to achieve it. I think it has to do with making a good flowing drawing that communicates emotion in a strong way. Fred Moore's drawings always possessed this quality because of the cuteness of his poses. But appeal isn't just limited to cuteness as drawings of Cruella DeVil, Captain Hook and Roger From 101 Dalmations also possess this quality. Any drawing that makes you want to look at it more than a few moments is sure to have appeal.

Ward Kimball's It's Tough To Be A Bird

Here's another treat...the first 10 or so minutes of It's Tough To Be A Bird.
The film won an Academy Award for Best animated short subject of 1969, one of the few awards that Disney studios let Ward keep for his very own. I got to hold the award for maybe 5 seconds and it was a real thrill. This is absolutely one of my favorite Disney films and it deserves a wider showing. Unfortunately, the TV version for the Wonderful World Of Disney was padded out adding another 25 minutes to the film which made it a little too long to view, however it still has some more clever moments.

Ward Kimball's DAD, CAN I BORROW THE CAR

If you've never seen it, it's time you did. This is one of my favorite Ward Kimball shorts...it's primarily live action, with some animation stuff thrown in. Here's part one..........

The Wizard Of Speed and Time: Mike Jittlov

I still think that Mike Jittlov was ahead of his time. Above I posted three shorts that he did, Mouse Mania for the Mickey's 50th Birthday show, then his classic Wizard Of Speed and Time and then an earlier short, Animato. I've seen these projected in theatres and the audience went wild. Pretty spectacular I thought.
Back in 1978, Disney aired a special on NBC called, Mickey's 50, where there were clips of the mouse's career, celebrity salutes and some then newly created film segments celebrating all things Mickey. Two of the segments entitled "The Collector" and "Mouse Mania" were created by Mike Jittlov and were the real highlight of the show. Using stop motion animation and animation effects animated on a home made multiplane set up, Jittlov starred as the collector, who slept in mouse pajamas, ate cereal in a mouse bowl and went to work in a volkswagon with giant mouse ears. This fast paced segment was only part one of the story. Part two takes place in a Psychiatrists office, where Jittlov is explaining to his shrink (also Jittlov and entirely in pantomime) how he sees everything through Mickey Mouse coloured glasses, when all of a sudden he sees a stop motion Mickey waving to him. He tries contain his feelings, when the office becomes a virtual motion wonderland of everything Mickey.
Jittlov exits the office leaving the Psychiatrist completely bewildered (The Mouse Mania section of the special is featured on Leonard Maltin's Disney Treasures Mickey Mouse in Color 2). This would be my first introduction to the work of Mike Jittlov and gradually over the years I would see much more of his personal work. Eventually I found out that most, if not all of his animated films were produced in the garage of his house in Los Angeles. They are the most joyous, magical films ever produced.
The most famous is his Wizard Of Speed and Time, which aired on an episode of the old Disney TV show called Major Effects in 1979. Later he got financing (low budget) to make a feature film (also called The Wizard Of Speed and Time) which incorporated most of his short subjects including the original Wizard, which was expanded and refilmed in 35mm.
The theme of the film was about the complications of making a film in Los Angeles, focusing on sleazy producers and impossible union and government restrictions. The film is based on his real life; even in regards to the sleazy producer. Apparently, during post production of the feature, the real producer took off with the books and Jittlov's rights to the movie are tied up in some form of limbo.
As far as the movie goes, it's very cartoonish in nature, with fast editing, lots of special effects, and loads of action. The acting isn't always of professional standard, but the energy of the film more than makes up for it. Voice artist, Will Ryan makes a number of appearances in the film along with Disney Animator, Ward Kimball, who is featured as an IRS agent! Overall it has some funny moments and is well worth checking out. There's a trailer online at jittlov's website but Mike's amazing demo reel (which includes all the Disney segments can be seen here.
Although I recently found a used DVD copy of the film at a local movie store, the film only seems to be available on VHS (used) through Ebay and Amazon. DVD's of the film were never marketed, so I'm not sure where my copy came from. There were however, 1600 laserdiscs pressed in the late 80's and occasionally one of those pop up online or in local used CD stores. I know Jittlov is promising some sort of special edition DVD of Wizard, so we'll have to wait and see. If you've never seen any of Jittlovs work, I urge you to take a peek and let me know what you think.