After years of making music videos and work for clients, Neeley wanted to return to more personal filmmaking. Pure Animation, his new one-minute short, is the delightful result.
It seems like just two years ago that Split Tooth’s Robert Delany interviewed animator and generally pleasant fella Mark Neeley, and only a year since that interview was published in a beautiful art book along with frames from Neeley’s film Fragments. Why, then, are we interviewing him again? He’s releasing a new short film: Pure Animation for Now People!
Neeley’s work is tinged with nostalgia, not by design, but by happenstance. His aesthetics are defined by his approach, and his approach is punk rock in the softest, truest way. He’s scrappy but warm, fully independent and full of love. He’s punk in the same way as the Zambonis, Atom and His Package, or Big Bill. It’s only fitting, then, that Pure Animation for Now People is scored by the legendary Mark Mothersbaugh. Mothersbaugh, obviously an accomplished composer of scores, has an impeccable sense of tone, so it’s unsurprising that the work he provides is a delightful accompaniment to Neeley’s work.
The title of the film claims, half jokingly, that the animation contained therein is “pure.” The way Neeley speaks (and presumably thinks) about his work betrays this purity. His reflections on and analysis of the work deal with technical or conceptual elements — the way he works, the philosophies of artists he’s inspired by. His aesthetic oeuvre — the things he draws, the way he draws them, the way they fall together through time — these elements all seem to tumble out of him without thought. Pure animation.
Check the film out here (it’s only a minute, so you can afford to watch it nine times), then read on to see what a dumb guy would ask Neeley, and how he would respond.
Split Tooth Media: Hi, how’s it going? You’re in Ohio?
Mark Neeley: Yeah, I’m in Cincinnati. I have a studio in my basement here. We became first-time home owners here last year. We didn’t think that would ever happen.
It does feel like an impossible dream these days.
We still feel lucky that it happened the way it did. But yeah, I’m in Cincinnati, born and raised here, but I work with a lot of clients on the West Coast. I’m always doing the time zone math in my head.
I’m in Austin. Where we don’t have basements and I miss them. I’m jealous.
(laughs) Yeah, I was really fortunate. My dad is a carpenter so when we bought this place he really helped out and he helped me build something down there.
Before that, I assume you were in apartments. Did you have a portable animation setup that you were toting from place to place?
I did. We rented a duplex and were in an apartment complex before that and just had the second bedroom as my studio, basically. Very much outgrew that, then had the baby on the way, who is 21 months now. That all kind of happened around the same time. My wife was pregnant, got the house, and here we are.
You say you have a lot of West Coast clients, and it does feel like there’s real West Coast vibes to a lot of your work. What is it about you or them that draws you together?
I was always interested in that sort of elusive quality of LA and California and in the dichotomy of what that city is, and the history, and also the sad, broken dream element of it — that classic noir quality about it. Growing up, I was such a musichead. I was a digger and a researcher. I was really obsessed with The Beach Boys and The Byrds and all the stuff happening there in the ’60s so I was always reading books about that stuff as a teenager. And then I started doing work for Aquarium Drunkard who’s based in LA. Their readership is so vast with musicians and creatives and that’s when I started really getting commissioned to make music videos. It was kind of through them that all that really started. It just turned out that a lot of the musicians who contacted me were based out there. Some of them, like Allah-Las and Beachwood Sparks, are the embodiment of LA bands. They just wear it on their sleeves, kind of like The Byrds or Beach Boys back in the day.
It’s never been something I sought out intentionally. It just sort of happened. But there is something there, that magnetic thing. I used to go about every other year before the baby. I have a lot of friends out there and maybe in another life I would have relocated there if I was maybe 10 years younger and actually could have made it work financially. Now it’s just a pipe dream. It’s something I’ve never really had an answer for.
You said you kind of got pulled into, or got your first inquiry into music videos through Aquarium Drunkard. Were you writing for them before that? How did people know what you were up to?
I made my first short film, which was called Fragments, and that came out right before the pandemic hit in 2020. I had very loosely been in contact with AD and Justin Gage, the guy who runs the site and oversees everything. He had seen some of my work and knew I was a musichead so he said it would be cool if I made something for the site sometime. Then when my film came out, I sent it to him because I thought he would like it. It’s very musical, there’s no dialogue. The soundtrack was really essential to it, in my opinion. I sent him Fragments and he was like, ‘Oh I love this.’ So they put it up on AD and they really highlighted the soundtrack. So that’s how that working relationship happened.
I never thought I would animate music videos prolifically. I never thought that would be my main freelance thing. I don’t know why, because in my head that kind of always seemed like destiny because it’s combining these two passions. Maybe it was a self-esteem thing, like, I didn’t expect to be contacted about them so often. That really catapulted that, and music videos became one of my main things over the last four years, since that film came out.
With both Fragments and Pure Animation For Now People, the soundtrack is crucial to them being what they are. With the short films you must be animating first and then scoring, as opposed to the music videos where you’re animating to the music. Does that have an impact on how you’re approaching things?
Yeah, definitely. I remember when I did my very first music video it was so challenging. All of a sudden you’re working in reverse. (laughs) You’re working from the track rather than the other way around. It was a huge learning curve. This is my second personal short film. I’ve done a bunch of music videos, and I’ve done a lot of commercial advertisement stuff. With Fragments, I worked super closely with my friend Yohei Shikano on that soundtrack. I didn’t know him when I hired him. We became really good friends, really close since. He lives out in LA in this area called Mount Washington. He has this outdoor garden studio setup. It’s kind of magical. That was recorded live out there and we worked from really specific references, including a Jim O’Rourke album.
With the new film, with Mark Mothersbaugh, it was a little more… I was just so surprised he said yes to doing it. There wasn’t a lot of communication. It was more, ‘If you could do something, I’d be honored.’ Then, like magic, what he ended up sending was just perfect. Mark has been a hero of mine since I was a kid. I became a huge DEVO fan when I was a teenager and started getting into records. I probably knew Mark’s music even before DEVO. I’m showing my age here.
Like Rugrats?
Yeah! Stuff like that! I’m 34 and growing up with that stuff, and being obsessed with cartoons, I do remember hearing that quirky music and seeing that name. I was so obsessed at such a young age that it kind of blows your mind when you realize this was made by humans with pencils. I would look at stuff like that and be like, what are these names on the credits? I remember seeing his name and Mothersbaugh. He has my first name so it stuck with me. Then later learning about DEVO was also cool because they’re from here in Ohio, in Akron. There was a cassette that he put out called Muzik for Insomniaks, which was this ambient background music experiment that I got a copy of a long time ago. I followed his career and I really love everything about him. He’s a great visual artist.
How did you first connect with Mothersbaugh?
Rhino Records was putting out this DEVO 50th anniversary box set, and they got in touch with Aquarium Drunkard. Justin knew I was a huge fan and asked, ‘hey, do you want to interview Mark?’ Yes. Definitely. So we did, and he was at his studio which is this crazy place on the Sunset Strip. He’s in his early 70s now. I know he had a serious health scare during covid, so I’m really glad that he’s healthy now and still working on major Hollywood soundtracks and stuff. And I feel, on a popularity level, he still doesn’t get his due for his soundtrack work.
We had this really great conversation and I asked him a lot about DEVO, but also about his history with animation back in the day and how he was inspired by these composers like Raymond Scott, who did all the crazy old Looney Tunes soundtracks. He was just really humble and kind and after the interview we talked about my own work, and I could tell he was genuine about being interested in it. He wanted me to send him Fragments.
That’s so cool.
Yeah, it was so cool and organic. I ended up making Pure Animation and then when I made it only a minute long — which is an experiment I’ve always wanted to do, make something one to two minutes — I thought, screw it. I’m gonna contact Mark. I really, truly had no expectations. He said yes so it was just a dream. It came together really easily, and I think it’s just a lesson in don’t be afraid to ask questions because you never know when people are willing to help out. That’s how that came about. And still, it’s a shock to me that it happened. But he’s the best, just such a cool guy.
Pure Animation For Now People, do you see that as a brief manifesto? A declaration of intent? What is that?
Yeah, but in a lighthearted way. I wanted it to be tongue in cheek and sarcastic, but also I wanted people to think about it when they heard it. It’s sort of a play on the musician Nick Lowe’s first solo album. It was called Jesus of Cool, but something with the American release had him change the title to Pure Pop for Now People. I love the album, and I think that’s the most brilliant title because it’s saying, I’m extremely tongue in cheek, but it also fits perfectly because it’s a power pop album. So that was kind of the inspiration for it.
But as someone who works all analog — the really old fashioned way on paper, frame by frame — there’s a little bit of a manifesto there. It’s kind of like the really pure elements of animation, and there’s little sequences of a walk cycle, which is a character walking, then the contrast of black and white versus color. So even though it’s supposed to be kind of funny and sarcastic, it is also true that it is also breaking it down into the elements of animation that makes us fall in love with it as kids.
You sometimes play with mixed media in your films, even drenching your animation paper in wet watercolor, but in Fragments and Pure Animation, one of the more striking things you’re doing is bringing in imagery and reconstructing it. Or, in the case of Pure Animation, you’re putting it in the goggles, which was so charming. Are you doing that part with your hands, or are you conceding and doing that digitally?
That scene you’re talking about with the glasses, that was the very first time I’d done something digitally. I had a friend help out, a filmmaker who helped composite it the right way. With Fragments, like you said, it’s a lot of mixed media where the 35mm photographs come to life; that was all done analog. I would actually tape the film slides on a light box and trace over them to make it animated. I’ve never done anything like that glasses sequence.
I think I could have done it myself. What happened was I asked for a couple photographs from some friends who were photographers, and also there’s like two pieces of 8mm footage that plays in the glasses. I got those from friends. I asked them to send me just a snippet of anything. to show up in the glasses. Once I got everything back I had a friend help capture it the right way. So that was a first, that scene, but I love how it came out.
Looking back on it, do you think ‘I’ve betrayed myself?’ Or does it feel like something you might dip into more in the future?
I don’t plan on doing stuff like that in the future, but we’ll see. Not for any sort of integrity reason. (laughs) I just like not working that way. I was inspired by something when I made that scene and I’m actually blanking on what it was right now. That was sort of spur of the moment. I came up with the idea for that scene and just kind of went for it. There wasn’t a lot of thought in mind, like, ‘oh, let’s do something digital.’ The fact that it came out that way, where it’s still a hand-drawn image, I think it worked.
It feels like a lot of what you’re inspired by is relatively quotidian. Does that feel accurate? Day-to-day life and simple beauties.
Yeah, definitely. I’ve always responded to art like that. Some of it comes through in stuff that I draw a lot also. A fellow artist pointed out to me recently that they see a lot of houses and windows and different things throughout the films and music videos. And I totally got it when they said that, but it wasn’t something that I was cognisant of. I’m really inspired by, obviously, a lot of mid-century stuff, what independent and experimental animators were doing.
When you say mid-century, do you mean, like, the ’50s?
The ’50s and ’60s where it was a boom time for animation, where prior to that stuff was really only made by Disney and the big studios with staff of 500 people making a film. Specifically into the ’60s you have these independent animators who were able to make short films and do stuff as an individual or a small team. Then that also trickled into the industry with commercials, and all of a sudden animation was this exciting new medium where companies would hire these tiny studios, or these individuals to make something. And like my own work, the designs were very simple. Disney never appealed to me. I mean, I liked the films when I was a kid but it never motivated me to want to draw or animate because I couldn’t draw that well.
Nobody could make a Disney movie!
Yeah, exactly. It’s funny because in the ’90s, before I had internet, I really taught myself through these DIY books at the library. Disney even cornered the market on some of that stuff. One of the prominent how-to books was written by these Disney masters, and you had to be a master draftsman to even do these basic tutorials. So that stuff never appealed to me. But then when I started seeing the independent stuff it was like, wait a minute. I can draw people that look like that. I can draw those backgrounds.
People like John and Faith Hubley are a huge influence on my work. They were a husband and wife team of animators who did everything from the animation on Sesame Street, to art films, and educational films that would be commissioned by the Guggenheim. They worked with jazz musicians like Dizzy Gillespie. A lot of stuff that was really pushing the medium forward. To this day, in America at least, animation and the intellectualization of it as an art form is a constant struggle. Most people still view it as disposable children’s entertainment or something. So a lot of that was happening too, which I really responded to. And all this mixed media stuff that came out then with stop-motion and claymation. The spirit of that stuff, and obviously the visual style, had a huge impact on what I do.
As a kid I remember loving Looney Tunes and liking Disney OK, but getting so stoked when they would play a block of DePatie-Freleng or UPA cartoons. Everything was loopy and simplified and just really leaning into the things you can do with cartoons in a way that the more drafted-out Disney stuff wasn’t. UPA was way more exciting for me to watch.
UPA was a masterclass. They were like the anti-Disney, essentially. And it was all inspired by modern art. Picasso backgrounds and really flat color palettes. And that stuff I would have loved to have seen as a kid. I didn’t learn about that until I was older. But same, I loved Looney Tunes. There was this short-lived thing called O Canada that aired late night on Cartoon Network. It showcased independent animation from Canada. I don’t really know how it all worked, but they had this thing called the National Film Board there which was like an animation powerhouse of short films. They would fund independents to make short films. That was my first exposure to that. We didn’t have film festivals. And then when we first got the internet I was looking more into how these things are made because we didn’t have access to that information. With that came discovering UPA and more of the history that we never knew about as kids.
You somehow totally skipped past the making animations in Flash phase. Good for you.
(laughs) Yeah, I came up at a super interesting time. The ’90s was definitely the boom when all of that was happening. Even if I wanted to, I was probably a little young to get that software and know how to use it. But I was definitely surrounded by it. Early internet stuff that was popping up had all that in it. Even in the ’90s they were phasing out animation being done on cels with paint, the old fashioned way. So I got interested right at that weird in-between time. For me it was tunnel vision. I fell in love with the old fashioned way. It’s like DIY recording music, or shooting on film. I thought it was so cool and magical, just the old fashioned way of doing it on paper and cels. I just never gave that up. When you’re a kid you’re drawing on paper — well, now they’re on the iPads — but you’re doing it anyway. You can dream on paper all your life. I always stuck with it.
One of the things I get with my work, not a criticism, but it sometimes gets beaten over the head with the retro label. And it’s true, and I understand it. I have no problem with anyone saying it because we live in this technocratic society now where it’s rare to even see hand-drawn art.
Right, choosing to work on paper is intrinsically retro or something.
It is! And everything has gotten so vectorized and digital, and via that it’s gotten kind of ambiguous because stuff looks the same. So that is intrinsically true, but the other side of that that people don’t understand is that I’m still doing it the only way I know how. It’s not that I ever learned how to do it in Flash or digitally, but like, ‘you know what, I’m going back to paper so it stands out’ — that was never my philosophy. I was just never giving up how I did it as a kid. Even though that’s a conscious decision to a certain extent, it’s not done that way for the effect, like, oh I can make it look old fashioned. It’s how I’ve always done it.
That’s very punk rock. You’re working with a limited palette because you’re comfortable with it and you don’t want to learn something else. But also, you have a fully functioning production line set up in your basement and you can work that way, and that is beautiful.
Yeah, it is DIY. It fits that ethos for sure. I’ve been really fortunate to find a sort of niche of people who want to work with me, client-wise. I did a collaboration with the clothing company Madewell recently, and it was just awesome that they reached out to me and they didn’t want to take any shortcuts. They wanted to take these hand-drawn ink drawings and put them right on their clothing. That was just awesome. But what I’m getting at is there is a limitation to working that way because of what we talked about. You’re still going to have this whole other world of clients who want the modern digital way. And there’s this thing called Motion Graphics which is the very sort of corporate looking animation that often ends up on, like, editorial stuff. I’ve been contacted by people looking for that sort of stuff and it’s like, have you seen my work? (laughs) It’s almost like a musician who only records lo-fi or something. It’s never going to cross into certain worlds, but I’m content with that.
You’re like a Sparklehorse.
Yeah, exactly.
Is there a community of people who do super analog animation stuff?
There is a community of indie animators in general, and some of it is hand drawn, hand painted, but it’s pretty small. There’s a lot of great ones who I’ve been able to connect with and consider friends. There’s people out there who do it, but it’s few and far between. It’s a real labor of love. To get the traditional animation paper with the holes on the bottom for the peg bar, it’s expensive and there’s only a couple different companies who produce it. You’ve got to be really committed to have the setup and put the time in.
I’ve seen people use a paper hole punch in the shape of the animation bar on standard printer paper. Is the professional paper significantly nicer?
Yeah. I know people who have that. It’s a really fancy hole punch, basically. They’re really expensive, but it pays for itself if you buy it. Then you’re buying dirt cheap copy paper and you can hole punch all day long. But the stuff I use is called bond paper and it was the industry standard before everything went digital. It’s a little bit thicker than copy paper. You really notice the difference when you’re working on it. It’s more translucent in a weird way — it’s heavier but more see-through. It’s really made for animation so when you’re working on the light box it’s just perfect. I’ve often wanted to do that, to invest in the hole punch and just work on cheaper paper but I’m so attached to the nice stuff. It would be hard to give it up.
Do you draw for fun still?
I do. It’s becoming more and more difficult to have the time. Especially with a tiny child, our first and only. But even before he came along, between my freelance work and just trying to do personal things as well, I don’t find myself having time to do it very much anymore, which is a bummer. And that’s a dichotomy that affects anyone working in the arts. It’s been years since I’ve kept a sketchbook. I’d love to get back to it if I could, but that’s one of the reasons I made this new film.
With all the freelance work I’ve had with the music videos the last few years, I just thought I’m never going to have time to make a personal film again. And I really got the itch. It had been four years since Fragments. I thought it would be fun to make something that’s a minute, and then I can also squeeze that in among my other projects. And that’s also another thing with that title. I think it’s funny that the film’s a minute long and that’s the title.
Have you thought about making a personal commitment to making a personal minute-long film every two years or so?
No, I don’t have any goals like that. It actually sort of bothered me when I realized it had been four years since I made the first one because, again, when I started I thought of myself as being this independent filmmaker/animator who was just going to make personal films every few years. I had no anticipation that Fragments would do really well at film festivals. That sort of raised my awareness a little bit. Then that music video stuff all started. I never knew I was going to be primarily working freelance. I mentioned those artists John and Faith Hubley. They had a commitment to make one personal film together a year, which is very ambitious, especially back then. This was in the ’60s and ’70s. I think they were true artists for that. They were funded by the other stuff they were making, so I love the idea of that. I definitely want to keep making personal films, but I don’t think at this point I can put a timetable on it like that. I’m really happy right now. It just hit me that I really wanted to make a personal film. It had been too long and I’m really happy to have done so.
That’s really nice. Do you have favorite stuff to draw? Have I seen it all? Do you have things you like to draw that don’t end up in the movies?
No, I think it all shows up (laughs), naturally. It’s changed over time. I think back to when I was a kid it was a lot of kid stuff. It was superheroes, and then it changes. You had mentioned some of the parts where the pages are wet from the watercolor. I like to mix in stuff like that that’s a little more abstract with the kind of line drawings, working with patterns, and colors in that way. But I still love drawing characters with my little human silhouettes, buildings, and houses. Flowers.
Yeah, I would have guessed flowers.
Flowers show up a lot in a lot of different projects. It’s full of life, it’s fun, it makes you feel good.
I taught for eight years so that was my job before I went full time freelance. I taught art and english. My degree is actually in secondary education.
I feel like there’s a very distinct style across all your work that I’ve seen. When you’re doing art class are you like, this is how I draw, now you find how you draw? Or are you secretly like, I can make a baroque painting if I want to?
It was very specific. I taught at a school that was a middle school, high school for students who are primarily on the autism spectrum. But most of them were on the higher functioning end. So mainly mild aspergers cases. So the primary difference with that was it was pretty small class sizes. So the only reason I say that is because if I was teaching art classes at a traditional public school with like 25 kids in the class, my approach would be totally different. But no, I never tried to let my personal style creep in.
It does feel like there’s a real positivity to your work. Even in Fragments where, R.I.P., your cat dies. It feels very positive for the idea of life.
I appreciate that and I’m glad that comes through. That was a personal story that was never supposed to be that. That was just supposed to be about that trip. My wife and I went to California, we took those pictures that became that sequence where they come to life, and it was really just this little motion sketchbook I made of the pictures. Then that happened with the cat and I was like, what am I going to do with this thing I’m making? That’s when I decided to tell that whole story.
Whether it’s having a pet die unexpectedly, which, obviously, has happened to a ton of people, or just that kind of melancholy element of here you have this wonderful trip, then something bad happens. And you maybe always think of those two in your head, in your memories. I think that’s why people responded to it. I’m proud that it was something people could relate to. I want it to be positive, but I think a lot of it is the medium: it’s nostalgic for some people, it’s comfortable, and it makes them feel something to see that style of animation.
I feel like tonally I get some parallels to American Elf and Ziggy. There’s a really lovely poignancy, it’s a magnification of little things through a simple drawing style.
I totally take that as a compliment. There’s a lot of parallels to stuff like that. It’s not only the design, but I think it does go back to something we mentioned earlier, that everyday life element to it, and not tackling anything too grand on a macro level.
There’s something really beautiful about being able to communicate through your art in that way. I have one more kind of boring process question. When you’re working, do you do animatics? Do you pace things out or are you just going straight in there with markers and paper?
I don’t make animatics but I always try to start with a storyboard. Sometimes projects come with a deadline so quick that I don’t get to make a storyboard. And then it is just jumping right in and it’s a lot of improvising. I normally skip the animatics stage for timing, but I do stop to test scenes as I go along, which is kind of the same thing. So in the planning stage it’s normally a storyboard, one that’s pretty loose and adaptable, and then from there it’s jumping straight in. Then it’s shot under the camera frame by frame. Then comes the final editing, which is typically just cutting and lengthening scenes by making things loop, and obviously adding soundtrack components. The storyboard is the blueprint for me, but sometimes I don’t even get to make those. I prefer when I do because I really value that stage of sitting down and making the thumbnail sketches and thinking about it in that way before jumping in.
Do you ever retime things to fit the soundtrack or music better — obviously with the short films and not music videos? Or are you more like, I’ve timed this out silently and I feel good about it, but with this music I kind of want it to loop twice more?
Oh, definitely the latter. I end up moving it around a lot to fit. You always have to be adaptable. Especially with working with clients too. I should be clear, I have amazing clients. It’s very rare to get threaded with red tape and ‘here’s a million notes.’ That rarely happens, but you do have to be ready to make those changes kind of on the fly. One of the biggest challenges with that is people just don’t understand the medium of animation and how labor intensive it is. Sometimes with music videos someone will reach out with a four minute song and ask if I can have it done by the end of the month. So there’s some of that, and it used to bother me, but I had to tell myself that people just aren’t educated about it. There’s not a magic cartoon button you hit. So, being an animator, timing and deadlines are always a struggle. But fortunately people who are really serious about it tend to give you enough heads up to make it work.
Do you ever animate on twos or are you animating everything on 24 frames per second every second of everything?
I do twos as well, depending on the project. Sometimes it turns out being like 12 frames per second.
Simple! You could do that by the end of the month!
Yeah, exactly!
It’s not that many drawings!
It’s crazy. Working on paper, after a project, unless you’re throwing it away, you have this massive… you have the film! And a lot of it does get recycled, but I like to keep a lot of the key frames. Working with analog animation is really unique in that way, too, in that you end up with all the physical relics of it.
I just did the math. Four minutes at 24 frames per second is 11 and a half reams of paper — assuming no mistakes. So that’s like a four foot tall stack of paper.
(laughs) It’s not for the faint of heart, let’s put it that way.
I follow Animation Obsessive on the internet. I like their work. I read your piece on The Beach Boys cartoon there about a year ago. Have you had any updates on the mysterious Beach Boys animated TV show and/or Insect Surfers?
I’m so glad you read that because that is legitimately one of the pieces I was most proud of that I’ve ever written because that was a couple years worth of work. (laughs) It was my most journalistic effort. It was really condensed, the article, but no updates, which was kind of a bummer. I was really hoping there would be. Maybe if we’d gotten it on The Hollywood Reporter or something, maybe the right eyeballs would have got on it. Because you know there were people in the industry who must have had a hand in it back then. Sadly when you’re researching something from that era, you quickly realize a lot of those folks have passed and you reach so many dead ends. But that was wild.
The way it played out was the way it played out for me. Kept turning into dead ends and that bizarre twist about the Insect Surfers. It was frustrating because you’d reach out to people and the communication was just so hit or miss. Someone might respond with 3 words to your giant question asking all this context. So, sad to say there weren’t any real developments after the article. But I’m glad I got to put it out there.
I think it’s still this weird — like, I’m a real Beach Boys junkie; I’ve read every book, they’re my favorite band, and Brian Wilson is my favorite musician of all time — but even among other fanatics like that, most people don’t know about that cartoon. To be able to publish that about this part of their history that was never documented was really rewarding for me even if we didn’t technically solve the mystery.
It is funny that it is both the definitive account and also so full of questions.
I know. And, man, it was frustrating because that was like finished production art that came out of that auction site. So as a bit of an animation historian, what that means is it went into production. Those were fully painted cels. That would not have been produced unless it was actually made for the pilot.
Right, that’s not just promo art.
That’s not just sketches, no. Whether or not it was filmed, that’s another story. They could have prepared the artwork and then the pilot never actually got filmed, but I reached out to so many people who were involved in the industry in that era and it almost seemed like that guy who made it, maybe he just did it in his basement or something. Because he owned this small studio but there didn’t seem to be anyone else involved. Crazy. He had this huge client and project. A lot of twists and turns there.
And it’s funny because it made total sense that it was made. It was coming off of Yellow Submarine. And The Beach Boys, in the early ’70s with Sunflower and Surf’s Up, they all of a sudden matured. Then instead of singing about hot rods and surfing it was like ecology and water pollution. It was kind of genius that someone wanted to make a cartoon about that. There was an oil spill monster. The whole thing was just a brilliant concept and the whole thing made total sense that it would have happened. But we’ll never know the story. It would have been great if Mike Love emailed me or something: Here it is!
What are you listening to right now? Not, like, right now, but generally.
I have been listening to a lot of Teenage Fanclub. They’re one of my all time favorites. Roxy Music. A lot of Eric Dolphy, he’s one of my favorite jazz musicians. As far as brand new music, there’s a band called Ducks LTD, which is very jangly guitar pop, which is sort of comfort music for me. That album is really great.
Do you have paranoid fantasies about one day starting your own bond paper company because nobody else is doing it?
It’s so funny that you ask that. There’s like one or two companies in the US who make it. I’m not going to say the name, but I’ve ordered from them for years, thousands of dollars because I’m constantly ordering paper. I noticed that the shipping costs just got out of control so I emailed the company and really politely was like, you can see my order history, I order all the time and I’m just wondering if I can get a discount on shipping if I order in volume. And sadly the person who runs it responded and said, ‘we might be retiring soon, and we’re like the only company left that makes it.’ It really bummed me out. And he actually pitched that to me, like, ‘hey if you want to take over the company…’ And I was like no, no, no! I don’t have any interest in that, but I hope that doesn’t happen. Maybe they’ll be able to salvage it somehow.
If he offered it to you, maybe he’s offering it to other people and somebody is really gunning to take over the bond paper industry.
I hope so! Because in a weird way it was offered to me to take it over.
Upcoming Screenings of Pure Animation for Now People:
Daydream Nation (Glasgow, Scotland, Monday, Sept. 16)
Yellow Springs Film Festival (Yellow Springs, Ohio, Friday, Oct. 4)
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