Dennis Nyback Donates Proceeds Of Rare Animation Festival To The Oregon Cartoon Institute

Portland, Oregon - February 12, 2007 When independent film archivist Dennis Nyback heard that local filmmakers Brian Lindstrom and Anne Richardson were raising funds for a documentary about historic Oregon animators, he offered to do something he has never done before. Nyback will screen his entire animation collection in an unprecedented three week series at Disjecta. Dennis Nyback's Cartoon Extravaganza: 21 Days & 21 Nights of Animation begins Feb. 23 and ends March 15. 

All shows at 7:30 Tickets are $6.00 at the door. There will also be a consecutive nights discount.  Each consecutive night a person attends there will a one dollar discount from each previous night.  That means after six nights the shows will be free, as long the person can keep coming back every night.  Even those who can attend only two or three or four nights in a row will be get the one dollar discount each night.

Disjecta is located at 230 East Burnside Portland, OR in the historic Templeton Building.  Entrance for these shows will be at the Burnside door. 

Dennis Nyback's Cartoon Extravaganza will include American animation from Emil Cohl, Winsor McCay, John Randolph Bray, Otto Messmer, Max Fleischer, early silent Disney, Paul Terry, Walter Lantz, Ub Iwerks, Amadee Van Beuren, Rudolf Ising, Ted Eshbaugh, Theodore Geisel (aka Dr. Seuss), Chuck Jones, Tex Avery, George Pal, Ladislaw Starevitch, Paramount, Famous Studios, HarveyToons, Warner Brothers, Columbia, UPA, as well as foreign animation, animated educational films, puppet animation, animated Industrial films, animated television commercials, and avant garde animation.

Nyback kicks off the series with a film so rare he believes his print may be the only one in the world. Charlie At The Beach (1918), featuring an animated Charlie Chaplin, is one of more than 300 films which will be shown during the three week series. The series is arranged in roughly chronological order, following the evolution of animation from 1908 up to the 1970's. It is purely an evening series. The “21 Days” of the title refer to the fact that Nyback will be creating the shows during the day that he will show each night “We were lucky to get Dennis' help”, said Anne Richardson. “He is squeezing us in between his NEA sponsored Big Read project in Wallowa County and a gig showing music films for an R. Crumb retrospective at Yerba Buena's Center For The Performing Arts in San Francisco.” Nyback has a deep interest in Oregon history, she added. He is the great-great-grand nephew of Francis Pettygrove, the man who gave Portland its name.

Friday February 23 Opening Night  Animation From Zoetrope to Sound  We will start with a short look at the history of animation as presented in a Hollywood documentary from 1955. We will then see works by the very first artists to work in the field of animation: Emil Cohl, Winsor McCay, John Randolph Bray and Otto Messmer. We will also see the early silent animation of Max Fleischer and Walt Disney. The star of the show will be the only print in the world of Charlie at the Beach, a Pat Sullivan-Otto Messmer Charlie Chaplin cartoon (1918).  Characters will include Gertie the Dinosaur, Mutt and Jeff, Krazy Kat, Koko the Clown, Colonel Heeza Liar, and Felix the Cat.  The program will end with another film that Nyback has the only known print of.  It is The Gump Family in Monsieur Slim starring Joe Morgan as Andy Gump.  It has not been determined what the original  American title of this film is. This a French print purchased at a sidewalk sale in Paris in 1999 with French inter-titles.   It concerns an auto race in which the Gumps enter their mobile home which is a shack built on a truck chassis.  It is hilarious and is mostly live action but uses animation in a key scene.  Andy Gump was a very popular comic strip in the twenties and has been cited as a favorite of R. Crumb.

Saturday February 24 The Mouse that Roared   Ten early  Disney cartoons in black and white. The beginning of the company that  soon dominated the animation industry.  See the development from crude to sophisticated animation from the first days of the company. 

Sunday February 25 The Early Work of Paul Terry, Walter Lantz, Otto Messmer and Ub Iwerks  Ub Iwerks met Walt Disney in Kansas City and was Walt's first employee.  He was a brilliant animator and created Mickey Mouse.  He left Disney to form his own cartoon studio in 1930.  His cartoons Fiddlesticks, Technocracked, and Play Ball.   Paul Terry was born in San Mateo and animated his first cartoon in 1915.  His company churned out cartoons for the next fifty years.  He will be represented in this show by the mind blowing cartoon The Black Duck (1929) and the jaw dropping Mighty Mouse cartoon Liza On the Ice.  Walter Lantz  also was a pioneer (Col Heeza Liar 1916) who established his own studio and produced scads of cartoons.  Here we'll show an example of Oswald The Lucky Rabbit, an Andy Panda, and one more.  Otto Messmer will be represented by Felix the Cat in Felix In Fairyland (1923) and Felix Woos Whoopee (1928). 

Monday February 26 The Birth of Betty Boop (Or My Life as a Dog)   The first Betty Boop cartoon Dizzy Dishes, followed by nine more, all made before Betty became human. Betty Boop first appeared on screen as the love interest of Bimbo in 1930. Bimbo was a dog. Betty was too. See her change, not just in and out of her clothes, but into another species.

Tuesday February 27 The Forgotten Greatness of Amadee Van Beuren   Some of the best cartoons of the thirties were made by the fabled studio of Amadee Van Beuren. Mr. Van Beuren fell into poor health and produced no cartoons after 1936. His cartoon studio then folded. He died in 1938.Included will be Molly Moo Cow, Amos and Andy, Parrotville, Pastrytown, the cult favorite The Sunshine Makers, and more. The show will also have post Van Beuren work by the enigmatic Ted Eshbaugh.

Wednesday February 28 The Amazing Ladislaw Starevitch  Starevitch produced his first stop motion cartoon "Lucanus Cervus" in 1910.That puts him before Winsor McCay in the history of animators and only Emil Cohl is before him. Nyback considers him the greatest animator who ever lived and is not alone in that assessment.  His work has influenced Jan Svankmajer, The Quay Brothers, and many other animators.  Toy Story was a remake of his greatest work The Mascot.  His work from 1914 to 1933 will be in the show.

Thursday March 1  The Harman and Ising Era at Warner Brothers   Everyone knows the great Warner Brothers cartoon characters Bugs, Daffy, Porky, Road Runner, and the rest.  The first of those to appear was Porky Pig in 1935.  Warner Brothers animation started in 1929 under the control of Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising.  They left WB for MGM in 1934.  Here are ten great cartoons from the Harman Ising  era at WB.  They are: One More Time, Freddy the Freshman, I Like Mountain Music, We're In the Money, Wake Up the Gypsy In Me, Buddy's Showboat,  Buddy the Gob, Bosko in Person, Shake Your Powder Puff, and Honeymoon Hotel.  All of these cartoons are from the "pre-code" Hollywood era.  It shows.

Friday March 2 Warner Brothers Part Two:  The introduction of Bugs, Daffy, Porky and the rest.     Cartoons characters change over time.  Here we see some of the all time greats in their earliest forms.  You'll be shocked to see how fat Porky Pig was in the beginning.  You'll be amazed at just how Daffy Daffy Duck was.  Bugs Bunny was really a jerk.  You'll see the first Tweetie Pie cartoon where he is really sadistic and not the "cute"character seen currently on pre-teens backpacks.  A nice look at these characters before their sharp corners were rounded off. 

Saturday  March 3  Mel Blanc, the man with 1000 voices    Mel Blanc is a great example of a local Portland boy who made good.  He dropped out of Lincoln High in 1925 to work, first as a musician in local theater pit orchestras, then at the fledgling KGW radio station.  He finally made in Hollywood in 1937 doing the voice of Porky Pig.  Before long he was voicing all of the main Warner Brothers characters and also worked for other studios including doing Woody Woodpecker and Andy Panda at Lantz.  He is credited on the IMDB as appearing in more motion pictures than any other performer.  This program will start with Mel Blanc himself on film.  You get to see the face that so few movie goers in the past ever knew.  This program will feature many of his different voice characters including Private Snafu, Barney Rubble, Fog Horn Leghorn, and also the more famous Bugs, Porky, Daffy and others.

Sunday March 4  Cartoonists and Animators Go to War   From WWI  we will see Winsor McCay's spectacular The Sinking of the Lusitania.  From WW II we will  see Ted Geisel (aka Dr. Suess)  military training toons, Popeye battling the Japanese,  Chuck Jones' pacifist Draft Horse,  Superman fighting for the American way,  Joseph Stalin the Godless Commie on our side, and much more.  This is not really program for children. 

Monday March 5  World Animation   Mr. Nyback is very happy to at last be able to show some rarities  he has collected from his travels around the world showing films.  Many of these cartoons were given as gifts in foreign lands.  They will include Czech, Hungarian, Australian, Japanese,  French, Dutch, Polish, and other world animation.  Mostly from the sixties and seventies.  Tuesday  March 6   There is Nobody Like Tex Avery    This program will have the best of Tex, both at Warners in the 30's and at MGM in the 40's. 

Wednesday March 7 Sixties Animation   Most of this will be Television animation.  They will include Beany and Cecil,  Rocky and Bullwinkle,  Roger Ramjet, The Mighty Heroes (Ralph Bakshi 1966), Gumby,  The Jetsons (Pilot episode), Sesame Street (first season black and white) and others.  

Thursday  March 8 To Be Announced   

Friday  March 9 Educational Animation    Here is some really rare and interesting stuff, animation not intended for theatrical release but for the school systems as educationals.  This will include the truly weird sex ed short the The Glob Family.   To counter that is the amazing Film Board of Canada's About Conception and Contraception. Everyone, finally, can see the cartoon seen by most American girls from 1950 into the seventies, but not by any boys: The Story of Menstruation.  Getting away from Sex we turn to the morbid in My Turtle Died Today.  For a much larger educational purpose we have The ABC of Health.  This was made by the British War Ministry to promote nutrition during WWII.  More.

Saturday March 10  Pinto Colvig and other Oregon Animators.  Pinto Colvig will be one of the featured animators of the Oregon Cartoon Institute.  He was born in Jacksonville, Oregon in 1892.  He first worked as a newspaper cartoonist and then became an animator.  Working at Disney in the early thirties he began doing voice work. He was the longtime voice of Goofy.  He also did some voice work for Warners and was  the voice of Bluto in Famous Studios Popeye cartoons.  This show will feature his work at Disney, Warners, and Famous.  Another honoree of the OCI is Carl Barks.  He was born in Merrill, Oregon in 1901.  He worked at Disney animating Donald Duck and then, by himself, created Scrooge McDuck.  We will show one his Donald Duck cartoons.   Most Portlanders know that Matt Groening is from here. What most of them don't know is that in high school he worked with local teenage film maker Tim Smith on several films.   One of the best, which includes animation, is Drugs  Killers or Dillers, which will lead off the show. 

Sunday March 11 World Puppet Animation    From the Netherlands George Pal's Phillips Broadcast (1938), from Germany the fabulous Puss in Boots (1940),  also from Germany  Lotte Reiniger's Jack and Beanstalk,  from America, born in Iowa, Charley Bower's It's A Bird (1930), and  from America, born in Siberia, Basil  Milovsoroff's Poison in the House (1957).

Monday March 12 Industrial  Animation   Industrial films are among the least seen  films by the average person.  They were generally only seen by those in the industries they covered, sort infomercials for a much smaller market.   Animated industrial films  are smaller group.  Here are some pips!  Doomsday for Pests was made by the Sherwin Williams paint company to promote the latest product of 1953:  Paint mixed with DDT to keep bugs at bay.  The great animation was by the Jerry Fairbanks company.  It uses both animation and live action to great effect.  The UPA company was formed by animators who had been blacklisted for striking against Disney in the forties.  They produced the wonderful Gerald McBoing Boing cartoons and also Mr. Magoo.  Their bread and butter was animated commercials and industrial films.  Of great topical interest today is their Man On the Land paid for by the oil industry in 1957 which you will see is a beautiful Technicolor print.  Mr. Nyback is not sure who made Happy Little Blue Bird Valley.  It was obviously funded by hydroelectric power money.  It shows the little blue bird and other animals of the forest who are so happy because a dam is being built.  Truly bizarre! 

Others. Tuesday  March 13  Animated TV  Commercials (50's through 80's)    Mr. Nyback will put a tremendous amount of work into this show.  He will have to look through his hundreds of vintage TV commercials to fine the best one hundred or so animated ads he has.  That is one reason this show is late in the series.   There will be great ads from the fifties into the eighties.  Among the gems will be ads for Papermate Pens, Skippy Peanut Butter, Stripe Toothpaste,  7-Up, Levis, lots of breakfast cereals (including The Jackson Five for Alpha Bits), beer, wine coolers, hair care products, and much, much much more.

Wednesday March 14   70's Animation    Trust Mr. Nyback to not just show Groovy Goolies and Friends in this show, although they will be in it.  There will also be Shamus Culhane's excellent Professor Kitzel,  the spooky The Ghost in the Shed, and others. Thursday   March 15   35mm Animation from the fifties into the nineties.  Venue to be announced.