Bobe Cannon Reel

Bobe Cannon was one of the all-time great animators from the Golden Age. He did excellent and unique work for Tex Avery, Bob Clampett, John Hubley, and Chuck Jones; not too many other animators can boast a resume like that. For some reason, I rarely see him mentioned by anyone. It probably had to do with his death in 1964 than anything else.

That he kept his unique style in drawing, posing, and timing under such individualistic directors is even more amazing. I’ve long thought that that fact alone sort of exposed the misconception [lie] that all the Jones animators did was in-between his poses. Cannon’s animation of Daffy Duck for both Jones and Clampett gives the character a bit of naive mischievousness – the pigeon-toed walks really help put this across.

In the Jones cartoons, Cannon didn’t really have much of a grasp on ‘normal’ lip sync. This isn’t a dig, it’s just really obvious compared to the animation of Ken Harris or Ben Washam, who paid extreme attention to every tooth shown and every tongue flap. Cannon seemed more interested in how many ways he could get animate dialog without doing this.

I don’t think it’d be wise to attribute ‘smear’ animation solely to Cannon unless there are some on-record statements stating something to that effect from some of the other animators; several of them picked up on the technique during that time period (Harris, Virgil Ross, and Rod Scribner in particular). Given Cannon’s stylized approach to his work, it could be possible though.

This 17-minute reel is made up of his work from the 1930s and 1940s at Schlesinger’s/Warners, MGM, and UPA, following the trials and tribulations of mid-20th century superstars Bugs, Daffy, and Porky (and lesser-lights like Droopy, Spike, and the Fox and Crow).

Cannon had a fairly successful career directing shorts at UPA, the most popular of them being Gerald McBoing Boing. His shorts primarily had children as the central theme and characters, and they ranged from great (Wonder Gloves, Willie the Kid) to not-so-great (Christopher Crumpet, Madeline). Michael Sporn has shared some wonderful work of Cannon’s from Hubley’s Moonbird and I hope he has more to share from that period.

Clips taken from:
Hold the Lion Please (1942), Porky and Daffy (1938), The Magic Fluke (1949), Tom Turk and Daffy (1944), Rover’s Rival (1937), Out-Foxed (1949), Porky in Wackyland (1938), Hare Tonic (1945), The Dover Boys (1942), Senor Droopy (1949), The Daffy Doc (1938), Hare Conditioned (1945), Robin Hoodlum (1948), Super-Rabbit (1943), To Duck or Not to Duck (1943), Doggone Tired (1949), Odor-Able Kitty (1945), Wags to Riches (1949), Coming Home (1945)

8 Comments

Filed under classic animation

8 Responses to Bobe Cannon Reel

  1. (Maybe it’s just me, but that Super-Rabbit clip looks like Harris’ work).
    Another good ‘un! Now to get the Fox’s song out of my head…

  2. “For some reason, I rarely see him mentioned by anyone. It probably had to do with his death in 1964 than anything else.”

    Floyd Norman mentioned once that Cannon was set to work at Disney again right before his death.

  3. Matt Yorston

    Very good reel and excellent choice of clips. Cannon was a genius!

  4. Matt Yorston

    Anybody have any idea what caused Cannon’s sudden premature death in 1964?

  5. Wonderful reel, yet again. Bobe Cannon had some great animation in his work. My favorite bits were the scene in “Hare Conditioned” and Porky’s rage scene in “Tom Turk and Daffy”. I laughed out loud at those. Thank you for putting one up.

    BTW, who’s next on your list for animator reels?

  6. Just for the sake of suggesting, perhaps a Don Williams reel next time? Ray Patterson? Ben Washam?
    Any of those lucky guesses?

  7. J Lee

    Cannon’s history is funny in that he did such great work at Warners, MGM and Disney while at the same time he became less and less enamored with the work he was doing, as his story choices and animation styles once in the director’s chair at UPA showed (others like Bill Melendez claimed how happy they were to be working away from Warners at UPA due to the options it allowed, but Bobe’s post-Gerald work is the most obvious direct attack on the stuff Avery, Clampett and the post-1942 Chuck Jones was having him do).

  8. “Cannon’s history is funny in that he did such great work at Warners, MGM and Disney while at the same time he became less and less enamored with the work he was doing, as his story choices and animation styles once in the director’s chair at UPA showed (others like Bill Melendez claimed how happy they were to be working away from Warners at UPA due to the options it allowed, but Bobe’s post-Gerald work is the most obvious direct attack on the stuff Avery, Clampett and the post-1942 Chuck Jones was having him do).”

    That’s too bad. I guess that stems from his personality. From what I’ve read about him (and this comes from reading Michael Barrier’s book), he didn’t like conflict. However, that’s what the cartoons at Disney, MGM, WB, almost every other animation studio out there had in their cartoons. He must have been really uncomfortable doing those cartoons. I wonder if he preferred the pre-1942 Chuck Jones work.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Please Do the Math