Roland (Doc) Crandall - Part 2

'The Adventures of Popeye' - 1935 (re-use animation clip)

'The Adventures of Popeye' - 1935 (re-use animation clip)

'The Spinach Overature' - 1935

'Vim, Vigor and Vitaliky' - 1936

'A Clean Shaven Man' - 1936

'Brotherly Love' - 1936

'Bridge Ahoy' - 1936

'What - No Spinach?' - 1936

'Never Kick a Woman' - 1936

'Little Swee'pea' - 1936

Sometime around mid 1936 Crandall was promoted to head animator/de facto director and given his own unit. He vacated that position sometime in 1940 resuming a position as animator - his last work on a Popeye cartoon appeared in 'Popeye Presents Eugene the Jeep' in 1940.


'Shakespearian Spinach' - 1940

'Popeye Presents Eugene the Jeep' - 1940

8 Important Lessons Learned from '80s Cartoons

We'd like to point out that we're aware of the fact that some of the cartoons listed below did not originate in the '80s. However, they were on during the '80s, that's when we watched them, so they're '80s cartoons to us. It's like when we refer to bedwetting as "late '90s behavior." Without further ado...

CARTOON: The Smurfs
LESSON: Communism works!
For naysayers who point to the Former Soviet Union as proof that communism is inherently flawed, may we merely direct your attention to Smurf Village, where everyone shares everything, wears similar utilitarian clothing, battles Gargamel and his turn-Smurfs-to-gold get rich quick schemes and obeys the dictates of a bearded, red hat-wearing, benevolent authority figure. Quoth Comrade Papa: “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.” Really, he actually said that.
How it affected us as adults: Secret communist agendas ceased being dangerous, or really any adjective of consequence, years ago. The worst thing communism does these days is make Ivy League students waste a couple of years wearing ugly clothes and attending boring meetings. However, the sexual politics of Smurf Village, with its one female for every 30 guys, did go a long way towards preparing us for freshman year of college.

CARTOON: Popeye
LESSON: Spinach is good for you.
Sure, it doesn’t taste as good as candy, ice cream or opium, but it’s full of essential vitamins and minerals that’ll make your muscles explode like battleship cannons. If you want to triumph over the bullying Blutos of the world and win the affections of your own lovely, leggy Olive Oyl, pound a can of spinach at least once a day. Or put it in your corncob pipe and smoke it, like everybody’s favorite ornery, mumbling sailorman. Toot toot!
How it affected us as adults: You only need to look at the steroid scandal rocking Major League Baseball to see that Popeye raised a generation that is willing to use performance enhancers. Also, it should be pointed out that Olive Oyl was the first anorexic sex symbol.

CARTOON: G.I. Joe
LESSON: Knowing is half the battle.
The other half of the battle is kicking Cobra’s terrorist ass. And with the coolest soldier codenames ever --Snake Eyes, Duke, Lady Jaye, Shipwreck-- winning the war on terror should be no problem. Good will always win out over evil, because good guys work together (Team Work! Cooperation!), while bad guys are ruthless cowards who turn tail and run whenever G.I. Joe’s laser guns get to zappin’. As Sergeant Slaughter once said: “Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people and neither do we.”
Now that’s some good strategery.
How it affected us as adults: Actually, we’re pretty certain that our strategy for the Iraq War was conceived after a two day long G.I. Joe marathon in the Pentagon. They just implicitly trusted that the good guys were going to win, that firing off our guns would make the bad guys run for the caves and that giving everyone cute nicknames was somehow endearing. When things didn’t turn out the way they’d planned, the administration placed the blame on faulty intelligence, or in other words: “Knowing is half the battle, and we unfortunately didn’t know shit.”

CARTOON: Scooby Doo
LESSON: Trust no one.
Those phantoms in the fog are actually malevolent hicks, dressed up as ghosts to scare you off their spooky farm. That monster hiding in the attic is actually old man McGee, trying to find the treasure buried in the floorboards. And that happy-go-lucky frat boy, Fred, is actually a bloodthirsty killer. Don’t turn your back on him. Or the girls. Or your dog
…Or maybe we’ve just been spending too much time in the Mystery Machine, and got a little contact high paranoia. Hey, it happens. You want a Scooby Snack? Yeah, it is dog food. So what? You’re really harshing my mellow man. What are you, a narc?
How it affected us as adults: We can’t be certain, but it would appear that our habit of, upon being dumped, grabbing hold of our ex-girlfriends’ chin and yanking upward, started with this show.

CARTOON: He-Man
LESSON: It’s OK to be gay.
Look at this guy: golden locks cut in a tasteful bob, buff biceps, tanned, toned, hairless torso, a magic sword and most importantly, fabulous powers. What’s more, He-Man invites his handsome friends, the Masters of the Universe, to come hang out in his castle anytime. Of course Skeletor and his fugly cohorts are never allowed access to the secrets of He-Man’s dark, dry palace.
Yes, we had He-Man toys, like Ram-Man, Trap-Jaw and even Castle Grayskull. We also had a favorite pair of tighty whiteys that had He-Man on one cheek and Skeletor on the other, battling over our asshole. But did merely owning and wearing that underwear make us gay?
How it affected us as adults: As regards the above question, it’s a very complex matter, but in a word: yes. (For more on depictions of homosexuality in '80s cartoons, please see Care Bears.)

CARTOON: Jem
LESSON: Grrrls rock!
OK, this was more our sister’s show, but we certainly watched it on more than one occasion, and learned that chicks with guitars and magic earrings kick ass. Jem is a sexy feminist living every young girl’s dream: music executive by day and rock star by night. She has it all: a bubblegum pop band called The Holograms, a boyfriend in love with both her and her alter ego and, for some reason, a foster home for orphans. In addition to teaching us how much grrrls rock, Jem also taught us that love triangles between only two people are often messy, confusing and potentially hilarious.
What? You’ve never seen Jem? Oh. Neither have we.
How it affected us as adults: Let’s just say the matching restraining orders filed against us by Debbie Gibson and Joan Jett didn’t happen on their own.

CARTOON: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
LESSON: April O’Neil is really hot.
She’s got red hair, wears a sexy yellow jumpsuit and gets down with anthropomorphic pizza-fiends. Most girls want nothing to do with dudes that live in the sewers, but not April O’Neil. She doesn’t even mind hanging with that old man-rat wearing a pink kimono! This girl is a freak, for real. I’ve got one word for you dude: cowabunga. Cowabunga that chick in your underground lair all night long.
How it affected us as adults: Mistakenly thought our girlfriend would be cool with it if we called them dude, ate nothing but pizza and wore a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle mask during sex.

CARTOON: Transformers
LESSON: If we’re not careful, robots will kill us all.
This is a humbling lesson for any child to learn, but an easy one to accept, considering Transformers was one of the coolest cartoons of the '80s. Would the Unabomber have renounced his violent ways if he were to witness the sheer stunning spectacle that is Grimlock? Hard to say, since he didn’t have a TV. But we will tell you one thing: when machines replace humans at the top of the food chain, we’ll be standing on the sidelines, waving our Autobot flag with fervent pride. Because, let’s face it, getting eaten by an alien car would suck.
How it affected us as adults: The reason we stay away from Priuses and make our TV wear a blindfold when we sleep at night.

Animation School lesson 1/ CONSTRUCTION/ The Head

WHY DO DRAWINGS FROM CLASSIC CARTOONS LOOK SO MUCH BETTER THAN ALL OTHER CARTOON DRAWINGS?

If you are a young cartoonist who wants to learn all the secrets of great cartooning, this is your lucky day.


I used to watch cartoons all the time growing up and buy all the comic books of the same characters to try to learn to draw in "animation style".
Even as a kid, though, I could see that the drawings of cartoon characters in comics and on puzzles, TV trays, Golden Books and other merchandise seemed to be not as perfect as the animated cartoon versions. Something was missing.


I met a guy named Pat Lahey when I was 11 who also drew cartoons and he was more advanced than me and it pissed me off. Then one day I was at his house while he was drawing something and he showed me the greatest thing ever-The Preston Blair Book.
It was the best day of my life!

Use PRINCIPLES to draw better:

I was used to drawing straight ahead - I'd start at the top of the drawing and work my way down, doing all the details as I went. The book explained a completely different way of drawing - drawing by using principles, and building your drawings up by drawing the forms first, and adding the details last - only after all the major forms made sense.

I can't stress this enough: If you are a young cartoonists and are serious about learning how to make cartoons look like REAL cartoons, then obey me now!

Because I'm going to not only tell you about the Preston Blair Book-but I'm gonna guide you through it, fundamental concept by fundamental concept.

Save money and learn it right

You can go to animation school, spend a $100,000 and not learn a damn thing about the basics of good animation drawing-OR you can buy a Preston Blair book for $8 and learn it all in a couple months. Make the sensible choice!

Just about every cartoon being made today is based on the principles and style of cartoons made in Hollywood in the 1940s - Anime, Cartoon Network flat stuff - even the Simpsons. The only difference is, that some of the principles that make the classic stuff look so good have since been lost. The new cartoons are all a degeneration of old cartoons - a superficial copy of them.
Many of the artists drawing today don't even know they are copying - but copying wrong - styles and trends and principles of what developed from the animated cartoons of the Golden Age.

So if you learn the principles correctly now - you will be able to draw in any style today. You'll be miserable having to dumb down your abilities once you get a job but you will be in demand.

Lesson 1 -CONSTRUCTION - THE HEAD

CONSTRUCTION is the most important concept you need to understand.
It's like sculpting your drawings.

Step 1-draw the form of your character first - a sphere, or a cranium or whatever the form looks like.

Step 2- Draw center lines through the form both vertically and horizontally-
wrap those lines around the form in the right place. Don't draw straight lines.
right through the center. Not to the side - be logical! DRAW SLOW AND CAREFULLY TO GET IT TO LOOK RIGHT.

WHAT ARE THE CENTER LINES FOR? not for decoration.

They are guide lines. We call them construction lines.
They help you place the features on the forms in the right place.
Place the eyes on either side of the line in the middle of the face.
This sounds so simple that you probably think -" what's so hard about that?"

Use CENTER LINES right - DON'T CHEAT!

- A lot of cartoonists see constructed drawings on cartoon "model-sheets" and think "Oh, I see a cartoon drawing has all these extra lines crawling all over them.

Then they draw their cartoon picture and after it's finished sneak the center lines on top of the already completed drawing.

Thus, everything ends up in the wrong place.

Think of your principles as tools to help you draw more sensibly. You wouldn't use your fist to drive a nail into a plank would you? No, you'd use a hammer. It's a lot faster, more accurate and easier. Drawing principles are your tool kit.

Now look at how great old model sheets were:

I know you want to be this good.
Start practicing drawing the right way and maybe some day you can work for me or any studio you like.