Gregory Duffell - July 14th 1999
Ben Washam did a lot of animation in Hare-abian Nights, especially of Bugs. Harris did the Arabian guy who introduces the various acts. Harris' brother worked in the oil business in the Middle East and told Ken about desert life. The flies that surround the Thief's head in "Cobbler and the Thief" were inspired by Ken remembering his brother telling him that flies did that to him when he was working there.
octobus - Dec 13th 1998
Greg Duffell - Dec 14th 1998
I had a meeting (about an unrelated topic) with Jean Macurdy in the fall of 1990. Ms. Macurdy is the head of Warner Brothers Television Animation today, as she was then. In the course of our meeting she mentioned that she had been sent over to London by Warner Brothers to check out what was going on. Warners was backing the film at that point.
I told her I had worked on the film in the 1970's and I was curious as to what things were still in the film. I mentioned a scene that Ken Harris had animated of a brigand talking about his love for Salome.
IN this scene, a snake swirled around , while there was a "crane shot" slowly moving around the brigand as he spoke. Harris, who completed the scene while in the US as his "homework", told me that it was so difficult, it almost killed him...and he was serious!
Macurdy then told me the most startling thing. She said she'd just seen that part of the film in RUSHES....in PENCIL TEST!! Dick had said that it had JUST been completed. If true, this would mean that Dick might have been making so little progress on the film, he was digging into the pencil tests from almost two decades ago in order to boost the weekly footage count.
octobus - Dec 13th 1998
It isn't clear if you're referring to the 1992 workprint or not. I remember older posts from you and if I'm not mistaken you left the studio in the mid 70's? A great deal of work followed. Even the workprint that circulates is missing the Cobbler's battle with Zigzag's dragon at the climax. An animator has mentioned how dreadful it was to draw all of it's scales in repetition.
Greg Duffell - Dec 14th 1998
I had a meeting (about an unrelated topic) with Jean Macurdy in the fall of 1990. Ms. Macurdy is the head of Warner Brothers Television Animation today, as she was then. In the course of our meeting she mentioned that she had been sent over to London by Warner Brothers to check out what was going on. Warners was backing the film at that point.
I told her I had worked on the film in the 1970's and I was curious as to what things were still in the film. I mentioned a scene that Ken Harris had animated of a brigand talking about his love for Salome.
IN this scene, a snake swirled around , while there was a "crane shot" slowly moving around the brigand as he spoke. Harris, who completed the scene while in the US as his "homework", told me that it was so difficult, it almost killed him...and he was serious!
Macurdy then told me the most startling thing. She said she'd just seen that part of the film in RUSHES....in PENCIL TEST!! Dick had said that it had JUST been completed. If true, this would mean that Dick might have been making so little progress on the film, he was digging into the pencil tests from almost two decades ago in order to boost the weekly footage count.