CHILDISH THINGS

I have always 'tried' (largely at my late Mother's relentless insistence) to remember the words of St. Paul in writing to the Corinthians: "When I became a man, I put away childish things." But some 'childish things' seem just as irresistible today as they would have been When I Was Very Young... 

 

For example, I haven't bought a 'soft toy' (even those maturely branded 'collectibles') – for years, but this Disney Double-Act is pretty inviting! However, these 'stuffies' will only mean anything if you know the 1963 Disney animated film The Sword in the Stone which features a wizards' duel between Merlin and the sorceress, Madam Mim.

 

During their battle, both combatants take on an assortment of outrageously matched magical transformations –– Mim as a purple alligator, fox, chicken, elephant, tiger, cobra and rhinoceros, while Merlin assumes the likeness of a blue tortoise, rabbit, caterpillar, walrus, crab and goat. At the climax of the duel, Merlin becomes a mouse confronting Mim as a dragon before Merlin delivers the coup de grâce –– no spoilers; go watch the movie!

 

So here they are: Mim as Dragon and Merlin as Mouse – with an appropriately dragon-singed tail. 

 

According to the Disney Shop's online blurb the products' safety rating is 'Suitable from birth', which I guess must include 74 year olds...

 

Yes...?

 

No...?

 

SHUT UP, Mother!

 

 

HUCK AMUCK

When we were packing up for our temporary move, I uncovered this gem – another of those lost treasures of childhood replaced, much later, following a dedicated rummage through the contents of an antique emporium –– aka junk shop!

This Marx bagatelle was a licensed product tied-in with the 1958 Hanna-Barbera TV series, The Huckleberry Hound Show.

The show was truly groundbreaking: its economic look challenging the traditional Disney animation style and it was the first cartoon programme to receive an Emmy.

But the fact that this toy so prominently features Huck's co-star, Yogi Bear, is an indication that The Huckleberry Hound Show was but a precursor to the far more popular The Yogi Bear Show which followed in 1961. Just as the stardom of Disney's Mickey Mouse was eventually eclipsed by Donald Duck, so the Hound was fairy swiftly deposed by the Bear.

Nevertheless, to Huck goes the glory of having introduced the world to a new pantheon of cartoon stars including – in addition to Yogi (and his side-kick, Boo Boo), Pixie and Dixie and Mr Jinks – the likes of Hokey Wolf (and Ding-A-Ling), Quick Draw McGraw, Snagglepuss, The Flintstones, Top Cat, The Jetsons, Johnny Quest, Wally Gator, Magilla Gorilla, Atom Ant, Secret Squirrel, Shaggy and Scooby-Doo...

I still vividly remember the week in which The Huckleberry Hound Show debuted on British TV. As a nine-year old lad with an obsessive love of cartoons, I was beside myself with excitement to find that the TV Times contained an article about the show and its creators, William ('Bill') Hanna and Joseph ('Joe') Barbera, and line drawings of the cast of characters.

I spent the next few days copying these characters onto a sketchpad I had been given for my birthday. It was at this moment (rather than after watching all those Disney films I loved to distraction) that I formed the ambition (never realised) to become an animator.

My mother was appalled: wasting good drawing paper was bad enough, it was the waste of time that she really objected to. I should probably have been buckling down to my homework, certainly I was well and truly ticked off: 'You don't seriously think that drawing cartoons is ever going to get you job, do you?'

Well, that was true - it didn't! But I have spent a good many years writing, broadcasting and speaking about the art of animation, so perhaps the time wasn't entirely wasted!

Anyway, here – for nostalgia's sake – are the opening credits to The Huckleberry Hound Show – including the top-and-tailing sequences featuring the show's USA sponsor, Kellogg's (and their trade-mark Cockerel), that us British kids never saw...

As Huck would say in his Southern drawl: 'Be seein' y'all!"

 

ROBIN AND THE CROWE

Tonight on the Radio 2 Arts Show (around 10:30 pm), I'll be talking with Claudia Winkleman about 100 years of Robin Hood on film and reviewing the latest exploits of everybody's favourite outlaw as portrayed by the gladiator from Down Under: Russell Crowe...

Like King Arthur and Sherlock Holmes, every generation acquires its own Robin Hood: Douglas Fairbanks, Errol Flynn, Richard Todd, Sean Connery, Kevin Costner or their small screen counterparts like Richard Greene (right) who, in ITV's The Adventures of Robin Hood between 1955-1960, started my obsession with men in tights!

With a band of outlaws who included Archie Duncan as Little John, Alexander Guage as Friar Tuck and Bernadette O'Farrell (and later Patricia Driscoll) as Maid Marian and with cameos from such later-film-and-TV-stars as Robert Shaw, Patrick Troughton, Jane Asher, Leo McKern, Joan Sims, Paul Eddington, Harry H Corbett and Wilfred Brambell, Greene swashbuckled his way through 145 episodes of wrong-righting and derring-do.

The theme song was on every kid's lips, mine included...

Those 30-minute black-and-white adventures so fired my imagination (and those of my contemporaries) that Robin Hood became our chief playtime game at primary school which, since I was then living in what was comparative countryside, meant that we played it among the trees, bushes and undergrowth of the un-walled, un-gated school grounds. Those were the days...

I have to admit that I was instrumental in organising these games: devising scenarios and designating roles and it tells you a lot about me that I cast myself not as Robin Hood but as the Sheriff of Nottingham!

With my school mac thrown over my shoulders and buttoned under the chin to form a cloak, I modelled my portrayal on that of Alan Wheatley who played Richard Greene's nemesis with a cold, softly-spoken sneering menace that also had about it, I now realise, more than a touch of theatrical camp!


My prize possessions, aged 6, were my collection of Robin Hood sweet cigarette cards and my first Robin Hood Annual. Although the latter was long ago lost (when my late mother purged my annuals and gave them to a cousin) I can still turn the pages in my mind's-eye.

As for my set of plastic Robin Hood figures collected from packets of Kellogg's cereal (and equally thoughtlessly disposed of), they were so precious that when, a year or two back, a set turned up in a book-dealer's catalogue, I simply had to buy them...

I can't help wondering of Russell's Robin will remain in the memories of a generation in the same way as did my man in Lincoln Greene?

If you miss my chat about the various Robins in the 'hood, you can catch it again for a week on the BBC's i-player.

Image of Robin Hood figurines © Brian Sibley 2010, uploaded from my flickr Photostream.

A TASTE O' THE CAT

As some of you may know, I'm rather keen on Cheshire Cats and especially the one who regularly appears (and disappears) in Walt Disney's 1951 film version of Alice in Wonderland. For proof of this obsession (madness isn't stroing enough a word!) see here and various other elsewheres!


Back in 2006, I blogged about an art exhibition devoted to the film feline which included a series of Disney cats customised by contemporary artists, like this Spanish puss by Irene Garcia...


Well, the vinyl figure which provided the basis for those interpretations is now being commercially marketed - presumably as a result of the inexplicable wave of popularity which keeps the tedious Pirates of the Caribbean film franchise afloat - as a PIRATE!

These buccaneering moggies come decked out in a stripped sailor shirt and sporting anchor tattoos, an eye-patch and a gold tooth...


Oh, yes, and - underneath - one wooden leg!


Actually, if the Cheshire Cat became a crew member of the Black Pearl, I might almost be tempted to endure the forthcoming Pirates of the Caribbean 4.

Then again.........


I'll leave you with first encounter between Alice (spoken for by Kathryn Beaumont) and the Cheshire Cat in the film during which the crazy character (voiced by Sterling Holloway) sings the opening verse of that Looking Glass ballad, 'Jabberwocky'...

JOURNEY INTO THE THIRD DIMENSION

Mentioning View-Master 3D slides the other day set me thinking about the toy that was so much a part of my '50s/'60s childhood and, in particular, those recreated scenes from Disney animated features that I loved almost as much as the films themselves...

Of course, that probably seems rather childish, but it should be remembered that we are talking about a time that was not only before DVDs, but before videos!

As a Disney-nerd, I could only see the studio's classics when they were re-released at the cinema (at roughly seven years intervals) or when clips were occasionally screened on TV (in black and white) on compilations shows.

Being obsessed, I collected books and records that had still photographs from the films and - once I'd discovered shops that sold them - sets of the advertising lobby cards that used to be displayed outside cinema marques.


The View-Master slides were the next best thing - and, in a way, better even than stills from the films because they were in 3D!


The story of View-Master is a fascinating one dating back to it's launch at the 1939 as a souvenir of the New York World's Fair and, quaint though it now seems, there really was a time when seeing a 3D image of a giraffe on the African veldt projected onto your living room wall was quite a thing...

Click on image to enlarge

I yearned for - but never had - one of View-Master's 'Give-a-Show Projectors', [and, as you'll see from the comments below, they weren't called 'Give-a-Show' (they were something else) and they didn't actually project in 3D], but I did spend a lot of time viewing my Disney movie slides and those of Disneyland: the Californian Never Never Land that, at the time, I could only ever dream of visiting...


Just like being there...

Well, no, not quite! After all, none of us would have taken a photo of the castle with the spires chopped off and the scene generally cluttered up with an ice-cream cart and a load of bloody tourists!

However, the addition of Disney titles to the range of slides undoubtedly helped popularise View-Master by widening the repertoire of subjects from the instructional and educational to pure entertainment. And where Disney led, others followed and there were soon numerous popular sets featuring most of the top TV shows (The Munsters, Flipper, Batman and so on) as well as other cartoon characters such as Yogi Bear and The Flintstones...


And yes, I did buy The Flintstones set (well, it had dinosaurs in it, didn't it?) although it was chiefly the Disney sets that made a monthly dent in my pocket-money.

Some, like Jungle Book (left) accompanied newly-released movies, others were based on the back-catalogue of Disney classics such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Bambi, and Peter Pan.

But, as a Disney completist they all had to be collected!

These are just a few of my favourite slides...








What was so remarkable about these slides based on animated films and TV series was that the selected scenes were built as models based on stills from the originals and then photographed with 3D cameras.



Much of the art work in the early years was by and Florence Thomas, whose models were carefully hand sculpted and painted and who appeared on many TV shows in response to public interest in View-Master.

Here she is working on a scene from Walt Disney's 1963 film, The Sword in the Stone....


The attention to detail is exceptional - the books and paraphernalia cluttering Merlin's cottage, the miniature tea-things and the fact that Wart is in mid-fall from the hole in the thatch to a chair at the tea-table!

Florence Thomas' assistant was Joe Liptak who went on to be one of the best View-Master artists, creating the models for most of the the Disney sets. Here he is posing with one of his scenes from the 1953 feature Peter Pan which - like a lot of scenes from that film - included flying effects...


And here is Joe again, some years later, constructing a set based on a scene from the animated version of Robin Hood with the leonine Prince John and his sibilant, serpentine sidekick, Sir Hiss. One gets an idea from this photo of how much work went into creating just one of the twenty-one slides from a particular set...


And here's the finished scene (revealing that the above photo has, in fact, been flipped!) courtesy of Tim Hodge of Bald Melon who left a comment and link below...


There are a couple more View-Master slides (this time from Jungle Book) on a post blogged by Tim last year along with the following instructions on how to see them in 3D without the aid of a viewer...

"To view them in stereo, you will have to use the 'cross-eyed' method. That is, cross your eyes until you can see three images instead of just two. Then the center image should pop out in 3D. It takes some practice if you've never done it before."

Thanks, Tim! I got it! What's more it works on those earlier Disneyland castle photos!

So, there you have my unashamed paean to View-Masters! Of course, like all nostalgia items, the appeal of the View-Master slides is less to do with what they are than what they were --- once upon a time...

***

Apart from using Tim's cross-eyed system you can get a sense of how good (or not!) the View-Master 3D effect was by visiting What My Dad Saw: scroll down to 'Labels' on the right-hand side-bar and click on 'View Master' which will allow you to view Batman and Flintstones slides --- with movement effect!

And you can find out lots more information about all kinds of 3D from the 3D Center of Art and Photography in Portland, Oregon, which city was, for many years, the home of View-Master.

Images: 'Ode to View-Master' (top left) by iloyd; Captain Hook and Tink slide from Kerry Callen's Blog; Flintstones slide from What My Dad Saw; all other slides from various contributors to flickr

ACTIONS NOT WORDS

Budge up Barbie!

Shove over Cindy!

At last, the perfect toy for bookish tots and blue-stockings-to-be has arrived...

Click to enlarge

"I profess myself one of hose who consider intervals of recreation and amusement as desirable for everybody..."

- Jane Austen Pride & Prejudice

PUSS-ABILITIES

Our friend Sophie was having a bit of a clear out the other week, prior to major building work being undertaken on her house.

In the process of the purge, various knick-knacks and gee-gaws that had entered the category of 'clutter' were being tossed into the waiting maw of a Black Rubbish Sack. And among the casualties were three little kittens! True, they were made of wood, but even so... It was just too inhuman to contemplate. So, obviously, I was forced to save them and give them shelter.

So, here they are, sitting on the fence, and inviting you to enter our latest...

CA(P)TION COM-PET-ITION

Send us your ideas of Which Cat is saying What to Who? Deadline for entries: Friday 18th April.

Usual Terms and conditions apply!

ARKOHOLICS ANONYMOUS

As you may have gathered from earlier posts, I have something of an ark fetish and, as result, a large collection of items that might be classified as objet d'ark!

One of my favourite pieces is a Harmony Kingdom multi-compartment box entitled 'Noah's Lark'.



Created by Peter Calvesbert in 1995, 'Noah's Lark' is home to 103 creatures including Noah who is seen sunbathing on the roof, watched by a pair of hungry vultures! A beaver is chomping on the shingles (elsewhere gophers have gnawed a hole in the side) while the lone frog is blissfully unaware that its companion is now inside the snake!


Meanwhile, inside the boat, Mrs Noah, Ham, Shem, Japhet and their wives are whiling away the time with a game of Monopoly...


It is, I think amazing how the Noah's Ark romance endures and toy arks remain solidly in vogue - even among those who probably wouldn't rate the Judeo-Christian story of 'The Flood' as anything other than myth.

Anyway, if - like me - you are a confirmed (or even a suspected) arkoholic - or just really miss the one you had when you were a tot - then there's good, if costly, news for you...

Gunther Keil's Wild Apples workshop ("Situated in the heart of New York State's Finger Lakes region." Where else?) has been creating wooden toys for more than 30 years and specializes in wooden animals and Noah's Arks using local hardwoods including cherry, oak and walnut.

This one's a mere $108...


Although the stand with the ramp to walk the animals up and down - "Hurry up tortoises, there are grumpy rhinos further back!" - is an extra $37!

This is the 'Play Ark', though at $195, play will probably require fairly stringent supervision...

And there is also this deluxe model - the 'Heirloom Ark', no less! - which comes in (or sails off) at $238...


To be fair, that price does include 20 pairs of animals and if that's not enough wildlife for you, you can always buy an additional nine pairs of animals (that, presumably, would have otherwise been left behind!) for another $40!

Finally, one of my regular blog-commenters, EUDORA, sent me this Noah's Ark cartoon showing the perils of taking a woodpecker on board!


The artist is unknown to me, but if he or she (or anyone else) can tell me, I will happily give credit where credit is due...

CRACKING UP!

So, what was going on in those strange pictures of shocking disasters which I published on yesterday's blog?

GILL was the first reader to correctly guess, e-mailing to ask: "Are these from the famous 'crack in the floor' (can't remember what it is really called) in the Tate Modern?"

Following which ANDY J LATHAM commented: "Those tragedies CRACKED me up Brian! Speaking of tragedies, that wouldn't happen to be the Tate Modern would it? Oooooooo!"

While PHIL was bold enough to say what, doubtless, many have thought: "Isn't that the rather silly crack in the floor of the Tate Modern, which is being passed of as art? And which several people have rather foolishly fallen into?"

Well, yes, Phil it is; and, yes, Andy it would; and, yes Gill, they are!

In fact, these iconoclastic additions to a modern work of art were temporarily (and somewhat impertinently!) added to Doris Salcedo's Shibboleth (that's what it's really called, Gill): a lengthy crack that has opened in the floor of the Turbine Hall of London's Tate Modern like a localized earthquake...


Here's how the Tate's exhibition-notes describe this installation - or, perhaps, 'intervention' would be a better word:

Doris Salcedo’s Shibboleth is the first work to intervene directly in the fabric of the Turbine Hall. Rather than fill this iconic space with a conventional sculpture or installation, Salcedo has created a subterranean chasm that stretches the length of the Turbine Hall. The concrete walls of the crevice are ruptured by a steel mesh fence, creating a tension between these elements that resist yet depend on one another.

By making the floor the principal focus of her project, Salcedo dramatically shifts our perception of the Turbine Hall’s architecture, subtly subverting its claims to monumentality and grandeur. Shibboleth asks questions about the interaction of sculpture and space, about architecture and the values it enshrines, and about the shaky ideological foundations on which Western notions of modernity are built.

In particular, Salcedo is addressing a long legacy of racism and colonialism that underlies the modern world. A ‘shibboleth’ is a custom, phrase or use of language that acts as a test of belonging to a particular social group or class. By definition, it is used to exclude those deemed unsuitable to join this group.

"The history of racism", Salcedo writes, "runs parallel to the history of modernity, and is its untold dark side". For hundreds of years, Western ideas of progress and prosperity have been underpinned by colonial exploitation and the withdrawal of basic rights from others. Our own time, Salcedo is keen to remind us, remains defined by the existence of a huge socially excluded underclass, in Western as well as post-colonial societies.

In breaking open the floor of the museum, Salcedo is exposing a fracture in modernity itself. Her work encourages us to confront uncomfortable truths about our history and about ourselves with absolute candidness, and without self-deception.

Yes... Well, I'm not altogether sure I understand some of that, but I really like the way Shibboleth begins as nothing more than a hair-line crack - scarcely more than a scratch on the surface - and then splits open and widens and deepens as it snakes down the length of the Hall.


At first glance it looks like a candidate for such comments as Phil's observation (above) or "Is it art, demolition work, or Act of God?" But what is fascinating about Shibboleth is that it really does look as if it were a crack that has split open and even though quite a lot of flooring material has been removed in order to create the fissure, the edges of each side of the excavated area are so perfectly matched - from the tiniest wriggle to the most sharply-angled bend, as to suggest that if the two edges could somehow be pushed back together, they would fit with jig-saw precision.

Like many installations, Shibboleth is also about the relationship between 'art' and 'spectator' and much of the fascination with viewing the work is in terms of viewing how people react to it: lying down to peer into its depths, stepping back and forth across it as if they were giants passing to and fro over the Grand Canyon, even now and again - as Phil noted - falling into it under the mistaken assumption that must be painted onto the floor rather than carved into it!

And, of course, there's always a chance that you might be able to photograph a curious little fellow...


...photographing Dinky cars, LEGO men and assorted plastic wildlife in scenes of Lilliputian tragedy!


Images: Brian Sibley & David Weeks, © 2007

SOUL-MATE

This is beginning to feel very S P O O K Y...

When, the day before yesterday, I blogged a post about my chosen 'daemon' from the world of The Golden Compass (or, rather, the world wide web version of it), it was called Aleone and was in the form of a RAVEN: it was, honest!

And, see, I can prove it because they sent me a picture of Aleone in an e-mail...


But, if you take a look NOW, you'll; see that Aleone has shape-shifted into some simian creature! Or, at least, it had the last time I looked...

Forgive my mentioning it, but when I invited blog-friends to help get my daemon into shape, I hadn't quite expected them to make a monkey out of me!

[Actually, I just checked and, apparently, it's a marmoset - but that doesn't make quite as good a joke as a monkey!]

In Philip Pullman's books, people's daemons start out as flexible beings - able to take on a variety of forms when a person is a child and only settling into a permanent shape on reaching adulthood. In the case of The Golden Compass website, however, that youthful state of flux only lasts for twelve days.

So, we'll just have to keep an eye on what's going on and hope I don't end up as a slug...

Meanwhile, as is the all-pervasive way with movie franchises, it seems that daemons can sometimes take on the form of... er... stuffed toys!

Here's Mrs Coulter's Golden Monkey daemon...


...and Lord Asriel's Snow Leopard, Stelmaria...


...as marketed ($35 each) by F A O Schwarz.

And no doubt collectors of character dolls will be pleased to know that Mrs C and Lord A are also available - at $200 and $160 respectively...



Wow! I bet Barbie and Ken don't have daemons ---- yet!