Imaginary Worlds - Noble Effort

Episode Date: February 11, 2016

In 2013, I co-produced this episode of 99% Invisible with Roman Mars about Maurice Noble, the artist who created many of the background (or "layouts") in Warner Brothers cartoons of the 1950s and '60s. Noble's work was revolutionary, but it got lost in the spotlight as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and other Looney Tunes became cultural icons. But the next generation of artists recognized his genius and the society of "Noble Boys" (and girls) started to put his ideas into use at Pixar and elsewhere. With Tod Polson, Scott Morse and Bob McKinnon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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You're listening to Imaginary Worlds. I'm Eric Malinsky. Now, I know a lot of you discovered this podcast when Roman Mars played my episode about superhero costume designs on his show, 99% Visible. If you're not familiar with his podcast, it's about architecture and design, but the show really kind of delves into all the creative decisions that made the world look like the way it looks. You know, all the things we take for granted that once upon a time were much-needed design solutions. So a few years ago, I pitched this idea to them of doing a story about Maurice Noble, who is the guy that designed backgrounds for Looney Tunes cartoons. He is a legend in the animation world, but virtually unknown outside of people who are hardcore Looney Tunes fans or actually worked in animation. And I'd like to play that episode now because it fits really well into my show, Imaginary Worlds, about how we create them and why we suspend our disbelief. So, without further ado, here's that episode. This is 99% Invisible. I'm Roman Mars.

If you grew up watching Warner Brothers cartoons, and I really, really hope you did, you might remember seeing the words, directed by Chuck Jones, in big letters in the opening credits. Chuck Jones worked for decades on cartoons like Looney Tunes from the 1930s until his death in 2002. In addition to being a director, he was also an animator. He gave Bugs Bunny that cocky slouch. He gave Daffy Duck those mischievous eyes. I think Bugs Bunny's more mischievous. Daffy Duck is insane.

He made a mute Wile E. Coyote hold up signs that commented on the sad irony of his cartoon life. In 1996, Jones accepted an Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement. Well, I stand guilty before the world of directing over 300 cartoons in the last 50 or 60 years. Hopefully, this means you've forgiven me. of directing over 300 cartoons in the last 50 or 60 years. Hopefully, this means you've forgiven me. Chuck Jones is the name most people remember when they think about those cartoons. But I want to talk about another guy, an artist who worked with Chuck Jones, a guy who wasn't just important to Looney Tunes. He changed the entire art of animation.

Yeah, the amazing thing about this guy is that he never drew Bugs Bunny or Elmer Fudd or Yosemite Sam or any of those characters. He drew the backgrounds behind those characters. So if you think of like, have you ever seen Duck Dodgers in the 24th and a half century? Duck Dodgers in the 24th and a half century! Daffy Duck lands on this weird futuristic planet. Daffy Duck lands on this weird futuristic planet. Or, you know, the Roadrunner cartoons, that jagged, bright, abstract desert. That is the work of Maurice Noble.

Here helping us tell this story is reporter Eric Malinsky. Hey. Eric used to work in animation as a storyboard artist on The Rugrats and a couple of other cartoons for Nickelodeon. Yeah, late 90s, early 2000s. So, break down for us what the layout artist does in the whole animation process. All right. Well, so today, like in a TV show, you would start out with a script. Or in the case of Looney Tunes, they'd start drawing story sketches to figure out the gags and the camera angles and stuff.

And then before the animation starts, the background designer or layout artist has the first crack at drawing this world. And those drawings are then later painted in by someone else. But, you know, a layout artist like Maurice Noble, who's really accomplished, would actually have a say in the color choices as well. And so this is actually really important. So imagine you're watching a cartoon and, you know, the layout or the, you know, the background is sometimes the first image that you see. It just pops on screen for a second. And your brain needs to instantly register where you are and what mood you're supposed to feel. So, like, you know, let's say you're watching a Roadrunner cartoon.

You cut to this big boulder that's perched on top of a really high, narrow cliff. You're going to immediately feel dread for the coyote. high, narrow cliff. You're going to immediately feel dread for the coyote. So the layout artist is kind of like the straight man in the comedy duo, setting up the gag for the animator who gets to be, you know, the funny guy. Right. And they don't get much credit. I mean, they're literally in the background. They're creating this painstaking work of art before somebody else plops their drawings right on top of it. So you have to keep your ego in check. it. So you have to keep your ego in check. Maurice Noble spent most of his career working for Warner Brothers, but he didn't start out doing wacky cartoons. As a young man,

he wanted to be a fine artist, painting desert landscapes. When he graduated art school, Maurice found work at Walt Disney Studios. His first job was painting an apple. And he said it was very sort of a tedious process, a very exacting process of just putting the colors down gradually to match. You know, he didn't think so at the moment, but it was definitely hampering him creatively. This is Bob McKinnon, who wrote a biography of Maurice Noble. He says that even though Disney feature films had these really realistic and subtle backgrounds, you know, you see every leaf on a tree or the shine on a doorknob.

Maurice felt like he was slumming it, squandering his talent on commercial art. In 1941, Disney Studios was torn apart by a strike. The artist wanted to create a union, and Walt took the walkout very, very personally. When it was over, he got rid of anyone associated with the strike, including Maurice Noble. I think if the strike had not happened, he said he would have had a job for a lifetime at Disney. I think he would have stayed there forever. But Maurice wasn't unemployed for long. World War II broke out and he was drafted into a unit that made propaganda films featuring a cartoon character named Private Snafu.

If you are a boob, you will be trapped. Yeah, which the hell you'd shut up? I ain't no boob and I won't be trapped. As you can probably tell from that film clip, which has the very distinct voice of Mel Blanc in it, the propaganda film crew was full of people from Warner Brothers, including Chuck Jones. So I also talked with Todd Paulson, who's working on a book about Maurice's artwork,

and he says Maurice found their style to be liberating. You know, everybody that was involved with those films for the army definitely were able to finally express themselves. And then after the war, they got Maurice a job working at Warner Brothers. He says, I was sweating, he said. No one knew how little he knew about that particular end of the business. And according to him,

he was flying by the seat of his pants. I mean, he had done layouts before, but I mean, they were cranking out something like 30 short films per year. And just to give you a sense of how crazy that is. So today, you know, or at least when I worked in TV, you know, we would ship our storyboards to Korea. Today, they would probably just, you know, email them to Korea where, you know, or at least when I worked in TV, you know, we would ship our storyboards to Korea. Today, they would probably just, you know, email them to Korea where, you know, cheaper labor will fill in the animation.

Or you could use a computer-based program like Flash to speed up the workflow. And that's just to make 22 episodes for a season. These guys are doing more work and doing it all by hand. Unlike that first painstakingly realistic apple that he painted for Disney, Maurice Noble comes to embrace the idea that backgrounds should be flatter and more cartoonish, more like the characters. Yeah, I mean, like another example would be Jungle Book. I mean, going back to Disney, it's one of my favorite movies because the animation is totally amazing and it matches so beautifully the voices of those actors. But I've always been bothered by the fact

that the characters are kind of flat and 2D, but the jungle is rendered with these subtle colors and lighting and the trees have three-dimensional shading, and I can never really suspend my disbelief that those characters are actually living in that world. And Maurice Noble felt the same way about Disney films. Look for the bare necessities, the simple bare necessities. Forget about your worries and your strife. same way about Disney films. He always felt animation was a flat stylized medium. So he

wanted the backgrounds to support that. He didn't like the use of airbrush. He always felt the backgrounds at some other studios were fighting the characters. And people would come up to him and say, oh, you were inspired by Monet and this and that. And he says, I don't think that way. He says, we're working in a completely new medium. This is a completely unique art form. And Maurice ends up changing what Warner Brothers was doing

because he's pushing the cartooniness of the backgrounds until they have the same sass as Bugs Bunny or the delusional insanity of Daffy Duck. Like in the Roadrunner cartoons, the coyote's real antagonist isn't really the Roadrunner, it's the desert landscape and, you know, the Acme Corporation, which are conspiring to make his life miserable. The earlier Roadrunner cartoons that were done before he got there, there's a few of them, they're a little more realistic. They're a little more just straight ahead were done before he got there, there's a few of them, they're a little more realistic. They're a little more just straight ahead. And when he got there, he started to use all these different techniques.

And as he went along, he would have what he called off-registration colors, where the lines of the rocks wouldn't line up with the color behind them. And he said that was to give you a heat shimmer. Which he knew all about because he grew up in New Mexico. He grew up in that kind of thing. He played in the rocks and he saw it. I'm sure all that influenced his take on the deserts when he did the Roadrunner cartoons. And this is how Maurice Noble becomes a hero to layout designers. Remember, his work is not supposed to detract from the characters. I mean, the layouts

are supposed to support the animation and make it stand out. And he does that brilliantly. But he also develops a unique and recognizable style. I mean, it's almost like he built a stage for a show, but the stage is winking at the audience. So I studied animation at CalArts. And so we'd be watching a cartoon like Duck Dodgers in the 24th and a half century. And we would burst out laughing because Daffy Duck had landed on planet X and Maurice had drawn the clouds and the trees in the shape of giant X's. I'll just bet that if we follow those planets, we'll find planet X. Chad, how do I do it? I don't know. As Noble is coming into his own, he's starting to get co-director credit on some of the films. But Chuck Jones is still reaping most of the acclaim.

Todd Polson, one of Maurice's protégés, says that this became a point of tension between them and the 60s when they were working at MGM. It was a working relationship. And it became more and more strained as Chuck became more and more successful, especially in the 60s. And that came to a head when they made Dot and the Line. The Dot and the Line was an adaptation of a children's book. And it was about a dot that falls in love with a line, and it's a story of their romance. Chuck Jones was the director on the short, but he was having trouble figuring out how to adapt it.

So the executives went to Maurice. And he said, well, if you don't involve Chuck, I can make this work for you. And so Chuck brought the stuff in, threw it down on his desk and stomped out. And Maurice wouldn't show him what he was working on. Once upon a time, there was a sensible straight line who was hopelessly in love with a dot. You're the beginning and the end, the hub, the core, and the quintessence, he told her tenderly. But the frivolous dot wasn't a bit interested, for she only had eyes for a wild and unkempt squiggle who never seemed to have anything on his mind at all.

It's a very charming film, but it's probably the most personal of all of Maurice's films because it's really just him on the screen. It's pure graphics. There's no classic characters as you might think of them. It's just dots, lines. It's purely abstract, but really beautiful. The film is this pure distillation of Maurice's work. He's telling a story, creating emotions and humor with just basic shapes and colors. But Chuck Jones still got director credit.

And of course, it won the Oscar. But he said that Chuck didn't ever thank him. And Todd says that even though everyone knew it was Maurice's film, Maurice wasn't invited to the Oscars. So Chuck Jones and Maurice Noble kept working together. They worked on How the Grinch Stole Christmas and a bunch of other Dr. Seuss adaptations. But they fell out of touch for about 20 years until the early 1990s when Warner Brothers reunited them to make cartoons that played before feature films. They hired a bunch of young artists who just graduated from CalArts, and one of them was Scott Morse. Maurice Noble, Maurice Noble, where do I know that from? I was like, oh, it's because it was one of the names that preceded directed by Charles M. Jones on all of the cartoons that I grew up watching every day of my life.

One of the first lessons that Scott learned was that Maurice's fantastic backgrounds were not just invented out of thin air. Maurice did a ton of research. Everything he exaggerated was based on something in the real world. You'd get an assignment like, oh, you know, Bugs Bunny's going to be stuck on a desert island or stuck on a jungle island. So there should be palm trees and it should be all this stuff. And it's like, OK, great. And I'd come back with a drawing and he'd be like, what is this? And I'm like, they're palm trees.

And he's like, those are stuccas. What were you looking at? And it's like, well, there's a palm tree right out the window. He's like, that's a stucca. You got to learn your trees. But Maurice wasn't really that gruff. After work, he talked to these 22-year-old animators like he was just one of the guys. He'd be like, let's go to the baseball game. Let's go do this other thing.

We should go to a museum. Pretty soon you realize he's more like your grandpa, who is just a really cool guy to hang out with. So Scott Morris and this group of artists became known as the Noble Boys. And Maurice pushed them to develop their own style, but his sensibility really seeped into their work. Like Scott is at Pixar now, which is the home of 3D animation, which you would think is the complete opposite of the flat landscapes of Looney Tunes.

But you can really see Maurice's influence on the Pixar films if you look for it. Like the film Up. Think about that house carried by a massive amount of balloons that lands on the very edge of a cliff. Or in WALL-E, this cute little robot is scooting around these big menacing towers of garbage. You know, those are layouts that make you smile. That's classic Maurice. In May of 2001, the noble boys were reunited one last time. We all got, you know, the call that Maurice, he was in hospice basically at home.

It was just natural causes that he was dying of. And he was pretty sure, you know, everybody was pretty sure that that night was going to maybe be the last night. So we all came over and hung out with him. And Chuck Jones did call that night. I remember being in the room with Maurice and somebody brought in the phone. I was like, Chuck's on the phone. And Maurice was like, okay, I'll talk to him. And we all knew for a fact that they hadn't really talked for

months, if not a couple of years at that point. And I just heard Maurice's side of the conversation, but you know, you could definitely tell that they were, uh, they had put everything behind them and they were friends, you know, and it was nice. And I, again, I don't know exactly what Chuck said on the other end of that line, but, um, it was a very sweet moment to be able to see that, um, and know that people sweet moment to be able to see that and know that people could go through a lot together in life and still have respect for each other, you know, up to the last minute and kind of celebrate what they had created together. To some extent, Maurice saw the Noble Boys as his real legacy. He was proud of the fact that they had blossomed into

well-rounded artists. If Maurice could leave behind this idea in other people to do their own thing, we would never be in the background like he was. But it was a beautiful, beautiful background. I actually met Maurice Noble once. Oh, yeah? Yeah. I went to CalArts, and he came into our class on it.

It was like a Monday night, and I had happened to have gone to the opera the day before on, you know, the weekend. And I was thinking about how often those guys made fun of opera in their cartoons. I've killed the rabbit. Poor little bunny. Poor little rabbit.

And I asked him, you know, did you guys actually go to the opera regularly? Or were you just kind of making fun of it as a sort of, you know, highfalutin cultural institution? And he asked me, what opera did you see? And I said, La Traviata. And he said, ah, Violetta, her death is beautiful. And that is a man who knew a good death when he saw one. 99% Invisible was produced this week by Eric Malinsky with Sam Greenspan and me, Roman Mars. We are a project of 91.7 Local Public Radio KALW in San Francisco and the American Institute of Architects in San

Francisco. That's it for this week. Special thanks to Roman Mars, Bob McKinnon, Scott Morse, and Todd Paulson. You can like Imaginary Worlds on Facebook or leave a comment on iTunes. I tweet at Emolinski. The show's website is imaginaryworldspodcast.org.