Bob Clampett

Porky in Wackyland was inducted into the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress in 2000, deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

Clampett was, in his words, so "enchanted" by the new medium of sound cartoons that he tried to join Disney as an animator. While Disney wanted to hire Clampett, they ultimately turned him down due to them having had enough animators at that time, so Clampett instead joined Harman-Ising Studios in 1931 for ten dollars a week. Leon Schlesinger viewed one of Clampett's 16mm films and was impressed, offering him an assistant position at the studio.[4] His first job was animating secondary characters in the first Merrie Melodie, Lady, Play Your Mandolin! (1931). The same year, Clampett began attending story meetings after submitting an idea eventually used for Smile, Darn Ya, Smile!. The two series were produced at Harman-Ising until mid-1933 when they split into Leon Schlesinger Productions. In his first years at the studio, Clampett mostly worked for Friz Freleng, under whose guidance Clampett grew into an able animator.[5] By the time he joined Harman-Ising, Clampett was only 17 years old.[3]

By 1934, Schlesinger was in a bit of a crisis trying to find a well-known cartoon character. He noted that the Our Gang series consisted of nothing but "little kids doing things together," and a studio-wide drive to get ideas for an animal version of Our Gang commenced. Clampett submitted a drawing of a pig (Porky) and a black cat (Beans), and, in an imitation of the lettering on a can of Campbell's Pork and Beans, wrote "Clampett's Porky and Beans." Porky debuted in the Friz Freleng-directed I Haven't Got a Hat in 1935. Around the same time, Schlesinger announced a studio-wide contest, with a money prize to whichever member of the staff turned in the best original story. Clampett's story won first prize and was made into My Green Fedora, also directed by Freleng.[5]

Clampett felt encouraged after these successes and began writing more story contributions. After Schlesinger realized he needed another unit, he made a deal with Tex Avery, naming Clampett his collaborator. They were moved to a ramshackle building used by gardeners and WB custodial staff for storage of cleaning supplies, solvents, brooms, lawnmowers and other implements.[4] Working apart from the other animators in the small, dilapidated wooden building in the middle of the Vitaphone lot, Avery and Clampett soon discovered they were not the only inhabitants - they shared the building with thousands of tiny termites. They christened the building "Termite Terrace", a name eventually used by historians to describe the entire studio. The two soon developed an irreverent style of animation that would set Warner Bros. apart from its competitors.[3] They were soon joined by animators Chuck Jones, Virgil Ross and Sid Sutherland, and worked virtually without interference on their new, groundbreaking style of humor for the next year. It was a wild place with an almost college fraternity-like atmosphere. Animators would frequently pull pranks such as gluing paper streamers to the wings of flies. Leon Schlesinger, who rarely ventured there, was reputed on one visit to have remarked in his lisping voice, "Pew, let me out of here! The only thing missing is the sound of a flushing toilet!!"

On the side, Clampett directed a sales film, co-animated by Chuck Jones and in-betweened by Robert Cannon. Clampett filmed Cannon in live action as the hero and rotoscoped it into the film. Clampett planned to leave Leon Schlesinger Productions, but Schlesinger offered him a promotion to director and more money if he would stay. Clampett was promoted to director in late 1936, directing a color sequence in the feature When's Your Birthday? (1937). This led to what was essentially a co-directing stint with fellow animator Chuck Jones for the financially ailing Ub Iwerks, whom Schlesinger subcontracted to produce several Porky Pig shorts. These shorts featured the short-lived and generally unpopular Gabby Goat as Porky's sidekick. Despite Clampett and Jones' contributions, however, Iwerks was the only credited director. Clampett's first cartoon with a directorial credit was Porky's Badtime Story. Under the Warner system, Clampett had complete creative control over his own films, within severe money and time limitations (he was only given $3,000 and four weeks to complete each short).[5] During production of Porky's Duck Hunt in 1937, Avery created a character that would become Daffy Duck and Clampett animated the character for the first time.[5]

Clampett was so popular in theaters that Schlesinger told the other directors to imitate him, emphasizing gags and action.[3] When Tex Avery departed in 1941, his unit was taken over by Clampett while Norman McCabe took over Clampett's old unit. Clampett finished Avery's remaining unfinished cartoons. When McCabe joined the armed forces, Frank Tashlin rejoined Schlesinger as director, and that unit was eventually turned over to Robert McKimson. Milton Gray notes that from The Hep Cat (1942) on, the cartoons become even more wild as Clampett's experimentation reached a peak.[3] Clampett later created the character of Tweety, introduced in A Tale of Two Kitties in 1942. His cartoons grew increasingly violent, irreverent, and surreal, not beholden to even the faintest hint of real-world physics, and his characters have been argued to be easily the most rubbery and wacky of all the Warner directors'. Clampett was heavily influenced by the Spanish surrealist artist Salvador Dalí, as is most visible in Porky in Wackyland (1938), wherein the entire short takes place within a Dalí-esque landscape complete with melting objects and abstracted forms. Clampett and his work can even be considered part of the surreal movement, as it incorporated film as well as static media.[3] It was largely Clampett's influence that would impel the Warners directors to shed the final vestiges of all Disney influence. Clampett was also known for creating some brief voices or sound effects in some of the cartoons. One of these became a personal trademark: a vocal sound accompanying the iris-out closing of every Clampett cartoon ("Bay-woop!")[5] Clampett liked to bring contemporary cultural movements into his cartoons, especially jazz; film, magazines, comics, novels, and popular music are referenced in Clampett shorts, most visible in Book Revue (1946), where performers are drawn onto various celebrated books.[3]

Clampett was a good source for censorship stories, though the accuracy of his recollections has been disputed. According to an interview published in Funnyworld #12 (1971), Clampett had a method for ensuring that certain elements of his films would escape the censors' cuts. He added extremely suggestive or objectionable gags aimed just at the censors; they would focus on cutting those and thus leave in the ones he actually wanted.[6]

Clampett left the studio in May 1945, although short films directed by him would continue to be released until late 1946. The Big Snooze was his final cartoon with the studio and was one for which he did not get screen credit (only one of three he directed pitting Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd). While the generally accepted story was that Clampett left over matters of artistic freedom, despite that some people claimed that he left the studio on his own. Clampett's style was becoming increasingly divergent from those of Freleng and Jones. In any event, Clampett was fired by Leon Schlesinger's successor, Eddie Selzer, who was far less tolerant of him than Schlesinger had been. The Warner style that he was so instrumental in developing was leaving him behind. Warner Bros. had recently bought the rights to the entire Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies studio from Schlesinger and, while his cartoons of 1946 are today considered on the cutting edge of the art for that period, at the time, Clampett was ready to seek new challenges.[5] Clampett left at what some considered the peak of his creativity and against everyone's advice.[4]

Clampett speaking at the 1976 San Diego Comic Convention

In 1946 after Warner Bros. bought out Leon Schlesinger, his key executives Henry Binder and Ray Katz went to Screen Gems and took Clampett with them.[7] Clampett worked for a time at Screen Gems, then the cartoon division of Columbia Pictures, as a screenwriter and gag writer. In 1947 Republic Pictures incorporated animation (by Walter Lantz) into its Gene Autry feature film Sioux City Sue. It turned out well enough for Republic to dabble in animated cartoons; Bob Clampett directed a single cartoon, It's a Grand Old Nag, featuring the equine character Charlie Horse. Republic management, however, had second thoughts due to dwindling profits, and they discontinued the series.[8] Clampett took his direction credit under the name "Kilroy".

In 1949, Clampett turned his attention to television, where he created the famous puppet show Time for Beany. The show, featuring the talents of voice artists Stan Freberg and Daws Butler, would earn Clampett three Emmys. Groucho Marx and Albert Einstein were both fans of the series. [9] In 1952, he created the Thunderbolt the Wondercolt television series and the 3D prologue to Bwana Devil featuring Beany and Cecil. In 1954, he directed Willy the Wolf (the first puppet variety show on television), as well as creating and voicing the lead in the Buffalo Billy television show. In the late 1950s, Clampett was hired by Associated Artists Productions to catalog the pre-August 1948[10] Warner cartoons it had just acquired. He also created an animated version of the puppet show called Beany and Cecil, whose 26 half-hour episodes were first broadcast on ABC in 1962 and were rerun on the network for five years.[11]

Clampett's studio was at 729 Seward Street in Hollywood,[12][13][14] later a Klasky Csupo studio.

In his later years, Bob Clampett toured college campuses and animation festivals as a lecturer on the history of animation. In 1974, he was awarded an Inkpot Award at the San Diego Comic Convention.[15] In 1975, he was the focus of a documentary entitled Bugs Bunny: Superstar, the first documentary to examine the history of the Warner Bros. cartoons. Clampett, whose collection of drawings, films and memorabilia from the golden days of Termite Terrace was legendary, provided nearly all of the behind-the-scenes drawings and home-movie footage for the film; furthermore, his wife, Sody Clampett,[16][17] is credited as the film's production coordinator. In an audio commentary recorded for Bugs Bunny: Superstar, director Larry Jackson claimed that in order to secure Clampett's participation and access to Clampett's collection of Warners history, he had to sign a contract that stipulated Clampett would host the documentary and also have approval over the final cut. Jackson also claimed that Clampett was very reluctant speaking about the other directors and their contributions.[18]

• For He's a Jolly Good Fala (1945) (starring President Roosevelt's dog Fala, project abandoned after Roosevelt's death the same year)[35]
• Fat Rat and the Stupid Cat (1946) (starring Sylvester and Tweety, project abandoned after Clampett's departure but storyboards do exist and the short's idea was later reworked into Friz Freleng's Tweetie Pie)[36]

• It's a Grand Old Nag (1947) (credited as Kilroy)