"Realizing
the potential of a fantasy series of cartoons based around Burroughs' characters,
I went out to Tarzana to see Burroughs himself and tried to convince him
that I could film and sell a series of cartoons based on his JOHN CARTER
OF MARS stories." Bob Clampett
Clampett was surprised to find Burroughs so receptive to
the idea of animation. Burroughs wanted to see his characters receive further
exposure, perhaps because his other creations were currently being overshadowed
by the enormous success of Tarzan. Burroughs also realized that the medium
of animation would allow for special effects and an outer space setting
that might be cost prohibitive or poorly done if translated to existing
live action film techniques.
At the same time, Burroughs' son, John Coleman Burroughs
(sometimes known as "Jack") had recently graduated college. He became interested
in Clampett's revolutionary animated series. John set about sculpting several
articulated models so that Clampett could more easily see how the animals
and other important objects might look and move. Several of those sculptures
still exist today including the head of Tars Tarkas (the four-armed thark)
who becomes the friend of John Carter and a sculpture almost five feet
long of John Carter's sword.
John also did a series of sketches with detailed notes.
For example, his notes on the Martian creature known as the "thoat" are
as follows:
'Thoat. Description. A green Martian horse.
Ten feet high at the shoulder with four legs on either side; a broad flat
tail, larger at the tip than at the root which it holds straight out behind
while running. Devoid of hair, dark slate in color, and exceedingly smooth
and glossy. White Belly; legs are shade from slate at shoulder to a vivid
yellow at the feet. Feet are heavily padded and hairless.'
Clampett immediately got to work to put together a
test reel of footage and soon animation history would be made.
For the test reel of footage, Clampett realized he had
to have a major conflict that got resolved, introduced the main characters,
and established the world of Mars. The basic plotline that Clampett settled
on concerned an exotic race of Martians who lived in the mouth of a volcano.
Periodically, they would venture out from their hidden lair in rocket ships
to attack and plunder the cities of Mars. Of course, it was up to
hero John Carter to stop them. Interestingly, Clampett would later adapt
this plot of one of his BEANY AND CECIL puppet shows with the sea sick
sea serpent taking the place of Burroughs' hero.
While it was Clampett's plan that the series would be
composed of nine-minute long cartoons each of which featured a complete
story, he decided that six minutes of test footage would be ample to convince
any distributor of the viability of the series. Clampett was under pressure
not only to make test footage that would satisfy Burroughs but also the
more pragmatic accountants at MGM.
"I wanted to do something quite imaginative,
with tongue-in-cheek humor throughout. Chuck (Jones) helped me animate
and Bobe (Robert Cannon) inbetweened. In fact, I filmed Bobe in live-action
as the hero; he was very heroically built, all shoulders and no hips. I
filmed him in Griffith Park, and we rotoscoped part of it," said Clampett.
Because
Clampett and the others were still working full-time at Warners, the JOHN
CARTER work had to be squeezed in at night, on weekends and whenever a
spare moment managed to pop up. Even John Coleman Burroughs and his fiancée
Jane would sometimes help out by painting some of the cels for the cartoon
themselves. Clampett wanted a different look for the animated series and
was once again forced to experiment.
"We would oil paint the side shadowing
frame-by-frame in an attempt to get away from the typical outlining that
took place in normal animated films. In the running sequence, for example,
there is a subtle blending of figure and line which eliminated the harsh
outline. It is more like a human being in tone. We were working in untested
territory at that time. There was no animated film to look at to see how
it was done," Clampett explained.
In 1936, the test footage was completed. It featured John
Carter running and leaping around the Martian surface, a Thark riding a
thoat in full color, Carter involved in a swordfight and other vivid sequences
which were quite unlike anything else being done in animation at the time.
There was an opening title sequence of the planet Mars hurtling toward
the screen with lettering proclaiming John Carter in the "Warlord of Mars"
and title cards announcing future episodes. It was planned that these scenes
would be in the first film if the series sold. Burroughs loved the final
work and more importantly, so did MGM. Clampett gave notice to Warners
that he was leaving and he started production work on the first episode.
"I had already given notice to Warners
and was preparing to start on the JOHN CARTER series when MGM's change
in decision came down. The studio said, 'No, we do not want the JOHN CARTER
thing; we want TARZAN'. Aesthetically, Jack Burroughs and I were very inspired
by the Mars project. And the idea, as much as I like Tarzan, to do the
alternate series was simply not the same. Somehow, I just lost my enthusiasm
for the new project," Clampett said.
Clampett was re-hired by Warners to direct cartoons and went
on to turn out a multitude of legendary Warner Brothers animated characters:
Porky Pig, Daffy Duck, Bugs Bunny and many more. Clampett stored away the
storyboard, notes, sketches, actual cels and completed footage of the JOHN
CARTER project and for the most part, forgot about the aborted series as
he worked on developing other projects.
Animation history would have been significantly different
if the JOHN CARTER project had sold. Other studios might also have shifted
some of their focus from funny animals to a more realistic approach or
explored the realms of realistic fantasy. On the other hand, Clampett would
never have helped develop the personalities of some of the best loved Warner
cartoons either and probably Beany and Cecil might not have come into existence.
Excerpted from:
Lost Cartoons: The Animated "John Carter of Mars"
By Jim Korkis
ERBzine
0934
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