Gerald McBoing-Boing
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| Gerald McBoing-Boing | |
| Jolly Frolics series | |
 A scene from UPA's Gerald McBoing-Boing. |
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| Directed by | Robert Cannon |
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| Story by | Dr. Suess (original story) Phil Eastman Bill Scott |
| Animation by | Rudy Larriva Pat Matthews Bill Melendez Willis Pyle Frank Smith Bill Hurtz (layout) |
| Voices by | Marvin Miller (narration) |
| Music by | Gail Kubik |
| Produced by | Stephen Bosustow (executive producer) John Hubley (producer) |
| Studio | United Productions of America |
| Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
| Release date | January 25, 1951 |
| Format | Technicolor, 8 mins |
| Language | English |
| Followed by | Gerald McBoing-Boing's Symphony (1953) How Now Boing Boing (1954) Gerald McBoing-Boing on the Planet Moo (1956) |
| IMDb page | |
Gerald McBoing-Boing is a 1950 animated short film produced by UPA and given wide release by Colombia Pictures on January 25, 1951. The winner of the 1950 Academy Award for Best Animated Short, Gerald McBoing-Boing is the story of a little boy who speaks through sound effects instead of spoken words. It was adapted by Phil Eastman and Bill Scott from a story by Dr. Seuss, and directed by Robert Cannon. The film has been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. In 1994, it was voted #9 of the 50 Greatest Cartoons of all time by members of the animation field.
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[edit] UPA film and sequels
Seuss's story had originally appeared on a children's record in 1950, scored by Gail Kubik, issued by Capitol Records, and read by radio personality The Great Gildersleeve.
This film was the first successful theatrical cartoon produced by United Productions of America (UPA), after their initial experiments with a short series of cartoons featuring Columbia Pictures stalwarts The Fox and the Crow. It was meant to be an artistic attempt to break away from the strict realism in animation that had been developed and perfected by Walt Disney. While Disney's animation methods produced lush and awe-inspiring images, it was felt that realism in the medium of animation was a limiting factor. Cartoons did not have to obey the rules of the real world (as the short films of Tex Avery and their cartoon physics proved), and so UPA experimented with a non-realistic style that depicted caricatures rather than lifelike representations of real people.
This was a major step in the development of limited animation—though despite the abuse of the form that would arise in the future (due to cost-cutting methods), Gerald McBoing-Boing was meant as an artistic exercise rather than merely a way of producing cheap cartoons.
UPA produced three follow-up McBoing-Boing shorts: Gerald McBoing-Boing's Symphony (1953), How Now Boing Boing (1954), and Gerald McBoing-Boing on the Planet Moo (1956), an Academy Award nominee. The second and third films maintained the Dr. Seuss-style rhyming narration, but were not based on his work. The final film abandoned this approach. All four Gerald McBoing-Boing shorts were unavailable for over fifty years, until all but Symphony were included on the special edition DVD set for the 2004 film Hellboy.
A book adaptation of Gerald McBoing-Boing appeared in 2000 (ISBN 0-679-89140-4).
[edit] TV series
[edit] The Gerald McBoing-Boing Show (1956-1957)
In 1956, CBS created a half-hour Gerald McBoing-Boing Show, with well-known radio announcer Bill Goodwin narrating. Broadcast at 5:30 p.m. on Sunday evenings, it was a showcase for UPA's cartoons, including Dusty of the Circus, the Twirlinger Twins, and Punch and Judy. The program proved too expensive to continue and lasted only three months.
The episodes were repeated on Friday nights in the summer of 1957. As a result, The Gerald McBoing-Boing Show apparently became the first cartoon series broadcast regularly during prime time, preceding The Flintstones by two seasons.
The "actor" Gerald McBoing-Boing, as opposed to the "character", also appeared in the 1962 TV special Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol, playing the part of Tiny Tim. As Tiny Tim, he sang and spoke in a normal, child-like voice. Later, during curtain calls, he still uses the normal voice, showing that it is the "character" of Gerald that "speaks in boings and whistles," not the "real" boy.
[edit] Gerald McBoing-Boing (2005-2006)
A series based on the original cartoon started airing on Cartoon Network (United States) on August 22, 2005, as part of their Tickle-U programming block, and aired on Teletoon/Télétoon (Canada) on August 29, 2005. Each eleven-minute episode features a series of vignettes with Gerald, of which the "fantasy tales" are done in Seussian rhyme. There are also sound checks, gags, and "real-life" portions of the show.
Gerald still only makes sounds, but now has two speaking friends, Janine and Jacob, as well as a dog named Burp, who only burps. Gerald's parents (names unknown) also fill out the regular cast. The series was produced in Canada by Cookie Jar Entertainment, and directed by Robin Budd and story edited/written by John Derevlany. The animation was done by Mercury Filmworks in Ottawa.
