Clampett: Ray Katz used to tell us, “We don’t want quality, and we don’t want it in the worst way.” We were always trying to do something really good, but we were having to do it on a nickel-and-dime basis.
Barrier: Do you remember any other stories from those days?
Clampett: Here’s another one you might get a kick out of. There was a compo-board partition between one of our story rooms and the darkroom where we projected our pencil tests. A hole had been knocked through the wall in one spot where we hung story sketches. Someone had drawn the figure of a little man around the hole on the wall so that it came in the place where his nose should have been. When Harold Soldinger would escort some important visitors through the studio, one of our guys would duck out of the story room into the darkroom, and put himself through the hole. No. Milt, not his finger. And so, as the visitors were shown the storyboard, their eyes would pass right by this drawing of this little man with what appeared to be a large protruding “schnoz.”
http://www.michaelbarrier.com/Funnyworld/Clampett/interview_bob_clampett.htm
Chuck Jones: Actually, Bugs was a counter-revolutionary, not a revolutionary at all. He didn’t go out to bug people, people bugged him and then he fought back. And I think that counter- revolutionaries are a damned sight more intriguing than revolutionaries.
http://www.michaelbarrier.com/Funnyworld/Jones/interview_chuck_jones.htm
Bob Clampett told me the hardest part of making a Warner Brothers Cartoon was not the animation. The animation was easy. The hardest part was coming up with the story. For that reason Bob called story sessions, “No no sessions.” Chuck Jones called them, “Yes sessions.”
The only word it was forbidden to use was the word, “No.”
Why because the word “No” shuts things down.
Once that happens it is hard to start them up.
The word “No” also makes people afraid to suggest ideas.
Another thing vitally important was that if they were told not to do something, they did it.
Told not to use bulls because bulls were not funny Chuck Jones made the brilliant, BULLY FOR BUGS.
Told not to use camels because camels were not funny Friz Freleng made SAHARA HARE.
When they got an idea that was really radical they never asked for permission.
Why? Because they knew the answer would be no.
In coming up with ideas for new films starring the now public domain Mickey Mouse I am inspired by Tex Avery, Bob Clampett, Friz Freleng and Chuck Jones.
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