Cartoon Graveyard (John Carter of Mars)
John Carter of Mars is the lesser known creation of Edgar Rice Burroughs the man who brought us Tarzan. But John Carter was a popular character and continues to be even until this day. It was announced recently that Pixar would be making a John Carter movie which should make any fan happy especially considering the studios track record.
So I figured this would be a good time to write about one of the more famous cartoons that were never made. The John Carter of Mars shorts that were conceived but never produced. In the early 1930′s Bob Clampett an animator with Warner Brothers approached Edgar Rice Burroughs about creating a series of cartoon shorts based on the character of John Carter. Burroughs was receptive to the idea and hired Clampett to begin production.
Clampett enlisted the help of numerous animators and even Burroughs own son John Coleman Burroughs, and began work immediately. They decided to work on the test reel footage which Clampett felt they could use about six minutes of footage to use to sell the shorts to a studio.
Animation at the time had not really been tested with human subjects and they soon found themselves in new territory trying to make human figures work in an animated setting. They decided to use rotoscoping and also attempted to use oils for colors to give the the figures a more natural look and feel.
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. ~ Bob Clampett
As work proceeded on the test reel Edgar Rice Burroughs sold the idea to MGM studios. But when MGM informed its theater distributors about the planned shorts disaster struck. They were met with resistance to the idea as they felt consumers would never understand the concept. Strange considering that Flash Gordon would soon become hugely popular with the mainstream audience. Never the less MGM balked and instead requested a Tarzan cartoon, with of course some silly animals.
Sadly Clampett the main champion the idea decided to move on and begin directing other cartoon shorts and the idea was mostly forgotten. For years studios have tried to get a John Carter movie made and there have even been rumblings of a cartoon series from time to time. But nothing solid came about until Pizar finally announced they would be doing a movie.
But for our purposes a John Carter cartoon could have very well paved the way for a whole different type of animation then we are use to in the United States. But instead we got Tarzan and funny animals. So with that we add John Carter of Mars to the Cartoon Graveyard.
Line BreakAuthor: Marc Fletcher (398 Articles)
Marc is the author of Adam Zero: The Last Man of Earth from Ronin Studios and numerous anthology pieces. He is also an avid animation fan and loves to write Cartoon Graveyard and blog at Rayguns & Sixshooters.
See more at the Official Edgar Rice Burroughs Websites and Webzines . . . starting with
http://www.erbzine.com/mag21/2175.html
Bill Hillman
http://www.johncarterofmars.ca