Rod Scribner

Rod Scribner was one of the most original and innovative animators of the golden age of Hollywood cartoons. He spent most of his career at the Leon Schlesinger/Warner Bros. cartoon studio working as an animator for the directors Tex Avery (1936-1941), Robert Clampett (1941-1945), and Robert McKimson (1948-1953) on their Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons. It was under Clampett's direction, though, that Scribner did his best work. During this period Scribner developed a unique style of animation, one that broke away from the literalistic animation done at the time and into something far more expressive. He employed a level of exaggeration and distortion never before seen in an animated cartoon, which he used to illustrate the inner emotions of the cartoon characters in a humorous way. Examples of this can been seen to great effect in the cartoons Baby Bottleneck (1946) where Porky tries to get Daffy to sit on an egg, stretching the duck's leg several feet in the process; and in the controversial Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs (1943) during Prince Chawmin' frenetic attempts to revive So White. His work influenced the other animators at the studio and they employed some of Scribner's innovations until eventually it became the Warner "house style." Even Scribner's methods were idiosyncratic: he would sometimes animate using a brush and ink. After he left Warners, Scribner worked on a variety of animated commercials at Playhouse Pictures, Cascade, and Jay Ward Productions. He directed a few episodes of The Gerald McBoing-Boing Show (1956) and animated for the _"George of the Jungle" (1967)_ television show. In the 1970s he spent five days working on Fritz the Cat (1972) before quitting.