“Greatest animator who ever lived” is a daunting title, but if anybody deserves it, it might be Rod Scribner (1910-1976). In the already crazy universe of the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons of the 1940s, Scribner’s animation stands out as the craziest of all. And in today’s world of focus-tested blandness and homogenized AI sludge, watching Scribner’s boldly personal weirdness is a breath of fresh air.
Scribner animated for many great directors, but he did his most memorable work under Bob Clampett, who sought to bring out the individuality of his animators rather than have them conform to a standardized approach. Together, Clampett and Scribner devised an entirely new way of animating that they dubbed “Lichty style.” Inspired by newspaper cartoonist George Lichty, whose brushwork was loose and spontaneous, Scribner wildly distorted his characters’ bodies to capture a sense of manic energy that was worlds away from the Disney norm.
Look at the way Scribner restlessly plays with Daffy Duck’s body and face in Clampett’s Baby Bottleneck (1946). The jokes here are almost all ’40s-era topical references, but the scene remains hilarious today because of Daffy’s combustible acting.
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There are many hallmarks of Scribner’s drawing style that you can use to identify his work: lots of wrinkles, prominent misshapen teeth with visible gums, and big crazy eyes (in closeups, he would often put little white circles in characters’ pupils, or sometimes give them pie eyes with a slice missing). You can see all of those qualities in this delicious Scribner bit from Falling Hare (1943).
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More than any of the aforementioned design quirks, however, what sets Scribner’s work apart is the distinctive way he moved his characters. His characters aren’t just rubbery; Scribner contorts their bodies with such exhilaratingly furious vigor that they seem to explode into frenzied hysteria. The characters’ relentless squashing and stretching reveals an unfiltered look at their inner insanity. Every part of this Scribner scene from Birdy and the Beast (1944) is amazing, but pay attention to the propulsive energy with which the cat smashes the food in the dog’s face and hurls his body every which way before zipping off. The flurry of poses move too fast to get a good look at any single drawing, but you can feel every one of them. No real person could move like this, not even a comic strip panel could capture it, it’s just pure animation.
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My all-time favorite Rod Scribner scene is the bit where Daffy Duck reads a Dick Tracy comic book in the Clampett masterpiece The Great Piggy Bank Robbery (1946). Freeze-frame this scene and you’ll find that every individual frame contains a totally unique and hilarious expression, and yet it all flows together beautifully. So many cartoons today religiously follow restrictive model sheets, cycling through a small number of expressions, but there’s no such thing as a stock Rod Scribner expression. He never repeated himself, and instead found a totally new face and pose tailored to each specific moment. The results were always bizarre and deformed and so, so funny.
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Scribner continued to animate after Clampett left the studio in 1946, but his work was significantly toned down under Robert McKimson’s more restrained direction. You can still pick out Scribner’s style in scenes like this one from Hoppy Go Lucky (1952), but his idiosyncratic drawings keep settling back into more “normal” McKimson poses.
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Clampett called Scribner “a mischievous elf,” while storyman Lloyd Turner said he was “thoroughly crazy.” Sadly, Scribner lived a somewhat tragic life; his mental health issues and addictions ultimately caused his work to suffer, and he was in and out of psychiatric hospitals until he died from tuberculosis in 1976 – a sad end for someone who brought so much joy to others through his work, but his unique animation will never die.
Here’s Scribner at his wrinkly, misshapen best in a scene from The Old Grey Hare (1944), featuring Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd as old men. This scene sums up the appeal of Scribner’s work: the more he mangles his characters in ways that can only be pulled off with moving drawings, the more convincingly alive they seem.
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There’s so much I could say about Scribner, and there are far too many legendary scenes of his to highlight here, but let’s turn it over to you. Do you have a favorite Scribner scene or a quality you love about his work? Let us know in the comments below.
— Cartoon Study (@CartoonStudy) December 21, 2024
