Monthly inspiration: August 2011

Uploads from sketchbook.

 Hello guys!

I know, I havent posted anything from May! Got kind of bussy. Yeah, even if its summer. So I have no time for real researches. But I still have some time for some doodling in my sketchbook. So here you, who knows  some of my artwork, can see some of my progress/regress, it's you to decide. Anyhow, I have decided to post  my everymonth inspiration in the end of every month. It will include illustrations, photos, videos etc. First one in the end of August.


So, catch up soon,

 Liga!

Jan Shvankmajer

Jan Švankmajer

Introduction

  In one of his articles, Vratislav Effenberger, Chech poet, notes that Švankmajer’s films had not only acquired a following of enthusiasts, but also reached critics and audiences on a much broader front, most of whom would be unlikely to share his surrealist perspectives. (The Cinema of Jan Švankmajer, 2008)

  This is one of the reasons why I chose to write about this filmmaker. None of the less, I remember that I saw one of his films in cinema (don’t really remember name of the film), not even a year ago and right there, on the spot, I felt in love with his masterpieces. They are truthfully breathtaking and full of mysticism. I loved and still love the way he plays around with his puppets in films – he is absolutely fearless, experimenting with everything you can possibly imagine. So with this kind of thoughts I thought that I definitely have to make some kind of research and get as much information about his films and biography as possible.  I have read so many reviews from film critics that I must say – they got me so confused that I could not understand who Jan Švankmajer is and what are his films about. But still, I was quite surprised, how positive everyone was about his work. And I must admit, that this is the key reason why I chose to write about this animator.

Czechoslovakia

Antonim Liehim once describer Czechoslovakia as one of the chief European centres for modernism and the avant-garde (1980: 134). Given the political divisions of the post-war world, it is not surprising that the Czech and Slovak contributions to twentieth-century art and design are only now being rediscovered. In recent years exhibitions in Houston, London, Valencia and Prague itself have brought ‘Czech Modernism’ back into focus. (Central European Avant-gardes, 2002)

  As well, Czechoslovakia has one of the longest film histories, dating from 1898 when Jan Kŗiženecky began to make films, thus becoming the first film producer in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Biography

  One of the great Czech filmmakers, Jan Švankmajer, was born in 1934 in Prague where he still lives. He trained at the Institute of Applied Arts from 1950 to 1954 and then at the Prague Academy of Performing Arts (Department of Puppetry). He soon became involved in the Theatre of Masks and the famous Black Theatre, before entering the Laterna Magika Puppet Theatre where he first encountered film. In 1970 he met his wife, the surrealist painter Eva Švankmajerova, and the late Vratislav Effenberger, the leading theoretician of the Czech Surrealist Group, which Švankmajer joined and of which he still remains a member. (jansvankamajer.com 01.05)

  What else is important - the surrealist movement, of which Jan Švankmajer is a leading contemporary exponent, moved from its position as the prime avant-garde movement of the 1930’s to a subterranean existence that has clearly infected the emphases of his own work. (The Cinema of Jan Švankmajer, 2008). That as well is not a surprise. While I was making a research for this essay found a lot of looping in information from film critics, they were saying: ,His films are full of avant-gardism, surrealism and ‘poetism’.’(imdb.com 01.05)

  So I started to think – what is avant-garde film? Avant-garde is also used, for the films shots in the twenties in the field of history’s avant-gardes currents in France or Germany, to describe this work, and underground has been used in the sixties, though it has also had other connotations. (imdb.com 01.05) As well, talking with my friends about film industry nowadays, we started discussion - How is avant-garde film called today? And answer was – Experimental film. How come?  Years ago, when experimental film was still called Avant-garde film, filmmakers were more open minded, more independent and fearless than commercial filmmakers, which explains all those definitions.

  I consider, those are the actual keywords for Švankmajer’s films – experimental, independent and fearless. As well you can see even a growth of experimentalism in every following film of his. It is almost like he is painless for critics and he just does not care about – more crazy it get’s – even better.

His filmography and the ideas

  From Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel to Walerian Borowczyk, from the Quay Brothers to David Lynch, all the grand masters of surrealism began their cinematic careers making experimental mini-films, and Jan Švankmajer is no exception. Prague's most influential surrealist since Franz Kafka may now be best known for absurdist mixed-media features such as Alice (1988)(see figure 1), Faust (1994), Conspirators Of Pleasure (1996), Little Otik (2000) and the recent Lunacy (2005) - but between 1964 and 1992 he also made 26 short films, ranging in length from 30 seconds (Flora, 1989) to 31 minutes (Don Juan, 1969). All of these, as well as two-and-a-half hours of extra materials, have been collected in a new, immaculately compiled three-disc retrospective from BFI. (The Age of Gold, 2003)

                             

Figure1: Key moment from Jan Svankmajers film Alice (1988) [imdb.com 27.04]

  In fact, long before he discovered the expressive potential of cinema, Švankmajer had worked as a marionette artist in various Czech theatres, and this early experience in puppetry pervades his subsequent films. For not only do they employ, alongside their live action, an array of animation techniques - marionettes, stop motion, hand-drawn cartoons, ‘claymation’, cut-outs, re-edited archive footage, insane collages and dizzyingly rapid montages - they also show an obsessive thematic concern with the interplay between the spiritual and the material, the animate and the inanimate - so perfectly embodied by the figure of the marionette, made of dead wood yet magically invested with life by the artist.

  The two pieces that draw most explicitly on Švankmajer’s marionette years are Punch and Judy (1966) and Don Juan. Both films feature traditional wooden puppets (with strings, and sometimes even the puppeteers' hands, unconcealed), but the first film has a live guinea pig interacting with its animated antagonists, while the action of the latter spills out from a stylised stage to its backstage areas, and then beyond to the outside world. The marionettes in both films defy conventional death, repeatedly escaping their coffins or returning as ghosts, and yet they are also, quite literally, deconstructed before our eyes as their parts end up violently severed, in a dark celebration of both the spiritual endurance and material fragility of 'life'. (The Age of Gold, 2003)

  Other films in the collection further explore the relationship between people and objects. At one extreme, there are the all-live films which, without once resorting to animation, still reduce their human 'characters' to objects with merely functional or aesthetic qualities. So in The Garden (1968) a group of meekly compromised individuals submits without complaint to its assigned role as 'human fence' for a rural farm; while The Ossuary (1970) documents the chapel near Kutná Hora where thousands upon thousands of human bones have been transformed over many centuries into giant sculptures and macabre tableaux – with layers of graffiti still being added today.

   At the other extreme, there are the films in which objects are shown at play in the absence of any 'characters' - although even here, the human form is never far away. In JS Bach - Fantasy in G Minor (1965), a dusty building's bricks, wires, fittings and cracks are shown dancing in sympathy to an organ piece, whose player is glimpsed only briefly at the beginning of the film. In A Game with Stones (1965), rocks poured out by a strange clockwork device march and swirl in elaborate patterns that culminate in mosaic faces - before they destroy the very machine that has spawned them. In Jabberwocky (1971), children's toys run riot under the gaze of a portrait of Lewis Carroll. The Fall of the House of Usher (1980) uses voice-over narration, animated landscapes and haunting mood to conjure up the (unseen) presence of Poe's characters. In Meat Love (1988), two slices of meat engage in a fleshy courtship (a forerunner of the carnal interstices found in Lunacy) before a fork tosses them together into the frying pan. (The Age of Gold, 2003)

  Most of the films, however, fall somewhere in between, showing humans and objects in unexpected, at times unnerving configurations. In The Flat (1968), Picnic With Weissmann (1968), A Quiet Week In The House (1969) and Down To The Cellar (1983), domestic furnishings rebel, with varying degrees of humour and terror, against their human 'masters', instantiating their anxieties and fears in the most banally concrete of forms. In The Castle of Otranto (1979), an enthused archaeologist (Jaroslav Vozáb) attempts to excavate the supposed truths underlying Horace Walpole's fanciful Gothic novel even as the antiquated illustrations in a Czech edition of the book come to life. In Leonardo's Diary (1972), animated versions of Da Vinci's sketches are rapidly intercut with found documentary footage in a series of visual matches that suggest we may all be an extension of the Renaissance man's creative genius. And in Virile Games (1988) a football fanatic drifts into a beer-fuelled, sadomasochistic fantasy in which players - all bearing his distinctive moustache - murder each other using items found in his apartment. (The Age of Gold, 2003)

  It is hardly surprising that Švankmajer’s work should have been regarded with suspicion, and has at times been suppressed or even banned by the Communist authorities. Against the Marxist conception of human history as a natural evolution towards the socialist ideal, Švankmajer prefers to portray evolution as a futile process leading at best to endless circularity and at worst to terminal self-destruction - principles well illustrated by A Game With Stones (1965), Et Cetera (1966), Historia Naturae, Suita (1967), Darkness-Light-Darkness (1989) and Food (1992), in all of which apparent progress proves to be illusory.

  Even The Death of Stalinism In Bohemia (1990), Švankmajer’s self-styled 'work of agitprop', marking the welcome arrival of the Velvet Revolution, looks to the post-       Stalinist future with as much dread as relief. And against the Communist adherence to the revolutionary power of dialectic, in films such as The Last Trick (1964), Punch And Judy (1966), Another Kind of Love (1988), Food (1992) and above all Dimensions of Dialogue (1982)(See Figure 2 and 3), Švankmajer suggests that true dialogue between individuals is a self-defeating impossibility. (The Age of Gold, 2003)

                         

Figure 2: Key moment from Dimensions of Dialogue by Jan Švankmajer(1982) [thecompleteshorts.com 27.04]

                                         

Figure 3:  Key moment from Dimensions of Dialogue by Jan Švankmajer(1982) [thecompleteshorts.com 27.04]

  Add to this the barely disguised critique of oppression and tyranny in The Garden (1968) and The Pendulum, The Pit and Hope (1983), and you have the kind of material that is unlikely to please any totalitarian regime. Most importantly of all, though, Švankmajer’s defiantly irrational negativism was directly at odds with the rational positivism espoused within Communism. The animator brings to full life precisely what his rulers were endeavouring to keep repressed: the nightmarish, the unconscious, the nonsensical, the abject, the uncanny, the insatiable, the immoderate, and the ecstatic. This is cinema of quietly determined, barely licit resistance, and it hardly seems a coincidence that shortly after the Communists were removed from power, Švankmajer’s own interest in short films came to an end.

  While Švankmajer’s vision may at times be pessimistic, bleak and disturbing (Flora manages to push all these buttons in its economic half-minute duration), it is also playful, irreverent and devilishly funny, as is perhaps best emblematised by his favourite image - recurring through many of these short films - of a tongue poking out. (The Age of Gold, 2003)

Puppets in the Feature Films

  In Jan Švankmajer’s hierarchy in which ‘real’ people are situated in the real world, puppets are largely confined to the dream world or constructed as ‘objects as desire’, and objects, which often play, ‘starring roles’ in his short films, are demoted to a more contextual role. In exploring the ways in which these levels interact, it becomes apparent that Švankmajer’s use of puppets plays a key role in the structuring of the narratives. As once he said, he often takes refuge in his puppets, a world in which he feels secure. (The Cinema of Jan Švankmajer, 2008)

  A great example is Don Juan by Jan Švankmajer. It is the most conventional of his puppet films. A version of the traditional puppet plat, it’s figures were copied from the eighteenth – century originals. Švankmajer also researched the diction used in the original and encouraged his actors to use it. On this level, the film is as authentic as possible. On other levels, however, it is not. The actors move freely from stage to street and to constructed tableaux without asserting a uniform or dominant reality. This film also disrupts the course of the narrative by revealing the mechanics of manipulation and my intercutting close-ups of the play’s written text.

  But there are significant differences between the use of puppets in Don  Juan and in Jan Švankmajer’s later full-length films. Firstly, we are presented with a play in which the central identities are not disrupted, the story has consistent narrative line, and the film is frequently constructed as if watching a stage. The interaction between characters is often unconstrained by the fragmentations of montage. The audience is encouraged to identify with the characters but also experiences the eeriness that comes from seeing the puppets on stage.  Unusually for Švankmajer, lightning, camerawork and editing combine to provide the film with an aesthetic appeal – an effect considerably enhanced by Zdenēk Liška’s music. The films can be seen as both tragic as lyrical. If compared with his later work, those draw attention to the almost puritanical avoidance of conventional aesthetics in his feature films. This was no doubt influenced by his joining the Surrealist Group and the impact of surrealist ideas. (The Cinema of Jan Švankmajer, 2008)

Conclusion

  This has been quite a journey. Now I clearly know more about Jan Švankmajer. I must admit - he is amazing director and filmmaker. His ideas are clear and unrepeatable. But definitely – I can see that we have something similar. Same way as he – I am trying to unite narrative and surreal in same concept. It is quite a struggle for me, but he is so experienced that all of his films are brilliant and concepts are clear as crystal. As well his way of thinking is unique, how he can use puppet stop-motion, claymation and live action in the same film. The most mystical part is that all of those experiments in one film still look smooth, almost like pure live action.

  But, I must admit, as most of artists from Europe, you can feel that European breath in his films, he is trying to stand out from other film makers, and he is doing well. Most of European artists not always can succeed such a good quality of their artworks even after 50 years of experience.

  I think the best way how to finish this essay, would be with Jan Švankmajers words:

“I never call myself an animated filmmaker because I am interested not in animation techniques or creating a complete illusion, but in bringing life to everyday objects.”

Jan Švankmajer (mubi.com 30.04)

Bibliography

Books:

Benson, Timothy O. (2002) Central European Avant-Gardes Exchange and Transformation, 1910-1930. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Cambridge, MA: MIT Press

Hames, Peter (2008) Dark Alchemy: The Cinema by Jan Švankmajer, Second Edition. London: Wallflower Press

Short, Robert (2003) The Age of Gold: Surrealist Cinema. London: Creation Books

Internet resources:

www.imdb.com (01.05.11)

www.jansvankmajer.com (01.05.11)

www.mubi.com (30.04.11)

www.thecompleteshorts.com (27.04.11)

 

Henrik Ibsen

There was one of those days, we had life-drawing and we went to Cartoon Museum in London . I can't say that I particularly enjoyed this. I rather found it quite boring. But here is what we had to do. We had to draw one of the 'cartoons' in our sketchbooks. Then remake them in our own style - this was the part I enjoyed the most.
So, this is what I chose  - exact image from museum(of course all copy rights belong to photographersdirect.com) :

Author - Olaf Gulbranson (1873 - 1958)

''Henrik Ibsen'' (picture above) ; Pen and Ink

Olaf Gulbranson was a book illustrator, painter, and costume designer as well as Norwey's leading humorous artist. In 1902 he joined the Munich based satirical magazine ''Simlicissmus'' and remained on its staff until its closure in 1944. His later style is especially prized for its pure linearity.

The Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen (1828 - 1906) revolutionised European drama in works such as '' A Doll's House'', '' Ghosts'', and '' Hedda Gabriel.''

This is how I tried to 'copy' him:

  Of course, colors are different, but I think I just got a really bad ink.

And here - how I done it in my interpretation:

Time when I did this (about few months ago) was when I descovered beautiful result combining water color and ink. Never the less, must say I was quite over-taken with life of Andy Warhole. But.. I am quite satisfied with result and happy that my obesession with Mr. Warhole is over!

Harvie Krumpet

Director: Adam Elliot
Writer: Adam Elliot, Luke Elliot

Storyline:
The sad, strange life of Harvie, who is born into an impoverished Middle European existence, and whose one constant is the book of "fakts" he keeps adding to, worn around his neck. After a childhood tragedy, he emigrates to Australia, where he has a succession of menial jobs, eventually ending up in a retirement home. Along the way, he has a string of bad luck, leaving him with, among other things, a steel plate in his skull that becomes a magnet. Written by Jon Reeves <jreeves@imdb.com>

Review:

This film was so great and good. First I heard that it won Oscar award in 2003 and then I thought that I just have to see it.
Great story. When I started to watch it I just lost in time and space. Film kind of makes you feel withing main character. I can almost say that it sucked me in the story.
As techically film was quite a challange. For every facial expression those puppets had different features to change. As well budget was quite big, it was about 240 000 EUR, but producer of the film got many grants for this.
As the final I can say that film is worth to look. And other fact that just underline ho good film is: it was sent to 300 competitions and won about 50.


                

Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck

The Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck Cartoon Collections was a series of Disney videos showing off classic cartoon shorts released between 1936 and 1954. It was Disney's very first attempts at releasing its stable of Disney shorts to video, having been released in 1981, two years before Disney unveilled The Disney Channel. There were three videos released in all, each with six shorts. Each of the six shorts presented included two cartoons each starring Mickey Mouse, two each starring Pluto and two each starring Donald Duck. Interestingly, there were no cartoons that starred Goofy (the only time Goofy appeared in a cartoon was if he costarred alongside Mickey and/or Donald). Other patterns seemed to include at least one 1930s Mickey short each and one short each placing Donald opposite Chip 'n' Dale. Many of the presented shorts were reissued on later Disney releases on video and DVD.






Thru the Mirror is a Mickey Mouse cartoon short film produced by Walt Disney Productions, released by United Artists in 1936. In this cartoon short, Mickey has a Through the Looking-Glass-type dream that he travels through his mirror and enter a topsy-turvy world where everything is alive. While there, he engages in a Fred Astaire-type dance number with a pair of gloves and a pack of cards, until the cards chase him out of the bizarre world. The title is written as Thru the Mirror on the title card, but the alternative spelling Through the Mirror is used on the poster for the film.



Donald Fauntleroy Duck gets his draft notice and goes in, past all the amazingly enticing recruiting posters, to sign up. First he has to pass the physical. Despite his flat feet, he makes it. Donald wants to fly, but first he has to make it through Sergeant Pete's boot camp. He has a terrible time with close-order drills, and standing at attention without moving when he's over an ant-hill proves a real challenge. Eventually, Donald ends up on endless KP. Written by Jon Reeves

Snow White and 7 Dwarfs

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is a 1937 American animated film based on Snow White, a German fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm. It was the first full-length cel-animated feature in motion picture history, as well as the first animated feature film produced in America, the first produced in full color, the first to be produced by Walt Disney, and the first in the Walt Disney Animated Classics canon.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs premiered at the Carthay Circle Theatre on December 21, 1937, and the film was released to theaters by RKO Radio Pictures on February 4, 1938. The story was adapted by storyboard artists Dorothy Ann Blank, Richard Creedon, Merrill De Maris, Otto Englander, Earl Hurd, Dick Rickard, Ted Sears and Webb Smith. David Hand was the supervising director, while William Cottrell, Wilfred Jackson, Larry Morey, Perce Pearce, and Ben Sharpsteen directed the film's individual sequences.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was one of only two animated films to rank in the American Film Institute's list of the 100 greatest American films of all time in 1997 (the other being Disney's Fantasia), ranking number 49. It achieved a higher ranking (#34) in the list's 2007 update, this time being the only traditionally animated film on the list. The following year AFI would name the film as the greatest American animated film of all time and the best ever Walt Disney Animated Classics movie.

In 1989, the film was added to the United States National Fhttp://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=4873349609688585363ilm Registry as being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_White_and_the_Seven_Dwarfs_(1937_film) /

Cinematic influences:

At this time, Disney also encouraged his staff to see a variety of films. These ranged from the mainstream, such as MGM's Romeo and Juliet (to which Disney made direct reference in a story meeting pertaining to the scene in which Snow White lies in her glass coffin), to the more obscure, including European silent cinema. The influence of German expressionism (examples of which exist in Nosferatu and The Cabinet of Dr. Calligari, both of which were recommended by Disney to his staff) can be found in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (as well as the two films to follow it), particularly in the scenes of Snow White fleeing through the forest and the Queen's transformation into the Witch. The latter was also inspired by 1931's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, to which Disney made specific reference in story meetings.


Character Development:

OPEY:
Dubbed "Dopey" by his brothers, this loose-limbed dwarf has never spoken a word; as Happy explains to Snow White, "He never tried." But Dopey isn't really dopey, he's just childlike. Is it dopey to try and steal a second and third kiss from Snow White on your way to work, or to make yourself tall enough to dance with her by climbing on Sneezy's shoulders? Not at all. Dopey's a genius at fun and games (and a whiz at the drums to boot). He just doesn't mind looking silly along the way. So what if he wiggles his ears and shuffles his feet to his own skippity-skip beat? He's simply being himself, and that's pretty smart.

In the early development process on the film, Dopey was the "leftover" dwarf with no particular personality. Then one day animator Ward Kimball discovered vaudevillian actor Eddie Collins at a Los Angeles burlesque house. Kimball invited the baby-faced Mr. Collins to the studio to perform and improvise pantomimes of Dopey's reactions on film. Thanks much to Collins' innovative acting, Dopey assumed a very definite personality and soon became one of the animators' favorite dwarfs. Collins' pantomime turned out to be one of the first times live-action reference footage was shot for an animated film. The technique proved so successful that it's still used today. The inspiring Mr. Collins went on to perform live-action reference for Gideon in "Pinocchio" (1940).

GRUMPY:
No matter what anyone says, Grumpy is against it. This know-it-all naysayer has the disposition of an old boot: tough, craggy, and resistant to anything. When the dwarfs first find Snow White lying asleep across their beds, Grumpy gripes, "Angel, huh? She's female, an' all females is poison! They're full o' wicked wiles." When Bashful asks, "What're wicked wiles?" Grumpy admits, "I don't know, but I'm agin 'em." Like many an old boot, however, this one's really a softy inside. When Snow White kisses him on the forehead despite his complaints, he even smiles for a moment before regaining his mal-composure. Could it be that Grumpy may be grumpy partially to see who cares enough to put up with him? Whatever its source, his stubborn determination eventually proves invaluable. When the forest animals warn of trouble so dire that even his bossy rival, Doc, stammers, "What do we do?" it's Grumpy who leads the charge to save Snow White from the Wicked Queen.

During the party sequence, Grumpy plays an elaborately carved pipe organ designed to look like a row of totem poles. To achieve the organ's deep tonal quality, the soundmen blew into bottles partially filled with water. Unfortunately, the ingenious solution created as many problems as it solved: As the recording sessions went on, slight temperature changes and natural evaporation kept altering the pitch of the bottles' notes.

DOC:
If the Seven Dwarfs have a leader, it has to be Doc (though he's far too good-natured to ever make it official). When there's an important decision to be made, Doc is usually the one to make it. After returning to the cottage to find it mysteriously tidied up, he nervously demands: "Search every cook an' nanny, uh, hook an' granny, uh, crooked fan -- uh, search everywhere." Doc's mind often works faster than his mouth when he's excited, but his judgment's always sound. Doc takes it upon himself to convince his fellows that the hardships they must endure in allowing Snow White to stay are worth it -- even that strange custom of washing up. And only he knows how to get that "old warthog" Grumpy into the wash trough.

Sometimes Doc himself doesn't know how wise he is. As the dwarfs leave for the mine after Snow White arrives, he warns Snow White, "Now don't forget, my dear, the old Queen's a sly one, full of witchcraft. So beware of strangers." Before voicing Doc, actor Roy Atwell had already developed his word jumbling skills (or "Spoonerisms") in his popular radio comedy act. Perce Pearce, one of the film's sequence directors, did a good rendition of Doc, and so doubled as the live-action model.

BASHFUL:
More than shy, Bashful's a hopeless (make that hopeful) sentimentalist. When the dwarfs return to find their cottage mysteriously tidied up, he's even sentimental about his newly cleaned cup, lamenting that "the sugar's gone" as if he'd lost a dear friend. While everyone's suspicious upon finding Snow White asleep across their beds, Bashful's the first one to see her for who she really is, observing, "She's beautiful, like an angel." Indeed, Bashful can't help but blush, twist his beard into knots, and bat his eyelashes whenever Snow White's around. And when the dwarfs ask her to tell them a story, Bashful, of course, requests "a looove story." To his delight, that's exactly what they get.

In the initial development stages of the production, Bashful's character was to have a high-peaked skull which made him ashamed to take off his hat, and the rest of him resembled Dopey's eventual character design. It was later decided that Bashful didn't need such an elaborate reason to be bashful -- he simply was.

SLEEPY:
Sleepy sneaks in his Z's anytime and anywhere he can, but none of the other dwarfs ever complains. Maybe that's because he works just as hard in their diamond mine as the others, albeit in a more relaxed fashion. In fact, he's so relaxed, and yawns so widely, that the resident housefly keeps buzzing into his mouth in hopes of finding a nice warm home. But even on the perpetual verge of a nap, Sleepy turns out to be twice as observant as his fellows when it most matters. Strangely goaded and prodded by the forest animals outside their mine, none of the dwarfs can figure out what's going on until Sleepy yawns, "Maybe the old Queen's got Snow White." Thanks to Sleepy, the dwarfs are soon off to the rescue.

In addition to voicing Sleepy, actor Pinto Colvig was also well known as the voice of Goofy.

SNEEZY:
No, Sneezy doesn't sneeze all the time ... just at the worst of times, like when the dwarfs have returned from the diamond mine to search for the mysterious "cleaning monster" in their midst. After a particularly violent sneeze, which sends them tumbling in its wake, he protests,"I couldn't help it ... when you gotta go, you gotta ... I-I-I, i-i-i-it's comin'." So his pals quickly jump him and tie his nose in a knot. Instead of getting angry, poor Sneezy's grateful. He's just as annoyed by his condition as the other dwarfs. But when all is said and done, his fellows are quick and happy to lend him a sneeze-stifling hand. It's all part of being a dwarf. Just keep Sneezy away from the goldenrod ...

After reading an article in "Variety" that said there was to be a character named "Sneezy" in Disney's upcoming production of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," a comedian named Billy Gilbert contacted Walt by phone to say that his specialty happened to be comic sneezes. Walt agreed to audition him and, upon witnessing Mr. Gilbert's bewildering range of on-cue sneezes, Walt hired him on the spot. He reprised this act as the comic giant, Willie, in "Fun and Fancy Free" (1947).

HAPPY:
Without Happy around, Grumpy might not be quite as grumpy. For Happy's just too infernally cheerful about everything. When the dwarfs think there's a monster hidden under the blankets, Happy cheerily asks, "Which end do we kill?" And when the "monster" turns out to be a slumbering Snow White, Happy's even happier. But not even he can find any joy in his life after Snow White's bitten into the Witch's apple and fallen into a sleeping death. With any luck he'll get to live up to his name again someday ...

Although originally brought to the studio to perform live-action reference for Dopey, rotund vaudevillian actor Eddie Collins performed a jaunty routine that became the inspiration for Happy's fleet-footed dance in the party sequence.

/ http://disney.go.com/vault/archives/characters/sevendwarfs/sevendwarfs.html /