“…in 78 they said a punk band would never headline madison square garden. so here the fuck we are. not only did we headline and bring some of our favorite bands with us - we sold the motherfucker out. thank you, everybody, for proving all those fucking assholes back then who hated punk rock wrong. you all know i love this city. i grew up here, all these guys here - we grew up here and played here. this is bittersweet for both of us. doyle, dave, acey. alright let’s fuck shit up, this is called 20 eyes…”
I’ve seen the Misfits live twice, once in New Jersey and once at Madison Square Garden. The first time I saw them, I was a little disappointed in the sound quality. I know Danzig is notoriously difficult to understand even at the best of times, but I really couldn’t make out a goddamn thing he was saying for most of the show, and I was wondering if it was the Prudential Center or if Glenn had gotten a little rusty. After seeing them at MSG though, I have to say it was definitely the Prudential Center. The Misfits put on an awesome show, and I feel really lucky to have been there to hear the above quote in person. The Misfits live at Madison Square Garden, and I got to be a part of it? How the hell did that happen?
As an animator and storyboard artist working in the golden age of Saturday-morning cartoons, he’s worked on everything from Scooby-Doo and The Smurfs to Rugrats.
In the 1960s, he even animated the undisputed greatest band of all
time while working on The Beatles’ Saturday-morning cartoon and their
movie, Yellow Submarine.
Now seventy-eight years old, the man who grew up reading about
Hanna-Barbera and Walt Disney in a library in Victoria, Australia is on
tour in the U.S., sharing his drawings in the traveling Beatles Cartoon Art Show. It comes to Hillsborough’s Studio 71 Frame Shop & Gallery this weekend,
and Campbell will be there 4:00–8:00 p.m. on Friday, noon–6:00 p.m. on
Saturday, and noon–4:00 p.m. on Sunday. You can buy his work or even get
an original.
The INDY recently talked to Campbell by phone, and he had a
lot to say about the state of animation today, the beauty of the
Saturday-morning cartoon, and why it’s been so gratifying for him to get
out of the studio and into the art gallery.
INDY: Most people have heard of The Beatles’ Yellow Submarine,
but your first involvement with the band came when you animated their
lesser-known weekly cartoon series. Is it true you didn’t even know who
they were when the show first started?
RON CAMPBELL: [Laughs] I was a serious
young man, you know, and I wasn’t taking much notice of popular music.
Have you ever listened to songs of the fifties? There were hundreds of
really stupid songs. I had, of course, heard of them, but when I asked
[creator] Al Brodax what the name of the show that he was asking me to
direct was, he said, “The Beatles.” My only thought was, “Al, insects
make terrible characters for children’s cartoons.” We look back now, and
we realize that The Beatles were so significant in popular music.
They’re probably going to be listened to for centuries, like we listen
to Mozart.
The image of an artist or an animator is of a person in a
lonely studio, frantically scribbling. With this exhibit, you get to go
out on the road and talk with people. What’s that been like?
One of the most striking features that has hit me is the cultural
significance of the cartoons that we were making. There were children
who were having horrible, unpleasant childhoods and children having
wonderful childhoods and children having childhoods in between. But they
all found sustenance, relief, inspiration, and joy in rushing to the TV
on Saturday morning and watching our shows. And now, all of those
children are adults, and they’re so happy to talk to somebody who helped
make those shows and express their enthusiasm and nostalgia for them.
What’s your take on animation now?
There is no animation being done anymore. It’s computer-generated
stuff, and I feel a little sad for that. The computer does things that
no human could ever do by hand, but there’s a softness and a sweetness
to hand-drawn animation. The computer-generated animation often has a
sort of a cold, model-like perfection to it.
I’m just an old man looking back. [Laughs] If I was a young
man today, I’d have no interest in working in computer animation. It
doesn’t jive with what inspired me in the beginning, which was, “You
mean I can make drawings come alive?” It’s a completely different
animal, and that’s wonderful. That’s what the young kids are doing. Hey,
it’s their world, not mine.
What were some of your favorite and least favorite shows to work on?
Oh, my own show, of course, Big Blue Marble, which won a Peabody and an Emmy. Captain Caveman, Scooby-Doo. I loved Rugrats, adored The Smurfs, found Ed, Edd n Eddy
hilarious. Anything that had a lot of explosions and fighting and
violence and stuff, I didn’t like working on. I like my shows to be
sweet, the kind of shows I wanted my own children to watch.
I was going to ask about Ed, Edd n Eddy, because I remember watching that after school. It was really weird.
That was the very last show that was hand-animated, and I was
directing the very last scene of the very last episode. I put my pencil
down, and knew I was doing the last scene I would ever do. It was
September 2008, and I started in August 1958. There I was, at the
beginning of Saturday-morning cartoons, and I was there at the very end
of Saturday-morning cartoons. Just an accident of history.
What’s this tour mean to you?
It certainly pays my electric bill, but I believe that if you really
stop doing things, you just sit in your chair and melt away. So I’m
doing it through fear of death. [Laughs] On top of that, I’m
discovering this wonderful pleasure I get from meeting the audience in
person and showing off my paintings.
This blog is mostly so I can vent my feelings and share my interests. Other than that, I am nothing special.
If you don't like Left Wing political thought and philosophy, all things related to horror, the supernatural, the grotesque, guns or the strange, then get the fuck out. I just warned you.
