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Dear God, thank you for Ziggy comics, little baby ducks, and 'Sweatin' To the Oldies' volumes 1, 2 and 4.
-Ned FlandersThe Simpsons
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Released: 1975
Tubby the Tuba is a 1975 animated feature, based on the 1945 song of the same name by Paul Tripp and George Kleinsinger. It was released on April 1, 1975 by Avco Embassy Pictures.
The film was produced by the New York Institute of Technology, under the supervision of its founder, Alexander Schure, who was the project's director. Thanks to NYIT's participation, Tubby marked the first time that computers were ever used for the production of an animated feature.[1]
Nearly three decades before the release of this full-length adaptation, stop-motion innovator George Pal made a 1947 Puppetoon which was also based on Tripp and Kleisinger's tune. The Paramount short was nominated for a Best Animated Short Oscar.
A young tuba named Tubby sets off on a quest to find a song of his own. He visits a circus and ventures into the forest while on the way to Singing City.
Tubby the Tuba had his start as the main character in a 1945 children's song, by Paul Tripp and George Kleinsinger, and recorded by Danny Kaye. The success of the Decca Records track encouraged George Pal, the Puppetoon artist, to make a 1947 short based on it. It would later receive an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Short.
A full-length version of Tubby the Tuba was announced in 1974 by Alexander Schure, the millionaire founder of the New York Institute of Technology. He set up the production at its Westbury, New York facilities, in the Animation Department, Visual Arts Center and Tech Sound Lab of that campus. In order for it to compete with the works of children's film leader Disney, he rounded up a celebrity cast (led by Dick van Dyke), as well as Tripp, the song's writer, and Broadway musician Lehman Engel
Schure, however, did not know anything about the animation process at the time he started working on it. Because of this, he hired the industry's best artists from the Eastern Seaboard, among whom were Sam Singer from Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse, and John Gentilella from the classic Popeye series. The majority of the final crew were previously members of Fleischer Studios.
Progress on the new Tubby was very slow at first, hindered by the tedious frame-by-frame process occasionally encountered in the hand-drawn art. In response, Schure turned to an interest in the then-young field of computer graphics, and recruited several consultants and scientists from NYIT so that the project could go on. Two of the later crew members were Ed Catmull and Alvy Ray Smith, the future founders of Pixar Studios.
On the staff's experience with the film, Smith commented:
NYIT in itself was a significant event in the history of computer graphics. Here we had this wealthy man, having plenty of money and getting us whatever we needed, we didn't have a budget, we had no goals, we just stretched the envelope. It was such an incredible opportunity, every day someone was creating something new. None of us slept, it was common to work 22-hour days. Everything you saw was something new. We blasted computer graphics into the world. It was like exploring a new continent. �
Thus, it marked the first time that computers were ever used in the making of an animated feature. But when the film wrapped up production, the first test screenings did not do as well as the crew had hoped it would. As a result, Catmull removed Sam Singer's name from the final prints, taking a credit in Singer's place. He later went on to say about the initial reaction to Tubby:
� It was awful, it was terrible, half the audience fell asleep at the screening. We walked out of the room thinking 'Thank God we didn't have anything to do with it, that computers were not used for anything in that movie!' �
Of director Schure, Catmull's partner Smith observed: "We realized [�] that he really didn't have what it takes to make a movie." Neither of the duo were satisfied with what the finished film had to offer.
In 1974, sometime after the end of its production, independent distributor Avco Embassy acquired the rights to release Tubby worldwide. The film came out in select U.S. markets during the following Easter holiday.
The feature-length Tubby has been generally forgotten in the annals of animation history since its original run,[1] but on September 11, 2006, a small label called Pegasus premiered it on Region 2 DVD in the United Kingdom. To date, it has only received VHS release in North America.
Mr.Cyril Richard was the voice of "The Frog".
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