User:QuestJ65/Iwao Takamoto
| QuestJ65/Iwao Takamoto | |
|---|---|
 Takamoto, circa 1960s. | |
| Born | April 29, 1910 Los Angeles, California |
| Died | January 8, 2007 Los Angeles, California |
| Cause of death | Heart attack |
| Nationality | Japanese American |
| Occupation(s) | Animator Television producer Film director Storyboard artist |
| Years active at Hanna-Barbera | 1957-2001 |
| Years active at Warner Bros. | 2001-2007 |
Iwao Takamoto was a Japanese-American animator, television producer, and film director known for his work at the Hanna-Barbera animation studio.
He began his career at the Walt Disney Studios in 1941, where he previously worked on feature films such as Cinderella, Lady and the Tramp, and Sleeping Beauty. After moving to Hanna-Barbera in 1961, he was assigned to do different jobs, but is arguably known for being the designer of various characters. He is notable for designing the Jetsons' pet dog, Astro, Muttley, Penelope Pitstop, the Great Gazoo, and his most famous contribution, Scooby-Doo. He also worked as a producer of several television cartoons, supervising in Jabberjaw and Hong Kong Phooey, and directed the feature film Charlotte's Web.
He died of a heart attack on January 8, 2007, at the age of 81.
Biography
| This article or section is a stub. You can help the Hanna-Barbera Wiki by expanding it. |
Early life and career
Takamoto was born in Los Angeles, California, and was a son of immigrants from Hiroshima.[1] At the age of 15, he graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School at Los Angeles.[1]
Shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the signing of Executive Order 9066, Takamoto's family, like many Japanese-Americans, was forcibly moved to the Manzanar internment camp in the early 1940s, at the foot of the Sierra Nevada. His first job was weaving camouflage nets, but was constantly scolded by his superiors for his lack of experience in making net patterns.[2] The environmental conditions of the camp was considered rough by those within the camp, but Takamoto occupied his time by developing his basic illustration skills.[3] After meeting with Dr. Genevieve Carter, the educational director at the camp, Takamoto sought to improve his illustrations with the help of Cater, who gave him art supplies. He also met two co-internees at the camp, who encouraged him to enter the field of commercial artwork.[4]
After the war, Takamoto joined Walt Disney Studios in 1945 as an in-betweener from a recommendation of the art directors of Manzanar, due to its comparatively liberal attitude toward races.[5] He initially worked as an assistant to animators Bob Carlson and Milt Kahl,[1] and with additional support from some of the studio's "nine old men" — Ward Kimball, Marc Davis, Eric Larson, Ollie Johnson and Frank Thomas — Takamoto further developed his experience in animation; finishing Kahl's animation for Cinderella (1950), and designing Lady in The Lady and The Tramp (1955), when Kahl asked him to make her look more cute and feminine. He also took quality control for sequences in Sleeping Beauty (1959), and oversaw animation production of One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961).[1]
As the 1950s progressed, Disney pushed to expand to other forms of entertainment, including live-action films, television and amusement parks. When Sleeping Beauty resulted in a box office disappointment upon its release, Takamoto later decided that theatrical animation was declining, and left Disney in 1961.[1]
Career at Hanna-Barbera
Following his departure at Disney, Takamoto joined Hanna-Barbera Productions after getting an encouragement from his peers.[5] To Takamoto, he particularly found the philosophy of H-B's "limited animation" process to be design-oriented; compared to Disney's, which had more of a focus on animators. One of Takamoto's key influences when he signed in was Ed Benedict, who invented the house style for the studio.[6] Another influence was Richard Bickenbach, who Takamoto described as a person who "would take a lot of Ed Benedict’s designs and modify them for the animators so that they were easier to move around."[5]
Takamoto first worked as a character designer for The Jetsons, in which he contributed the design of the family dog Astro; he later described his experience on designing the character as a path for his career at the studio.[7] For the 1964 feature film Hey There, It's Yogi Bear, he made a major overhaul to the design of Cindy Bear. Barbera felt that the design Cindy had in the Yogi Bear television shorts was not appealing and ordered Takamoto to make her look more feminine, similar to his work on Disney's Lady and the Tramp.[8] Takamoto also designed the film's villains, among which included a sinister dog named Mugger, which became the basis for Muttley from Wacky Races.
Crew credits
Behind the scenes
References
- ^ a b c d e Wells, Paul (January 28, 2007). "Iwao Takamoto: Brilliant animator who eased the medium's transition from film to television". The Guardian. Retrieved August 10, 2024.
- ^ "Loss When Leaving for Manzanar" (Iwao Takamoto interview). Discover Nikkei.
- ^ "Developing Art Skills in Camp" (Iwao Takamoto interview). Discover Nikkei.
- ^ Nakaji Monnier, Mia (October 21, 2009). "A Great American Life". Discover Nikkei.
- ^ a b c Takamoto, Iwao (2009). Iwao Takamoto: My life with a Thousand Characters. Jackson, Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi. ISBN 978-1-60473-477-5.
- ^ I loved his thinking process, and the simplicity in which he got across his ideas in shows like “The Flintstones.” Ed’s designs made the homes really look like they were dug out of a boulder, with a fiat granite slab on top, looking like it bad just been lowered down there on the head of a dinosaur. The result was almost cave-like, but at the same time strangely modern; a real primitive but fun environment which set the pattern for visual stylings that are still being used today in animation. - Iwao Takamoto. Iwao Takamoto: My life with a Thousand Characters, p.93. Jackson, Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi. ISBN 978-1-60473-477-5.
- ^ I was able to contribute a lot more in the way of design and styling on that show, and one of my contributions was the design of “Astro,” the family dog. While I did not know it at the time, the ability to craft a dog character with a tendency to act at times semi-human would weigh heavily in my career at the studio. - Iwao Takamoto. Iwao Takamoto: My life with a Thousand Characters, p.98. Jackson, Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi. ISBN 978-1-60473-477-5.
- ^ [Joe Barbera] appeared in my office one day and announced that he was not satisfied with the way “Cindy Bear,” Yogi’s love interest, had been drawn in the television shorts in which she had appeared. She was not cute enough for his tastes. Joe felt that the feature needed a much more appealing leading lady, even if the leading lady was a female bear. Yogi, after all, had to become smitten. So, harkening back to the time I redesigned Disney’s “Lady” to make her more feminine, I took a pass on Cindy, instilling in her all the ursine sex appeal I could. - Iwao Takamoto. Iwao Takamoto: My life with a Thousand Characters, p.103. Jackson, Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi. ISBN 978-1-60473-477-5.
