West Coast Wonders: Manny Gould

The bombastic foreshortener

• Gould began as an inbetweener at Max Fleischer’s Inkwell Studios in the early-1920s.

• He found success in supervising cartoons, but his forte was animating them.

• After being laid off from Screen Gems in 1941, he migrated to Warner Bros. and worked under Bob Clampett, Arthur Davis, and Robert McKimson.

• Gould left Warner Bros. in 1947, worked at Jerry Fairbanks Productions for a bit, and stayed at Lou Lilly Productions until 1964.

• He animated for television programs and theatrical shorts throughout the 1960s, retired in 1974, and died the following year.

(Buckaroo Bugs, dir. Bob Clampett)

(Baby Bottleneck, dir. Bob Clampett)

(The Goofy Gophers, dir. Arthur Davis)

• Gould’s draftsmanship is among the most dimensional of the classic animators.

• His scenes emphasize powerful acting and expression, wherein he doesn’t shy away from stretching and contorting his characters.

• To discern Gould’s work, look for long, blobby smears, foreshortened limbs and heads, unabashed squash and stretch (a remnant of his early NYC career), boxed proportions rather than fully rotund ones, and fluid, rubbery motion.

• I’ve mentioned Gould’s name in my list of animation heroes, and you can expect more posts relating to those masters.

(Daffy Duck Slept Here, dir. Robert McKimson)

(Paying the Piper, dir. Robert McKimson)

(Funny is Funny, dir. Ed Graham Jr.)

Up next: Vladimir “Bill” Tytla (the master of foreboding characters)