Drawn back to its roots of originality

HAPHAZARDLY wedged in the corner of a commercial space in Burbank stands an old-fashioned, oversized microphone. “That’s the mike that Tony the Tiger recorded on back in the early ‘60s,” says Stephen Worth, who heads the archive of the International Animation Film Assn.’s Hollywood chapter. It is housed in a small, unassuming locale -- a former microscope shop.

Along the left wall, three iMac computers, plugged into a massive database, hold the digital portion of the animation-inspired records, while original storyboards, drawings and books make up some of the physical portion. Worth, who worked on the production end of animated shows such as “Alvin and the Chipmunks” in the ‘80s, is the director of what is known as the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive, which has been open to the public two days a week since November.

The cereal-inspired tiger’s microphone was donated by Michael Lah, along with commercial keepsakes related to the Rice Krispies characters Snap, Crackle and Pop. Lah, who was legendary animator Tex Avery’s right-hand man, is one of many in the animation community who have contributed pieces to the organization’s growing collection.

“Before there was ASIFA, all the stuff would have gone to the dump,” says Worth, who spearheaded the archive project three years ago with the support of Antran Manoogian, president of the nonprofit, nonunion group ASIFA-Hollywood.

The torch was inadvertently passed to Worth by June Foray and Bill Scott, who worked on “The Rocky & Bullwinkle Show” cartoons through the ‘60s; the former was the voice of Rocky, the latter Bullwinkle. Foray laid the groundwork in the early ‘70s before serious mainstream interest in animation and cartoon cells.

“Literally, the first cell sales were in her backyard, and they would clip the cells to clotheslines,” Worth says. But it was Scott’s dream “to create what he called an animatheque, a museum, library and archive devoted to animation” that apparently sealed it for Worth. Scott died before realizing it. The dream survived him.

In the world of cartoons, death isn’t really death -- whatever is squelched or flattened reappears like new in the next frame. Such is the case for the idea behind the ASIFA Animation Archive. Worth and Manoogian’s timing couldn’t be better for actualizing their plan. With films such as the Walt Disney Pictures/Pixar Animation Studios film “Cars” grossing high at the box office, animation “is commercially robust now,” said Leonard Maltin, film critic and author of the book “Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons.”

But even with today’s innovative computer-generated animation technologies reinvigorating the medium’s bottom line, some in the animation community argue that its original creativity has, like Wile E. Coyote, been beaten down through the years.

The so-called Golden Age of animation took place during Hollywood’s Golden Age, in the ‘30s and ‘40s when Bugs Bunny cartoons were interspersed with newsreels preceding a film’s screening. “Bugs Bunny, probably one of the greatest characters ever created, is every bit as much a personality as Clark Gable,” Worth says. But “animation has always been the bastard child of the film business,” barely taken seriously and relegated to lower-caste status.

The television era was a further knock for animation, with reduced budgets and airtime. Ultimately the ‘70s, which ushered in predictable sitcom formulas and lower-grade animation in shows like “Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!” were, according to Worth, “the dark age for animation.” And, more recently, animated programs such as “South Park,” he says, have failed the medium’s original lofty goals because, “the drawings have become subservient to the dialogue ... because writers are running the show.”

ASIFA-Hollywood’s archive is an attempt to renew the original creativity of the scene -- for fans, but also for young, aspiring animators. “Maybe it will spark a rejuvenation of quality cartoons in a generation or so,” animation impresario John Kricfalusi says. “We could sure use a return to quality and soul.”

Kricfalusi, whose cartoon claim to fame is the creation of “The Ren & Stimpy Show” in the ‘90s, has donated a large collection to the animation archive. It consists of his library of classic cartoons, art books, children’s books and most notably the archives from his animation studio Spumco International. He is in constant contact with Worth discussing ideas for the archive, including fundraising events. Kricfalusi is also hosting a hand-drawn animation course based on a classic how-to book by Preston Blair, on ASIFA-Hollywood’s website (www.animationarchive.org).

Although Worth and Manoogian aim to be all-inclusive with the animation archive (representing animation and animation-inspired material from 1917 through today), a special sense of childlike awe and wonder appears to be reserved for when they reference the magic hands that created some of those earlier sketches.

Such charmingly low-tech storyboards of characters such as Bugs Bunny, the Tasmanian Devil, Speedy Gonzalez and Sylvester the Cat are currently exhibited in a small ad-hoc “gallery” in the commercial space, through late July.

Another reminder of such golden years is a small white desk on display. It was there that such Disney classics as “Steamboat Willie” (1928) and “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” (1937) were first given life. And if the folks at the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive have their way, it might just be, as the saying goes, back to the drawing board for today’s animators.

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ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive

Where: 2114 W. Burbank Blvd., Burbank

When: 1 to 9 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays

Price: Free

Info: (818) 842-8330, www.animationarchive.org