Interview with Jon McClenahan
By Leonard Kohl
The animation industry in Chicago still pales in comparison with the amount of animation studios and production companies in New York and California, but this may change. One of the newest companies to call Chicago its home is StarToons, small in size, but not too small in achievement. One of Star Toons' latest projects has been a substantial amount of work for Steven Spielberg's cartoon production for Warner Brothers, known as Tiny Toons. Recently I got a chance to talk to the head man of StarToons, Jon McClenahan.
Looking over his animation career so far, he says: "Very few of my credits cause my chest to swell with pride. Some of the CBS Storybreaks were pretty good, but nothing to write home about. The series I directed, Teen Wolf, Berenstain Bears and Pound Puppies were putrid, in my opinion. I really enjoyed working on that New Zealand film, Footrot Flats. It was more of an adult (feature) film, and really funny in its gags, although the film itself was kind of disjointed. Tiny Toons is probably the best of all." McClenahan has also worked on the recently released Jetsons: The Movie and was a story director for several episodes of The Completely Mental Adventures of Ed Grimley, and six episodes of Camp Candy due this fall on NBC.
I asked McClenahan what led him into the field of animation, "I had been majoring in chemistry as a premed prospect at Chicago State University. I thought I wanted to be a doctor, and I did OK in college, grade-wise. But after a year I realized I had no interest in removing rats' gonads, or removing the gastrocnemius muscles of live frogs let alone human bodies. Let me explain, I have nothing against surgeons, but the idea, was more appealing to me than the reality.
"I also had a scholarship in journalism but felt that any journalistic talent I had would be put to good use no matter what I was doing. I didn't necessarily want to become a newspaper editor either. So what was going to be when I grew up? I dropped out of college and got a job as a truck driver, lugging meat around to ghetto grocery stores on the South Side of Chicago. I did that from 1975 to 1980. Believe it or not, my experience as a truck driver/salesman was extremely valuable to me. I taught me the basics of business and hard work. It didn't matter how much meat I sold, it mattered how much money I collected! That can be applied to any field of endeavor.
"My wife could see that I wasn't particularly thrilled with the idea of being a truck driver for the rest of my life. We had friends in Australia. I had always fantasized about moving to Australia, based on the fact that when Kennedy was elected my staunchly Republican parents had said, 'That does it! We're moving to Australia! So my wife and I moved to Australia.
"In Australia I hunted for work for about four weeks until, in desperation, I dragged my sorry carcass into the Hanna-Barbera Studio in Sydney. I didn't think I had a chance, but they liked my drawings and hired me on the spot. They had such a workload that if I couldn't draw they would have hired me as a cel painter. But since know how to hold a pencil they put me in the Inbetweening Department. It was great. It was like a dream come true! We were working on the Popeye series. The last ones done were handled by Hanna-Barbera in Sydney up until 1981. I had always loved Popeye! "Animation in Australia was a thriving industry. It was very good to me and I made a hell-of-a-lot of money doing something I loved, as opposed to lugging meat. My drawing ability was always pretty good, but I am not what you would call an accomplished artist. Remember, I am an ex-truck driver who was going to be a doctor. I still think of myself as a regular guy; not a scarf-wearing, Perrier-sipping, Monet-loving artist. My appreciation for art is embarrassingly low. It's just that I can draw.
"So, in that regard, animation was perfect for me. Animation is not art, it's hard work. I could relate to that. I am not saying that animation cannot be artistic, but with filmmaking it's not that easy. You don't just carve out a block of soap or throw some paint on a canvas. You have to think, plan, work, sweat, coordinate with lots of other people, sweat some more, work some more. It's not easy. It's a challenge and I love it!
Because there is a misconception of what an animation director does, I asked McClenahan to explain just what his work entails, "It depends on whether you're really directing or just assuming the title. As animation director at Hanna-Barbera, my duties were to act as a consultant for other departmental managers, brief the animators on their work, check their work for quality, view the dallies, call reshoots, get paid a lot of money, and see my name appear by itself for more than one second on the credits. The writer, the board artist, even the head of the layout department had more directorial Influence on the film than I did.
"A real director would work with the writer to improve the visuals, supervise the voices, time the x-sheets, supervise or actually do the (story) board, oversee the layouts, all in addition to the things I was doing. Now, I have done all of these things, but never on one single film project. There has never been enough time. Saturday morning work has to be done on time or you can bet the networks will sue your butt out of existence. Ideally, a director would do all the things I mentioned as well (choosing the music, the color, design of the characters, their voices, etc.). Tex Avery, Hanna and Barbera, Chuck Jones; they were probably the last great directors, they did it all.
"So what we have today is generally not the product of an auteur, it is a group effort. But that is true of all filmmaking. Hitchcock was not an auteur. He had set designers, casting directors, cinematographers, production designers; all the live-action counterparts of the animation team. He may have left his mark on a film as a director, but he didn't create the stories nor deal with the most technical aspects of the process. There is no such thing as an auteur in filmmaking, that's the fantasy of some scarf-wearing, Perrier-sipping, Monet-loving artiste.
"Let's get this straight: for Tiny Toons I'm just an animator, period. Now, it may be true that I direct myself as an animator/actor. Usually I disregard the director's notes. That's because I think my way is better. I have to do that. See, there is a universal phenomenon known as 'The Law of Thermodynamics': things tend to break down. 'Murphy's Law' is the same: 'If something can go wrong, it will'. In animation, it starts with the writers idea; which is fantastic, hopefully. He can see it all in his mind; it will be so funny, so spectacular, so entertaining.
"By the time the voice talents have recorded their lines probably 40% of the entertainment quality has been lost. The storyboard wipes out another 10%, and so on down the line. So, I'm always thinking how can I stop this thing from breaking down? The reason breakdown is inevitable is because there are going to be people working on the film who only do what they are told. So, when I am animating I'm reaching back and trying to get back to what the writer meant. Not that I see myself as some kind of animation god, rather I'm just trying to bring in some freshness at a point in the production where it surely needs it. Sometimes I'm wrong, but I haven't had any complaints. And, while the directors ignore may grumble, the producers love my stuff! Spielberg himself loves my stuff! I don't blame directors for grumbling. They probably think, 'Why the hell do bother if the animators just ignore my notes?' We wonder the same thing.
I asked Jon about his feelings on the Hanna-Barbera studios, "Yeah, a lot of people are down on Hanna-Barbera, that it destroyed animation, etc. I'll tell you what I think, Hanna-Barbera kept animation alive as an industry during a long crisis period. When they stopped producing the theatrical shorts at MGM, Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera took advantage of a new market: TV. Between 1955 and 1985 Saturday morning animation is practically all there was to keep animators going. It might well have died out or become a cult thing. But no, its high profile was maintained all those years, even though the quality dropped significantly. I think Hanna-Barbera has been good to animation. It also taught us something valuable: that kids will watch any damned thing! We can learn from that, as human beings and as animators.
What about the future? "Feature films, definitely. But also theatrical shorts. Disney is doing them again, and I hear rumors that Hanna-Barbera will be doing the same for Universal. 7-8 minutes is the perfect length for a cartoon. But, you can't help but admire Disney's ability to sustain an animated film for 80 minutes. Disney's features were great, wonderful, edifying. That's what I want to do: enrich people.
"As far as expanding StarToons I want that to happen in its due course. I'm not presently willing to get deeply into debt, which is what you have to do when you decide to expand. My first year it was just me and my wife, Chris. Occasionally I would hire people for a week at a time. Now we have a staff of three and we're on the verge of hiring two more people full-time. If some of the projects we're bidding on pan out, we'll be looking for more. But right now I don't want to force it. StarToons has been built on my reputation as an animator. The people on our studio have to be top-notch, I don't want to put out run-of-the-mill stuff."
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