Sep 14, 2007

All The Cats sketch



This is a publicity still dating from the original release of "Make Mine Music". The caption is still affixed to the back and reads in part:

"THE JOINT IS JUMPIN'---These 'ickies' and 'alligators'[?] cut a rug when the jam session gets under way[sic] with musical and vocal backgrounds supplied by Benny Goodman's orchestra and The Pied Pipers. The scene is from "All The Cats Join In" sequence, one of the highlights of Walt Disney's latest full length comedy musical in Technicolor "Make Mine Music".

I wonder if this is an actual story sketch from the boards, rather than something drawn just for publicity? It looks like the former. I was just rereading Michael Barrier's biography of Disney; in an interesting anecdote it's mentioned (by one of the story men) that Walt looked at a pitch of the early rough boards for this sequence and was singularly unimpressed, telling them to "tighten it up", try again or something along those lines.

Instead, the guys had Joe Rinaldi take the drawings down and trace over each one, inventing nothing new but making everything look a heck of a lot better. When Walt next saw it, he approved the "changes" and this great number was good to go. This does look as if Joe Rinaldi drew it.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

ooh, I love it.

Eddie Fitzgerald said...

Whoa! A beautiful drawing! Rinaldi's a good artist. I hope there's a book about him someday!

mark kennedy said...

Thanks for posting those, they are great.

Everybody seems to respond to good drawings, and they make every idea look better. I guess even Walt was susceptible to that.

PaulBunyan said...

No matter who drew this particlar sketch; it must reflect much of the concepts of Lance Nolley who was one of the three story men mentioned in the anecdote in Michael Barrier's book as well as the layout artist for this sequence according to the animator drafts.

Wiley said...

Yes, it could have been Joe Rinaldi's work. He was my dad.