Animascope: or, what my father did after the wars and before the other wars

 My father, Leon Maurer, was a serial entrepreneur. One his cooler companies made this:

What is so cool about it, besides it being a cartoon featuring the Senate Appropriations Committee, manpower problems in the armed forces, overtired officers, and a coolly professional female space pilot confronting sexism with grace and aplomb? Well, three things. First, it was made in 1962. Second, it was made by my father. Third, it was made by Animascope (aka Colormation or rotoscopic animation) an automated process by which live actors could be used as templates for animation. Yessir, that’s exactly the process used in most CGI flicks today.

They used it to make Yellow Submarine and a cartoon version of The Lord of the Rings. I’m not sure why it faded after that. But I’m here to say that Animascope was my pop’s invention, and give him a loud shout-out, close enough to his 86th birthday for government work. Mazeltov, papito!

Comments

[Jonathan]

Thanks, Len! Thanks, Noel!!

[Matt McIrvin]

Hmm.

Rotoscoping goes back a long way (it was used in Disney's Snow White), but usually it involved manual tracing over the live-action frames. I guess this was a more automated version of the process?

[Bernard Guerrero]

Any relation?

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/01/the-unexpected-return-of-duck-and-cover/68776/

[Rotoscopy]

Thanks For Sharing The Information About The Rotoscopy