Yeah, you know, I discovered John’s trademark. ![]() Tell me more about that! Did you have to rein anybody in? And believe me, it had its good and its bad points! I could bring in a background painter, a designer, an animation guy to really help you out.” I said that’d be great, so he did that. So he was free, and I said to him, “How’d you like to come in and design this title sequence?” John said, “I’ll do more than that, I could bring in a couple other people. I think he had just gotten fired from a project, which was always happening to him. But I wanted to do the job, and I was looking for a way to make it look fresh and different from other things we had done. The team for this one was a little bigger than for your previous sequences, right? You had John Kricfalusi, Jon McClenahan, Jim Smith.Īt that moment, we had a lot going on in the studio. Kookie combed his hair so often that a song was written about it, called " Kookie, Kookie, Lend Me Your Comb". That’s eventually how we got FernGully, you know? The Australian guys came to Hollywood, wanting to do a Disney-style film, and there was literally no studio in Hollywood that was doing what you would call Disney-quality feature animation except us, so that’s how we ended up getting the film.Īctor Edd Byrnes' credit appears on the Swiss army knife's comb, which is a reference to Kookie, a character Byrnes played in the TV show 77 Sunset Strip. Especially because we had that computer technique, which made our stuff unique. If you didn’t work at Disney, there was really no other place to go where you could work on a Disney-style film, which is what we ended up specializing in. But there wasn’t a lot of Disney-quality animation happening outside of Disney, and that was why we had our studio. The Little Mermaid had already happened and so things were picking up. So, it was the late 1980s, and your studio was working on commercials and animated title sequences. And while the film may have missed its mark as top shelf comedy and as social commentary – indeed, Roger Ebert called it “a sitting duck for satire” – its animated opening succeeds in jacking up the joviality.Ī discussion with Title Designer, Director, and Animator BILL KROYERof Kroyer Films. Key animators’ creative demands pushed the production schedule to its edge, resulting in a delightful but less-than-perfect title sequence. Though the team was illustrious, a thorough look at the finished product reveals several sloppy mistakes. ![]() Read about this sequence and John K.'s other animation work at his blog, John K. Kent Butterworth animated Phyllis interacting with the bear toward the end of the sequence, wrapping herself in its furry paws before scampering away. Smith drew the scene in the canoe, while Kazaleh animated the girls with the wine bottle and the corks. ![]() handled much of the layout duties, with Kricfalusi animating Phyllis with the flashlight. This allowed the murderer’s row of animators to let loose. The “combo technique” developed by Bill Kroyer and his partner Susan Kroyer was used to great effect in their previous animated openings, but was used only sparingly in Troop. ![]() In the 1980s, digital techniques were beginning to seep into Hollywood animation. Produced by animation pioneer and director Bill Kroyer’s studio Kroyer Films, the title sequence was created by a team including John Kricfalusi ( The Ren & Stimpy Show, The Ripping Friends), Jon McClenahan ( Animaniacs), Jim Smith ( Mighty Mouse, Ren & Stimpy), Mike Kazaleh ( Mighty Mouse, The Simpsons), Kent Butterworth ( The Smurfs, He-Man), and Eric Stefani ( The Simpsons). The film centers around Phyllis Nefler (Shelley Long), a flighty housewife determined to prove herself capable by shepherding a troop of wealthy Wilderness Girls. For his previous work, “it was completely taboo to draw women who were good looking because it would set a bad example for young girls.” The producers of Troop Beverly Hills had no such concerns with their animated opening – despite its key demographic. “It's the first time I ever got a chance to animate and design a sexy girl,” he recalls. Having spent much of his time prior to 1988 animating Saturday morning cartoons for companies like Hanna Barbera and Filmation, he relished the opportunity to do something more indulgent for 1989’s Troop Beverly Hills. “Well, I love to set a bad example,” said animator John Kricfalusi, talking about his work on the opening titles of Troop Beverly Hills.
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