Oct 8, 2025
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Karl Cohen: The Cartoon King
by Doniphan Blair
Cartoon fanatic, scholar and maker Karl Cohen relaxes on a overstuffed couch in the similar front room of his San Francisco Victorian. photo: D. BlairKARL COHEN WAS NOT SIMPLY
crowned king of Bay Area animation curation, a concept that would offend his egalitarian sensibilities, he had to slowly crawl his way to the top.
After growing up a nerdy, film-obsessed kid in 1950s Washington, DC, and getting his BA there, he headed west. Matriculating at the University of California, Berkeley, for an MA in art history, he barely graduated given that the Free Speech Movement exploded on campus, in his senior year, 1965.
“I got radicalized one morning as I was going to class,” he told me recently. “I saw limp protesters being hauled out of the administration building and tossed into paddy wagons. That was a horrible moment for me. I joined the picket line to show my support.”
Decamping shortly thereafter back to Squaresville, he pursued his chosen metier at the Des Moines Art Center, in Iowa, where he taught art history, and then the Toledo Museum of Art, in Ohio.
Within six years, however, he was back in the thick of it, moving to the Haight-Ashbury and showing his rapidly expanding film collection to the hippies, then the beats in North Beach and eventually all over.
Soon landing teaching gigs at almost every film department in the Bay Area, he became a fixture in the light show, film display and animation scene, which had kicked off locally a decade earlier with the arrival of blacklisted Disney animator David Hilberman at San Francisco State, in 1967.
Cohen (right) with new age musician George Mundy, for whom he did light shows, circa 1978. photo courtesy: K. CohenCohen covered this important development in his major work, “Forbidden Animation: Censored Cartoons and Blacklisted Animation” (1997, McFarland). He has also published almost two dozen major articles and several hundred lessor works (including "Cohen’s Cartoon Corner" in cineSOURCE, which has appeared monthly since the magazine’s inception in 2008).
Along the way he also made almost two dozen 16mm and Super-8 shorts, two of which garnered distro on the Midnight Movies circuit and television. Others appeared in many festivals, including the Chicago International and New York Erotic. Along with DP-ing the indie feature "Deeply Disturbed", from Loonic Video (1993), he has had one-man shows at the Intersection for the Arts and the Berkeley Film House.
In the 1980s, Cohen became the head of the local chapter of the Association International du Film d’Animation (ASIFA), which was founded in 1975 by Jeff and Margaret Hale (of "Sesame Street" and "Thank You Mask Man" fame), Prescott Wright ("International Tournée of Animation") and others. Since then, he has published its newsletter and recently received the international organization's lifetime achievement award, which is usually reserved for directors.
He also became a special effects specialist, notably of UFO-related material, some so lifelike it inspired UFO-sighting testimonials, but also more routine footage for the likes of Bank of America or Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
In 1993, Cohen began teaching his now-famous animation class at San Francisco State, growing it from cut-and-dry lectures to a multifaceted survey of animation, replete with incredible shows from his extensive collection.
"While I still cover the basics," Cohen told me, by email, "I also add important themes, including the importance of surrealism in animation, the use of seemingly-harmless cartoons for propaganda or to present provocative subjects to adults. I discuss the importance of art to what makes animation truly great."
Despite suffering a stroke in 1998, he gets around with a cane and remains a vocal supporter of animation, notably its more experimental aspects. Given this and his decade-plus dedication to writing for cineSOURCE, as well as the amazingly-elevated position the Bay Area holds in the history of animation, I had long wanted to sit down for a chat with Cohen.
We finally did so at the end of May at his deluxe digs, a four-story Victorian just eight blocks from the epicenter of the Summer of Love, the corners of Haight and Ashbury.
Cohen veers easily from good humor to incisive seriousness. photo courtesy: D. BlaircineSOURCE: So you were here when the storied Haight-Ashbury was just around the corner?
Karl Cohen: I moved back from the Midwest in 1971, when the Haight was a mess.
I came in the fall of ‘71 and was confronted by an apocalyptic image. As you recall, the entire street was covered with graffiti, all the stores were boarded up—
Not all, I showed movies in one of them.
I became friends with Eric “Big Daddy” Nord, a somewhat-famous beatnik. He was the biggest of the beatniks, over six feet—250 to 300 pounds, I would guess.
He was asked by Tony Serra [famous Bay Area lefty lawyer] to live in the back of an empty store because Tony wanted someone in the space so it wouldn’t get destroyed by vandals. It had been the Print Mint [which did Zap Comix issues #4–9].
What was your specialty then?
Cartoons and comedies, the classics.
How did the hippies take to the Marx Brothers—they must have loved it.
It was fun showing films there, but there was not much of an audience, even though we were only asking for $1 donations. Then I was invited to go down to North Beach and start a Sunday night series that I ran for about 15 years at Intersection on 756 Union Street.
Intersection for the Arts?
Yes, they’ve since moved. In the early ‘80s they had a new director who decided to turn it into a conceptual art center. So she got rid of the poetry project, the comedian workshops, the film shows.
She thought conceptual was the big new thing?
Yes. The rent had been a dollar a year from Glide Memorial Church that owned the building. [She said,] ‘Oh, we can’t do that to the Methodists, we have to pay rent.’ [They said,] ‘Oh you want to pay rent, we will find out what the going rent is in North Beach.’ ‘Oh, we can’t pay that.’ Then they said, ‘Get the hell out.’
When did you get bit by the film bug?
Buster Keaton and Cosmic Animation: two typical nights from when Cohen was curating film at Intersection for the Arts, circa 1975. image courtesy: K. CohenBy the time I was five or six. I grew up in Washington, DC, My father had 8mm movies of Charlie Chaplin and I loved looking at those. It was an unorthodox cinematic education.
I was about eight when my Uncle Danny opened the Dupont Theatre, Washington’s first integrated movie theater. It got picketed by the KKK, and the Hollywood film exchanges would not give him their films. Out of necessity, he ended up showing lots of documentaries and foreign films.
By the 1950s, the Circle Theatre was showing foreign and revival programs. I ended up seeing Eisenstein and so on by the time I was ten or twelve. I loved Cocteau [‘Blood of the Poet’, 1930, ‘Beauty and the Beast’, 1946]. When most kids were learning to love ‘Howdy Doody’ [TV show, 1947-60], I was enjoying Buñuel and lots of British comedies: Alec Guinness, Peter Sellers.
When were you finally bitten by animation?
I grew up with it. The MacArthur Theater in Washington showed UPA [United Producers Association] animation on programs with British comedies. I went to other theaters that showed three-hour-long cartoon marathons. I became a fan of Bugs [Bunny] and Daffy [Duck].
I was obsessed with those, too. In one of your recent ‘Cartoon Corners’, you were covering ‘Crusader Rabbit’. An early example of Bay Area animation?
Yup.
That was the first successful animated series made for TV [1950]. There were other examples prior to that, but they are all obscure footnotes in history. The voice of Crusader Rabbit was Lucille Bliss, who had voiced one of Cinderella’s evil sisters and later became the voice of Smurfette. She lived in the Castro and was a delightful friend, as she loved to talk about her long career.
You grew up watching ‘Crusader Rabbit’ and were pretty impressed?
I don’t know. As a kid, I wasn't thinking in terms of impressive; it was entertainment. But I was too old for it so I rarely watched it.
I saw the replays, eight-ten years later, and found them to be fantastic. They had a lot of adventures—they went to the South Seas. They really created this story line, friendship and adventure.
Yup.
Disney was only movies then?
Yup. Disney hated TV at that point. That was before he made millions on TV.
Cohen gets a hug from Marjane Satrapi, director of the ground-breaking 'Persepolis' (2007), after his interview that inspired her 45 minute rant about the insanity of Iran and the US and the power of animation. photo courtesy: K. CohenAt some point you started teaching at State and got into cartoons?
It came from showing them. I recognized that the audience loved them. I loved them. I realized that the best animation is a great form of kenetic art. I started to get serious about collecting 16mm animated shorts in the Midwest.
I was working in the art museum in Des Moines. There was a man who had a small basement theater in his house. He showed great classics like ‘The Great Dictator’ [1940], ‘Metropolis’ [1927] and ‘Phantom of the Opera’ [1925].
He introduced me to a magazine where I could buy these films. So I started buying 16mm prints of cartoons, silent comedies and other films, even 1950s and ‘60s TV commercials. I just loved collecting and showing them.
And you still have—?
Yes, upstairs, although it is dangerous to go in the room.
I assume Steve Parr [1953-2018, a mutual friend and owner of Oddball Films] would come over and try to convince you to give him a few of those reels?
Oh yeah!
Did you give some?
Of course [both laugh]. I wish I had given him more.
Parr used to toss extremely large gatherings when he lived south of Market. At one party there was a rather unusual guy going around with a can of shaving cream and a pie tin, asking young women rub a tin full of cream in his face. It was quite pleasurable for him—judging from the wet spot on his pants—and he found several women who obliged him that evening.
I wrote a note to Herb Caen [the long time SF columnist, 1916-97] about 'Pie Face' Mike. He found a discrete way to mention Mike and Steve. We became better friends based on my getting him in Caen’s column. Parr seemed quite delighted with those few minutes of fame.
Do you still show 16mm—?
Now no one is showing 16mm anymore, only transfers to DVD and other digital formats.
I used to show them to my students at San Francisco State. All my animation history classes had films presented on 16mm—except more recent work—from my collection.
When did you start teaching there?
1993.
That is about when Pixar started. So the Bay Area—please tell me why—became this world center for animation.
Because people liked to live here, and you don’t need famous movie stars to do the voices. As far as the production goes, you can do that anywhere. So a lot of people said, ‘where do you want to live?’ And they said, ‘San Francisco.’
But let me go back, the industry on the West Coast started in your hometown?
Oakland?
You know where it was?
That place near Fremont?
Cohen covers Phil Tippett, a stop-motion creature specialist, who did stuff for 'Star Wars' and 'Jurassic Park', which appeared in a local media mag, Film-Tape World (1979-2007). photo courtesy: K. CohenNiles? No, that was live action.
There was an animator working in Oakland from 1915-1916, up till 1918 or later. You know who Willis O'Brien is?
No.
He animated the stop-motion puppet in ‘King Kong’ [1933].
His early experimental work was distributed by Edison. He lived in Oakland and then moved his studio to San Francisco. It was at Powell and Market on the roof of a bank. He needed a good source of light.
Amazing. So the Bay Area—specifically the East Bay—has been at the cutting edge of animation for 100 years?
Yes.
So then there was the North Bay animation scene. When did that kick in?
When Lucas went up there, after the original ‘Star Wars’ [1977].
When was the golden age of animation in the Bay Area?
Ahhh, I would say there wasn’t one. It is all transitory.
Martin Rosen produced ‘Plague Dogs’ [1982] at a space in North Beach. The following year ‘Twice Upon a Time’, made in Mill Valley, was released. It was directed by John Korty and Chuck Swenson, George Lucas as the executive producer. It was a nice period, but it wasn’t a golden age.
There was a time when there was a lot of stuff up at Hamilton Fields [ImageMovers, Robert Zemeckis].
They did motion capture and a lot of stuff for Disney.
That was about 1990, and then the Disney Museum opened here.
That was ten years ago [2009], because the family lived up here. Diane Disney-Miller and her husband Ron Miller. They created Sterling Vineyards.
By the time you add it all up, the Bay Area has been a big player.
Yes, but it doesn’t have a nice, logical history, because it is always being interrupted.
And now it is on sort of a downturn?
You have TV animation starting here with ‘Crusader Rabbit’ but going nowhere. The next productions are in LA. At that point, Alex Anderson—Jay Ward’s partner [the co-creator of 'Crusader'], who was in advertising—he didn’t go to LA with Jay. So you really don’t have that continuum.
‘Crusader Rabbit’ basically died. There was a lawsuit. It was in production from 1948 to 1950, when a lawsuit ended the production. The studio was in rooms over Jay Ward’s parent’s garage in Berkeley, and the sound was recorded in SF.
Cohen drops by a film night hosted by the late, great Steve Parr, long time friend and coveter of Cohen's fantastic film collection. photo: D. BlairThe first episodes were made for about $500 each—that is why the productions were called ‘limited animation.’ Now Alex Anderson’s animation stand and archive belong to our Cartoon Art Museum, in Fisherman's Wharf. When production started up again, in the 1950s, Ward had moved to LA [1956-59].
The companies that were in San Francisco... you had John Magnuson, who did ‘Thank You Masked Man’, with Jeff Hale directing [written and voiced by Lenny Bruce, 1971]. They had a studio called Imagination Incorporated in the late ‘60s and into the ‘70s, but then that dies. They created a lot of TV commercials and segments for 'Sesame Street'.
Where was that?
In North Beach, on Jackson.
What I would say, if there was golden age, it would be the late ‘70s to early ‘80s. You have John Korty, who won an Oscar for ‘Who are the DeBolts’ [1977], a documentary about a family, which had ten or fifteen kids [19, actually].
He had a studio in Mill Valley, and he got a contract from ‘Sesame Street’.
All the way in from New York?
Yes. He needed animators. So he hired animators who were learning animation by the seat of their pants.
Two of them were Gary Gutierrez and Drew Takahashi. While working for Korty, they got a contract, around ’75, to do the animation for the Grateful Dead feature—the introduction of the film was animated. They did this cosmic pinball game in outer space set to Grateful Dead music, some tuning-up sounds, which was very weird. It was great.
When they got the contract to do the opening footage, Korty said something like, ‘I don’t want that in my studio, it will take up too much space,’ whatever his excuses were. So Gary and Drew did it in Drew’s mother’s basement. It was a Victorian in SF. In 1976, they incorporated as Colossal Pictures and they lasted until ‘99.
They moved down to Bayshore at some point.
They were all over. I followed them for years. They were the best animation company in town, practically the only one. They did fantastic work.
They did features as well?
Titles for lots of features and TV shows plus the special effects for ‘The Right Stuff’.
It looks simple but it was very effective.
[laughs] They had wires strung outside the building, where they would film at just the right time of day or night, when the wire wouldn’t show, shooting at a certain angle. They would slide flaming space capsules coming back into earth on those wires.
They also hired the late Jordan Belson, a great unsung visionary filmmaker [pre-computer, computer-like effects, see his master work ‘Mandala’, 1953], to create amazing images for the feature.
Colossal Pictures did some TV animation that is still some of the best animation you have ever seen—from Captain Crunch to Coca-Cola commercials, as well as early titles for ‘Saturday Night Live’, ‘The Twilight Zone’ and MTV.
A Betty Boop-impersonator, hired by Cohen's wife Denise, entertains him on his 60th birthday. photo: courtesy K. Cohen[They also did ‘Back to the Future: The Animated Series’, 1991, the "Aeon Flux" series for MTV, 1991-95, and effects for ‘Bram Stoker's Dracula’, 1991, ‘Demolition Man’, 1993, and ‘Natural Born Killers’, 1994, among many others.]
Did you yourself do cel animation?
I did experimental animation, cutouts, optical effects.
I also created a series of postcards of UFOs flying over SF. They were sold for many years in stores around the world. SF Magazine published my circular space station flying over the Transamerica Building in a full page ad for subscriptions to the magazine.
At one point, I got a very strange phone call from the ‘Cosmic Lady’ thanking me for photographing the UFO she had seen.
When did you start teaching animation?
I’d rather not name the school. It was a horrible school.
We formed a legal union and went out on strike against them. We won our strike. When we were reinstated, they said I had to teach what my staff replacement was teaching. I was teaching film history and he was teaching a course in animation.
So this is your Rosebud moment, you were forced into it by the oppressor?
Exactly.
I think that is common artistically: doing something by necessity not choice.
I was friends with Marcy Page and others who worked for Colossal. I put together a course overnight. I knew enough about it because I had been doing under-the-camera animation with cutouts.
Cutouts, that is a great tradition, too. Where did that start—must have been very early?
I don’t honestly know.
Your class was a practicum?
Yes, I also brought in a lot of films to show. Later I did a few courses with SF State Extension.
At some point, you switched to doing the history of animation?
Yes, in the early 1990s at State.
And, at that moment, Pixar blew up and you knew those people?
Cohen dug deep into his vaults for material even shocking to Berkeleyites, circa 1999. photo courtesy: K. CohenOh god, yes. When they were in Richmond—before they got the fabulous place in Emeryville—they were in temporary buildings, sprawled over a large area. That is where people started running around on skateboards, rolling skates and scooters.
I did an interview for Film Tape World with John Lasseter. His office was twice the size of this [room] and it had nothing but shelves full of toys, stuffed bears, metal toys, trucks, whatever.
For inspiration?
Yeah.
You wrote a couple of pretty tough articles about women complaining about John, are you still on speaking terms?
I haven’t seen him in years. Last time I saw him was at the opening of the Disney Museum. My wife and I came in and he gave me a big hug—no big deal—he was a hugger. Diane Disney-Miller was there with him, greeting people.
A bit like Biden, borderline but not with real bad intention. Nevertheless, he suffered quite a bit from it.
Yeah. John knew me by name, when I came in the door, but since then so much has happened. I feel sorry for him. He is just a boy at heart—an overgrown boy.
Once, years ago, when Spike and Mike [Craig 'Spike' Decker and Mike Gribble] were in town, presenting one of their ‘Sick and Twisted’ shows’, they rented a luxury apartment on the top of a tall building overlooking the Fisherman’s Wharf area. They were probably a little tipsy and, in any case, someone ordered pizzas.
So what did they do when the pizza boxes were empty? John Lasseter and Mike Gribble were at the window. ‘Hey, let’s see how far they can be thrown.’ They were throwing these cardboard rounds, that you have in pizza boxes, out the window. They were asked to clean up their mess and told not to come to back. [laughs]
Yes, that was an incredible boom time but—
It died.
Where did it move to, back to LA?
Animation is still written and designed on paper here in the US, and then it is shipped abroad to do the work.
The first ‘runaway production’ [sent overseas] was Jay Ward’s ‘Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends’ [1959-1964]. The sponsor had a deal with a studio in Mexico. Their first work was awful, so Jay had to fly one or two LA animators to Mexico City, to teach that crew how to animate.
Soon other studios were sending work to Taiwan and Australia. I knew two women who moved to Taiwan to supervise a major production.
They ran into so much sexism on the job that they would have to call LA saying, ‘Hey so-and-so here at the studio, we asked him to make the changes, and he refused to listen to us. Could you tell him he will be fired if he doesn’t cooperate?’ It got down to threatening the guy’s career.
Women had to do a lot to win their rights to be recognized as descent human beings. It was hard.
And descent animators?
I won’t go that far. A lot of them were put in secondary positions. Disney wouldn’t even hire them in the 1930s, in a creative position. He would only hire them for ink and paint [coloring in the pencil sketches].
Cohen with Ron Diamond, producer of 'The Animation Show of Shows', which has featured outstanding animation from around the world for the last 20 years. photo courtesy: K. CohenHe had a standard letter which said, ‘We do not hire women to do the creative work,' I was told by former Disney employees. The administration felt, ‘Why spend the money training the women to become artists when they are going to get pregnant and leave?’
Nevertheless a few women were hired in better jobs?
Mary Blair was one of his favorite designers in the 1940s and '50s. Retta Scott did some of the animals for ‘Bambi’ [1942]. She was here working on ‘The Plague Dogs’, probably her last job.
Right after that, Korty did ‘Twice Upon a Time’. He only put up the money, didn’t direct, although he is listed in the credits as a director, along with Charles Swenson, who did direct. Lucas put up some money. That was probably the pinnacle of animation here, along with the Grateful Dead feature.
It was a wonderful period, although ‘Plague Dogs’ was a very sad story. It was a British production [concerning two dogs who escape from a research lab]. Producer Martin Rosen did it here because he wanted to live in San Francisco—didn’t want to put up with a winter in London. So he opened a studio and hired Brad Bird—
Of Pixar?
Yup—[director of] ‘The Incredibles’ [2004] and ‘The Iron Giant’ [1999]. Brad Bird was a young animator working on ‘Plague Dogs’, along with Retta Scott, and Phil Robinson ['Casper', 1995, 'The Twisted Tales of Felix the Cat', 1995].
Was there a feeder school producing a lot of these animators?
San Francisco State started its animation program around 1967 with David Hilberman, who was one of the blacklisted animators who moved here.
Blacklisted for what?
Walt Disney hated him—thought Dave was a communist. Dave told me and others that Disney must have thought that he ‘was the son-of-a-bitch behind the strike [Disney animators went on strike in 1941] and I’m going to get him.’ And he did.
So Walt Disney was not just anti-Semitic, he was a very vindictive guy?
He hired several Jews in key roles and was friendly towards them. I interviewed many of his retired employees and they never heard him say anything negative about Jews—that includes Dave [Hilberman].
That kind of contradicts the Saturday Night Live thing where Mickey shows the kids around the vault—isn’t that a masterpiece?
I show that to my students, it is ‘Journey to the Disney Vaults'.
It is one of the greatest spoofs—politically incisive as well as well acted. Poor Mickey is constantly trying to cover up, but he is chagrined to tell the kids about anti-Semitism.
Walt wasn’t openly anti-Semitic. However, he did have a typically southern upbringing that was offensive towards blacks. The NAACP went after him over blatantly racist moments in ‘The Song of the South’ [1946, an animated/live-action musical].
Cohen drops by Industrial Light and Magic's theater in the Presidio with his wife Denise, circa 1999. photo: courtesy K. Cohen I interviewed Maurice Rapf, one of the film's scriptwriters. He was hired by Walt to clean up anything in ‘The Song of the South’ that might be objectionable to blacks. Maurice did that and then went on to do other projects at Disney. When the film came out, Maurice discovered Walt left in some of the offensive material that he recommended should be cut.
Maurice was one of several Jews Walt hired. He told me he believed Walt hired him because he offered a liberal perspective on the film. He believed Walt knew he was left wing and probably sympathetic towards communism, views quite different from Walt’s. Maurice said he met regularly with his boss and never saw any signs of anti-Semitism. He left in 1947 over a salary dispute.
In the early 1950s he was blacklisted. In his autobiography he talks about his politics, as he did when I interviewed him for ‘Forbidden Animation: Censored Cartoons and Blacklisted Animators.”
When Walt named Hilberman as a possible communist, I believe it was because he thought Hilberman was one of the major strike leaders. David disagreed. I knew David fairly well. He used to insist, ‘All I did was go around with cards asking, ‘Would you support us if we formed a union?’
And that is what he did. He followed the law of the National Labor Relations Board; he got the signatures and turned them into the union leaders. Others were the union leaders, not David.
The government recognized their strike as valid. They won. But Disney refused to go along with it, at first. He drew out the strike until it was the longest strike in film history, at that time. MGM and Warner Bros, they agreed right away.
The way the Disney strike ended, someone contacted the government—possibly Roy Disney—asking, ‘Can you do something.’ They went to Nelson Rockefeller, who was the head of the Pan American Union, an association Roosevelt supported. It was helping to create positive relationships with Latin America, due to worries that some Latin American nations might support Nazi Germany.
Rockefeller invited Disney to do a goodwill tour of South America. He was going crazy in the studio. I don’t know whether rumors were true or not, but he was supposedly washing his hands several times an hour and developed a nervous tic. They got him out of the way and his brother Roy settled the strike—supposedly, they say—in 24 hours.
What is your take on the man, in sum?
I agree Walt was a great producer. I loved the work that came out of his studio. Yes, it was very family-oriented, wholesome. He pushed his artists; he created great works of art; but to quote Dave, 'he was a son-of-a-bitch.'
What are some of your favorite films? I love ‘Snow White’ [1939] and ‘Jungle Book’ [1967].
A lot of the old work under his direction is great.
When Snow White walks into the first scene, it is better than any digital animation I have ever seen.
Yeah. It’s gorgeous work. ‘Fantasia’ [1940] is wonderful film.
Of course, ‘Fantasia’ is a masterpiece, shows that he is an artist. ‘Fantasia’ shows he opposed the Nazis, the symbolism is against mind control.
Disney made several WWII films that were very anti-Nazi. I don’t think he was ever favorable to their cause.
He was financially screwed by the Nazis. They showed ‘Snow White’ and some of his shorts and didn’t pay the rental fee. And Disney was a real businessperson: if you stiffed Disney, he was going to stiff you. He was nasty. Doing business with Disney was not always a gentleman’s handshake.
(Rt) Animation producer Marcy Page and animation teacher Diana Morse present Cohen a lifetime ASIFA Award, usually reserved for directors, at the Ottawa Animation Festival, 2008. photo courtesy: K. CohenIf you were a Nazi not paying your bills—which they weren’t—then... He and Roy even went to Germany before the war to collect the money owed them. They met with some of the top Nazis—I don’t know if he met with Hitler or not—to try and get some of his money back.
What do you make of the fact Disney is essentially the biggest film corporation in the world now? Kind of odd, symbolically—the 'toons take over.
I think Walt would be very pleased to know that. The Wall Street Journal reported that his Mouse franchise sold three billion dollars' worth of products last year and the Star Wars items also represent an impressive chunk of change.
Do you think it is a good thing? Are they doing good work?
Most of their products don’t interest me. Their features are pretty frightening. You have the ‘lovely’ princesses films—
You find them just way too commercial?
Yeah. It is teaching all the wrong things to girls. When you go to Disneyland, you can have a Disney princess birthday party for her and buy her fake royal gowns—it’s nauseating.
What do you think of Disneyland in general?
It was fun. I have always been there as a guest of someone who works there. The entrance fee is over a hundred bucks now [$95-119 for adults, depending on day]. You can spend a very nice tidy sum staying at the Disney Hotel, although I think it includes free admission to the park.
But you know, they put on beautiful theatrical programs in their little theater, often very innovative, almost always musicals.
Yeah, but very wholesome. It is fine. The Christian right hates Disney for their stance on homosexuals.
Disney accepted homosexuals? When did they do that?
They accepted LGBT both as employees and as guests in their theme parks many decades ago. The Christian Right decided to ‘protect’ their flock by having boycotts. They hated Disney for holding things like ‘Gay Night’ in the park. I would have to look for the years when [the American Family Association and Southern Baptist Convention] called for boycotts. [The mid-‘90s.]
Around that time, they had a couple of gay characters [like Scar from ‘The Lion King’, 1994, according to many, given statements like ‘Oh, I shall practice my curtsy,’ and his lack of a mate.]
They have had gays on staff for decades. Some of the most creative people at Disney have been gay—they know that.
With gays he was OK?
Yes. The thing about Disney he was a Southerner and he did not realize his attitude was not loved in the North. He grew up in rural Missouri, for part of his childhood.
After WWI he was living in Kansas City, as was his brother Roy. They formed their first company with Ub Iwerks, a very creative and remarkable animator [an American of German descent].
The public is misled to believe Disney was a great animator, but by the mid-1920s he wasn’t animating. He was creating the scripts and making creative decisions, but he left animating to Ub. Together with Roy, he was running a company.
Iwerks was the genius who designed and animated the first Mickeys and silly symphony cartoons. Walt no doubt contributed a great deal to their creation, but Ub gets full screen credit on the main title card as the animator.
Animation was a great boon for hallucination, a spur to letting your mind run away. Watching Looney Tunes imprinted us all at an early age.
Yes.
Remember the time we went to Steve Parr’s and saw the pre-Hayes Code cartoons of cows with big—
Udders?
Very funny.
Denise and Karl Cohen do the Great Wall of China in 2004ll. photo courtesy: K. CohenDisney had one film where the cow is au natural, and she gets invited to party, and she puts on a skirt. That was the film that got the censor— originally the Oklahoma censor—to realize, ‘Oh my God, that cow is NAKED!’ And the censor’s reaction was perfectly logic, 'We can’t allow that!'
That was a Disney cartoon, black and white, made 1932-33, while strict enforcement of the Hayes Code began in 1934.
So he was really quite edge pushing when it came to those cows?
I don’t think Disney thought about it. The people who were offended were the censors in Oklahoma.
They were going along with the storytelling of the day, which was quite sexual because it was the Swinging ‘20s?
You did what was logical. I have never seen a cow with a hat or a dress on, have you? If you were a photographer and you took a picture of a cow, it wouldn’t occur to you that the cow doesn't have clothes on. [laughs]
I had known things were quite wild prior to the Hayes Code but I didn’t realize.
Yes, you see Betty Boop with her underwear showing. There is one 'Betty Boop' where you see through a hole in the wall, and a mouse is in bed with his wife. He gets up and goes to another bed—you know what is going on.
What do you see for animation in the future, aside from the mega blockbuster, family affairs?
The future of animation is excellent, if it comes from Europe or Japan.
If it comes from the US, outside of Pixar, it is probably going to be a little immature, loud, fast-paced. You end up with countless sequels. You are going to see sequel after sequel; you have ‘The Minions Part 12’ coming up.
They have become products, and they will milk as much money out of them as possible. They have created a recognizable product, and the kids are anxious to see more of this stuff.
There is also a lot of alternative animation?
Yeah. A lot of what is being done experimentally is wonderful, but the problem in this country is: we don't have the financial resources available for artists. They are not well compensated for the animation, except on TV. Some animators believe their only chance to make decent money is to create a successful TV series.
There is that lovely woman, Nina Paley, is she local?
No. She is now living in Urbana, Illinois, near the University of Illinois.
Her piece animating the old goddesses—
Oh, that is wonderful: 'You Gotta Believe' [2017].
Did you ever see Sally Cruikshank’s ‘Quasi at the Quackadero’ [1979]?
No.
She was here locally for about ten years 1970-1980, approximately [also did stuff for ‘Sesame Street’]. She was working for Gregg Snazelle as his in-house animator. ‘If I need a sample [shot], I want you to do it right away. And I want you on hand to pitch it. But when you are not pitching or doing my stuff, do what you want.’
She had ten years carte blanche do what she wanted. Her ‘Quasi at the Quackadero’ is now in the Library of Congress: 'one of the greatest of all times.'
Comedy Central has quite a few animated things on there. Where are all those made—‘Bob’s Burgers’?
Cohen relaxes against the 1930 Plymouth, owned by Vince Collins, who specializes in psychedelic animation and was visiting Cohen at the time. photo courtesy: K. CohenThere is nothing centralized. The thing with TV animation is, that’s not where the really exciting animation is. Yes, ‘The Simpsons’ are still funny.
So you still give 'The Simpsons' high marks after 25 years? I saw one recently: they look very much the same.
I haven’t watched a ‘Simpson’ episode in years. They have good people and it is a formula now. They’ve done every script three or four times now—different characters but the same plot line. They actually just had the poorest audience rating they ever had, but they have a contract guaranteed for two more years.
Are you a fan of the ‘South Park’ guys?
I don’t watch TV. I have seen it. It is mildly amusing. I don’t know if I have ever watched an entire ‘South Park’ show. What I enjoy is seeing is European animation.
Anyone in particular, or country: Czech, Polish?
Any country. Schools are turning out brilliant students. So are the schools in the US. But in the US, if you do an exciting film, you have no place to show it. You’re lucky if you get it into a few festivals, and they don’t offer much money, if at all.
San Francisco is lucky to have the San Francisco International, which pays $2000 for the winning animated short, which is really good—I thank them for that. But the other people get nothing except a few free tickets and an invite to a party.
We just don’t have good animation festivals outside of the Bay Area.
There is one in The Netherlands.
There were two. One is more experimental, one is more for laughs, but the government said recently that they have to combine.
Were there any film in particular you remember really striking a chord with hippie audiences?
I was showing animated shorts. ‘The Sunshine Makers’ was a perennial favorite people are still talking about. Elves were singing the song ‘Sunshine, sunshine, I drink lots of golden sunshine.’ People were thinking that golden sunshine was LSD, sunshine acid, that was the brand name of the acid that Owsley had.
I did light shows for Bill Graham Auditorium, the Oakland Coliseum for Dead concerts for New Year's Eve. I used to show films at the Fillmore Auditorium before I had my stroke. I had great shows and full houses.
There was a Douglas Fairbanks comedy where he was high on coke. The character was called, Coke Anyday.
Pre-Hayes Code?
Yes, a silent comedy. It's a funny short. Audiences enjoyed that sort of thing. I also showed lots of Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny, with the sound off—films that were visually great.
What are your favorites from that period: Popeye, Mickey Mouse, Road Runner?
They were all great. I don’t have a top ten list. The cartoons were outrageous, not because of the character but the writing. They were all different directors, different stars.
Cohen's house is stuffed to the gills with the oddest art collection imaginable, including a nice little West African display. photo: D. BlairI was a contributor to the Cartoon Network's book on the 50 Greatest Cartoons in the late ‘90s. I pretty much agree with their top-fifty list [see it here]. It was based on a fairly good sampling of totally crazed animation fans—supposedly a thousand of us.
I guess animation and cartoons have been popular since the late 1800s. They started slow with political cartoons. But, at some point, it just took off like a rocket—and it is still taking off.
Most of it I am not that interested in, it is made for TV. Hollywood Reporter is now hyping a comedy show with characters with human bodies and bird heads—I assume they talk and act like humans.
‘Tuca and Bertie’? That’s the new one from the people who did ‘Bojack Horseman’. Did you get to see that?
No, but I saw a sample of this ‘Tuca and Bertie’. It is all juvenile, pee-pee-caca kind of thing.
‘Bojack Horeman is quite hipster. The main character is played by Will Arnett but it uses this trope of having animal characters—an interesting multicultural trope—built into the middle of the show. I enjoyed it.
It has bunch of throw away hipster humor but also quite a bit of introspection, self-doubt, sex, drugs and alcohol.
But how mature is the content? Sex drugs and alcohol, let's get beyond that. Do they take on Trump?
I think they're last season was pre-Trump.
There are couple of hallucinatory episodes which were quite good. One of the greatest hallucinatory episodes was on 'The Simpsons'. He licks a toad or something and he goes into a completely psychedelic universe—did you see that episode?
No, but I would enjoy it.
You can look it up on YouTube [actually no, YouTube makes you pay for that episode].
He is in some weird space that is collapsing and, all of sudden, he is sucked out through some sort of drain into live-action filmmaking. Homer is played by a guy in a bizarre suit with a cartoony face,who is walking along what seems like a street in LA. He passes a bakery with I believe some gay baked goods and is, like, ‘Wow.’
That is a whole genre, hallucinatory cartoons. You remember 'Dream of a Rarebit Fiend’ [1906]?
Sure.
That would be a great show. Exploring when the animators finally convinced the producers to let them use their metamorphosizing skills to follow a hallucinatory plot line.
So some of your art was used for the production of blotter acid?
I was amused that they used my UFOs, but I have no idea if the product was any good. They didn’t offer me a sample, they simply used my design. They saw my UFO photos in a gallery that sold my special effect photos and they contacted me.
Oswley?
No, some one else, I don’t remember their names—too many years ago.
The big question today is what is society going to do with all those kids graduating from animation school?
The future of animation in this country is the internet.
But how will they derive an income?
That is the problem. People have a million viewers, who said they ‘like,’ but they didn’t get any money. So, as result, they will go elsewhere for their livelihood.
(Left) A famous shot of UFOs over the TransAmerica building created by Cohen for SF Magazine, circa 1984. images courtesy: K. CohenThe educational system is producing too many people with career potential for whom there is no opening. Or it may take them months or years before they can utilize their talents. In some cases schools are overproducing.
Supposedly more art students graduate each year then there are art jobs in the country.
I am sure. It is a shame. That leads to a lot of disillusioned people, that are having exorbitant student loan bills. Betsy DeVos doesn’t want to acknowledge that there is a major crisis of debt in this country.
It scares me as a teacher. I do my best to explain the subject and how students can do their best, but I don’t have jobs to offer. I can write letters of support, promote resources and give advice, but we have a system that is out of balance.
What would it take to balance it? Cut back on the department?
We have a small highly-successful, well-run animation program [at State], only about 25 or 30 carefully-screened and hand-picked students. Most of our former students—when I do run into them—do find employment in animation. I think the problem is with the for-profits that accept anybody who can pay, regardless of qualifications.
I ran into a woman who was working as a producer in an animation company 30 years ago. Now she is a student just taking it for her own edification and wants to do personal work. She doesn’t want to get employment within 30 days of graduation—but a lot of students will be facing collection agencies.
There are a couple of growth markets. Netflix is gearing up for animation. They are doing Netflix shorts, but whether it pays or not I don’t know. For my students, I certainly hope so.
Are you still teaching a class?
Yes. 'The History of Animation' at State. I go back to Winsor McCay [1866-1934], 'Gertie the Dinosaur' [1914], 'Dream of a Rarebit Fiend', but very quickly. The students need to know about what came before the Golden Age and they need to see some of the great classics. The other half of the class is about modern animation from Europe, Asia and the Americas.
I guess that covers it except for one last question, where would you point the young animator: the San Francisco State program?
Oh yes. It is extremely reasonable, as are the other state schools. San Jose also has an excellent program and it is absurd to pay the price of a private college.
If you want a similar education for almost free, you can go any of the community colleges. SF City [College] has a good program. Tim Harrington ['Rango', 2011, among many others] is teaching a course in animation. De Anza College has a well-established program, headed by Marty McNamara.
Cañada College, in San Mateo county, also has a good one. The head of the program is a Paul Nass, a former Disney animator—at one point Paul was teaching adults at Disney in Orlando. There are teachers who once worked at Colossal, WildBrain, Electronic Arts and other local companies.
Is there anything like an animation collective or avant-garde group here in town?
Not that I know of. There are members of ASIFA-SF, who are individual talents, and they network. But a workshop, no.
You are still the head of that group? What sort of stuff do you do?
We publish a monthly newsletter, ten to eighteen pages, that is quite informative to people who love animation. We have four or more screenings a year.
One is with the animators who were nominated for the animated shorts Academy Awards. Another is with Ron Diamond, his annual pick of films he admires that are winning awards at international animation festivals. Another presents the latest films from the National Film Board of Canada, with one or more guest animators presenting.
We do programs, big events, screenings at State. We have full houses in our 150 seat theater—it is not a huge but that is still 140-150 people who care. We hold an annual animation celebration that showcases new films by professional, independent and student artists. [For further info, go here].
But people are quite happy staying at home watching the internet or videos with their kids. We live in an exciting city, so whatever you are doing has competition.
Yup, it is a struggle.
Doniphan Blair is a writer, film magazine publisher, designer, musician and filmmaker ('Our Holocaust Vacation'), who can be reached . Posted on May 30, 2019 - 06:15 PM
by Doniphan Blair
Cartoon fanatic, scholar and maker Karl Cohen relaxes on a overstuffed couch in the similar front room of his San Francisco Victorian. photo: D. Blaircrowned king of Bay Area animation curation, a concept that would offend his egalitarian sensibilities, he had to slowly crawl his way to the top.
After growing up a nerdy, film-obsessed kid in 1950s Washington, DC, and getting his BA there, he headed west. Matriculating at the University of California, Berkeley, for an MA in art history, he barely graduated given that the Free Speech Movement exploded on campus, in his senior year, 1965.
“I got radicalized one morning as I was going to class,” he told me recently. “I saw limp protesters being hauled out of the administration building and tossed into paddy wagons. That was a horrible moment for me. I joined the picket line to show my support.”
Decamping shortly thereafter back to Squaresville, he pursued his chosen metier at the Des Moines Art Center, in Iowa, where he taught art history, and then the Toledo Museum of Art, in Ohio.
Within six years, however, he was back in the thick of it, moving to the Haight-Ashbury and showing his rapidly expanding film collection to the hippies, then the beats in North Beach and eventually all over.
Soon landing teaching gigs at almost every film department in the Bay Area, he became a fixture in the light show, film display and animation scene, which had kicked off locally a decade earlier with the arrival of blacklisted Disney animator David Hilberman at San Francisco State, in 1967.
Cohen (right) with new age musician George Mundy, for whom he did light shows, circa 1978. photo courtesy: K. CohenAlong the way he also made almost two dozen 16mm and Super-8 shorts, two of which garnered distro on the Midnight Movies circuit and television. Others appeared in many festivals, including the Chicago International and New York Erotic. Along with DP-ing the indie feature "Deeply Disturbed", from Loonic Video (1993), he has had one-man shows at the Intersection for the Arts and the Berkeley Film House.
In the 1980s, Cohen became the head of the local chapter of the Association International du Film d’Animation (ASIFA), which was founded in 1975 by Jeff and Margaret Hale (of "Sesame Street" and "Thank You Mask Man" fame), Prescott Wright ("International Tournée of Animation") and others. Since then, he has published its newsletter and recently received the international organization's lifetime achievement award, which is usually reserved for directors.
He also became a special effects specialist, notably of UFO-related material, some so lifelike it inspired UFO-sighting testimonials, but also more routine footage for the likes of Bank of America or Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
In 1993, Cohen began teaching his now-famous animation class at San Francisco State, growing it from cut-and-dry lectures to a multifaceted survey of animation, replete with incredible shows from his extensive collection.
"While I still cover the basics," Cohen told me, by email, "I also add important themes, including the importance of surrealism in animation, the use of seemingly-harmless cartoons for propaganda or to present provocative subjects to adults. I discuss the importance of art to what makes animation truly great."
Despite suffering a stroke in 1998, he gets around with a cane and remains a vocal supporter of animation, notably its more experimental aspects. Given this and his decade-plus dedication to writing for cineSOURCE, as well as the amazingly-elevated position the Bay Area holds in the history of animation, I had long wanted to sit down for a chat with Cohen.
We finally did so at the end of May at his deluxe digs, a four-story Victorian just eight blocks from the epicenter of the Summer of Love, the corners of Haight and Ashbury.
Cohen veers easily from good humor to incisive seriousness. photo courtesy: D. BlairKarl Cohen: I moved back from the Midwest in 1971, when the Haight was a mess.
I came in the fall of ‘71 and was confronted by an apocalyptic image. As you recall, the entire street was covered with graffiti, all the stores were boarded up—
Not all, I showed movies in one of them.
I became friends with Eric “Big Daddy” Nord, a somewhat-famous beatnik. He was the biggest of the beatniks, over six feet—250 to 300 pounds, I would guess.
He was asked by Tony Serra [famous Bay Area lefty lawyer] to live in the back of an empty store because Tony wanted someone in the space so it wouldn’t get destroyed by vandals. It had been the Print Mint [which did Zap Comix issues #4–9].
What was your specialty then?
Cartoons and comedies, the classics.
How did the hippies take to the Marx Brothers—they must have loved it.
It was fun showing films there, but there was not much of an audience, even though we were only asking for $1 donations. Then I was invited to go down to North Beach and start a Sunday night series that I ran for about 15 years at Intersection on 756 Union Street.
Intersection for the Arts?
Yes, they’ve since moved. In the early ‘80s they had a new director who decided to turn it into a conceptual art center. So she got rid of the poetry project, the comedian workshops, the film shows.
She thought conceptual was the big new thing?
Yes. The rent had been a dollar a year from Glide Memorial Church that owned the building. [She said,] ‘Oh, we can’t do that to the Methodists, we have to pay rent.’ [They said,] ‘Oh you want to pay rent, we will find out what the going rent is in North Beach.’ ‘Oh, we can’t pay that.’ Then they said, ‘Get the hell out.’
When did you get bit by the film bug?
Buster Keaton and Cosmic Animation: two typical nights from when Cohen was curating film at Intersection for the Arts, circa 1975. image courtesy: K. CohenI was about eight when my Uncle Danny opened the Dupont Theatre, Washington’s first integrated movie theater. It got picketed by the KKK, and the Hollywood film exchanges would not give him their films. Out of necessity, he ended up showing lots of documentaries and foreign films.
By the 1950s, the Circle Theatre was showing foreign and revival programs. I ended up seeing Eisenstein and so on by the time I was ten or twelve. I loved Cocteau [‘Blood of the Poet’, 1930, ‘Beauty and the Beast’, 1946]. When most kids were learning to love ‘Howdy Doody’ [TV show, 1947-60], I was enjoying Buñuel and lots of British comedies: Alec Guinness, Peter Sellers.
When were you finally bitten by animation?
I grew up with it. The MacArthur Theater in Washington showed UPA [United Producers Association] animation on programs with British comedies. I went to other theaters that showed three-hour-long cartoon marathons. I became a fan of Bugs [Bunny] and Daffy [Duck].
I was obsessed with those, too. In one of your recent ‘Cartoon Corners’, you were covering ‘Crusader Rabbit’. An early example of Bay Area animation?
Yup.
That was the first successful animated series made for TV [1950]. There were other examples prior to that, but they are all obscure footnotes in history. The voice of Crusader Rabbit was Lucille Bliss, who had voiced one of Cinderella’s evil sisters and later became the voice of Smurfette. She lived in the Castro and was a delightful friend, as she loved to talk about her long career.
You grew up watching ‘Crusader Rabbit’ and were pretty impressed?
I don’t know. As a kid, I wasn't thinking in terms of impressive; it was entertainment. But I was too old for it so I rarely watched it.
I saw the replays, eight-ten years later, and found them to be fantastic. They had a lot of adventures—they went to the South Seas. They really created this story line, friendship and adventure.
Yup.
Disney was only movies then?
Yup. Disney hated TV at that point. That was before he made millions on TV.
Cohen gets a hug from Marjane Satrapi, director of the ground-breaking 'Persepolis' (2007), after his interview that inspired her 45 minute rant about the insanity of Iran and the US and the power of animation. photo courtesy: K. CohenIt came from showing them. I recognized that the audience loved them. I loved them. I realized that the best animation is a great form of kenetic art. I started to get serious about collecting 16mm animated shorts in the Midwest.
I was working in the art museum in Des Moines. There was a man who had a small basement theater in his house. He showed great classics like ‘The Great Dictator’ [1940], ‘Metropolis’ [1927] and ‘Phantom of the Opera’ [1925].
He introduced me to a magazine where I could buy these films. So I started buying 16mm prints of cartoons, silent comedies and other films, even 1950s and ‘60s TV commercials. I just loved collecting and showing them.
And you still have—?
Yes, upstairs, although it is dangerous to go in the room.
I assume Steve Parr [1953-2018, a mutual friend and owner of Oddball Films] would come over and try to convince you to give him a few of those reels?
Oh yeah!
Did you give some?
Of course [both laugh]. I wish I had given him more.
Parr used to toss extremely large gatherings when he lived south of Market. At one party there was a rather unusual guy going around with a can of shaving cream and a pie tin, asking young women rub a tin full of cream in his face. It was quite pleasurable for him—judging from the wet spot on his pants—and he found several women who obliged him that evening.
I wrote a note to Herb Caen [the long time SF columnist, 1916-97] about 'Pie Face' Mike. He found a discrete way to mention Mike and Steve. We became better friends based on my getting him in Caen’s column. Parr seemed quite delighted with those few minutes of fame.
Do you still show 16mm—?
Now no one is showing 16mm anymore, only transfers to DVD and other digital formats.
I used to show them to my students at San Francisco State. All my animation history classes had films presented on 16mm—except more recent work—from my collection.
When did you start teaching there?
1993.
That is about when Pixar started. So the Bay Area—please tell me why—became this world center for animation.
Because people liked to live here, and you don’t need famous movie stars to do the voices. As far as the production goes, you can do that anywhere. So a lot of people said, ‘where do you want to live?’ And they said, ‘San Francisco.’
But let me go back, the industry on the West Coast started in your hometown?
Oakland?
You know where it was?
That place near Fremont?
Cohen covers Phil Tippett, a stop-motion creature specialist, who did stuff for 'Star Wars' and 'Jurassic Park', which appeared in a local media mag, Film-Tape World (1979-2007). photo courtesy: K. CohenThere was an animator working in Oakland from 1915-1916, up till 1918 or later. You know who Willis O'Brien is?
No.
He animated the stop-motion puppet in ‘King Kong’ [1933].
His early experimental work was distributed by Edison. He lived in Oakland and then moved his studio to San Francisco. It was at Powell and Market on the roof of a bank. He needed a good source of light.
Amazing. So the Bay Area—specifically the East Bay—has been at the cutting edge of animation for 100 years?
Yes.
So then there was the North Bay animation scene. When did that kick in?
When Lucas went up there, after the original ‘Star Wars’ [1977].
When was the golden age of animation in the Bay Area?
Ahhh, I would say there wasn’t one. It is all transitory.
Martin Rosen produced ‘Plague Dogs’ [1982] at a space in North Beach. The following year ‘Twice Upon a Time’, made in Mill Valley, was released. It was directed by John Korty and Chuck Swenson, George Lucas as the executive producer. It was a nice period, but it wasn’t a golden age.
There was a time when there was a lot of stuff up at Hamilton Fields [ImageMovers, Robert Zemeckis].
They did motion capture and a lot of stuff for Disney.
That was about 1990, and then the Disney Museum opened here.
That was ten years ago [2009], because the family lived up here. Diane Disney-Miller and her husband Ron Miller. They created Sterling Vineyards.
By the time you add it all up, the Bay Area has been a big player.
Yes, but it doesn’t have a nice, logical history, because it is always being interrupted.
And now it is on sort of a downturn?
You have TV animation starting here with ‘Crusader Rabbit’ but going nowhere. The next productions are in LA. At that point, Alex Anderson—Jay Ward’s partner [the co-creator of 'Crusader'], who was in advertising—he didn’t go to LA with Jay. So you really don’t have that continuum.
‘Crusader Rabbit’ basically died. There was a lawsuit. It was in production from 1948 to 1950, when a lawsuit ended the production. The studio was in rooms over Jay Ward’s parent’s garage in Berkeley, and the sound was recorded in SF.
Cohen drops by a film night hosted by the late, great Steve Parr, long time friend and coveter of Cohen's fantastic film collection. photo: D. BlairThe companies that were in San Francisco... you had John Magnuson, who did ‘Thank You Masked Man’, with Jeff Hale directing [written and voiced by Lenny Bruce, 1971]. They had a studio called Imagination Incorporated in the late ‘60s and into the ‘70s, but then that dies. They created a lot of TV commercials and segments for 'Sesame Street'.
Where was that?
In North Beach, on Jackson.
What I would say, if there was golden age, it would be the late ‘70s to early ‘80s. You have John Korty, who won an Oscar for ‘Who are the DeBolts’ [1977], a documentary about a family, which had ten or fifteen kids [19, actually].
He had a studio in Mill Valley, and he got a contract from ‘Sesame Street’.
All the way in from New York?
Yes. He needed animators. So he hired animators who were learning animation by the seat of their pants.
Two of them were Gary Gutierrez and Drew Takahashi. While working for Korty, they got a contract, around ’75, to do the animation for the Grateful Dead feature—the introduction of the film was animated. They did this cosmic pinball game in outer space set to Grateful Dead music, some tuning-up sounds, which was very weird. It was great.
When they got the contract to do the opening footage, Korty said something like, ‘I don’t want that in my studio, it will take up too much space,’ whatever his excuses were. So Gary and Drew did it in Drew’s mother’s basement. It was a Victorian in SF. In 1976, they incorporated as Colossal Pictures and they lasted until ‘99.
They moved down to Bayshore at some point.
They were all over. I followed them for years. They were the best animation company in town, practically the only one. They did fantastic work.
They did features as well?
Titles for lots of features and TV shows plus the special effects for ‘The Right Stuff’.
It looks simple but it was very effective.
[laughs] They had wires strung outside the building, where they would film at just the right time of day or night, when the wire wouldn’t show, shooting at a certain angle. They would slide flaming space capsules coming back into earth on those wires.
They also hired the late Jordan Belson, a great unsung visionary filmmaker [pre-computer, computer-like effects, see his master work ‘Mandala’, 1953], to create amazing images for the feature.
Colossal Pictures did some TV animation that is still some of the best animation you have ever seen—from Captain Crunch to Coca-Cola commercials, as well as early titles for ‘Saturday Night Live’, ‘The Twilight Zone’ and MTV.
A Betty Boop-impersonator, hired by Cohen's wife Denise, entertains him on his 60th birthday. photo: courtesy K. CohenDid you yourself do cel animation?
I did experimental animation, cutouts, optical effects.
I also created a series of postcards of UFOs flying over SF. They were sold for many years in stores around the world. SF Magazine published my circular space station flying over the Transamerica Building in a full page ad for subscriptions to the magazine.
At one point, I got a very strange phone call from the ‘Cosmic Lady’ thanking me for photographing the UFO she had seen.
When did you start teaching animation?
I’d rather not name the school. It was a horrible school.
We formed a legal union and went out on strike against them. We won our strike. When we were reinstated, they said I had to teach what my staff replacement was teaching. I was teaching film history and he was teaching a course in animation.
So this is your Rosebud moment, you were forced into it by the oppressor?
Exactly.
I think that is common artistically: doing something by necessity not choice.
I was friends with Marcy Page and others who worked for Colossal. I put together a course overnight. I knew enough about it because I had been doing under-the-camera animation with cutouts.
Cutouts, that is a great tradition, too. Where did that start—must have been very early?
I don’t honestly know.
Your class was a practicum?
Yes, I also brought in a lot of films to show. Later I did a few courses with SF State Extension.
At some point, you switched to doing the history of animation?
Yes, in the early 1990s at State.
And, at that moment, Pixar blew up and you knew those people?
Cohen dug deep into his vaults for material even shocking to Berkeleyites, circa 1999. photo courtesy: K. CohenI did an interview for Film Tape World with John Lasseter. His office was twice the size of this [room] and it had nothing but shelves full of toys, stuffed bears, metal toys, trucks, whatever.
For inspiration?
Yeah.
You wrote a couple of pretty tough articles about women complaining about John, are you still on speaking terms?
I haven’t seen him in years. Last time I saw him was at the opening of the Disney Museum. My wife and I came in and he gave me a big hug—no big deal—he was a hugger. Diane Disney-Miller was there with him, greeting people.
A bit like Biden, borderline but not with real bad intention. Nevertheless, he suffered quite a bit from it.
Yeah. John knew me by name, when I came in the door, but since then so much has happened. I feel sorry for him. He is just a boy at heart—an overgrown boy.
Once, years ago, when Spike and Mike [Craig 'Spike' Decker and Mike Gribble] were in town, presenting one of their ‘Sick and Twisted’ shows’, they rented a luxury apartment on the top of a tall building overlooking the Fisherman’s Wharf area. They were probably a little tipsy and, in any case, someone ordered pizzas.
So what did they do when the pizza boxes were empty? John Lasseter and Mike Gribble were at the window. ‘Hey, let’s see how far they can be thrown.’ They were throwing these cardboard rounds, that you have in pizza boxes, out the window. They were asked to clean up their mess and told not to come to back. [laughs]
Yes, that was an incredible boom time but—
It died.
Where did it move to, back to LA?
Animation is still written and designed on paper here in the US, and then it is shipped abroad to do the work.
The first ‘runaway production’ [sent overseas] was Jay Ward’s ‘Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends’ [1959-1964]. The sponsor had a deal with a studio in Mexico. Their first work was awful, so Jay had to fly one or two LA animators to Mexico City, to teach that crew how to animate.
Soon other studios were sending work to Taiwan and Australia. I knew two women who moved to Taiwan to supervise a major production.
They ran into so much sexism on the job that they would have to call LA saying, ‘Hey so-and-so here at the studio, we asked him to make the changes, and he refused to listen to us. Could you tell him he will be fired if he doesn’t cooperate?’ It got down to threatening the guy’s career.
Women had to do a lot to win their rights to be recognized as descent human beings. It was hard.
And descent animators?
I won’t go that far. A lot of them were put in secondary positions. Disney wouldn’t even hire them in the 1930s, in a creative position. He would only hire them for ink and paint [coloring in the pencil sketches].
Cohen with Ron Diamond, producer of 'The Animation Show of Shows', which has featured outstanding animation from around the world for the last 20 years. photo courtesy: K. CohenNevertheless a few women were hired in better jobs?
Mary Blair was one of his favorite designers in the 1940s and '50s. Retta Scott did some of the animals for ‘Bambi’ [1942]. She was here working on ‘The Plague Dogs’, probably her last job.
Right after that, Korty did ‘Twice Upon a Time’. He only put up the money, didn’t direct, although he is listed in the credits as a director, along with Charles Swenson, who did direct. Lucas put up some money. That was probably the pinnacle of animation here, along with the Grateful Dead feature.
It was a wonderful period, although ‘Plague Dogs’ was a very sad story. It was a British production [concerning two dogs who escape from a research lab]. Producer Martin Rosen did it here because he wanted to live in San Francisco—didn’t want to put up with a winter in London. So he opened a studio and hired Brad Bird—
Of Pixar?
Yup—[director of] ‘The Incredibles’ [2004] and ‘The Iron Giant’ [1999]. Brad Bird was a young animator working on ‘Plague Dogs’, along with Retta Scott, and Phil Robinson ['Casper', 1995, 'The Twisted Tales of Felix the Cat', 1995].
Was there a feeder school producing a lot of these animators?
San Francisco State started its animation program around 1967 with David Hilberman, who was one of the blacklisted animators who moved here.
Blacklisted for what?
Walt Disney hated him—thought Dave was a communist. Dave told me and others that Disney must have thought that he ‘was the son-of-a-bitch behind the strike [Disney animators went on strike in 1941] and I’m going to get him.’ And he did.
So Walt Disney was not just anti-Semitic, he was a very vindictive guy?
He hired several Jews in key roles and was friendly towards them. I interviewed many of his retired employees and they never heard him say anything negative about Jews—that includes Dave [Hilberman].
That kind of contradicts the Saturday Night Live thing where Mickey shows the kids around the vault—isn’t that a masterpiece?
I show that to my students, it is ‘Journey to the Disney Vaults'.
It is one of the greatest spoofs—politically incisive as well as well acted. Poor Mickey is constantly trying to cover up, but he is chagrined to tell the kids about anti-Semitism.
Walt wasn’t openly anti-Semitic. However, he did have a typically southern upbringing that was offensive towards blacks. The NAACP went after him over blatantly racist moments in ‘The Song of the South’ [1946, an animated/live-action musical].
Cohen drops by Industrial Light and Magic's theater in the Presidio with his wife Denise, circa 1999. photo: courtesy K. CohenMaurice was one of several Jews Walt hired. He told me he believed Walt hired him because he offered a liberal perspective on the film. He believed Walt knew he was left wing and probably sympathetic towards communism, views quite different from Walt’s. Maurice said he met regularly with his boss and never saw any signs of anti-Semitism. He left in 1947 over a salary dispute.
In the early 1950s he was blacklisted. In his autobiography he talks about his politics, as he did when I interviewed him for ‘Forbidden Animation: Censored Cartoons and Blacklisted Animators.”
When Walt named Hilberman as a possible communist, I believe it was because he thought Hilberman was one of the major strike leaders. David disagreed. I knew David fairly well. He used to insist, ‘All I did was go around with cards asking, ‘Would you support us if we formed a union?’
And that is what he did. He followed the law of the National Labor Relations Board; he got the signatures and turned them into the union leaders. Others were the union leaders, not David.
The government recognized their strike as valid. They won. But Disney refused to go along with it, at first. He drew out the strike until it was the longest strike in film history, at that time. MGM and Warner Bros, they agreed right away.
The way the Disney strike ended, someone contacted the government—possibly Roy Disney—asking, ‘Can you do something.’ They went to Nelson Rockefeller, who was the head of the Pan American Union, an association Roosevelt supported. It was helping to create positive relationships with Latin America, due to worries that some Latin American nations might support Nazi Germany.
Rockefeller invited Disney to do a goodwill tour of South America. He was going crazy in the studio. I don’t know whether rumors were true or not, but he was supposedly washing his hands several times an hour and developed a nervous tic. They got him out of the way and his brother Roy settled the strike—supposedly, they say—in 24 hours.
What is your take on the man, in sum?
I agree Walt was a great producer. I loved the work that came out of his studio. Yes, it was very family-oriented, wholesome. He pushed his artists; he created great works of art; but to quote Dave, 'he was a son-of-a-bitch.'
What are some of your favorite films? I love ‘Snow White’ [1939] and ‘Jungle Book’ [1967].
A lot of the old work under his direction is great.
When Snow White walks into the first scene, it is better than any digital animation I have ever seen.
Yeah. It’s gorgeous work. ‘Fantasia’ [1940] is wonderful film.
Of course, ‘Fantasia’ is a masterpiece, shows that he is an artist. ‘Fantasia’ shows he opposed the Nazis, the symbolism is against mind control.
Disney made several WWII films that were very anti-Nazi. I don’t think he was ever favorable to their cause.
He was financially screwed by the Nazis. They showed ‘Snow White’ and some of his shorts and didn’t pay the rental fee. And Disney was a real businessperson: if you stiffed Disney, he was going to stiff you. He was nasty. Doing business with Disney was not always a gentleman’s handshake.
(Rt) Animation producer Marcy Page and animation teacher Diana Morse present Cohen a lifetime ASIFA Award, usually reserved for directors, at the Ottawa Animation Festival, 2008. photo courtesy: K. CohenWhat do you make of the fact Disney is essentially the biggest film corporation in the world now? Kind of odd, symbolically—the 'toons take over.
I think Walt would be very pleased to know that. The Wall Street Journal reported that his Mouse franchise sold three billion dollars' worth of products last year and the Star Wars items also represent an impressive chunk of change.
Do you think it is a good thing? Are they doing good work?
Most of their products don’t interest me. Their features are pretty frightening. You have the ‘lovely’ princesses films—
You find them just way too commercial?
Yeah. It is teaching all the wrong things to girls. When you go to Disneyland, you can have a Disney princess birthday party for her and buy her fake royal gowns—it’s nauseating.
What do you think of Disneyland in general?
It was fun. I have always been there as a guest of someone who works there. The entrance fee is over a hundred bucks now [$95-119 for adults, depending on day]. You can spend a very nice tidy sum staying at the Disney Hotel, although I think it includes free admission to the park.
But you know, they put on beautiful theatrical programs in their little theater, often very innovative, almost always musicals.
Yeah, but very wholesome. It is fine. The Christian right hates Disney for their stance on homosexuals.
Disney accepted homosexuals? When did they do that?
They accepted LGBT both as employees and as guests in their theme parks many decades ago. The Christian Right decided to ‘protect’ their flock by having boycotts. They hated Disney for holding things like ‘Gay Night’ in the park. I would have to look for the years when [the American Family Association and Southern Baptist Convention] called for boycotts. [The mid-‘90s.]
Around that time, they had a couple of gay characters [like Scar from ‘The Lion King’, 1994, according to many, given statements like ‘Oh, I shall practice my curtsy,’ and his lack of a mate.]
They have had gays on staff for decades. Some of the most creative people at Disney have been gay—they know that.
With gays he was OK?
Yes. The thing about Disney he was a Southerner and he did not realize his attitude was not loved in the North. He grew up in rural Missouri, for part of his childhood.
After WWI he was living in Kansas City, as was his brother Roy. They formed their first company with Ub Iwerks, a very creative and remarkable animator [an American of German descent].
The public is misled to believe Disney was a great animator, but by the mid-1920s he wasn’t animating. He was creating the scripts and making creative decisions, but he left animating to Ub. Together with Roy, he was running a company.
Iwerks was the genius who designed and animated the first Mickeys and silly symphony cartoons. Walt no doubt contributed a great deal to their creation, but Ub gets full screen credit on the main title card as the animator.
Animation was a great boon for hallucination, a spur to letting your mind run away. Watching Looney Tunes imprinted us all at an early age.
Yes.
Remember the time we went to Steve Parr’s and saw the pre-Hayes Code cartoons of cows with big—
Udders?
Very funny.
Denise and Karl Cohen do the Great Wall of China in 2004ll. photo courtesy: K. CohenThat was a Disney cartoon, black and white, made 1932-33, while strict enforcement of the Hayes Code began in 1934.
So he was really quite edge pushing when it came to those cows?
I don’t think Disney thought about it. The people who were offended were the censors in Oklahoma.
They were going along with the storytelling of the day, which was quite sexual because it was the Swinging ‘20s?
You did what was logical. I have never seen a cow with a hat or a dress on, have you? If you were a photographer and you took a picture of a cow, it wouldn’t occur to you that the cow doesn't have clothes on. [laughs]
I had known things were quite wild prior to the Hayes Code but I didn’t realize.
Yes, you see Betty Boop with her underwear showing. There is one 'Betty Boop' where you see through a hole in the wall, and a mouse is in bed with his wife. He gets up and goes to another bed—you know what is going on.
What do you see for animation in the future, aside from the mega blockbuster, family affairs?
The future of animation is excellent, if it comes from Europe or Japan.
If it comes from the US, outside of Pixar, it is probably going to be a little immature, loud, fast-paced. You end up with countless sequels. You are going to see sequel after sequel; you have ‘The Minions Part 12’ coming up.
They have become products, and they will milk as much money out of them as possible. They have created a recognizable product, and the kids are anxious to see more of this stuff.
There is also a lot of alternative animation?
Yeah. A lot of what is being done experimentally is wonderful, but the problem in this country is: we don't have the financial resources available for artists. They are not well compensated for the animation, except on TV. Some animators believe their only chance to make decent money is to create a successful TV series.
There is that lovely woman, Nina Paley, is she local?
No. She is now living in Urbana, Illinois, near the University of Illinois.
Her piece animating the old goddesses—
Oh, that is wonderful: 'You Gotta Believe' [2017].
Did you ever see Sally Cruikshank’s ‘Quasi at the Quackadero’ [1979]?
No.
She was here locally for about ten years 1970-1980, approximately [also did stuff for ‘Sesame Street’]. She was working for Gregg Snazelle as his in-house animator. ‘If I need a sample [shot], I want you to do it right away. And I want you on hand to pitch it. But when you are not pitching or doing my stuff, do what you want.’
She had ten years carte blanche do what she wanted. Her ‘Quasi at the Quackadero’ is now in the Library of Congress: 'one of the greatest of all times.'
Comedy Central has quite a few animated things on there. Where are all those made—‘Bob’s Burgers’?
Cohen relaxes against the 1930 Plymouth, owned by Vince Collins, who specializes in psychedelic animation and was visiting Cohen at the time. photo courtesy: K. CohenSo you still give 'The Simpsons' high marks after 25 years? I saw one recently: they look very much the same.
I haven’t watched a ‘Simpson’ episode in years. They have good people and it is a formula now. They’ve done every script three or four times now—different characters but the same plot line. They actually just had the poorest audience rating they ever had, but they have a contract guaranteed for two more years.
Are you a fan of the ‘South Park’ guys?
I don’t watch TV. I have seen it. It is mildly amusing. I don’t know if I have ever watched an entire ‘South Park’ show. What I enjoy is seeing is European animation.
Anyone in particular, or country: Czech, Polish?
Any country. Schools are turning out brilliant students. So are the schools in the US. But in the US, if you do an exciting film, you have no place to show it. You’re lucky if you get it into a few festivals, and they don’t offer much money, if at all.
San Francisco is lucky to have the San Francisco International, which pays $2000 for the winning animated short, which is really good—I thank them for that. But the other people get nothing except a few free tickets and an invite to a party.
We just don’t have good animation festivals outside of the Bay Area.
There is one in The Netherlands.
There were two. One is more experimental, one is more for laughs, but the government said recently that they have to combine.
Were there any film in particular you remember really striking a chord with hippie audiences?
I was showing animated shorts. ‘The Sunshine Makers’ was a perennial favorite people are still talking about. Elves were singing the song ‘Sunshine, sunshine, I drink lots of golden sunshine.’ People were thinking that golden sunshine was LSD, sunshine acid, that was the brand name of the acid that Owsley had.
I did light shows for Bill Graham Auditorium, the Oakland Coliseum for Dead concerts for New Year's Eve. I used to show films at the Fillmore Auditorium before I had my stroke. I had great shows and full houses.
There was a Douglas Fairbanks comedy where he was high on coke. The character was called, Coke Anyday.
Pre-Hayes Code?
Yes, a silent comedy. It's a funny short. Audiences enjoyed that sort of thing. I also showed lots of Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny, with the sound off—films that were visually great.
What are your favorites from that period: Popeye, Mickey Mouse, Road Runner?
They were all great. I don’t have a top ten list. The cartoons were outrageous, not because of the character but the writing. They were all different directors, different stars.
Cohen's house is stuffed to the gills with the oddest art collection imaginable, including a nice little West African display. photo: D. BlairI guess animation and cartoons have been popular since the late 1800s. They started slow with political cartoons. But, at some point, it just took off like a rocket—and it is still taking off.
Most of it I am not that interested in, it is made for TV. Hollywood Reporter is now hyping a comedy show with characters with human bodies and bird heads—I assume they talk and act like humans.
‘Tuca and Bertie’? That’s the new one from the people who did ‘Bojack Horseman’. Did you get to see that?
No, but I saw a sample of this ‘Tuca and Bertie’. It is all juvenile, pee-pee-caca kind of thing.
‘Bojack Horeman is quite hipster. The main character is played by Will Arnett but it uses this trope of having animal characters—an interesting multicultural trope—built into the middle of the show. I enjoyed it.
It has bunch of throw away hipster humor but also quite a bit of introspection, self-doubt, sex, drugs and alcohol.
But how mature is the content? Sex drugs and alcohol, let's get beyond that. Do they take on Trump?
I think they're last season was pre-Trump.
There are couple of hallucinatory episodes which were quite good. One of the greatest hallucinatory episodes was on 'The Simpsons'. He licks a toad or something and he goes into a completely psychedelic universe—did you see that episode?
No, but I would enjoy it.
You can look it up on YouTube [actually no, YouTube makes you pay for that episode].
He is in some weird space that is collapsing and, all of sudden, he is sucked out through some sort of drain into live-action filmmaking. Homer is played by a guy in a bizarre suit with a cartoony face,who is walking along what seems like a street in LA. He passes a bakery with I believe some gay baked goods and is, like, ‘Wow.’
That is a whole genre, hallucinatory cartoons. You remember 'Dream of a Rarebit Fiend’ [1906]?
Sure.
That would be a great show. Exploring when the animators finally convinced the producers to let them use their metamorphosizing skills to follow a hallucinatory plot line.
So some of your art was used for the production of blotter acid?
I was amused that they used my UFOs, but I have no idea if the product was any good. They didn’t offer me a sample, they simply used my design. They saw my UFO photos in a gallery that sold my special effect photos and they contacted me.
Oswley?
No, some one else, I don’t remember their names—too many years ago.
The big question today is what is society going to do with all those kids graduating from animation school?
The future of animation in this country is the internet.
But how will they derive an income?
That is the problem. People have a million viewers, who said they ‘like,’ but they didn’t get any money. So, as result, they will go elsewhere for their livelihood.
(Left) A famous shot of UFOs over the TransAmerica building created by Cohen for SF Magazine, circa 1984. images courtesy: K. CohenSupposedly more art students graduate each year then there are art jobs in the country.
I am sure. It is a shame. That leads to a lot of disillusioned people, that are having exorbitant student loan bills. Betsy DeVos doesn’t want to acknowledge that there is a major crisis of debt in this country.
It scares me as a teacher. I do my best to explain the subject and how students can do their best, but I don’t have jobs to offer. I can write letters of support, promote resources and give advice, but we have a system that is out of balance.
What would it take to balance it? Cut back on the department?
We have a small highly-successful, well-run animation program [at State], only about 25 or 30 carefully-screened and hand-picked students. Most of our former students—when I do run into them—do find employment in animation. I think the problem is with the for-profits that accept anybody who can pay, regardless of qualifications.
I ran into a woman who was working as a producer in an animation company 30 years ago. Now she is a student just taking it for her own edification and wants to do personal work. She doesn’t want to get employment within 30 days of graduation—but a lot of students will be facing collection agencies.
There are a couple of growth markets. Netflix is gearing up for animation. They are doing Netflix shorts, but whether it pays or not I don’t know. For my students, I certainly hope so.
Are you still teaching a class?
Yes. 'The History of Animation' at State. I go back to Winsor McCay [1866-1934], 'Gertie the Dinosaur' [1914], 'Dream of a Rarebit Fiend', but very quickly. The students need to know about what came before the Golden Age and they need to see some of the great classics. The other half of the class is about modern animation from Europe, Asia and the Americas.
I guess that covers it except for one last question, where would you point the young animator: the San Francisco State program?
Oh yes. It is extremely reasonable, as are the other state schools. San Jose also has an excellent program and it is absurd to pay the price of a private college.
If you want a similar education for almost free, you can go any of the community colleges. SF City [College] has a good program. Tim Harrington ['Rango', 2011, among many others] is teaching a course in animation. De Anza College has a well-established program, headed by Marty McNamara.
Cañada College, in San Mateo county, also has a good one. The head of the program is a Paul Nass, a former Disney animator—at one point Paul was teaching adults at Disney in Orlando. There are teachers who once worked at Colossal, WildBrain, Electronic Arts and other local companies.
Is there anything like an animation collective or avant-garde group here in town?
Not that I know of. There are members of ASIFA-SF, who are individual talents, and they network. But a workshop, no.
You are still the head of that group? What sort of stuff do you do?
We publish a monthly newsletter, ten to eighteen pages, that is quite informative to people who love animation. We have four or more screenings a year.
One is with the animators who were nominated for the animated shorts Academy Awards. Another is with Ron Diamond, his annual pick of films he admires that are winning awards at international animation festivals. Another presents the latest films from the National Film Board of Canada, with one or more guest animators presenting.
We do programs, big events, screenings at State. We have full houses in our 150 seat theater—it is not a huge but that is still 140-150 people who care. We hold an annual animation celebration that showcases new films by professional, independent and student artists. [For further info, go here].
But people are quite happy staying at home watching the internet or videos with their kids. We live in an exciting city, so whatever you are doing has competition.
Yup, it is a struggle.
Doniphan Blair is a writer, film magazine publisher, designer, musician and filmmaker ('Our Holocaust Vacation'), who can be reached . Posted on May 30, 2019 - 06:15 PM
