Directed by: Mark Kausler
Produced by: Greg Ford and Mark Kausler
Scenics and Color Design: Kim Miskoe
Principal Ink and Paint: Rose Eng and “Igor�
Drawn by: Mark Kausler
Song by: Gus Kahn, Isham Jones
Performed by: Harry Reser’s Syncopators
Dry-brush Effects: Eva Bloom
Additional backgrounds: Sophie Kittredge
Animated Extras: Kevin Brownie, Greg Ford, Robert Marianetti and David Wachtenheim
Film Notes
Over fifteen years ago, animator Mark Kausler had an idea to make a cartoon short in the animation style of the vintage 1930s cartoons he grew up watching, set to the hot music of a 1920s dance band. During a lull on Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, what became scene three of It’s The Cat started to come to life on Mark’s drawing board. Through Oliver and Company, Prince and the Pauper, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, The Lion King, Fantasia 2000 and Osmosis Jones, the Cat waited patiently for Mark to complete new scenes inbetween production lulls.
The final product is a 3½ minute cartoon based on the 1927 recording by Harry Reser’s Syncopators of “The Cat� (a song written and composed by Gus Kahn and Isham Jones). More a collection of funny gags and incidents than a strictly linear story, the short follows the adventures of feisty black cat who skips along backyard fences, soars over suburbia on a spinning plank, switches heads with the moon, wreaks havoc upon unsuspecting canine homeowners, and adds a new chapter to the tale of the three blind mice.
Mark Kausler’s stated purpose for making the film was to “make an animated cartoon which shows off my best animation and draws upon my love of cartoons and music of the 1920s, 30s and 40s.� Throughout the years, as he drew and animated each frame himself, Kausler found himself growing as an animator, and pushing himself as a director. The results: an loving homage to Hollywood cartoons that’s as personal a film as anything by John Hubley, George Griffin or Don Hertzfeldt.
“In animating It’s The Cat, I found that simply copying old dance steps wasn’t funny enough; they had to be exaggerated to come across. In one scene, The Cat does a shuffle step inspired by Irene Dunne’s shuffle dance in Showboat (1936). I made sketches of Dunne’s poses and did many drawings based on her actions, but none of them were as funny as watching Irene herself doing the dance. Only when I stretched the cat’s right leg to about five times the length of Irene Dunne’s leg did I achieve the humorous effect I was after.�
Each frame of It’s The Cat was meticulously hand inked and painted under the supervision of producer Greg Ford (The Carl Stalling Project). The film has been screened at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival (France), Amima Mundi (Brazil) and Ottawa International Animation Festival (Canada), among other prestigious events. It shared the Best In Show prize (with Bill Plympton’s Guard Dog) at the 35th Asifa East Animation Festival. Mark is currently in production on a second Cat cartoon, There Must Be Another Cat.—Jerry Beck
Everybody who purchases a copy of the film between now and April 30 will automatically be entered to win an original hand-inked and painted production cel from It’s the Cat. Stay tuned to this page for the winner.
About the Director: Mark Kausler
Mark Kausler grew up watching Scrappy, Krazy Kat, Flip the Frog, Betty Boop, Ko-Ko the Clown, Felix the Cat, Tom and Jerry, Casper and The Mickey Mouse Club on his father’s television and in theaters. He started animating his own characters from the age of eight, making around twelve different animated 8mm cartoons through high school graduation. In two years, as a fine arts major at the Kansas City Art Institute, he almost lost sight of animation until the irresistible lure of California cartoon culture drew him to Los Angeles.
He received the Bobe Cannon scholarship to Chouinard Art Institute and graduated in 1970. Early in his career, he was lucky enough to work on features including Yellow Submarine and Shinbone Alley, as well as creating special sequences for Bakshi’s Heavy Traffic (Maybelline) and Coonskin (Malcolm The Cockroach). Mark’s animation can be seen in such shorts as Marv Newland’s Anijam and Sing Beast Sing, Disney’s Sport Goofy and Tummy Trouble, and numerous TV and movie projects including The Duck Factory, Shnookums & Meat, and Daffy’s Duck’s Quackbusters. He also animated on Brad Bird’s Family Dog and John K’s Ren & Stimpy (”Stimpy’s Invention”). In recent years, he has animated at Warner Bros. on Osmosis Jones and Looney Tunes: Back In Action, and at Disney on Oliver & Company, Beauty and The Beast, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, The Lion King, and Fantasia 2000.
The director, Mark Kausler, will be answering questions about It’s the Cat. To submit a question to Mark, please use the form below.
---------------------------------------- Frank Summers asks, “Mark, I’ve been stepping through it frame by frame and notice it’s all pretty much animated on 1’s. Was that in order to keep pace with the music track? Secondly, most of your break-downs and inbetweens hardly ever fall in the middle of an action, and most cushions highly favor a hold. Do you work straight ahead a lot? Thanks!�
Mark Kausler: Thanks for your kind words and comments. I rarely work straight ahead, because my sizes get too much out of control. Some times in planning an action I will do a lot of ruff poses straight ahead, then go through and tie them down as I go. You were right, just about all the animation had to be on ones to follow that odd nine frame fox-trot beat. To me there is hardly ever such a thing as an even inbetween. My friend the late Duane Crowther’s prime rule in animation was “always slow out.� So I tend to favor the previous extreme, then either pop into or go past the next one and settle in. Lately I’m trying the “Pre-action� double image that Manny Gould and Bob McKimson used in the Foghorn Leghorn cartoons, this was usually used when Foggy was smacking somebody around. Your observations are very good!
---------------------------------------- Ron Yavnieli asks, “What are you going to work on next?�
Mark Kausler: I’m currently working on scene 24 (of 26) of my next cartoon: There Must Be Another Cat (working title). It’s a three-way love triangle, set in the Mojave desert, between the “Cat,� his girlfriend Pearly, and a rival cat. Ink-and-paint has already started on the film in New York. I try to put in some time every day on it. Scene 24 is going to take a long time to finish! Again, I’m doing all the drawings.
