Talking Animals and Other People

by Shamus Culhane

Book Overview

Shamus Culhane (1908-1996) enchanted several generations of animation lovers with his characters Pluto, Pinocchio, Woody Woodpecker, Betty Boop, and Popeye, as well as with his famous "Heigh-ho"... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0306808307
• ISBN13: 9780306808302
• Release Date: March 1998
• Publisher: Da Capo Press
• Length: 463 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.1" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Not just for animators... it's the web!

This book was recommended to me by another web/multimedia developer. He told me that I should read it, that it was the web industry in a nutshell. The main difference is the web has a very compressed time line. I first read the book over a year ago... it still reads like prophesy.

Talking Animals and Other People by Shamus Culane

This is a "must have" for anyone who wants to create animation. Although not a how-to book, it has an incredible amount of insightful and useful information that is pertinent to those starting out or thinking about starting out their animation career. Shamus writes his animation life story in a way that will entertain and enlighten you. Many of his adventures and experiences are as relavant today as when they happened to him long ago during the Golden Age of animation. The author gives you a ring side seat as he is introduced to animation and evolves as an animator and producer. This was a book that I wish had no end; it actually made me sad to reach the final page.

A must....

This book is a must.It is extremely useful for those who want to animate cartoon characters.Shamus description of his life which he shares with the animation history is a very brilliant and inspirated storytellig.This is the book that all animator's should buy. It contains all the valuable information about american animation and all those wonderful pioneers who created the most amazing industry in the world: animation.Do not hesitate! Just buy this book and you will love it. I bet!

The Best of its Kind-a Great Memoir!

I've probably read every book on animation written in english-both in and out of print; Shamus Culhane's book, while an autobiography, is also a detailed insider's view of what it was really like to work in animation's "golden age". And word for word, as a history-it's the best of them all. Culhane spares no one(least of all himself)in his funny, always passionate-and often downright angry-stories of his career which went from New York in the early 'thirties, to depression Los Angeles and the fabled Disney studio, pre-"Snow White", to Fleisher, Warner Bros., Lantz, and finally running his own small studio. A cracking good read!

Absolutely the best

Along with Mike Barrier's "Hollywood Cartoons" the best book written on the history of the medium. Some quibble about these books being "Disney-centric," but both books pay homage to the man who FIRST emphasized CHARACTER and PERSONALITY in the animated film. And that goes a LOT further than slapstick, no matter how good!