There was just one catch: this was, by its very nature, an expensive process. The more popular the eatery became, the more it shelled out in dining fees. Because the arrangement had to be kept secret from Quimby — it would devastate his fragile psyche — the only way to finance it was to shuffle funds from cartoon budgets.
This necessitated cutbacks that were minor at first, but increasingly noticeable as time wore on. Soon, Tex
Avery was forced to reuse animation of “Little Red” in more than one cartoon, and Hanna and Barbera accepted under-the-table
funds from the French government in return for producing a tedious series of Tom and Jerry cartoons with a “musketeer”
theme. The artwork in all the studio’s cartoons became flatter, fewer drawings were used, and lower-caliber gags
and stories became the norm. In 1954, Tex Avery was laid off altogether, taking both his animation skills and powdermilk
biscuit recipe to the Walter Lantz studio.
Fred Quimby retired a happy man in 1955, but the system was about to collapse. So much money was being diverted
to the restaurant that the cartoon studio — in actuality, wildly profitable — looked like a money-loser. In 1957,
MGM closed it.
With no animation budget to support it, MGM the restaurant could no longer pay its guests. The result was nothing
short of an all-star riot — Boris Karloff took an axe to the furniture, while Don Knotts smashed windows and Katharine
Hepburn and Spencer Tracy vandalized the ladies’ and men’s rooms, respectively. MGM officials, who’d been thinking
of closing the restaurant anyway, took this as a ominous sign. MGM was never to reopen — and the era of the great
animation restaurants drew to a close.
Fast forward to late 1998. Where are the restaurants run by our young animation greats? Where’s John K.’s Kitchen?
Why hasn’t John Lasseter come up with some sort of computer-generated eatery? Shouldn’t Nick Park be filling the
tummies of Londoners with Wallace and Gromit-themed temptations?
For whatever reasons, these talented individuals, and others, have chosen to steer clear of the restaurant business
entirely. Their absence is conspicuous — especially in an age in which every celebrity from Celine Dion to Michael
Jordan slings the figurative hash in his or her own dining establishment. Ren and Stimpy, A Bug’s Life, and
The Wrong Trousers are all very well, of course. But when all is said and done, they’re no substitute for
a good meal.
 |
The Beef and the (Peach) Cobbler Richard Williams’ painstaking recreation of classical animation techniques included plans for his own London restaurant, Dick’s Oriental Steakhouse. In this 1975 photo, Williams (in V-neck sweater) informs an elderly, infirm, and none-too-pleased Art Babbitt and Emery Hawkins that he expects them to serve as busboys in the establishment. Ground was broken for Dick’s in 1965; construction continued sporadically for twenry-five years, but it was never completed. |
|
Home * About Apatoons * How to Join
* Stuff from Apatoons * Covers *
History |