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        The Smoke from Grand-pa's Pipe

        I’ll have what he’s smoking! - US import Jesse β€œVet” Anderson breathes life (and smoke) into the UK animation industry

        Animation & Artists Moving Image 1920 9 mins Silent

        Overview

        I’m not quite sure what’s in Grand-pa’s pipe, but it certainly fires the imagination. Jesse β€œVet” Anderson didn’t come to Britain to animate, but after WWI brought him across the Atlantic he stuck around and brought his experience as a cartoonist, animator and art teacher to the London based Kine Komedy Kartoons. His example was significant in helping British animators move on from cut-out to cel animation. Sadly the surviving print of this film has faded badly, but the later scenes bring more clarity to his technique.

        Anderson earned his nickname β€œVet” from a spell in the US military during the Spanish-American War. After building experience and reputation as a newspaper cartoonist he set up the Vet Anderson School of Illustrating as a correspondence course. By 1916 he drifted into animating at the Bowers-BarrΓ© studio working on Mutt and Jeff cartoons. His time in British animation was short, but after various adventures he was back in the US industry by the 1930s.