This film is part of Free
The Smoke from Grand-pa's Pipe
I’ll have what he’s smoking! - US import Jesse “Vet” Anderson breathes life (and smoke) into the UK animation industry
Overview
I’m not quite sure what’s in Grand-pa’s pipe, but it certainly fires the imagination. Jesse “Vet” 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 “Vet” 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-Barré 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.
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