Burbank Studio
Mel Leven
Notes
We interviewed Mel Leven at his home in North Hollywood, California, sitting at his piano, playing and singing some of his best creations.
Camera: Patrick Dunavan / 2nd Camera: Rob O’Keefe
Mel Leven arrived at UPA Pictures as the Gerald McBoing Boing show began its two seasons of ground breaking animation on CBS television. Mel composed, sang, and performed some of the more memorable segments on the series, Miserable Pack of Wolves, Good Ol’ Country Music, Average Giraffe, and many more. Mel was also one of the panelists at the 2004 UPA Tribute at the AFI.
Mel Leven is part of the Miserable Mel scene.
Dale Case
Notes
We interviewed Dale Case at his home in the most northwestern corner of Washington State, at the tip of the Olympic Peninsula, overlooking Canada and Puget Sound in 2005
Assistance: Hana Cannon
Dale Case is a wonderful find for us, because he worked at UPA at the critical juncture between the tenure of Steve Bosustow and Henry Saperstein. Additionally, Dale has produced and directed and animated many highly acclaimed films beyond his work at UPA, and continues to work out of his picturesque home.
Joe Siracusa
Notes
We interviewed Joe Siracusa in his Tarzana, California home, surrounded by an eclectic collection of noise making devices.
Camera: Patrick Dunavan
Joe Siracusa was one of several members of Spike Jones’ novelty band, who tired of being on the road, and ended up in the UPA editing room, along with Earl Bennett, creating sound effects for all the UPA shorts. He helps us see why the team efforts at UPA created good vibes and great films. Joe was also a panelist at the 2004 UPA Tribute at the AFI. Joe Siracusa is part of Birth of Boing and an unreleased scene
Click to hear a portion of his interview
June Foray
Notes
We interviewed June Foray in her Woodland Hills, California, home.
Camera: Patrick Dunavan
June Foray, often called the First Lady of Animation, has recorded the voices of some of our favorite cartoon characters. She did voices for many UPA films, and worked with the UPA artists who immigrated to Jay Ward Studios for the Rocky and Bullwinkle show. June, of course, was the voice of Rocky and Natasha. Foray has also been on several of our tribute panels and has done much to help support our documentary, narrating presentation videos.
June Foray is part of the Magoo Ad-libs scene
Chico Hamilton
Notes
We interviewed Chico in his amazing apartment in Manhattan, New York in 2006.
Chico Hamilton was a young musician / composer in Los Angeles, when UPA heard his first album, with a cut entitled, “Morning After”. Hamilton re-recorded it as the theme
song for The Gerald McBoing Boing CBS television series. It was the first “movie music” for Hamilton, and he continued to score films, and play clubs, his Quintet
being a part of the early Pacific Jazz scene.
Chico Hamilton is part of an unreleased scene
Maxine Davis
Notes
We interviewed Maxine Davis, audio-only, at her last home in Ensenada, Mexico in 1990.
Max, as she was called at UPA, was a secretary for the US Navy, where she met some of the UPA artists doing Navy training films in the early 1940s. She was convinced to move over to UPA, and began very early on as a receptionist and general organizer. Soon she became Steve Bosustow’s personal assistant, and, as Bosustow tells it, became
invaluable to the studio, bringing her organizational skills to Bosustow’s artistic tendencies.
Maxine Davis is part of an unreleased scene
Henrietta Jordan
Notes
We interviewed Henrietta “Hank” Jordan at her home in Burbank, California in 2006.
Hank Jordan began in the very early days as a receptionist at the main UPA studio in Burbank/Toluca Lake. She very quickly rose through the ranks to become the
Production Co-Ordinator for Herb Klynn. Her interview is full of wonderfully candid opinions of what went on behind UPAs artistic public face.
Ralph Young
Notes
We interviewed Ralph Young and recorded some Magoo lines, at Patrick Dunavan’s home production studio, in Bel Aire, California in 2003.
Camera: Patrick Dunavan
Ralph Young is best known as one half of Sandler & Young, one of the hottest singing teams in Las Vegas history, among other entertainment capitals of the world. But,
few know that Ralph was a hair’s breath away from becoming the voice of Mr. Magoo.
Ralph Young is part of an unreleased scene that will tell about how it almost happened.
