If you’re anything like me, you’ve probably daydreamed about
going back in time to be a "fly on the wall" at a golden age
cartoon studio. Imagine getting the chance to witness how your
favorite cartoons were written and see the twists and turns they
took from initial idea to finished story. Unfortunately, that
isn’t likely to happen. But we can find out an awful lot about
the process used to write classic cartoons by looking at the
scraps of paper left behind by the great artists who wrote them.
I’m going to do just that in a series of posts over the next few
weeks. The specifics of the process of writing cartoons in the
classic era varied a bit from studio to studio and from time
period to time period. Like every other part of the production
line, there was an evolution as experimentation led to the
development of more effective techniques. But the general
outline of the progress of a story from raw idea to boards ready
to put into production didn’t vary all that much. I’m going to
show you some specific exa