Monday, March 14, 2022

Clutch Cargo Cartoons...Only Moved Their Mouths


"Clutch Cargo" animated cartoons were done without very much animation. Mostly their mouths moved and some hand and feet movement but strangely enough it kept my attention as a young boy. Limited animation was first used to create an appealing cartoon in Clutch Cargo. The first cartoon to use Syncro-Vox was Clutch Cargo, a surprise hit at the time. This was because of the need for animation to be created within a tight time frame. Syncro-Vox was invented by Edwin Gillette, television cameraman and partner in Cambria Studios, as a means of superimposing real human mouths on the faces of animals for the popular "talking animal" commercials of the 1950s. Clutch Cargo employed the Syncro-Vox technique by superimposing live-action human lips over limited-motion animation or even motionless animation cells.

There was a limited amount of music in the Clutch Cargo series. It was mostly provided by Paul Horn using only the bongos, vibraphone and flute. The stories were set in a fictitious world in which the character Clutch Cargo was a jet pilot. The stories were presented in five 5-minute chapters, with the first four chapters ending in cliffhangers.
 
The late actor, Richard Cotting, is best known for playing the voice of Clutch Cargo, the hero of the hit television series, Clutch Cargo. However, he was much more than that. He was an accomplished actor, writer and producer. The characters that you see on "The Clutch Cargo Show" are actors who played the mouth moving characters on the show. This includes Hal Smith who played Otis Campbell the town drunk on the "Andy Griffith Show"
 and Margaret Kerry who brought Spinner and Paddlefoot to life.

The show only lasted about a year, starting in 1959 and ending 1n 1960. Fifty-nine cartoons were made. Now without further ado...here is a clip cartoon of "Clutch Cargo."
BJ 🙈🙉🙊

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