''Tubby the Tuba'' is a 1975

animated Animation is a method by which still figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most anim ...

musical Musical is the adjective of music. Musical may also refer to: * Musical theatre, a performance art that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance * Musical film and television, a genre of film and television that incorporates into the narr ...

comedy Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term o ...

film, based on the 1945 children's story for concert orchestra and narrator by

Paul Tripp Paul Tripp (February 20, 1911 – August 29, 2002) was an American children's musician, author, songwriter, and television and film actor. He collaborated with a fellow composer, George Kleinsinger. Tripp was the creator of the 1945 " Tubby ...

and

George Kleinsinger George Kleinsinger (February 13, 1914, San Bernardino, California – July 28, 1982, New York City, New York) was an American composer. His works include his collaboration with Paul Tripp on the 1940s children's classical-music piece " Tubby the Tu ...

. It was released on April 1, 1975 by

Avco Embassy Pictures Embassy Pictures Corporation (also and later known as Avco Embassy Pictures as well as Embassy Films Associates) was an American independent film production and distribution studio responsible for such films as ''The Graduate'', '' The Produc ...

. The film was produced by the

New York Institute of Technology The New York Institute of Technology (NYIT or New York Tech) is a private research university founded in 1955. It has two main campuses in New York—one in Old Westbury, on Long Island, and one in Manhattan. Additionally, it has a cybersecu ...

, under the supervision of its founder,

Alexander Schure Alexander Schure (August 3, 1920 – October 29, 2009) was an American academic and entrepreneur. Schure founded the New York Institute of Technology (NYIT) in 1955. He also served as the Chancellor (education), Chancellor of Nova Southeastern Uni ...

, who was the project's director.Beck, Jerry (2005), pp. 295–6. Nearly three decades before the release of this adaptation,

stop-motion Stop motion is an animated filmmaking technique in which objects are physically manipulated in small increments between individually photographed frames so that they will appear to exhibit independent motion or change when the series of frames i ...

innovator

George Pal George Pal (born György Pál Marczincsak; ; February 1, 1908 – May 2, 1980) was a Hungarian-American animator, film director and producer, principally associated with the fantasy and science-fiction genres. He became an American citizen after ...

made a

1947 It was the first year of the Cold War, which would last until 1991, ending with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Events January * January–February – Winter of 1946–47 in the United Kingdom: The worst snowfall in the country in ...

Puppetoon Puppetoons is a series of animated puppet films made in Europe (1930s) and in the United States (1940s) by George Pal. They were made using replacement animation: using a series of different hand-carved wooden puppets (or puppet heads or limbs) f ...

version also based on Tripp and Kleisinger's work, which was nominated for a Best Animated Short Oscar, but lost to Warner Bros. Cartoons' Merrie Melodies short, ''

Tweetie Pie ''Tweetie Pie'' is a 1947 Warner Bros. '' Merrie Melodies'' cartoon directed by Friz Freleng. The short was released on May 3, 1947, and stars Tweety with Sylvester the Cat, who is called "Thomas" in this cartoon. ''Tweetie Pie'' marks the fir ...

''.

Plot

A young

tuba The tuba (; ) is the lowest-pitched musical instrument in the brass family. As with all brass instruments, the sound is produced by lip vibrationa buzzinto a mouthpiece. It first appeared in the mid-19th century, making it one of the ne ...

named Tubby sets off on a quest to find a song of his own. He visits a

circus A circus is a company of performers who put on diverse entertainment shows that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, dancers, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, magicians, ventriloquists, and unicyclist ...

and ventures into the forest while on the way to Singing City.

Voice cast

as Narrator *

Dick Van Dyke Richard Wayne Van Dyke (born December 13, 1925) is an American actor, entertainer and comedian. His award-winning career has spanned seven decades in film, television, and stage. Van Dyke began his career as an entertainer on radio and telev ...

as Tubby the Tuba *

David Wayne David Wayne (born Wayne James McMeekan, January 30, 1914 – February 9, 1995) was an American stage and screen actor with a career spanning over 50 years. Early life and career Wayne was born in Traverse City, Michigan, the son of Helen M ...

as Pee-Wee the Piccolo *

Pearl Bailey Pearl Mae Bailey (March 29, 1918 – August 17, 1990) was an American actress, singer and author. After appearing in vaudeville, she made her Broadway debut in '' St. Louis Woman'' in 1946. She received a Special Tony Award for the title role i ...

as Mrs. Elephant *

Jack Gilford Jack Gilford (born Jacob Aaron Gellman; July 25, 1908 – June 4, 1990) was an American Broadway, film, and television actor. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for ''Save the Tiger'' (1973). Early life Gilfor ...

as The Herald * Ray Middleton as The Great Pepperino *

Jane Powell Jane Powell (born Suzanne Lorraine Burce; April 1, 1929 – September 16, 2021) was an American actress, singer, and dancer who first appeared in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musicals in the 1940s and 50s. With her soprano voice and girl-next-door ima ...

as Celeste *

Cyril Ritchard Cyril Joseph Trimnell-Ritchard (1 December 1898 – 18 December 1977), known professionally as Cyril Ritchard, was an Australian stage, screen and television actor, and director. He is best remembered today for his performance as Captain Hook in ...

as The Frog * Ruth Enders as The Haughty Violin *

Hermione Gingold Hermione Ferdinanda Gingold (; 9 December 189724 May 1987) was an English actress known for her sharp-tongued, eccentric character. Her signature drawling, deep voice was a result of nodules on her vocal cords she developed in the 1920s and e ...

as Ms. Squeek

Production

Tubby the Tuba had his start as the main character in a 1945 children's story for orchestra and narrator, by Paul Tripp and George Kleinsinger, originally performed by Tripp himself, and recorded most famously by

Danny Kaye Danny Kaye (born David Daniel Kaminsky; yi, דוד־דניאל קאַמינסקי; January 18, 1911 – March 3, 1987) was an American actor, comedian, singer and dancer. His performances featured physical comedy, idiosyncratic pantomimes, and ...

, though many other actor-narrators have performed the piece on record as well, including

(who also provided a voice for the '71 feature film). The success of the

Decca Records Decca Records is a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis (Decca), Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934 by Lewis, Jack Kapp, American Decca's first president, and Milton Rackmil, who later became American ...

track encouraged George Pal, the Puppetoon artist, to make a 1947 short based on it. It would later receive an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Short. A full-length version of ''Tubby the Tuba'' was announced in 1974 by Alexander Schure, the millionaire founder of the New York Institute of Technology. He set up the production at its

Westbury, New York The Incorporated Village of Westbury is a Village (New York), village in the North Hempstead, New York, Town of North Hempstead in Nassau County, New York, Nassau County, on Long Island, in New York (state), New York, United States. It is located a ...

facilities, in the Animation Department, Visual Arts Center and Tech Sound Lab of that campus. In order for it to compete with the works of children's film leader

Disney The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...

, he rounded up a celebrity cast (led by

and

), as well as Tripp, the librettist, and a man known as "the dean of Broadway musical directors",

Lehman Engel A. Lehman Engel (born September 14, 1910, Jackson, Mississippi - died August 29, 1982, New York City) was an American composer and conductor of Broadway musicals, television and film. Work in theatre, television and films Engel worked in a variety ...

. Schure, however, did not know anything about the animation process at the time he started working on it. Because of this, he hired the industry's best artists from the Eastern Seaboard, among whom were

Sam Singer Samuel Singer (August 27, 1912 – January 25, 2001) was an American animator and animation producer. He is best known as executive producer of ''The Adventures of Pow Wow'', a cartoon which also later appeared as a segment of early episodes ...

from ''

Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse ''Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse'', is a 1960 children's cartoon television show, that was produced by Trans-Artists Productions, and syndicated by Tele Features Inc. The characters were originated and created by authors Bob Kane and Gerald J. ...

'', and John Gentilella from the classic ''

Popeye Popeye the Sailor Man is a fictional cartoon character created by E. C. Segar, Elzie Crisler Segar.computer graphics Computer graphics deals with generating images with the aid of computers. Today, computer graphics is a core technology in digital photography, film, video games, cell phone and computer displays, and many specialized applications. A great de ...

, and recruited several consultants and scientists from NYIT so that the project could go on. Two of the later crew members were

Edwin Catmull Edwin Earl "Ed" Catmull (born March 31, 1945) is an American computer scientist who is the co-founder of Pixar and was the President of Walt Disney Animation Studios. He has been honored for his contributions to 3D computer graphics (computer sci ...

and

Alvy Ray Smith Alvy Ray Smith III (born September 8, 1943) is an American computer scientist who co-founded Lucasfilm's Computer Division and Pixar, participating in the 1980s and 1990s expansion of computer animation into feature film. Education In 1965, A ...

, the future founders of

Pixar Pixar Animation Studios (commonly known as Pixar () and stylized as P I X A R) is an American computer animation studio known for its critically and commercially successful computer animated feature films. It is based in Emeryville, Californi ...

Studios. Thus, it should have marked the first time that computers were ever used in the making of an animated feature, but it ended up being done the conventional way after all. When the film wrapped up production, the first test screenings did not do as well as the crew had hoped it would. As a result, Catmull removed Sam Singer's name from the final prints, taking a credit in Singer's place. He later went on to say about the initial reaction to ''Tubby'': Of director Schure, Catmull's partner Smith observed: "We realized ��that he really didn't have what it takes to make a movie". Neither of the duo were satisfied with what the finished film had to offer.

Release

In 1974, some time after the end of its production, independent distributor Avco Embassy acquired the rights to release ''Tubby'' worldwide. The film came out in select U.S. markets during the following Easter holiday. The feature-length ''Tubby'' has been generally forgotten in the annals of animation history since its original run, but on September 11, 2006, a small label called Pegasus brought out a Region 2 DVD in the United Kingdom. To date, it has only received minor VHS releases in North America, including: *

Children's Video Library Vestron Video was the main subsidiary of Vestron, Inc., a home video company based in Stamford, Connecticut, that was active from 1981 to 1993, and is considered to have been a pioneer in the home video market. The name is now used for a collecto ...

(1983) *

Vestron Video Vestron Video was the main subsidiary of Vestron, Inc., a home video company based in Stamford, Connecticut, that was active from 1981 to 1993, and is considered to have been a pioneer in the home video market. The name is now used for a collecto ...

(1985) *

Family Home Entertainment Family Home Entertainment (FHE) was an American home video company founded in 1980 by Noel C. Bloom. It was a division of International Video Entertainment, which had its headquarters in Newbury Park, California. History The company was founde ...

(early 1990s) *

Sony Wonder Sony Wonder (founded as Sony Kids’ Music) is the kids and family entertainment label of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment and the former record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment. Despite the similarity in name, Sony Wonder is not direct ...

(1995)

References

: Allmovie incorrectly lists the release year as 1977.

Sources

* Beck, Jerry (2005). ''The Animated Movie Guide''. . Chicago Reader Press. Accessed April 9, 2007.

External links

* * * {{Ref, wrong-year 1975 films 1975 animated films American children's animated comedy films American children's animated fantasy films American children's animated musical films 1970s American animated films 1970s children's comedy films 1970s children's animated films 1970s children's fantasy films Embassy Pictures films Films directed by Alexander Schure 1975 comedy films 1970s English-language films