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BEA & EFF #1 – 7
edited by Tim Stocoak
1993 – 1997
Sit down, kiddies and I’ll tell you about a time up to the late 80’s when people (excluding Japan) didn’t give a damn about animation. This art form were strictly limited to the Saturday morning and
weekday afternoon variety that kids liked and adults hated and the occasional Disney fare that were
trying to catch up to their glory days. Then came ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit?’ and ‘The Simpsons’
and EVERYBODY suddenly started to pay attention….
This discovery and the disposable economy of the 90’s spawned not only this recovery but an
underbelly sub-culture of animation cell collecting….excuse me, ‘Limited Edition Animation Cell Collecting’ and its death grip was monstrous. Living in Los Angeles during that time, I lost count of
how many specialty Cell galleries that opened and briefly flourished.
Scott Mako was also taking note of this and the magazines that sprouted around it, like In Toon,
Animato! and Storyboard: The Art Of Laughter. In what might be an act of self-defense against this
barrage, he made up a factious name and unleashed BEE & EFF Magazine, the anti-mag of this
bloated landscape.
One of the many suspects of this noisy trend was Hanna-Barbara Studios, the folks who brought you Scooby-Doo, The Jetson, The Flintstones and all the others in their meat grinding cheaply made peanut gallery from the late 60’s and 70’s and they proved they were NOT above further exploiting their exhausted inventory by flooding this market with “Limited Edition” of reproduced cells, posters and books….and Warner Bros. with their Loony Tunes, and Disney were not too far behind falling into this pit.
WHITE TRASH CON BINGO!
Scott offers a fake ad of other slices of H-B’s “The Masters Class” cells like ‘Fred’s Last Stand’ where Jesus Last Supper is populated by H-B cast of characters and, a personal favorite, ‘The Anatomy Lesson Of Dr. Benton Quest’ where H-B are gathered around to watch the corps of Magilla Gorilla about to be cut open. The zine also asks the important questions like: Did Ub Iwerks’ parents have a cold when they
named him?’
However, a lot of the humor also came
from the actual clips from the suspects
themselves: H-B boasting how “crazy”
they are for offering actual cells from a
disastrous Dr. Success TV special, the
bottom pit of shame from The Flintstone movie, WB’s Looney Tunes jewelry collection, the urban legend surrounding old Walt and his frozen body, the letter sections from various animation magazines, etc., It also didn’t help that Howard Stern brutally harassed his producer about his cell collecting on a daily basis.
As with many fads, once they dried up, so did the money and the interests....on the bad side, so did Bea & Eff.
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