Wack! Hungarian Margin Notes on a Felix the Cat: The Movie Model Sheet

Production drawings from Felix the Cat: The Movie carry two languages. Presentation boards dated ’85 are lettered in English and credited to a German and an American company, while a model sheet signed “Belay ’87” is annotated in Hungarian, the language of the studio credited with the animation.

Felix the Cat: The Movie is an American character’s feature made mostly in Europe. Wikipedia lists the production companies as Felix the Cat Creations, Animation Film Cologne and Pannónia Filmstúdió, and says the animation was done at Pannonia in Hungary, with some work subcontracted to studios in Poland and Bulgaria. The director was Tibor Hernádi. The film had its world premiere on 26 January 1989 at the Wadsworth Theatre in West Los Angeles, opening the third Los Angeles Animation Celebration. The Los Angeles Times preview of that festival listed it as “‘Felix the Cat: The Movie’ (Hungary).”

The scan

The Internet Archive item “Felix The Cat The Movie (1988) Production Drawings, Cels, Model Sheets, etc” is an 83-page PDF. Its description says the images “were hosted on an old defunct website” and were “All drawn by Tibor Belay.” The scan has no other provenance. Several pages are signed “TIBOR A. BELAY” or “Belay,” so the attribution holds for those pages at least. Whether it covers all 83, including the painted cels in the second half, is not something the scan can show.

The pages fall into three groups: colour presentation boards in black album mounts, pencil and printed model sheets on punched paper, and cels. This Story looks at the first two.

The English boards

The first PDF page is a colour board titled “ZILLIANS (in front of box-office).” Four creatures from the Land of Zill stand in a row, one with a small typed label: “HER NAME IS INGRID.” Along the bottom is a handwritten credit, “© Animation Film Cologne / Felix the Cat Creations ’85,” and at the right a signature, “TIBOR A. BELAY ’85.” The second page is a board of “The Professor” and “Poindexter,” Felix’s nemesis and his nephew, with the same copyright line.

Colour presentation board in a black album mount: four Zill creatures in a row under ‘ZILLIANS (in front of box-office)’. Felix the Cat: The Movie (1988/89) production drawings attributed to Tibor A. Belay; boards credited ’© Animation Film Cologne / Felix the Cat Creations ‘85’; Felix the Cat © Felix the Cat Productions/DreamWorks Classics. Scan: Internet Archive item felixmovieprouctionart (original PDF ‘Untitled document-11.pdf’). Renders at 150–300 dpi, rotated upright; not retouched. · PDF p.1 (IA n0).

Wikipedia dates the film’s development to 1985 and its production to 1986–87. These boards fall into that development window, and their English captions and German-and-American copyright suggest they were made to show the co-producers, not the animators. That is an inference from the lettering, not something the boards state.

Colour board in a black mount: the Professor in a white coat and Poindexter in a mortarboard and green sweater. Felix the Cat: The Movie (1988/89) production drawings attributed to Tibor A. Belay; boards credited ’© Animation Film Cologne / Felix the Cat Creations ‘85’; Felix the Cat © Felix the Cat Productions/DreamWorks Classics. Scan: Internet Archive item felixmovieprouctionart (original PDF ‘Untitled document-11.pdf’). Renders at 150–300 dpi, rotated upright; not retouched. · PDF p.2 (IA n1).

The Hungarian sheet

The fifth page is different. It is a pencil sheet, loosely drawn and filled with handwritten notes in Hungarian capitals, signed “Belay ’87.” The heading at the top reads “WACK B…,” and the rest of the word is lost under a punch hole. Wack Lizardi is the circus owner in the film. The sheet shows a long thin stick with a face, a tuft of hair at the top and a crossbar near the bottom, in about ten poses. It snarls, droops, grins, bites and, in one sketch, is held in a large fist and swung through the air with a sound effect lettered “PAFF! PAFF!” The prop is apparently Wack’s living stick or whip. “Botja” (his stick) would fit the cut-off heading, but the missing letters are a guess.

The notes are model-sheet instructions: what stays fixed, what may change, and how the prop acts. The original scan is low-resolution, so enlarging the handwriting makes it blurry. The typed readings below preserve the existing transcription and working English translation; they have not been cleared by a native reviewer.

The right-hand notes at the source image’s native resolution. Production drawing attributed to Tibor A. Belay; original sheet, PDF p. 5.

Shape, movement and dialogue

Hungarian transcription

HÁTUL KOPONYA VARRATOK,

With an arrow to the back view.

Working English translation

at the back, skull sutures.

Hungarian transcription

ÖSSZE-VISSZA FOGAI VANNAK – AMIK DIALOGON BELÜL IS – VÁLTOZHATNAK

Working English translation

it has jumbled teeth, which can change even within a line of dialogue.

Hungarian transcription

NÉHA FOLYTATHATJA WACK DIALOGJÁT – WACK!

Working English translation

sometimes it can continue Wack's dialogue. Wack!

Hungarian transcription

A NYELVE MINDIG A NYÉL FOLYTATÁSÁBÓL INDUL ÉS AZUTÁN AZ LEHET BELŐLE AMIRE ÉPPEN HASZNÁLJUK

Working English translation

its tongue always starts as a continuation of the handle, and then it can become whatever we are using it for at the moment.

Hungarian transcription

LEHET OSTOR – ÖKÖL – ÉS KIFEJEZHET ÉRZELMEKET IS – HA VALAKIT SZERET (!) AKKOR PL. FORMÁLHAT SZÍV ALAKOT

Working English translation

it can be a whip, a fist, and it can express emotions too. If it loves someone (!), it can for example form a heart shape.

Hungarian transcription

ALSÓ ÁLLKAPCSA INKÁBB PUHA. AZT TUDJA FORMÁLNI DIALOGNÁL – A FELSŐRÉSZ AZ A MEREVEBB, CSONT-SZERŰ

Working English translation

its lower jaw is rather soft; that is what it can shape in dialogue. The upper part is the stiffer, bone-like part.

The lower-left notes, beginning “KÖZELIBEN,” with “ELLENKEZŐ” underlined. Production drawing attributed to Tibor A. Belay; original sheet, PDF p. 5.

Hair and eye highlights

Hungarian transcription

KÖZELIBEN: HAJÁNAK VAN EGY KIS VASTAGSÁGA – UA. A SZÍN MINT WACK HAJA!

Working English translation

in close-up, its hair has a little thickness; same colour as Wack's hair!

Hungarian transcription

REFLEXFÉNY A SZEMBEN – AMI MINDIG ELLENKEZŐ IRÁNYBAN VAN, MINT AMERRE A FEJ FORDUL,

With "ELLENKEZŐ" underlined.

Working English translation

highlight in the eye, which is always on the opposite side from the way the head turns.

Read together, the notes are a small acting brief. The prop shares Wack’s hair colour and can finish his sentences. Its tongue grows out of the handle and turns into whatever the scene needs. The note describes the lower jaw as softer and shapeable during dialogue, and the upper part as stiffer and bone-like. One note, the eye highlight that always sits opposite the turn of the head, is a rule an inbetweener would need to apply on every drawing.

The transcription keeps the sheet’s lettering as written, including “DIALOGON” and “DIALOGJÁT.” “KÖZELIBEN” is read here as “in close-up,” from “közeli,” a close shot. That reading and the whole translation are working drafts.

Model sheets with a house reference

Other pages are cleaner model sheets on punched paper, with a printed lower-case title and the signature “TIBOR A. BELAY.” Page 9, “zillian,” shows a lanky, long-nosed Zill native from front and back. At the left of the sheet, at the same baseline, stands a solid-black Felix in his classic pose. The same Felix figure is printed on the “circus public” sheet on page 13, next to two heavy-set spectators in fishnet stockings. The repeated Felix figure appears to serve as a scale reference on those two sheets.

Punched model sheet titled ‘zillian’: a solid-black Felix at left and a lanky long-nosed Zill native in front and back views, signed Tibor A. Belay. Felix the Cat: The Movie (1988/89) production drawings attributed to Tibor A. Belay; boards credited ’© Animation Film Cologne / Felix the Cat Creations ‘85’; Felix the Cat © Felix the Cat Productions/DreamWorks Classics. Scan: Internet Archive item felixmovieprouctionart (original PDF ‘Untitled document-11.pdf’). Renders at 150–300 dpi, rotated upright; not retouched. · PDF p.9 (IA n8).

Page 38 is pencil again, boxed “SWAMP CREAZTURE,” spelled so, and signed “Belay ’87.” It shows a lanky creature with a goat-like body, long neck and clawed hands, a bell hanging from its tail, in two poses. The lettering here is English, even though the sheet comes from the same year as the Hungarian notes. The scan doesn’t explain why some 1987 pages are labelled in English and others in Hungarian.

Pencil sheet boxed ‘SWAMP CREAZTURE’: two poses of a long-necked creature with a bell on its tail, signed Belay ’87. Felix the Cat: The Movie (1988/89) production drawings attributed to Tibor A. Belay; boards credited ’© Animation Film Cologne / Felix the Cat Creations ‘85’; Felix the Cat © Felix the Cat Productions/DreamWorks Classics. Scan: Internet Archive item felixmovieprouctionart (original PDF ‘Untitled document-11.pdf’). Renders at 150–300 dpi, rotated upright; not retouched. · PDF p.38 (IA n37).

Where the film went

New World Pictures picked up the film, but, as Cartoon Research’s review puts it, it “had but one US theatrical showing,” at the Los Angeles festival. The review says the picture “went unseen until it appeared on DVD on August 29, 2002.” Wikipedia, citing period sources, gives an earlier U.S. VHS release in 1991. The two accounts conflict, and neither is resolved here.

The drawings themselves are better documented than the film’s release history. The 1985 boards carry the co-producers’ names in English. The 1987 sheet tells someone, in Hungarian, exactly how Wack’s stick should move.