The Tortoise and the Hare

Production Information
The story behind the production of The Tortoise and the Hare starts in 1952, when a young Ray Harryhausen was in his parents' garage, starting his career making short stop-motion animation puppet films for children. Fifty years later, Harryhausen teamed up with Mark Caballero and Seamus Walsh, who volunteered their services to complete the film. The filmmakers went to great lengths to match the look and feel of the original footage and the style of the other fairy tale films made in the 1950s. The production took two years, from 2000-2002.
Beginnings
Caballero and Walsh met Ray Harryhausen through Richard Jones, a long time
friend of Ray’s and the creator of the first documentary on Harryhausen:
Aliens, Dragons, Monsters and Me. Seamus and Mark initially approached Richard
about the project. Caballero explains, "If it wasn’t for Richard, this film would have
never been finished." Jones served as an associate producer throughout the production.







In 2000, production on the film resumed, as Harryhausen brought the original footage, puppets, storyboards and camera out of storage and into the Screen Novelties studio in Burbank. Working in a garage just like Ray did in the 1950s, Mark and Seamus painstakingly recreated sets and restored the puppet armatures, costumes and props so that they could withstand frame-by-frame shooting of new animation.
Puppets
The three characters in the film, the Tortoise, the Hare and the Fox, were originally created in 1952. Metal armatures were made by Ray Harryhausen's father, whom he credited as Fred Blasauf, and miniature costumes were sewn by his mother, credited as Martha Reske (he used the fake names to give his credits a more professional than familial appearance!). Harryhausen created more than a dozen cast plaster heads with different expressions for each character. The bodies inside the clothing were padded with sponge rubber. When production was resumed in 2000, some repairs were needed. Mark Caballero recalls, "When Ray brought the puppets to us, we were amazed at what great shape the they were in. The heads made out of plaster kept very well over the years. There was minimal wear to the puppets so it didn't take long for us to refurbish them." The body of the Tortoise was missing, so Harryhausen sculpted a new one out of clay, Walsh and Caballero cast it in foam latex, over a new armature built to Harryhausen's specifications by Robin Walsh, a professional puppet fabricator (and wife of Seamus). Cesar Romero, a miniature costume specialist, restored the costumes, using antique fabrics that Caballero and Walsh found in downtown Los Angeles' fabric district.