Deitch’s Unproduced “Charlottes Web”

If you ever hated (or loved) the Hanna Barbera feature length Charlotte’s Web (1973), you owe it to yourself read the latest two entries in Gene Deitch’s Roll The Credits blog. It’s the full heart-breaking account – throughly documented with personal letters between Deitch and author E.B. White – of how Hollywood producers went from John Hubley to Gene Deitch to ultimately using Hanna Barbera to bring this literary classic to life.

Read the full story here, then drool over the complete never-before seen 792-panel storyboard Deitch had drawn by the masterful Czech artist Mirko Hanák, who passed away shortly after creating it. Deitch says E.B. White was forbidden (by producers) to see his storyboard (though White died shortly after seeing the Hanna-Barberra version. Coincidence?). A must-read!