Calvin Moore "Cal" Dalton (December 2, 1908 - June 1974) was an animator and cartoon director at Warner Bros.
He first worked in Jack King's unit on the Buddy cartoons starting with Viva Buddy. After Jack King returned to Disney, Dalton was relocated to Friz Freleng's unit in 1935. He later worked on Merrie Melodies as a co-director in 1938-1940, he first worked with Cal Howard as his co-director, then for most of Dalton's cartoons he co-directed with Ben Hardaway. Their last cartoon directed by each other was Busy Bakers, their only cartoon in 1940.
Dalton's animation uses a variety of formulas. He would tend to emphasize his characters' walking animation, giving them a stomping or squashing-like quality. He would also like to use certain mouth shapes during dialogue scenes and takes.
Porky's Phoney Express, Katnip Kollege, and A-Lad-In Bagdad all had Howard as co-director, the rest of the cartoons directed by Dalton have Hardaway as his co-director.
Dalton and Hardaway (and before, Howard) took over Friz Freleng's old unit when he left for MGM, for some reason, Dalton was never allowed to be sole director, Dalton later admitted feeling aggrieved about the fact that while he was meant to be nominally in charge of Freleng's former unit, he tended to be overshadowed by the presence of the more experienced Hardaway. He only directed 17 cartoons between 1938-1940, and animated about 33 cartoons between 1934-1937, and he then again animated between 1940-1947 after Friz Freleng had returned from MGM.
After 1947, Dalton went to work for Disney and Columbia's animation departments in the 1950s and later worked for Walter Lantz as a story man and director in the 1960s.
Directing credits[]
- Porky's Phoney Express (1938)
- Porky's Hare Hunt (1938)
- Katnip Kollege (1938)
- Love and Curses (1938)
- A-Lad-In Bagdad (1938)
- Porky the Gob (1938)
- Count Me Out (1938)
- It's an Ill Wind (1939)
- Gold Rush Daze (1939)
- Bars and Stripes Forever (1939)
- Porky and Teabiscuit (1939)
- Hobo Gadget Band (1939)
- Hare-um Scare-um (1939)
- Sioux Me (1939)
- Porky the Giant Killer (1939)
- Fagin's Freshman (1939)
- Breakdowns of 1939 (1940) (animated sequences)
- Busy Bakers (1940)
- Confederate Honey (1940)