Vancouver company rescues archive of Canadian animator who worked on The Beatles' Yellow Submarine, The Care Bears

Norm Drew Productions archive acquired by Gordy Creative in Vancouver. Courtesy of GSA Photo by Gordy Creative /Gordy Creative

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Animator Norm Drew and Norm Drew Productions may not be household names these days.

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But in 1986, the Kenora, Ontario-born and raised and Vancouver-based Drew, along with Gordon Standfield, co-created the storyboard for an episode of the Nelvana/ABC hit series The Care Bears titled Grumpy’s Three Wishes. It would become the first Hollywood North animated TV show to reach No. 1 in the U.S. prime time ratings.

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Standfield’s company, Gordon Standfield Studios, recently acquired the Norm Drew Productions film archive via a sale at Langley-based Able Auctions.

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“When the opportunity to get into a bidding war for his archive came up, I got really involved and acquired his original film masters,” said Standfield.

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The archive, which includes decades of the trailblazing animator’s work, contains film reels, cells, cartoons and more. Drew’s extensive list of career highlights include work on shows such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and a credit on the legendary feature Yellow Submarine by The Beatles.

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“Norm was pioneering as one of the very first Canadian animation guys to gain global recognition, working in London on George Dunning’s Yellow Submarine and many other places before returning to Canada,” said Standfield. “He was the first person I hired to work on a storyboard for an episode of The Care Bears, which we worked on for about a month before he moved to Japan for work.”

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Standfield, who has run an animation and live-action studio in Vancouver for decades, has been working on preserving his own film archive and thought that Drew’s archive would benefit from being handled by someone with “an animator’s touch.”

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An original poster for The Beatles movie Yellow Submarine. SunMedia

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Gordon Standfield of GSA has acquired the Norm Drew Productions archive for preservation. Photo by Gordon Standfield /GSA

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“Norm did cartoons, a live action and animated program called the Gastown Gang and a nice, educational series for BCTV, among other things,” said Standfield. “The truth about our business is we often don’t promote our work, because of the legalities of what we can and can’t show is caught up in copyright and contract issues.

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“It makes archival preservation quite challenging.”

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When Standfield acquired the Norm Drew Productions film reels, many were in need of immediate care, which is often the case with old products. Digitizing archival materials is a constant pursuit for studios, collectors and libraries aiming to preserve cinematic history.

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“I immediately had to order some specialized chemicals to handle the vinegar smells that can occur, and, obviously, some of the magnetic soundtracks are quite decayed, but it looks really good overall,” Standfield said. “There are a couple of series, stand-alone cartoons and other work that is all together, which is really nice. I’m talking to a film scan company about the best approach, talking to copyright offices and such to find out what can be shown.”

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Norm Drew Productions archive logo for The Gastown Gang. Courtesy of GSA Photo by Gordy Creative /Gordy Creative

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But one party to all of this Standfield hasn’t been able to consult is Drew.

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Like many working in the industry, he moved where the work was, including Ontario, the U.K., Japan and the U.S. Though the two animators’ careers charted similar paths around the world, they lost touch over the years.