RIP Ray Harryhausen

Over the next few days or weeks, if you follow entertainment media in one form or another, I'm sure you'll see or read many tributes to Ray Harryhausen, famous for his stop-motion special effects in numerous films throughout the years.

What can I, a math/literature/foodie guy add to the chorus? Simply put, maybe a factoid or two you may not hear in those tributes, depending on how deep they delve.

Ray and Ray

One of Ray Harryhausen's oldest and closest friends was a guy he met while he attended art school to hone his scuplture and puppeteering skills, a guy who was an aspiring writer and who shared Ray's enthusiasms for science fiction and fantasy, a guy also named Ray: Ray Bradbury.

That's a downright foundational nerd collaboration, a coffee shop table at which I'd love to have had a seat and chat.

Ray and Frank and Ted

In the 1940s, during the war and before getting into film making as a career, Ray had a special assignment: he was assigned to the Special Services Division under Col. Frank Capra, making films and animated shorts about the war effort and for soldier-instructions. 

One of his partners in the trenches of the animation and editing offices was Ted Geisel, but you may know him better as Dr. Seuss. Ray Harryhausen, Ray Bradbury, and Dr. Seuss? That could have been a trio in the corner of some dusty postwar barroom!

The musical director for those productions was Dimitri Tiomkin, who would later compose many scores for Hollywood westerns, creating basically the sound of the "Hollywood Western", which just leads to the odd collection of folks Ray worked with during his early years.

I've skipped Willis O'Brian, because nobody else will.

Homage in Monsters Inc.

The first time I heard Billy Crystal's character Mike tell his sweety where they'd be dining for her special birthday dinner, "Just a little place called Harry---hausen's," I smiled knowingly. I remember explaining it to Corrie later. There's only one source for a name like that, and on the commentary track acknowledge it.

Jennifer Tilly as Celia, Mike's girl, responds: "Harryhausens!?!"

Indeed.