We absolutedly need an animation thread

repoman wrote: and to a slightly lesser extent The Animaniacs

I ran across this the other day:

JonJacob wrote: In fact any cartoon that rely's on it's script first is automatically less interesting to me.

You know, that's something that bothers me too. If you want to make a good animated film, the animation should be good, in the same way a good game should have good gameplay, it's the reason to use the medium, if you are going to give everyone the same face, why even bother? It's a colossal waste of time.

I mean, there's simply no reason to. What does the Simpson gain from being animated? Nothing, really, it just makes the process more expensive and the flaws more obvious. Instead of an actual actor with a perfectly subtle mouth movement which is perfectly realistic we get robotic movenets and blurry facial features that are all the same on all the characters. It's a movie yet what moves is terrible and uninteresting, I watch it and I feel like I'm wasting my time.

This doesn't mean you can't have a good script but to claim that an animated movie shouldn't be well animated is both assinine and surprisingly common! Pixar has repeatedly been quoted on this, claiming all that matters to be the script and everything else being secondary.

Really, why do you show me Bart and Lisa being shocked and their lips making a wavy line if it isn't interesting? And why do you do it all the time?


This is probably why I love "Book Revue" so much. It has no plot. It has no characters, only emotions and a feeling. It doesn't make sense and if you write it down, nothing is really happening. But just the way Daffy walks, the way he sings, he moves and he looks is incredibly fun ,funnier than everything else in the cartoon. That power when he stomps and gets clothed, the way he shouts quiet, the sudden calm as he imitates Danny Kayne...Damn, damn, damn, it's just amazing. It's like all those shots in Indiana Jones and Citizen Kane, they are so good they suck you in just by existing.



That walk at 1:00 gets me everytime. Can't get enough of it.

For me, it's all about Adventure Time. I absolutely adore the show. It works for kids and adults, but it doesn't work with adults by including a bunch of sarcastic bullshit, pop culture references or anything. It's probably the most good natured show I've ever seen.

Agreed, Clampett is just the best Warner Bros. director.

For Fleischer, make sure to watch the Cab Calloway Betty Boops (there are three of them), they are flat-out my favorite cartoons of all time. I have no idea where to find a good quality copy of them, though, the youtube versions are atrocious. Oh sweet Jesus, and Bimbo's Initiation!!!

For Disney...you really think they're wasted on the content? Disney had a very small golden age for their shorts, but during that era they're funny and INCREDIBLY animated. Watch The Band Concert, Donald is hysterical, and it might be the best color animation I've ever seen. I could watch The Old Mill over and over again, too. Or the freaking Skeleton Dance!!! Admittedly, my favorite Disney cartoons are the ones that kinda look like Fleischer cartoons, with those rubbery limbs.

Erik, I'm not sure why you think this cartoon doesn't make sense if you write it down. The cartoon is 100% the sort of "bullshit pop culture" reference that GarySax decries in the very next post.

The bit you It starts with a play off Eddie Cantor's radio show (that's the Mad Russian character) along with the biggest sponsor of the day, Lucky Strike cigarettes--"so round, so firm, so fully packed"...so freeeeeee and easssssy on the draw. LS...MFT, LS...MFT' would be the rest of the jingle they used for nearly 40 years.

After the slapstick moment, it goes into a pretty straight parody of Cab Calloway's scat...and, hell, he's even dressed like Calloway. If I remember this one correctly, the rest of the cartoon is a play off the old "race movies" that the audience would be familiar with. I think Daffy as either Carmen Miranda or Lupe Velez (one of the many "fruit on his head" bits) makes an appearance in this one, too.

It's only "nonsense" now because an awful lot of people seem to think that, prior to the ubiquity of cable television, entertainment consisted of making cross-stitch samplers by candle light or churning butter or somesuch. A huge chunk of the old WB animated shorts were based mostly or entirely around references to the movie and radio serials of the day.

Now, all of you, get the hell off my lawn before I start throwing burned out tubes pulled from my 300 lb shortwave cabinet at you.....

Agreed with dragonstout, those Betty Boop's are great. So is Book Review too and the silly pop culture references (which Looney Tunes is filled with in general) are fine to me because the drawing underneath is sooo strong it transcends it's script and time. That's the trick, I don't care if there are silly references... humour dates in odd ways and does so pretty quickly so any cartoon that is relying solely on it's script for yucks will have that problem with or without pop culture references.

But Looney Tunes had strong animators like Rod Scribner to make up for it and visual humour tends to be more robust as far as dating is concerned... same with random sounds. Which is why a good fall, funny walk, or fart tends to be funny regardless of time or place. Universal humour is some of the most juvenile of all, lucky for me because that suits my mentality perfectly.

My favorite thing about Looney Tunes beyond Clampett is definitely Carl Sterling. That guy is my music hero. What a genius! Now every drum solo I hear sounds like someone is falling down stairs, a pizzicato cello is a bull prancing around the ring with Bugs (who is a violin) the music throughout is beyond amazing and is possibly the best sound ever in any cartoon. That guy created a language used by cartoons to this day and despite having some help form those before him did most of it on his own mainly because he was lucky to have a full orchestra at his disposal at the time (paid shit too). Few cartoons can have that luxury so it's really tough for anyone to compete.

As for me, I've recently wasted many an hour watching Danger Mouse. I picked up the full DVD run and am just now starting to hit the seasons that either didn't air in the US way back when or that I simply missed. The animation is a bit low-budget, but it's entertaining as hell.

I'm hoping to find the full Duckula run from that same production house, but so far I've only been able to track down Region 2 sets, which aggravates me no friggin' end.

I watched all the great animation from the Golden Era in my youth, thanks to Looney Tunes and their big showcase every Saturday morning. Saw all the tremendously shitty animation as well in the 70s Tom & Jerry garbage and the terrible Hanna Barbera stuff that seemed to run at about 8 fps.

I don't know the names like you guys, but I know the shorts.

Deputy Dog was the shiiiiiiit.

The bulldog cartoon from WB when he has the kitten? Genius.

The frog from the time capsule? Amazing.

I never liked Popeye. Disney cartoons are pussified when compared to WB, barring some stuff with Goofy, which could get pretty nuts as I recall. Peter and the wolf was good--was that Disney?

What is going unmentioned here, by and large, is the FUCKING MUSIC. It's manic and amazing, and it is making these shorts.

I also want to note that these are scripted TO DEATH. Just because there's no words doesn't mean it's not scripted within an inch of its life.

Saying THE SIMPSONS works as live action makes you sound like an idiot, it is not helping your case.

The only thing I've seen in the last 20 years approaching the same greatness as the Golden Age is REN & STIMPY and whatever Brad Bird works on, be it IRON GIANT or INCREDIBLES. ...and Ghibli. I mean, goddamn.

Yeah Ren & Stimpy was really great. The 1950's on acid look to it and it's humor. At least until MTV got a hold of it and ruined it. The first season is fantastic. The horse being interviewed after he falls out of the building and his legs are shattered.."No sir...I didn't like it".

Holy fish, that previous sentence alone is bizarre.

Powerpuff Girls I think was pretty awesome too. Very retro 60's. I found them very funny. I'd put Dexter's Lab in the same category. Second tier but still enjoyable.

And I'm with Jeb in utter hatred of Hanna Barbera. Outside of Johnny Quest, whose animation sucks ass but whose stories are great, they can rot in hell.

And what's this nonsense that script shouldn't count when watching animation. Of course it should. All animation is trying to convey something. If it's pretty pictures without story you're after, go to an art gallery.

Oh, and my name is Repo and I love roto-scoping. Yes I have a problem but I love the way it looks. The original Lord of the Rings movie is a prime example.

I'm not sure there exists a universe where someone could convince me that Bob Clampett was greater for Warner Bros. than with Tex Avery or Chuck Jones. Clampett did a lot of stuff first, but he rarely did it better than either of those guys.

Scripting is a foundational part of animation, and one reason the Simpsons worked is because the animation allowed it to be free of conventions. It could have a cast of hundreds of characters using only 5-6 voice actors. It could have episodes all over the world without ever breaking the budget. While I understand a little of the frustration when the show gets really silly and off-the-rails today, that's part of being a cartoon. You can do stuff like that, and barring maybe the first season or two the Simpsons always has. Same goes for Futurama, though it does so with more polish.

I also will serve at least a little as a Disney apologist, because I really love Donald Duck. He's easily one of the best characters ever created for animation. He's such a dick, and it's amazing that such a maladjusted character became so beloved. Disney cartoons do take more of a "put people in a setting and make some gags" approach than WB, which was always better at story. But Disney was mostly done with short subjects by the time WB hit their stride. I do agree that Mickey Mouse is kind of bland, but that was a problem that even Disney himself acknowledged.

I'm starting to see a somewhat elitist bent here against anything that isn't from the Golden Age. I mean, it's called the Golden Age for a reason, but I really don't want to give short shrift to recent additions. Animation has for the last 20 years had one of its richest and most varied times in history. Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network have repeatedly pushed the boundaries of what can be done with TV animation. Primetime network animation isn't considered an outlier. Heck, even the internet has shown that the rules for animation are being rewritten almost constantly. The craftsmanship can never be to the same level of how it was on Termite Terrace, but then those guys were working on a shoestring too. I imagine that they would be impressed with some of the more-with-less attitude exhibited by a lot of modern animators.