john's cartoon blog

Post 12

2005-12-12T08:09:00.000-08:00

The End
The way that people are exposed to art and media has changed in the past 100 years. There are many new ways for the public to get to see and hear what they want. Because of this I would have to disagree with with Leonard Maltin, The theatrical short is not dead.Maybe we can not go to the theater to watch cartoon shorts on a regular basis. However there are other options for us to enjoy animation. At first the was television syndication. The magic of reruns that kept me busy in the afternoons and on saturday mornings. Then we got video tapes and DVDs if a movie or a cartoon collection did not do well in the theater or was being rereleased as an anthology of some kind we could buy the tape or disc. I would have to say that the magority of the dvds and tapes in the house are some sort of animation escpecially if you count the CGI animation in the "Star Wars" movies and other science fiction movies and television shows.
I do not much care for the cartoons that are shown on television on Saturday mornings any more. they do not speak to me like the old Scooby-Doo cartoons of my youth. I still buy Scooby merchandise when the mood strikes me. There is a guy who plays at the local bar once a month and always towards the end of his last set he plays the Scooby Doo theme to wild applause and not only from me. The cartoons that Fox runs on Sunday nights do make me laugh though and after you take out all the commercials they are only 20 minutes max. T.V. has kept the short alive, and I approve .just not of the commercials. One of the magazines on the checkstand at the local Safeway called "King of the Hill" one of the best T.V. shows that no one watches. It will probably disappear at the end of this season. I will miss it but only until I get the Dvd. yup.
Huge T.V. s and home theater systems help us get that movie house feeling in our own homes. Access to a large amount to animation allows us to enjoy any kind of movie we want. Every thing about going to the movies is there except stale popcorn and some jerk talking on their cell phone. Therefore the short is not dead it is still out there Amazon and ebay are just a click away and it usually takes only a few days to get the desired Dvd. Oh the joy when the mailman brings the long awaited (whole 3 days ) forth season of "King of the Hill" .
thanks for everything
john

Post 11

2005-12-12T06:28:00.000-08:00

Voices
One thing that adds a lot to the characters in animated films and shortsare the voices. Mel Blanc brought us Woody Woodpecker and a large number of the Warner Brothers characters the man was a genius. Each voice is different enough that each character can be recognized withoutbeing seen. The voices of the animated characters we love are just as important as the drawings of the characters. This is true with the "Toy Story" movies as well. However The characters seem to have changed to resemble the actors who do the voices. Woody the cowboy looks like Tom Hanks. Oddly enough he looks a little like this "Johnny West" action figure I used to have when I was little. "Johnny West" was plastic but he did have a plastic hat I kept loosing and I think the dog finally chewed up. I do not remember if there was a cartoon that went along with the toy or not. The similarities were not lost to me when I was watching "Toy Story". Woody did look more like Forrest Gump though and his little "I am not a smart toy " remark was killer. "big Al" was Newman from Sienfeld to a tee. The same greedy voice and the consumption of junk food. The actor's name always escapes me but I know the character. Buzz's face looks a little like Tim Allen's and the body motions are like the big oopses he makes on his T.V. show "Home Improvement"It would appear that the pop culture references are important. You can see the look on Buzz's face Or see the look on Tim's whenhis " Binford 2000" laser canon will not work. But then on the "Drew Carey Show" the other day I saw Drew say something about Bugs Bunny not writing Kill the Wabbit but it was some guy named Wagner. so it works both ways.

post 10

2005-12-06T17:24:00.000-08:00

M G M

Often my afternons were spent sitting in front of the television set watching cartoons and i did like to watch Tom and Jerry cartoons. They were not my favorites at the time but I liked them second best. I was talking to the student who has my seat in the class before ours and he told me that Tom and Jerry were his favorite animated guys.The reason why they are so popular according toLeonard Maltin are "Great personality animation, great story ideas, and great gags." on page 297-298 Of Mice and Magic. There was nothing new about an animated mouse or an animated cat. there was nothing new about using them together like Krazy Kat and Ignatz Mouse. What was new were the violent chase scenes. they wer beautiful. I can still see the angry look of determination when Jerry gets really mad. and Tom's teeth when he is getting ready to try to eat Jerry. In the process of the chase the whole house is destroyed and eventually Tom is thrown out of the house by the maid who beats him with a broom. it is a shame that they are really too violent to be shown during the afternoon hours. I have tried to watch afternoon cartoons but get discouraged because they do not make me laugh the way the older cartoons do. I guess I still need a good dose of the old slapstick style humor maybe that is why the "Itchy and Scratchy" cartoons on "The Simpsons"make me laugh like I am possessed because the remind me of how the Tom and Jerry shorts were. Itchy and Scratchy are a lot more violent. But the Cat still does not win. On another note Fred Quimby is the name of the Mayors nephew on the simpsons . The name could be there as an honor. I am looking to see if there are a Hanna and Barbera or any other names hidden in the Simpsons ' ten seasons of shows. I will let you know if i find any.

Post 9

2005-11-09T17:53:00.000-08:00

Warner Brothers
The other night at work the Muzak played "The Flight of the Valkeries,", for Halloween I guess, and all I could think of was Elmer Fudd singing "Kill the Wabbit" Shorts have always been my favorite form of animation. Even though the full length Features are short by today's standards they seemed to be a little too long for me. Anything longer than "Snow White" can cause my Attention to fade. Maybe some of the ADD of today is caused by children of my age group growing up with the T V showing us that a whole story even Wagner's "The Ring Cycle" can be told in under 10 minutes,in color, with lots of laughs to boot shorts usually there is enough time to use one or two characters. This makes the Warner Brothers cartoons popular to this day.
Everybody has a favorite Looney Tunes Character. Many people purchase items featuring their favorite characters. My sister has a Foghorn Leghorn keychain. I have seen automotive floormats with just about every one of the Warner characters. A friend of mine has Marvin Martian Tattooed on his arm. He will occasionally attempt to mimic Marvin's voice. Other people associate parts of the characters personality or even physical attributes with people they know. I think one of the guys at work looks like Speedy Gonzales cousin Slowpoke. He is tall and has the same moustache, he gets so much done and he never breaks a sweat.
these are the kind of things that make the Warner characters so appealing to me I can relate them or at least toned down versions of the to someone i Know.

Posts 7 and 8

2005-11-02T17:22:00.000-08:00

I missed a post so I will try to address more than one issue with this one .
I went to France last week and could not help but notice that the French like Animation.This comes as no surprise because we have learned that Animation sort of started in France with Mellies "Trip to the Moon" . Also one of Walt Disney's ancestors was Hubert Duke of Isigny who went to England with William the Bastard, soon to be William the conqueror. In the processes Hubert's name was Anglicised to Disney so there fore Mickey Mouse's ancestral home is in Normandy. This is according to Paul the tour guide from Battlebus. A little light hearted humor on the way to Ste. Mere-Eglise.
Oddly while I was walking around Bayeux, looking for a travel alarm clock I came across a shopwindow full of Betty Boop merchandise. This was no shock. What was a shock was a window ful of Merchandise for Droopy Dog shown on page 292 "Of Mice and Magic". I remembered him enough from channel 20 on weekday afternoons in the 70's but he was not my favorite. Maybe Droopy is the Jerry Lewis of cartoons, and more popular in France. I picked up a free weekly in Paris and in between adds for 900 hotlines and used cars hter ewere adds for cell phone down loads ring tones and screen savers for Droopy. I just do not remember seeing Lunch boxes or anything like for Droopy when I was young. "Tom Cat and Jerry Mouse" yes, Droopy no.
One Thing that really caught me offguard was the amount of Graphic novels. They were everywhere in France. The Bayeux Tapestry was the oldest one and I could read it because there were no French words some Latin but they were simple words like REX and they were not important to the story. An illiterate peasant could follow the tapestry and get the story. I spoke no French at all and I could follow the story. I also was able to understand the stories of the graphic novels. I do Like "Asterix the little Gaul" stories, and every newsstand, bookstore, and toy store had big posters announcing the arrival of his new novel which came out on the in the second week of October. Some of the big plush characters from the series cost upwards of 200 Euros so I did not bring one back. so not only is Animation hugely popular but it is also big business as well. I could not turn around in the Disney store in Paris. I was affraid I would knock over all the little children. the registers had long lines of customers. They were buying all kinds of stuff even Dopey, whom they call Simplet. But he was still the same Dopey. All in all the French like animation as much as we do not nessecarily the same characters but definately animation.

Post 6

2005-10-16T11:12:00.000-07:00

After establishing a character and his personality another thing that will make him popular is exposure. No one will know him if they do not see him. The viewer will not go to the theatre to see a showing of one his shorts if they do not know who he is. Without viewers there is no money coming into your studio. Paul Terry as quoted in Leonard Maltin's Of Mice and Magics said "Disney is the Tiffany's in this business, and I am the Woolworth's" It is clear that he understood the idea of getting your product out there. Terrytoons Studio was successful at getting product out there and getting a good following. Because Terry kept a strict production schedule he was able to be successful into the television era.
Mighty Mouse was one of my favorites when I was younger. Many hours were spent in my hoouse watching him and various Terry toons such as deputy Dawg. Hashimoto San was my favorite of them all. There were so manydifferent cartoons in all that they seemed to be on more often in reruns than the Looney Toons with more variety. I never knew why, until I read Of mice and Magic. Terry's production schedule was always hectic. Jack Zander and Frank Moser both talk about about it in the text. By creating such a large volume of work there was plenty to sell to television when the opportunity came along. I doubt that Terry knew what the future and television would bring but his prodction studio was ready for it.
By linking up with CBS and Captain Kangaroo he was able to make a lot of money and sell out and retire well. as a result of this I learned that "Sayonara" means good bye in Japanese.

Post 5

2005-10-16T09:43:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the late posts I was not allowed to use the computer this week for I often make bad things happen to it when I do and my wife needed to use it for work.

There is something to say about having a personality. Most of my favorite cartoon guys have a distinct personality. Something has to set the character apart from everybody else out there. One of the things that can really make a character come alive is personality. There are many ways to give a character a personality. Some have an outrageous and over the top attitude and others can get by with just one singular expression or noise.
We can always count on Porky Pig to stutter and we can always expect Homer Simpson to say "Doh!" Or "Mmmmm" followed by what ever his object of affection is at the moment at least once in every episode. We can count on the robot Bender on "Futurama" to guzzle booze at least once. His name is a joke in itself. Younger viewers may not catch it at first because he is a "Bending machine" his rude behavior will make them laugh and give them ideas to quite possibly misbehave But us older folks know that the only thing Bender has ever bent is his elbow.
A personality can help create a fuller character capable of two levels of humor. One level that is accessible to younger minds and one that is accessible only to the older crowd. The younger crowd can be entertained by funny little animals doing funny things the older viewers might find same prat falls over and over again boring. An insertion of a little of color humor can remedy this Bugs Bunny in a dress wooing Elmer Fudd adds just enough to make me giggle. In "Knock Knock" with woody Woodpecker Woody has a beer I do not think he could get away with that now. Maybe after 8 pm like Homer and Hank Hill but not at three in the afternoon when the shorts were run when I was little. Homer can get away with being a lovable drunk because he does equally stupid things when he is sober like adding a little plutonium to his fertilizer with humorous results.
I definitely enjoy some good beer humor but that is only part of Homer's personality he is also a buffoon The most important thing is that He has a personality that sets him apart from all the other guys at Moe's Tavern although he drinks as much he is not Lenny, Carl, Barney, or the guy who sits in the back with the comb over. We can tell them apart easily because they have distinct personalities.

Post 4

2005-09-28T21:23:00.000-07:00

These are just a few thoughts on the class today. While watching the "Superman" cartoon I could not help but notice the similarities in the style of the "Batman" television series. The "Batman" series was one of my favorite t. v. shows at the time, the early 1990' s. The same Art Deco style was used for the buildings.The cars are also drawn similarly to the style of the car the train robbers were using in the "Billion Dollar Heist" Superman film. These were the main reasons that I liked the show. It is nice to see that some of the same styles were carried down fifty plus years and continued in a later film.
The Batman series had a full length film that was made towards the end of the series. It was called "Batman: The Mask of the Phantasm". The Vhs tape I have is copyright 1993. A long time ago I saw a documentary on the making of the series and I can not remember if the old Superman series was talked about, but the creators or the animators were talking about how the whole series was drawn with a black background to make it look more sinister. The skyscrapers were kind of reverse shadowed with only the outlines showing and the windows were drawn as yellowand the onlty part of the window you can see clearly is the brace that holds the glass panes in place. and shown as backlit from the inside. I will look for the Documentary Film that goes with the movie and look at it again and see if there were any references to the original series. It was definately nice to see the Art Deco tradition of the Superman series carried down.

ps the Joker was voiced by Mark Hamill of Star Wars fame.

Post 3

2005-09-20T17:11:00.000-07:00

While Reading Of Mice and Magic I came across a quotation from Max Fleischer "I'm in the business of making Cartoons, I'm not in the merchandising business." This really surprised me as I was sitting there reading this in a "King of the Hill" t-shirt. There is a Disney catalog, sitting on my coffee table, that came in the mail last week. Fleischer was wrong, obviously merchandising is an important part of the cartoon Business.
Most of the people I would consider friends spend a lot of money on cartoon merchandise. Today I played around online for a while to see how much money was involved in animation merchandising. Using a google search I was able to find about a million websites. I tried to cut things down a bit by limiting myself to only "King of the Hill" related sites. Along with a few educational sites there were still over eight hundred sites offering key chains, beer cozies, and "The boy ain't right" t-shirts. Merchandising is an important part of the cartoon business. This generates money that can be put back into production and business costs.
I do not remember seeing a whole lot of Koko the clown items for sale at fles markets but I do remember seeing some Popeye the sailor items for sale just about everywhere On the New York times website Lucia Bozzola makes a reference to the large amount of money that Mike Judge, creator of" Bevis and Butthead" and "King of the Hill" makes from merchandising. According to Dan McLaughlin's" Brief History of Animation" at Animation.filmtv.ucla.edu/program/anihist.htmlOtto Messmer retained the rights to his "Felix the Cat" images. This was profitable. We have all seen that cat clock on the wall. Maybe if Max Fleischer spent a little more time with the merchandising part of his business Paramount would not have been able to force him out of his studio.

Post 2

2005-09-14T22:05:00.000-07:00

I really enjoyed watching Felix the Cat. In the opening sequence he is chasing his tail. While he is hopping around , and the animator is writing his name, he appears to move just like a real cat would. Felix's movements are much more fluid than Krazy Kat's. There are only maybe ten years separating the two shorts but Felix looks a lot more like a real cat. By using arc shaped movements the animator shows more realistic, although exaggerated, movements. These two principles of animation combine well in the Felix film to give him a real personality.
The arcing movements in Felix's leaps during the title sequence look a lot like my cat's movements when she is chasing crickets. It struck me as amusing that the animator could get it so right. Once he gets his tail he completes his personality. At points the tail would appear to have a mind of it's own. This can be seen as an extension of his own personality. The tail adds to his personality with out becoming an individual, although it can appear to have a mind of it's own

Some comments

2005-09-07T18:16:00.000-07:00

I did not know where I was supposed to leave my comments so I will just dump them here Manas bring up the whole assembly line in silent animation that I sort of mentioned but should have gone further into in my earlier posting. I don not necessarily look forward to watching the new Looney Toones as much as Hargrove does I grew up in the dark ages before cable and the majority of my early cartoon watching days were before 1980. Channel 20 pre UPN days. That is how I developed a real love of the old Looney Toones. As a result I am very partial to the films where Buggs and Daffy justdo not look "right"

Post 1

2005-09-07T04:44:00.000-07:00

There are two things that stuck out while I was reading Of Mice and MagicWinsor McCay was quoted as saying that "Animation should be an art, that is how I had conceived it." he was right to make this statement. Art is not something that everyone can do well, but it is something that can be appreciated by everyone and I do like to watch cartoons. So at least I appreciate animation. Mcay was wrong to say that the other animators had turned the work into a trade. Maybe the technological advances of the day took out a lot of the tedious drawing of backgrounds but that does not take away from the gags that Felix the Cat does, especially with his tail.
By producing more of the Felix shorts, up to twenty-six a year, Pat Sullivan and animator Otto Messmer were able to bring Felix to the masses and I guess by early twentieth century standards keep it real.

testblog

2005-09-06T06:44:00.000-07:00

This is only a test just to see if it works. The whole concept of blogging is new to me.