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Topic: The Animation Thread

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Elvie

I have been developing more of an interest in animation (outside of anime) and I wanted to talk about topics such as the American Golden Age of animation or the cultural differences between the East and the West.

People tend to forget how capable this medium is as an art form and it is important to remind them of the opposite with cartoons like Duck Amuck, The Dot And The Line, and U.P.A.'s The Tell-Tale Heart being part of a long list of examples.

There are so many topics to choose from the history of the animation and, sadly, I feel as though the general public only appreciates the work by Disney or Warner Bros. on a surface level, which is another reason I wanted to talk about this. It's so we can have a more expansive and varied perspective on this field of entertainment.

Feel free to talk about any subject.

Elvie

Elvie

So, to start off this thread, I'll talk about Tom & Jerry...but not the M.G.M Hanna-Barbera shorts. I'm referring to the M.G.M. Chuck Jones shorts.

That name is probably familiar to any animation nerd but to those unaware, he was a director on Looney Tunes, among other things, and he has been seen as one of the greatest American animators of all time.

In the '60s, M.G.M. realized their colossal act of stupidity after they shut down their animation studio, effectively ending the original Tom & Jerry series. So they hire former U.P.A director Gene Deitch to take charge in a new line of shorts. It did not go well. His team was given a meager budget and their style was disliked by many. The producer of these shorts was fired from M.G.M not long after and Deitch's run with them was also over.

After himself being fired, Chuck Jones formed a production company and was looking for work. M.G.M. then commissioned him to do a new set of shorts. People might have thought that bringing the guy who created Wile E. Coyote and Roadrunner on board would have been a natural fit for Tom & Jerry but the end result pretty much proved otherwise.

The violence that defined the original shorts got nerfed hard and even Jones said that he had trouble adapting his brand of humor to the series. The series was animated fairly well but in a cute sort of way which, on top of the lack of over-the-top violent gags, made it feel even less like the Hanna-Barbera run.

Despite this, however, I actually enjoy these shorts quite a bit. They aren't as good as the H-B shorts but Jones' style, both artistically and creatively, appeals to me and I believe it is the most watchable version of Tom & Jerry after the originals.

I think they are better than Hanna-Barbera's Saturday morning cartoon revival of them (The Tom & Jerry Show), which depicted them as straight-up friends like 90 percent of the time and they are certainly better than the newest series that has too much emphasis on dialogue, cheap flash animation, lame gags, and an overall mediocre sitcom tone (The Tom & Jerry Show (2014), unrelated to the 1975 series which is ridiculous since I had to use another set of parentheses to clarify).

Anyway, these shorts will always be remembered for their inferiority to the first series and for being another example of Jones' critical decline after his work on Looney Tunes which means people will just keep on trying to make watered-down versions of the initial run. It's a shame as I felt as though that Jones and even Deitch at least tried new spins on the characters and there were moments where it worked.

Deitch's "The Tom And Jerry Kit" short had a premise that fits well with his team's style (and budget) while also making a decent satirical jab at the formula of the T.&.J. series. Jones had whimsical shorts like "Snowbody Loves Me" and frantic ones like "I'm Just Wild About Jerry" that displayed the animation brilliance that he was known for.

Anyone interested can watch these shorts online or through the Boomerang channel so you all may have the chance to compare these iterations. I would like to hear what you guys think about the various versions of Tom and Jerry and well, just Tom and Jerry in general.

Elvie

Heavyarms55

Western media seems to have largely abandoned traditional animation, relegating it to children shows or parody humor like Simpsons or Family Guy. I have little faith in or expectation of anything quality coming from western studios going forward anymore. It's a shame because shows like Batman the Animated Series, Teen Titans or older shows like classic Tom and Jerry, Scooby Doo and others were all things I grew up loving.

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Elvie

@Heavyarms55 There's some hope for quality traditional animation. I don't expect most of the efforts out there right now to change the industry or revolutionize the medium but they have been some solid works.

Klaus on Netflix has been doing well while also boasting some technical improvements. I know this is on shaky ground but Don Bluth has been developing a film based upon Dragon's Lair and it has the potential to be amazing if it gets greenlit.

Elvie

Diddy64

I may not know the names of the directors of the following animated series or their studios, but I remember liking a variety of western animated series like Blinky Bill (a cartoon koala), Free Wily (little science fiction), Mighty Max (science fiction), The Adventures of Popeye (I think that's the name. It's where Popeye had a baby son and was already married to Olive), where he traveled to different places.

I don't remember many of the episodes of most of these series but from what I've recalled, each had done things that made decent despise some of the mentioned series not been as popular as Disney. In the case of Blinky Bill, I could tell each episode was well written and had its funny moments without it over filling the episode. With TA of Popeye, while he always have to fight Brutus, in this iteration I could see them exploring and talking about (example) the legend of a X artifact, which give a little more depth to this iteration than the usual shows of the previous Popeye (not that I don't like the previous shows. I do like them).

Undergoing games:
Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity

Elvie

@Diddy64 Hanna-Barbera produced "The All-New Popeye Hour" which was called "The Adventures Of Popeye" for three seasons. They also produced a follow-up that is most likely what you are thinking of, "Popeye and Son".

Elvie

Diddy64

@Elvie From what I recalled, only on the intro music is that I saw Popeye's son as most of the episodes that I saw, he rarely appears in an episode. So perhaps what I saw was The Adventures of Popeye.

Undergoing games:
Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity

iKhan

I took a class on the history of the golden age of animation in college, and I'm pretty sure I was the only one who genuinely enjoyed the course.

If I may say something quite controversial. I feel Disney's golden age animation has aged worse than most other. While on a technical level it was some of the best, and I respect it for the impact it had, the storytelling and humor was honestly worse than even the Fleischer Bros stuff. Mickey cartoons just never resonated with me.

It really took Chuck Jones and Tex Avery to really bring everlasting humor and storytelling to animation though, at least in my opinion. I still love Looney Tunes to this day, and I hope to show them to my future children.

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Elvie

@iKhan That sounds cool. I wasn't aware there were courses over this kind of thing. Everything I know has been from reading books, articles, and some blogs from people like Thad Komorowski and Michael Barrier.

I don't exactly disagree with you on your opinion on Disney. It was an important development in the industry but I found half of that stuff to be a little overrated.

Yeah, Looney Tunes is great. It was a major reason why I started to become interested in the history of animation. One thing I admire about that era is the kind of lineage of animators that arose through multiple collaborations like how Jones worked for Ub Iwerks and Tex Avery before becoming an acclaimed animation director himself.

Elvie

Elvie

One animator I held a decent amount of for was Don Bluth. He was the creative lead behind The Secret Of Nihm, An American Tail, The Land Before Time, and several other animated films.

He also worked on the arcade classic Dragon's Lair and some years ago, he pitched a fundraising campaign on Kickstarter and then Indiegogo to turn it into a film. It was boasted to feature traditional 2D hand-drawn animation and a revamped version of the female lead to make her more fleshed out.

Today, it was announced that Netflix is making a live action film based upon Dragon's Lair and Ryan Reynolds is apparently taking up the role of Dirk the Daring with Don Bluth producing.

Details at the moment are a bit scarce but if this means that the animated film is being abandoned for this, then that's a colossal letdown.

What's even the point? The main appeal was that it was going to be a full length animated film. I'm fairly certain that Bluth said when he launched the campaign that one of the main goals for the film was to revitalize hand drawn animation so what's this going to do? Without Bluth's signature art style, it's going to be just another medieval fantasy adventure film.

Also, I'm not exactly thrilled with some of the people on board. Ryan Reynolds is probably going to bring his tired Deadpool act to fill in Dirk's character. The writers are the same people who worked on Hotel Transylvania and that film, to me, is rather middling so we're probably going to have some kind of low-brow humor throughout.

He launched these campaigns back in 2015 and people, especially those who backed him, have been waiting all this time for the return of a Don Bluth animated feature and it ends up becoming a Netflix exclusive live action film?

Alright, I'm probably jumping to a conclusion since there hasn't been definitive word on the campaign but this doesn't feel right at all.

If the animated version is being abandoned, then this is just another crowdfunding debacle to add to the likes of Mighty No. 9 and Shenmue III.

Edited on by Elvie

Elvie

kkslider5552000

Uh, this topic interests me but if you have to keep double posting, I'm not sure this is going well. Sorry.

One of the most optimistic things about animation recently is it feels like we're starting to get new things in mainstream movies again. I've not seen nearly enough animated films to have the most comprehensive opinion, but I pay attention to what other, often smarter people have to say, and it seems like a lot of companies cough Disney cough have just been more than happy to just...keep doing what they've been doing. Sometimes by doing less. And Dreamworks it feels like is gonna entirely give up and become Illumination any day now. It's often said that people too often consider animation a genre instead of a medium, and at times it feels like the companies do too. One of the reasons why Laika's lack of success is upsetting.

But between Spiderverse, Klaus and some of Japan's recent attempts at CG movies, it feels like new things are happening again. Like stuff I have not seen before getting a lot of attention instead of Cars 4 or whatever. Hope this keeps up.

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Elvie

@kkslider5552000 Yeah, I know it's kind of dead thread but I wanted to vent out my disappointment with this whole Dragon's Lair deal and I thought this would be a okay place to do it. It seems I'm not alone as backers are already asking questions on the Indiegogo campaign page and no answers so far.

I do agree that there's does seem to be some promising things going on in the animation field. An example would be that series like Castlevania and Primal have sparked an interest in adult animation (that aren't sitcoms/comedies) among consumers.

Elvie

Okami1

@Eagly will Will Ferrell be in it?

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Dpullam

@Eagly Agreed! I am definitely down for some more MegaMind. Another show I can watch with my kids is always a plus, and I feel like people have been wanting a sequel to this one for a long time now.

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Dpullam

@Eagly Oh yeah! You are totally right. I honestly think now is the perfect time to bring back MegaMind. The possibilities are endless.

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