Wednesday, September 14, 2011

CARTOONS OF THE 1930S


John K is a big fan of the early Terrytoons, and of Bill Nolan's "Oswald the Lucky Rabbit" cartoons (sample, above).  He's always talking about this stuff, and his enthusiasm is infectious. Now I've got the bug. Have you seen any of these cartoons lately? if not, you're missing out.

A word of caution: If you're not used to these old cartoons you might be put off by the slow, deliberate way that people talk, and by the lack of story and character. There's a reason they're like that, but writing about it would take more space than I have, so I'll have to cover it in another post.



Boy, old cartoons (above) like the one above are really cartoony. The artwork is uneven, though. The artist who did the crude Red Riding Hood at the start is obviously not in the same league as the guy who did the hilarious marriage sequence at the end. My guess is that some artists were hired because they could draw, and others because they were funny, even if they weren't exactly terrific draughtsmen.

The skipping Red Riding Hood scene does have one thing going for it, though. It was obviously intended to be funny. Scripts in the modern animation industry very rarely intend to be funny. Clever, mildly humorous, wry, topical, hip, etc....but hardly ever  funny. The director gave the animator a chance to do a funny skip here and he blew it...but he did get a chance, and that's something few current animators get.



Take a look at the "Uncle Tom's Cabin"-type cartoon above. Right after the start Topsy comes in doing a funny bounce. We cut to her hippo sister doing a funny run, then the two sisters do a duet. The duet wasn't all that funny but, hey, two out of three isn't a bad score.

The point I want to make is that this cartoon is structured to provide plenty of opportunity for funny animation. When these cartoons were made, funny drawings moving in a funny way was almost universally regarded as the purpose of animation. What ever happened to that idea? When's the last time you saw anything like that in a current cartoon?



By the late 30s the animation industry seemed to have grown smug. The backgrounds got more realistic, the characters acquired personality, every cartoon told a clear story, and animators could confidently draw almost whatever they could imagine. That's all great, but what happened to funny? Cartoons increasingly became humorous and professional rather than funny. Thank God for Clampett and Avery, who bucked the trend and insisted on funny at any cost.

That's a Clampett black and white above: "Porky's Surprise Party." Clampett believed in character AND funny. He refused to choose between the two, reasoning that you could have both. And you can.

16 comments:

  1. Fantastic write up, Ed! I think I understand what you're trying to convey although could you define "funny" more clearly? By funny do you mean the drawings themselves? Or the lightheartedness of the film itself? I do agree on the difference in the usage of humor in Modern Animation Vs. Golden Age animation and I think a lot of that change can be attributed the changes we have in society (e.g. what's funny to modern's audiences as compared to audiences 70 years ago).

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  2. I've seen a few of the Oswald cartoons when he was animated by Ub Iwerks but not the Nolan ones.

    Sort of off-topic but this reminded me of a few ideas I had of cartoons that would use the sort of 'rubber hose' style but I haven't actually tried to animate anything so would you say that I should start with things like this or stuff like bouncing balls or walk cycles?

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  3. Amanda, walk cycles can help. John K posted this nice Dick Huemer walk cycle somewhere on his blog. He also did a great post on walk cycles, demonstrated with Iwerks' Flip the Frog. Dig it up and study it. It'll give you someplace to start.

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  4. Damiano: Aaaaargh! Unless you're a philosopher, defining terms is usually a waste of time, and gets in the way of real communication. I can't bring myself to define anything I discuss here.

    Amanda: I would say you should start by doing lots of ultra-short pencil tests of anything that strikes you as fun. Post them on YouTube and be ready to take the abuse.

    I've never animated on a computer, but the time has come and I want to break into it with a cheap pencil test program. Candidates so far are Digicel Flipbook ($80) and Pencil Check (a Toon Boom product) ($200). Both have free trial versions that probably don't include a manual.

    There are free programs but I don't know anything about them.

    Sparky: Good advice!

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  5. Anonymous10:25 PM

    What I love about 30's cartoons is the constant state of motion they're in, reminds me a lot of Calvin and Hobbes cartoons where the dialogue is set against them hurtling down a hill in a wagon or trudging through a forest.

    Modern day parodies don't really capture this since the writing is still the modern style of characters standing still and spouting exposition, they get the bounciness right but because noone moves they all look like jack in the boxes. And even the joke is how low rent animation supposedly was the quality of animation is several levels below that of early popeye and betty boop cartoons.

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  6. I think the biggest difference in humor in animation then compared to now is accessibility, and this is true not just for cartoons but all comedy. Really good comedians and cartoonists have this ability to speak to the lowest common denominator in an intelligent way, which is really hard to do. It's actually easier to be esoteric and standoffish, and separate people into those who "get it" and those who don't.

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  7. Eddie, here is a link to a free good pencil test program called "Monkeyjam". Try it out, it's very easy to use for pencil tests. Unfortunately, it can't convert to a video to my knowledge.

    http://monkeyjam.en.softonic.com/

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  8. I can't log back into my account for some reason :/
    @SparkyMK3, I found the Dick Heumer one but I don't know where the Flip the Frog one is? Can you link me? :)
    And thanks for Monkeyjam link. I've wanted to try Flash but I don't have a lot of memory on my laptop and I'm still pretty green to cartooning/animating

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  9. Personally, I like US golden age cartoons but to a limit. Frankly, they too often have short emotional continuity, the soundtrack changes every other shot in tacky ways that are supposed to be funny, and the small moments are captured well while the overarching story is neglected. It's not that I dislike every cartoon, it's that they don't have enough ability to change gears.

    Here's an example I found, not the best one, but it's the closest I could find to the same length: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpGJPGqLLXE&feature=related

    I like Felix the Cat cartoons for the reason that they actually have a narrative and aren't mere collections of gags or disjointed scenarios. People in American animation look at sophisticated storytelling as getting in the way of creativity. I think they're right for the short term, but in the long run, having sophisticated storylines(not the best word, but the only one that comes to mind) is essential for creativity.

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  10. GW: Fascinating! I don't agree but it's interesting to hear another point of view.

    Funny cartoon shorts require funny animation and traditional stories don't usually provide enough opportunity for that. There are exceptions, though. I always thought the "Little Red Riding Hood" story had plenty of funny animation potential.

    As for cartoon music always changing...I love that. I didn't know anyone thought differently. That was a convention in live action silent film music, and I always thought that the animation industry was lucky to have had that history to build on.

    Sparky: Thanks much for the tip! I looked up Monkeyjam and found the version you linked to only worked with Windows XP. I'll ask around and try to find out if there's a more current version.

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  11. The Clampett one was by FAR the best - I busted up laughing several times. Didn't Chuck Jones animate the drunken dog scenes?

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  12. Amanda,

    Since you asked, here are the two John K posts with Flip the Frog demonstrating a double bounce walk, and then a run.

    http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2007/10/10-x-beats-flip-frog-double-bounce-walk.html

    http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2007/10/10-x-beats-flip-frog-double-bounce-walk.html

    Enjoy, and you don't have to thank me.

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  13. Btw, since were on the topic of early 30's cartoons, here is a recent post i did on a early Oswald Rabbit short, "Hells Heels". I hope you guys enjoy it.

    http://classiccartoonreviews.blogspot.com/2011/08/my-favorite-oswald-rabbit-cartoon-hells.html

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  14. GW is right, but there are no good examples of an alternative to back up his case. No one has made one yet. Maybe I will. Hmmm.....

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  15. Very interesting, thanks Eddie.

    BTW, How do you define the difference between "humorous" and "funny"? Are they different levels of our emotions, or are they different responses entirely?

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  16. Anonymous8:27 AM

    Don Bluth has stated that he likes Flipbook for run of the mill pencil testing. Any digital testing software beats shooting on tape or film. The immediacy is real technological advancement.

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