WHERE ARE THE FUNNY CHARACTERS?

I wonder why mainstream animated features have so few funny characters. This popular film had only one, which is shown above. She wasn't on the screen very long and had only two or three expressions that I can recollect but at least the film earmarked one character for comedy and we can be thankful for that.


The family in the film weren't intended to be comedians. They were dramatic characters with occassional slightly humorous moments.


Walt had a different idea about how to inject comedy into a feature. He threw in a bunch of clowns who slurped their soup, fought with each other and engaged in broad slapstick.



To balance out the comedy he made the mean character REALLY, REALLY mean. She wasn't neurotic or mischievous, she was downright evil. The extreme behavior of the witch created so much tension that we were glad when the slapstick scenes came up. Modern fims have mild, tepid villains and slapstick, with all its funny animation possibilities, seems out of place.


If the villain in the superhero movie had been stronger, then the film would have needed a more overt and funny comedy to balance it out. Maybe comedic characters a little like those shown above, or like George Liquor (shown below) or the animated equivalent of the characters in "Dumb and Dumber," or the dog in Clampett's "Hair Ribbin." I think the audience would have liked that.


  As it was, there was no strong villain and therefore no truly funny comedy relief.

WHAT IS THE LITTLE GIRL LOOKING AT?

Believe it or not, this Carl Larsson picture of a girl fishing over a railing is one of the most evocative pictures that I own. Over the years I've gotten cartloads of ideas by staring at it. One of the things that appeals to me about it is that there's only one human being and one deck in the scene. If lots of people had a deck fronting the water the view would be spoiled. In this case only one does. The viewer is like a king enjoying a scene that only a handful of other people will ever see.

Now obviously this is just a fantasy because with the population being what it is not even a king could afford to keep a vista like this to himself. But fantasies don't have to make sense. For example, what's the best seat in the house if you're going to out to hear a symphony orchestra? Is it in the middle of the first row? Not really. When you think about it, isn't the best seat one that would be next to the conductor? And wouldn't it be better to lie down than sit down? The best seat is a cot next to the conductor.

What would be the best place for a table if you're going to eat a reataurant meal? By the window? Not really. For me the best place would be right in the middle of the crowd rushing to and fro in the main room of a giant big-city railroad station. I like to see effective people in a hurry. I like trying to imagine what their lives must be like, and while I'm doing that I wouldn't mind a thick, juicy steak and some good wine at a well turned out table with impeccable linen. Of course no one would take notice of me. But that's my fantasy. Maybe you'd like to dine on a mesa or in the womens' dressing room of a supermodel contest.

What's the best place to put the desk that you like to work on? In a big, cushy office? Maybe, but I prefer to be outside in the tropical jungle - minus the heat and bugs. I don't mind monkies and cheetas on my filing cabinets. I think I'd like hearing tropical birds and listening to the gurgling of a near-by stream. I'd like dappled sunlight on my papers and the ozone smell that preceeds a tropical thunderstorm, which by the way wouldn't get my papers wet.

So that's why I like the fishing picture. It's all about possibility and thinking about what you really want, instead of what you'll settle for. Once in a while what you really want turns out to be what other people would really want too, and once in a while ...well, you know the rest.

BOOK REVIEW: "ACTING FOR ANIMATORS" BY ED HOOK

WHERE ARE THE FUNNY DRAWINGS?

What's funny? Well, for starters, this drawing by Basil Wolverton (above) is funny. Everyone I've shown this to laughs. Why do we so seldom see funny drawings like this in modern animation? It's odd to think that TV animation contains so few funny drawings. You'd think a few would slip in there, if only by accident. I'll bet the artists who designed the TV poster above have drawings of theirs pinned to their cubicles that are 10 times funnier than anything in the poster they made. Why is this? What's wrong? What's responsible for this? Why are there no crisis meetings when a poster or a comedy show fails to include funny drawings?
I love drawings like this (above) because they so obviously exist just to get a laugh. The artist isn't ashamed of being funny, he flaunts it! They're not mildly amusing products for an era of reduced expectations...they're gloriously and unashamedly reaching for a laugh! If I see one more mildly amusing animated feature or TV show I think I'm going to explode. The audience is hungry for funny drawings! Why are we witholding them?

UNCLE EDDIE'S CAREER ADVICE FOR PEOPLE WITH FACES

If you're an actor your face determines the kind of roles you play. The audience has an expectation about you based on the way you look and it's best not to disappoint them. I've often wondered if ordinary people in the real world should do what actors do, and sculpt their personalities and vocational aspirations to fit the way they look.

By way of example, the guy on the upper right (above) should clearly be a drug dealer. If he's an honest and drug-free man then that's unfortunate because nature has clearly chosen a different path for him and he'll never be happy as long as he's living a conflicted life. The guy in the middle of the second row (above) should obviously run a news stand and sell newspapers. Don't feel sorry for him because he'll make more money than you do. Customers will go out of their way to buy newspapers from a man who fits their image of what a newsie should look like.
Some people like the woman in the middle row above are cursed with a bland face. It's as if they have fewer facial muscles than everybody else. People like this are said to make good spies because they don't stand out in a crowd. Once again, don't feel sorry for these people because an inexpressive but pleasant face is deemed to be dependable and trustworthy and employers like that.
Employers don't like faces like these. They look like they're riddled with eccentricities and neuroses. if you look like these people you should put a lot of effort into finding a way to be self-employed.

MY FAVORITE FILM BOOK

This is the best film book I know of: "Grammar of the Film Language" by D. Arijon. Too many film books waste the readers time with personal anecdotes and academic jargon. A lot of this book is made up of diagrams and captions and usually you can tell what's going on without reading the captions.

The book starts with simple set-ups like the one above. I love back shots where the actor walks away from camera into the set and seems to take you with him. We cut to a side shot to pick up the actor entering sc on a close shot. It's a challenging cut but one which is never jarring or confusing.

Arijon likes to cut to actors who are in the same quadrant of the screen that they were in on the previous shot. Is this standard practice or just a preference of the author?

Here's a nifty way to walk a man down a corridor. I like the the way the third shot, where he presumably stops, deliberately violates the screen direction of the previous two shots.

A lot of the set-ups in the book are more complicated than the ones I've shown here, but most of them are understandable without recourse to the text. Skillfully done drawings will often explain things faster and better than text. It's amazing that more books aren't presented this way.

A word about Arijon: he was a filmmaker and teacher in Uruguay when he published this book in the mid-70s. Can you imagine that!? It took someone from Uruguay to show us how to write a textbook the right way!

MY HAIR DYE STORY

You may have noticed that my hair is turning grey and that I haven't dyed it. I wouldn't be surprised if some generous soul admired me for being so close to nature as to allow my hair to take its true color. Actually I'm not close to nature at all and I'd dye my hair every day if I thought I could get away with it. I'm just not very good at hair color. One incident in particular turned me against it.

One day a couple of years ago my son told me that his girlfriend's parents were going to drop by for the first time. He naturally wanted me to clean the place to make a good impression. I thought fine, I'll do that, but first I'll dye my hair so they'll marvel at what a handsome, young-looking dad my kid has. I assembled all the paraphernalia in the bathroom and proceeded to apply the dye.

I was vigorously massaging the dye into my hair like the box said to do when I noticed that little dots of brown dye were falling into the sink and probably staining it. I didn't know what to do then it occurred to me to move over to the toilet and let the drops fall into that. Surely water and porscelin (spelled right?) would resist staining. I moved over and continued to rub the dye in, really energetically.

A while later I emerged from the bathroom all dressed, with my eyes closed and drying my hair with a towel. Just then the doorbell rang and I invited the visiting parents in. The two families assembled in the living room and a fun time was had by all.

After a while my son's prospective mother-in-law asked to use the bathroom and I pointed out where she could find it. She disappeared down the hall and everyone else continued to socialize. After a couple of minutes she appeared back in the living room only something was wrong. She looked sick as a dog. She was positively green and could hardly stand. Her husband didn't seem to notice and asked if he too could use the bathroom. He disappeared for a minute then came out a minute later even greener and more sickly than his wife. The two of them were in extremely bad shape! I couldn't figure out what was wrong. The couple made an excuse and practically ran out of the house into their car.

After they left my still and speechless family cast looks of disbelief at each other. I timidly looked into the bathroom expecting to find some dye implement that I might have forgotten to clean up. No, the room looked OK, or at least it did untill I focused on the toilet. There on the wall just behind the facility were dark streaks of brown emanating in an explosive fan pattern from the open toilet. It looked like...like... I can't bring myself to write it. I found myself turning green. Then I remembered that I was standing over the poscelin when I rubbed the dye into my hair. That was brown hair dye on the wall!

The couple never again visited us and my son and his girlfriend eventually broke up. Since then I've allowed my hair to take it's natural color. I'm frequently praised by ex-hippies for being so close to nature and so regally oblivious to what other people think. Actually I'm scared to death about what other people think. I just haven't the energy to retell the story again and again.

BTW, the girls in the picture are people I never met.