http://www.michaelspornanimation.com/splog/
They're storyboard drawings from a Paramount cartoon called "Barking Dogs Don't Bite." You can find a video of it somewhere below. I'm putting all this up because the story doesn't work, and I thought it would be fun to talk about why.
It's a pretty simple story. Olive Oyl leans on Popeye to walk her dainty little French Poodle and Popeye reluctantly gives in. Of course Popeye runs into Bluto who's walking his killer bulldog.
The whole middle of the cartoon is action gags where Bluto beats up Popeye, and the bulldog beats up the poodle. After a ton of beatings, the good guys manage to score some spinach and massacre the two bullies. Popeye now has new respect for the poodle who, with the aid of spinach, has proved himself a real man. That's the story.
At first glance the story seems perfect: it’s clear and simple, builds in a logical way, and has lots of opportunities for gags. It’s only when you see the story executed that you realize how flawed it really is.
Compare it to the the best of the black and white Popeyes. They’re full of digressions, and are as much about the funky world that Popeye lives in as they are about Popeye.
In those cartoons Popeye was alternately violent and sentimental and so was the world he lived in. The wonderful, built in contradictions made it difficult to make slick and logical stories, so the studio didn’t even try. They aimed for a logic of the heart rather than a logic of the mind.
On a different point, I’d hate to be an animator working on a slick and logical comedy. There’s no breathing room. In a logical cartoon all the animator can do is move the storyboard poses. Any deviation is seen as subverting the story.
Sometimes I think the present industry should be called the storyboard industry or the writing industry because the animator’s contribution is so slight. Isn’t this supposed to be their industry?
Aaaargh! I've digressed way too much. What I want to convey here is how easy it is, even for professionals, to get seduced by a "tight" story like this one. Sometimes a story can be too tight. It can exclude any spontaneous humor in favor of gags that aren't really funny, but just happen to fit the subject at hand. Stories like that get an "A" for logical consistency, and an "F" for entertainment.
Okay, here's (above) the whole film.
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BTW: Michael Sporn is working up a promotional reel for an animated film about Edgar Allan Poe. When I was a kid I read everything of Poe's that I could get hold of. My favorite book was "Tales of the Grotesque and the Arabesque." I used to love the way Poe used ornate speech to convey horrific ideas. It made humanity seem so frail. He has us put up a tissue-thin wall of eloquent words and manners in the belief that it'll protect us from an unimaginably hostile universe.
Take a look at what Michael is doing with the story, which is heartbreakingly tragic in parts. http://www.indiegogo.com/PoeProject