Western Cartoons (and animation)
#1
I've been having some interesting discussions about western cartoons and animation lately. Both the stuff on tv and the movies. Very influential media with long and interesting histories, and I think it's easy to forget this because of how utterly they've been eclipsed in influence by anime. This itself is another interesting thing to think about, why this happened and how we got here.

First thing I'll share, if you're unfamiliar with the history of American animation and would like to know more, John K's blog is an absolutely fantastic resource. Just scan the sides and pick subjects that interest you. He's the creator of Ren and Stimpy, the first guy to call Cal-Arts ugly forced bullshit, got cancelled for groyperous overman behaviour, he's a great man who knows his stuff. Also some great insight into illustration, drawing, and generally good professional opinions on why some stuff works and other stuff doesn't.

http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/

The general points of western animation that interest me are

 - Cartooning and general styles of different industries (American, British, and continental european (mostly franco-belgian) differences)
 - History of American animation and Walt Disney's influence on culture (creation of family marketing, animation for children meme)
 - Historic development of Japanese animation in contrast (lasting success in appealing to all of society, room for far richer field of expressed artistic visions, eventual global takeover)
 - Decline of American animation (Post-Walt Disney decline, tv dark ages)
 - Later sputters of American life (90s artist reclamation of control in tv animation, disney "renaissance")
 - Shrek era and its consequences (and causes)

Rather than go into anything particular here I'll just leave it open. And leave off with some Ed, Edd, and Eddie. One of the few western cartoons I really liked as a kid. There were a lot more I simply hated, but this one always cheered me up and entertained me.







Please talk about and post whatever you want. I find that this subject always goes interesting places.
#2
The need for certain action oriented western cartoons to ape anime gave me an impression of sadness, even if they were well made. I saw it like a father trying to adopt to his distant son's interests.
#3
The earliest of Walt Disney films are some of the most fantastical stories ever put into production. I don't believe that animated films have to have "lessons", or some overarching narrative or theme in order for them to hold merit: I think that being able to encapsulate so effectively the imagination of a child - or, rather, to effectively convey that which is enticing to the imagination of a child - is an exceptional quality, and what a movie like, for example, Alice in Wonderland excels at doing. It's a mystical, dream-like film - weird, uncomfortable-feeling, but vibrationally low in tone; the cartoons of the 90's, on the other hand, were disturbing perversions of this sort of quality, and ultimately failed at maintaining subtlety, and toeing the line. Something like Ren & Stimpy or Courage the Cowardly Dog were a little too on the nose.
#4
(01-28-2023, 01:16 PM)Recent Friend Wrote: The need for certain action oriented western cartoons to ape anime gave me an impression of sadness, even if they were well made. I saw it like a father trying to adopt to his distant son's interests.

More like the degenerate failson or grandson of a cool father trying to be his cool distant cousin. Whatever strengths western animation had are largely dead by now. Everything takes cues from anime now. I heard stuff about the new puss n boots and looked up scenes. It's very anime. But because it's in that stupid overdone post-shrek CG standard it probably cost 25x the average anime movie budget to look significantly worse.

(01-28-2023, 02:24 PM)Guest Wrote: The earliest of Walt Disney films are some of the most fantastical stories ever put into production. I don't believe that animated films have to have "lessons", or some overarching narrative or theme in order for them to hold merit: I think that being able to encapsulate so effectively the imagination of a child - or, rather, to effectively convey that which is enticing to the imagination of a child - is an exceptional quality, and what a movie like, for example, Alice in Wonderland excels at doing. It's a mystical, dream-like film - weird, uncomfortable-feeling, but vibrationally low in tone; the cartoons of the 90's, on the other hand, were disturbing perversions of this sort of quality, and ultimately failed at maintaining subtlety, and toeing the line. Something like Ren & Stimpy or Courage the Cowardly Dog were a little too on the nose.

Prime Disney and 90s tv cartoon revival were both coming from the good place of talented weirdos doing what they wanted and exercising their craft. And both were relatively authentic expressions of the characters of their creators. Disney was a white American who grew up connected to real culture with deep roots. Fairy tales to him weren't just "things you do for kids", these things were still a part of everybody's living memory in their original forms. And that was no longer true by the 90s. By the 80s cartoons had degenerated into Smurfs and Alvin and the Chipmunks. Just stupid trite garbage you make for kids because they're kids. The humans working in this industry, guys like Jon Kricfalusi and Danny Antonucci were being driven insane by this. Ren & Stimpy, Courage, Ed, Edd, n' Eddy were reactions against this. Cartoons went back to being expressive and run by the craftsmen-artists at the top.

These shows were made by weird uprooted and imported continental-whites who grew up in a mangled post-cultural America. I don't fault them for not drawing princesses and unicorns. On one hand they were reacting to boring sterility, and on the other their vitality had no substantial cultural forms to flow into, so the results are naturally a bit chaotic and disturbed. This is still far healthier than a completely depersonalised media. That of the 80s saturday morning cartoon. If it weren't for these guys I believe cartoon animation would have just quietly died. Imagine the industry without them. You just get Canadian cartoons forever.

And of course while this was happening Japan never really took its eyes off the ball. They've always done an amazing job of both maintaining craft and empowering creators even in tv. The results speak for themselves of course.
#5
I think Walt Disney's motivation for creating his early works started and ended with a passion for drawing and animating. I doubt he had any personal attachment to fairy tales, as such: he adapted just as many, if not more, novels than he did old folk tales, all of which served as a good foundation for his studio to work on, and also as safe and marketable stories that could be sold to parents of young children. There are universal truths embedded within the films and their story - which is valuable - but that is hardly at the forefront of the target demographic's perception, which is reduced almost entirely to the audio-visual component. Pinocchio does not stand out to me because of the plot.

As for the 90's animators: fair enough. I can see how they could have interpreted Disney and its offshoots as being sort of milquetoast, and reacted as they saw fit. They were animation's reactionaries. I still believe those shows are an example of "too much of a good thing," though, where those qualities of enchantment and whimsy demonstrated by Pinocchio or Alice are taken to their most extreme, and are thus mutated into the Bugle Monster or gay anal sex innuendoes. Like I said, it's a little too lacking in subtlety to be considered valuable, in my opinion.

Nothing but good things to say about what has come out of Japan, of course.
#6
(01-28-2023, 09:58 PM)Guest Wrote: I think Walt Disney's motivation for creating his early works started and ended with a passion for drawing and animating. I doubt he had any personal attachment to fairy tales, as such: he adapted just as many, if not more, novels than he did old folk tales, all of which served as a good foundation for his studio to work on, and also as safe and marketable stories that could be sold to parents of young children. There are universal truths embedded within the films and their story - which is valuable - but that is hardly at the forefront of the target demographic's perception, which is reduced almost entirely to the audio-visual component. Pinocchio does not stand out to me because of the plot.

As for the 90's animators: fair enough. I can see how they could have interpreted Disney and its offshoots as being sort of milquetoast, and reacted as they saw fit. They were animation's reactionaries. I still believe those shows are an example of "too much of a good thing," though, where those qualities of enchantment and whimsy demonstrated by Pinocchio or Alice are taken to their most extreme, and are thus mutated into the Bugle Monster or gay anal sex innuendoes. Like I said, it's a little too lacking in subtlety to be considered valuable, in my opinion.

Nothing but good things to say about what has come out of Japan, of course.

Careful with the word "reactionary" in this context. They were the "reaction" to the most aesthetically dead, garbage era in the history of animation. And I don't see a lack of value in cartooning which is willing to get a bit deranged and even grotesque. They made it interesting again. Anything is worth that.

And yes Disney had a vision, but it was a kind of broad kitsch americana thing. His real artistic passion was animation, and the stories were kind of incidental but not entirely. It had to fit this kitsch dream image he was building. Had to be quaint, recogniseable, familiar, enjoyable.
#7
Where to begin with this topic. There is certainly a lot I could say, I could probably write several pages on Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy alone...

(01-28-2023, 02:24 PM)Guest Wrote: I don't believe that animated films have to have "lessons", or some overarching narrative or theme in order for them to hold merit: I think that being able to encapsulate so effectively the imagination of a child - or, rather, to effectively convey that which is enticing to the imagination of a child - is an exceptional quality, and what a movie like, for example, Alice in Wonderland excels at doing. It's a mystical, dream-like film - weird, uncomfortable-feeling, but vibrationally low in tone; the cartoons of the 90's, on the other hand, were disturbing perversions of this sort of quality, and ultimately failed at maintaining subtlety, and toeing the line. Something like Ren & Stimpy or Courage the Cowardly Dog were a little too on the nose.

Since you caught my eye...there's always been polarity in cartoonism between realism and subversion. This probably goes back to the original rivalry between Fleischer and Disney. And to be clear, both studios have engaged in wholesomeness and cheeky stuff at some point, so it's not a distinct line, but Disney is generally seen as the icon of "smooth motion, realistic characters, morals, stories" in the cartoon world. The 90s cartoons were not influenced as much by Disney as they were his rivals, and their own creations reflected things they liked about cartoons, mostly comedic and more exaggerated ones. John K often speaks positively of working on the Jetsons...and that is something that reflects in Ren & Stimpy (R&S has a very similar 1960's audio-visual style).

It's less about encapsulating imagination and more about the magic of moving pictures. This can be Disney's very literal magic, or it can be the 'cartoon physics' and elasticity of limbs you see in the less Disney-like stuff. The quality of cartoons and animation in the west tends to relate directly to this - and how much the animator pays attention to it. Ren & Stimpy was a smashing success because John K had a lot of things to express in the domain of character motion. There is an often invoked meme about "never drawing the same face twice". There are other things in animation of course beyond this, but working with and "questioning" motion, the laws of physics or common sense, is the foundation on which good animation has to lie. Soytoons like you have nowadays and 3d shit are rotten on this level because the artists are further removed from that sense of questioning and are usually defaulting to certain templates which were laid out before their time, much like how it was in the 80s. The focus now is on the wrong things.

On a closing note I'll leave with a Fleischer Superman cartoon "The Arctic Giant" which I watched recently. The Fleischer style looks slightly less appealing when doing more realistic figures, but it's quite enioyable nonetheless, and very oddly remniscent of Godzilla, over a decade before it came out. Fleischer proving to be innovative as always. 
#8
Good thread topic. I don't have anything to add right now aside from Anthony's raising of a possible Hell in an unending desert of Canadian animation, of course with Total Drama Island as its ultimate herald.

That the show is embarrassingly of its time and is utter shit goes without saying, but the fact people remain actively enthusiastic about it to this day is actually upsetting. 2023's West is still developing paraphilic fixations on the ugly, computer-animated, utterly two-dimensional cartoon characters of its lesser yesteryears. It's genuinely disturbing.
#9
(01-31-2023, 01:02 AM)GraphWalkWithMe Wrote: Good thread topic. I don't have anything to add right now aside from Anthony's raising of a possible Hell in an unending desert of Canadian animation, of course with Total Drama Island as its ultimate herald.

That the show is embarrassingly of its time and is utter shit goes without saying, but the fact people remain actively enthusiastic about it to this day is actually upsetting. 2023's West is still developing paraphilic fixations on the ugly, computer-animated, utterly two-dimensional cartoon characters of its lesser yesteryears. It's genuinely disturbing.

The existence of Canadamation is so weird to me. It was never good, it was never for anybody, they just decided they wanted to start making animation and occupying space on tv and they made it happen without any apparent exercise of genuine human will beyond that occurring at any point in the process. It's an entire pseudo-creative industry apparently running on sheer inertia.
#10
I have shared on several occasions a factoid from my past about how I used to be a very very small time internet animator when I was a kid( I did stick figure cartoons which were popular at the time). Incidentally, I have a lot of posts I want to make in here about this particular early period internet animation (mostly focused on the programs pivot, flash and occasionally eztoon). There is a lot of interesting content there and a lot to discuss about it, and I consider it an important part of animation history, but without laying any of the groundwork for that or going into too much detail I wanted to make a short post about one of the biggest milestones in that era, a series called "Brackenwood".

Most notable about this at the time was the mind-blowing animation quality. Flash animators don't mess around, this is all stuff he did by himself using his own skills and although he did have former professional work under his belt, Brackenwood was just a personal project of his. Many people like me, kids and teenagers getting into internet animation saw this guy as a demigod of sorts.



There is something about the direct nature of this era in animation that is very special. No pretense or funding or ulterior motives, just people making stuff to sort of one up each other and themselves in a non-egotistical manner, the only goal in mind being entertaining people by flexing their skills to their fullest extent. And the results speak for themselves. Without resources the process may be prohibitive but these are much better stories and toons than you could actually get in animated TV of that time, let alone now.
#11
(02-04-2023, 02:18 AM)a system is failing Wrote: I have shared on several occasions a factoid from my past about how I used to be a very very small time internet animator when I was a kid( I did stick figure cartoons which were popular at the time). Incidentally, I have a lot of posts I want to make in here about this particular early period internet animation (mostly focused on the programs pivot, flash and occasionally eztoon). There is a lot of interesting content there and a lot to discuss about it, and I consider it an important part of animation history, but without laying any of the groundwork for that or going into too much detail I wanted to make a short post about one of the biggest milestones in that era, a series called "Brackenwood".

Most notable about this at the time was the mind-blowing animation quality. Flash animators don't mess around, this is all stuff he did by himself using his own skills and although he did have former professional work under his belt, Brackenwood was just a personal project of his. Many people like me, kids and teenagers getting into internet animation saw this guy as a demigod of sorts.



There is something about the direct nature of this era in animation that is very special. No pretense or funding or ulterior motives, just people making stuff to sort of one up each other and themselves in a non-egotistical manner, the only goal in mind being entertaining people by flexing their skills to their fullest extent. And the results speak for themselves. Without resources the process may be prohibitive but these are much better stories and toons than you could actually get in animated TV of that time, let alone now.

I somehow never heard you were into animating before. That's fantastic. And yes somehow it didn't occur to me when making this thread to talk about Flash. Thank you very much for this vital correction. I used to love that stuff.
#12
(02-04-2023, 02:18 AM)a system is failing Wrote: ... "Brackenwood" ...

Thanks for sharing that, there is something markedly beautiful about it.
#13
very beautiful and keyed and kinetic video
#14
(01-28-2023, 03:45 AM)anthony Wrote: First thing I'll share, if you're unfamiliar with the history of American animation and would like to know more, John K's blog is an absolutely fantastic resource. Just scan the sides and pick subjects that interest you. He's the creator of Ren and Stimpy, the first guy to call Cal-Arts ugly forced bullshit, got cancelled for groyperous overman behaviour, he's a great man who knows his stuff. Also some great insight into illustration, drawing, and generally good professional opinions on why some stuff works and other stuff doesn't.

This is probably the best distillation of the 'dissident right' there is -- rallying around a washed-up animator who never got over losing his five minutes of fame and dozens upon dozens of failed pitches and projects to his name before going on to ponder why your plans for control always fail or implode in on themselves.
#15
(02-07-2023, 08:33 PM)Guest Wrote: This is probably the best distillation of the 'dissident right' there is -- rallying around a washed-up animator who never got over losing his five minutes of fame and dozens upon dozens of failed pitches and projects to his name before going on to ponder why your plans for control always fail or implode in on themselves.

Muh Drumpf is a failed businessman
#16
(02-07-2023, 08:33 PM)Guest Wrote: This is probably the best distillation of the 'dissident right' there is -- rallying around a washed-up animator who never got over losing his five minutes of fame and dozens upon dozens of failed pitches and projects to his name before going on to ponder why your plans for control always fail or implode in on themselves.

You know I was actually starting to miss this kind of Guest posting. This is good. Something we can bounce off of.

I do think there is something essentially Right about John K. He's one of ours and life has left him frustrated despite or even because of his excellent potential. A very fitting rallying point. As I keep saying, I believe that accurate observations can be scaled up and down and applied to different contexts. John K's problems are the problems of every excellent person. He's one of the best around, and he's not working. There is still an industry. An industry that holds a lot of attention, and fueled by a lot of money. And it's complete garbage. John K is there. He would work. He would love to. But he's not. Because the space is owned and monopolised by garbage people who would sooner have the thing than have someone else put it to good use.

Even times as confused as ours can't help but gravitate towards and correct into what's good, so western animation got eaten alive by anime. And do you care? Or are you just happy that your team has the ball?
#17
The most tragic aspect of John K was when people collectively decided to brand him a horrible person because he wanted cunny. Something we have a lot nowadays in entertainment, due to the resentment of the average person; no matter how "horrible" John K was it will be impossible to erase him from animation history but they can at least cope about how great talented people ackshually suck by affirming he is a horrible person in comments and tweets. Even then, the gossip is unlikely to outlast his work, since what people are offended by changes all the time, but the chain of transmission between artistic ideas is permanent albeit vague. 

There are a lot of obstacles for people like John that need to be obliterated, though I doubt quality work can be extracted from him now at his age (see: cans without labels, which was quite sloppy). John getting fired from his own show is tragic but it's better to focus on as an example of how these bureacratic and industrial processes wrongfully take precedence over artistic vision. There are some people who attempt to play midwit technicality games and pretend Ren & Stimpy is barely even John K's brainchild, again more cope.

Still, I don't want this normgroid rhetoric of failure to prevail. These people stood in John's way during his prime moments and screwed things up abd now they want us to focus on all that obstructing they did (his failed endeavors, getting fired etc). As an artist, John changed the face of his field of work forever. There is no greater achievement possible for an artist. The guest post is less thought provoking than provocative, motivated by the resentment of great people and their tendency go their own way, much to the offense of the prudes and squares and faggots of the world.
#18
I don't see Western Cartoons and Animation as having a chance to recover. Even what the audience considers "the good old days" is far-removed from Disney at his peak. Much of this audience is also involved in training for the next generation. They sincerely believe that the 2000's style is an aesthetic triumph. On the animation side, many have odd judgements based on technical "goods". So they will say "The animation is good, even if the designs are bad." And so on. You will see the same type praising some ugly thing for some technical reason. Is it willful? I doubt it. They simply can't tell the difference between good art and bad art, beautiful and ugly. Such is an unfortunate consequence of Art schools accepting and credentialing non-artistic people. The most dangerous credential being the delusion given to the graduate or student.
Rigor in all artistic fields is also drained away by "For fun". It's a fun song, a fun movie, a fun cartoon, a fun game. Etc. Even if there is something to a piece of work which leads to someone using this term...That something is quickly confused as other like creations are made. The judging apparatus fails, as it compares like to like, and one was good and so the other must be good too.
It would not be a problem if this was contained only in the passive audience. But it is entrenched in the critical audience, as well as the productive audience.
#19
(02-08-2023, 07:59 AM)Guest Wrote: Rigor in all artistic fields is also drained away by "For fun". It's a fun song, a fun movie, a fun cartoon, a fun game. Etc. [...] The judging apparatus fails, as it compares like to like, and one was good and so the other must be good too.

Compare to a similar phenomenon in the decline in seeking out girls who are "beautiful" (i.e. thin with aesthetically appealing faces) in favor of those who are "hot" or "thick" (i.e. fat with large lumpy secondary sexual characteristics with the face ignored - a return to the rotten human baseline of the Venus of Willendorf) and the decline of melody in Western music in favor of base rhythm - the decline of the judging apparatus in favor of the lowest common denominator of base somatic pleasures. People call this "negrificaiton," but I suspect it may just be a general decline to the lowest common denominator of huemanity (which negroes coincidentally are).
#20
(02-08-2023, 07:59 AM)Guest Wrote: ...

As long as great things are preserved and made apprehendable by those that enjoy them, revival and regeneration is possible. That said, everything in your post is definitely completely true: the way I would describe cartoons after the 90s-2000s era is they have cut themselves off from the tradition of cartooning. Stuff like Adventure Time and SU defines cartooning now and it is missing almost all of the classical elements of animation. I not sure what exactpy it draws influence from, stuff like Doraemon and whatever type of 'anime' thwt is are at least part of it for SU but its only a very minor component. I think a lot of this style is determined by changes in animayion technology, generally not for the better. Adevnture Time and SU look like commercials. We're kind of in a dark age similar to the 80s.



[-]
Quick Reply
Message
Type your reply to this message here.




Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)