Flip the Frog: run

Need a simple run for an animation excercise? Flip will give you the basics



FLIP THE FROG - RUN (3.5mb)

This one is 5 frames for each step.10 drawings for each complete cycle. Shot on 1's. The music is on a 10 frame beat.

Ignore the repeat frames. That's from the video transfer from film. They add a frame after every 4th one to turn 24x per second into 30x per second.



Here's a Flip walk, also on a 10 frame beat with a breakdown of how to do it yourself.

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


Oh and thanks to these students who pressed the magic button!

Brett Thompson

Adam Juricev-Mikulin

Lynsey Schaschke

See the World - Carlo Vinci and friends

Boy, those old Terrytoons sure seem to be made for Dads instead of kids.

"See the World" (1934), Terrytoons















Clip 1:





Clip 2:










Tongue Action:











Clip 3:










I'm not sure who this animator is.










Clip 4:
















This is Carlo, for sure.










Clip 5:






Clip 6:

Tex Avery's Rational Story Structures

Here's a very good copy. Thanks to Steve and Asifa!

http://www.animationarchive.org/pics/badluckblackie.mov

Here's a youtube low rez version.



here it is with a better picture, but in French.

Tex Avery - Bad Luck Blackie
Uploaded by robeu

Tex Avery's storytelling tradition goes back to American folklore -"Tall Tales" like Paul Bunyan.

He likes ideas that are based on impossible premises. Once you accept the impossible premise, he keeps building it to more preposterous heights.

This takes a lot of imagination to make funny, but it also takes a very rational approach to storytelling. Tex Avery at MGM became a master of story structure.

Bad Luck Blackie structure

Premise

The premise is that if a black cat crosses your path it brings you trouble.
A Bulldog is mean to a kitten. A black cat witnesses the bullying.
He tells the kitten “If you’re ever in trouble, just whistle and I’ll cross the bulldog’s path and something will come crashing down on his head.”

Is the premise funny?

Not if you just told it to someone.
Tex wants you to understand this premise, so he can get to the middle of the cartoon, which has a series of funny accidents happening to the bulldog, each time he bullies the kitten.


Setup

Structurally, the beginning of the story has to introduce the premises upon which the story is based on. Tex needs to have us understand what the cartoon is going to be about.

In some Avery cartoons, Tex gets the setup over with as fast as possible using exposition, so that you can get to the story part, like in his hilarious “Deputy Droopy”.

In Bad Luck Blackie, he instead chooses to make the setup really funny by not merely stating the story premise, but by giving us feelings about the characters.

Characterization

In less talented hands, a mean bulldog torturing a kitten would be very downbeat and depressing. Some of the gags are downright shocking and cruel! Like the kitten getting his tongue caught in a mousetrap.

Amazingly, this whole section is really funny. You feel sympathy for the kitten, but at the same time, the bulldog’s design and acting and his sheer glee makes you like him as well.

Introduce Twist

Once we’ve seen the setup and we feel sorry for the poor kitten, Tex introduces a way to save the kitten and thwart the Bulldog’s bullying.

A black cat tells the kitten to just whistle whenever he’s in trouble, and Blackie will walk by the bulldog and cause something to fall on his head.

Blackie himself is not just a black cat; he is a character too, a street smart city kid, like one of the Bowery boys.

Build The middle

The gags in the middle are mostly bigger and bigger and crazier things falling on the Bulldog’s head, but the setup, middle and payoff for each gag is funny too.
Most of the humor comes, not from the object that lands on the Bulldog’s head, but from his personality. His joy at torturing the cat, his change in attitude as he starts to realize the consequences of his actions, and his self pride, when he thinks he has figured out how to outwit the whistle gag.

So Tex leads us to believe that the gags are a straight build up of things crashing on the head gags (and those are all funny) but he tosses in some twists and thwarts our expectations here and there, just as we think we have it all figured out.

This is not only imaginative, it is extremely clever and took a sharp brain and serious structural planning to pull off.

Tex is in total control of our brains and our expectations.

Crazy Topper Ending

Once Tex has basically milked what you think is the most you could from this premise, he tops it all off with a fast climax as the bulldog runs away with huge impossible things falling from the sky. By this time, as Joe Adamson keenly observed in his Tex Avery, King Of Cartoons book, the premise is no longer needed for us to accept things falling on the bulldog’s head.
Blackie no longer needs to cross his path. We just have to hear the whistle and we totally accept the logic.

The Best Cartoonists Make Us Believe Preposterous Things

Tex took us on a ride that we should never have accepted if we stopped to think logically about it. Thank God he didn't have to get notes from today's executives!

He did it with utter control of his talent, skills, logical brain and our psychology.

Tex Avery is a genius in my books. Most cartoons day are plagued with time-eating explanations for things that don't need to be explained logically. The more that modern cartoons try to explain the ridiculous things that happen in cartoons, the more we are aware of how unbelievable they are. And these explanations are generally boring to boot.

Cartoons can completely convince us of impossible, illogical things...if they are highly structured and logical in their illogical premises. And the more fun they are, the less time we will have to stop and say "Why, that's impossible!"

Roger Ramjet - the tip

Even without actual animation, this stuff has some key cartoon elements:
Really distinct and funny voices. Plus the acting and inherent comedic timing is great.

Great cartoon actors have to have that clear delivery that not only sounds natural, but focuses on the jokes. They know just where to pause before an accent and what to stress.

Much full animation doesn't use strong vocal talent, but makes up for it with movement. If you don't have much movement you can sure benefit from funny, distinct voice actors.

Add funny and distinct character designs, and you have instant believable characters-even when they don't actually move.

Of course, I love it when you get all this and great full animation, like in 40s Warner Bros. cartoons, but it's rare to have all the elements that make good cartoons in one film or even one studio.

movie clip:

some corrections from Greg Duffel

Hi John:

A couple of possible corrections on the Jones art:

The Porky strikes me as something from a Davis or Tashlin cartoon. Brother
Brat maybe? If it's Jones, which cartoon?

The Bugs Bunny in an Elizabethan outfit is an Abe Levitow drawing for a
cartoon Abe directed.

The Dog below it is almost certainly from "Fast Buck Duck" and is probably
drawn by Ted Bonnickson, the "co-director", as it doesn't look like a
Mckimson.

The Bugs Bunny with red underdrawing is a Washam.

And speaking of your Washam post today, yes, that animation of Bugs Bunny
you note as being in a Mckimson style, is by Ken Harris. I like Harris'
animation at the end with the female rabbit robot. Some very clever
stagger animation there. I also like it when Bugs Bunny sings "I'm headin'
for my beddin'..." which Harris animated.

Also, I had some communication with Mike Barrier recently about the DVD 5
of Looney Tunes, and specifically his commentary about "Tale of Two
Kitties".



He gave credit to Scribner for the anvil in the ground scene,
but that's some really odd Scribner drawing, which I thought looked more
like Davidovich (who incidentally animates on "Hair Raising Hare"). Look
at those hands on the Babbitt cat. Would Scribner draw like that? Mike
kindly sent me Clampett's notes on that with a list of who did what and
Scribner is assigned that scene alright.

The Bugs Bunny you note at the beginning was animated by Lloyd Vaughan.

I'm going to read your Scribner stuff.

Greg

Thanks Greg, and my apologies for my errors.

Rice Krispies Weekend Treat

Here's an extra funny looking vintage Rice Krispies commercial.

http://cartoonthrills.org/blog/commercialsClassic/ShamusKrispies.movDon't you love how happy these mischievous gay little imps are?

Happy to not have any construction!

Let's play leap up the crotch!

Pile on that extra sugar on your already sugary cereal!

Feel that extra carb energy surging through your whole head.

You won't stop moving all day.

This calls for a group hug. They look pretty eager for it.

Grasp and rub vigorously while using up your sugar energy.

I'm not sure who animated this, but it reminds me of those BAB-O commercials from the 50s, where everyone snorts cleanser, also an energy releaser.

Maybe Mike or Greg will help us out here.

A Great Milt Gross Comic!

Sherm Cohen has a great site filled with wonderful cartoon art.

Here's a post he did with a Milt Gross comic.


http://cartoonsnap.blogspot.com/2007/09/count-screwloose-by-milt-gross.html

Huck Magic Bumper Animation

http://cartoonthrills.org/blog/HB/Huck/bumper/huckmagicsml.mov

There are lots of these on here!

Hanna Barbera Fun

My friend David MacKenzie cleaned up a poorly transfered bumper from the Huckleberry hound DVD set. Thanks David! You're one of the good ones.The HB bumpers usually had more fully animated movement than the cartoons.
I really like the design of these characters when the layout artist and animator have a little time to take advantage of it. That's a cool way to draw closed eyes, isn't it?
Ed Benedict designed the characters. His style is instantly happy and pleasing, which is funny because he was such a loveable curmudgeon! Daws Butler and Don Messick, both wonderful actors, also had the gifts of naturally pleasing vocal timbre. No matter what they said, it sounded pleasant and unique. They were natural born radio and cartoon voices.
Ed's characters are just stylish enough to look "mid-century modern", but not so stylized as to become abstract graphic symbols. I think kids would rather see cartoon characters that seem alive, rather than cartoons that are overly design conscious. Kids aren't art directors. They want to believe in the characters.
These early HB characters still seem like real creatures.
That's a great drawing of Yogi!
This stuff is just so happy.
I think if you don't have a lot of money to make your cartoons with, the least you can do is use pleasing design and great voices. Neither of those things cost a lot of money, and together they make instant living characters. Of course, whoever's in charge has to have enough aesthetic sensory equipment to be able to tell a good designer and voice from mundane ones. We know that's not usually the case.

There is a common belief in animation circles that "It all begins with a good story" and I'd like to challenge that. I personally believe it all starts with a good character. When you have good looking specific characters and dynamite voices, the stories write themselves - well that is, if you take advantage of them, which Hanna Barbera didn't always do. Not when they had to churn out so much product every week.

The animation is pretty good in this bumper too. Wanna see it?

It'll have to be later in the day though....

Hep Cat - Can Funny Cartoons Be Beautiful?

Well that was a rhetorical question.
VOLUME 2

This is a post for that rough gang of Clampett fans.When Clampett first got a color cartoon unit, he sure didn't take it for granted.
This is a beloved cartoon among the cartoon intelligentsia, and many of them can't quite figure out why. It just feels so good!
It's not Clampett's funniest cartoon, although it is pretty funny. It doesn't have any star characters in it. What makes it stand out, then?
This cartoon is a mood piece. It's an experiment in atmosphere and emotion.
What's really interesting about the color is how muted and greyed down it is. Yet, it's not at all monochromatic.
If you look closely at the greys, you can see very subtle and beautiful soft variations in hue and value. This keeps it from looking dull.

I think Bob told me these backgrounds were painted by Johnny Johnson. Johnny painted in oils on some Avery and Clampett cartoons - which causes a total mess under the camera platen. The cameraman hated Johnny! The oil would never quite dry, so under the hot lights and under the tightly pressed down glass, the paintings would stick to the cels and smear all over the glass. It took forever to shoot these cartoons.

Clampett though, figured the extra effort was well worth it and most of the fans agree!This cartoon (like most of Bob's) is full of experiments, not just in color. This scene cut above is one of the experiments. In the previous scene we see the dog's eyes inside the doghouse. Then it cuts and the dogs just pops into the scene in the air behind the cat. It's crazy, but works great.
You have to still frame this run to believe it. I'll post it later.


This is Avery's dog, Willoughby, but he is much more designy and cartoony in Bob's cartoon. Look how beautiful and goofy this pose is!
I love the design of this Scribner bird too. Clampett is WB's master of cuteness. I know Jones is the one usually considered the cute guy, but his cuteness sometimes gets too cloying for me, sometimes even cynical. It doesn't have the smooth sincerity of Clampett's natural kid like feeling. That's not a criticism of Jones, I think he's one of the greatest cartoonists ever. I just think he gets full credit for some things that maybe others did even better. He has other traits that are more unique to him and that no one else ever matched. He owns Lummoxes, among other things.
I think the best cartoons revel in goofiness and achieve a kind of gorgeous beauty not attainable in any other medium.
Clampett takes the wacky surrealism natural to cartoons and places it in a lush atmosphere.

Cartoons do things you can't do in real life. Well they used to! Strangely, that obvious fact makes a lot of people mad. I've never been able to figure that out. Someone explain it to us cartoonists!
The Hep Cat is like a pop hit song. The gags are mainly stock Looney Tunes, but presented with happy Jazz music.
The sheer beauty and joy of heartfelt goofiness!

Clampett's cartoons have crazy attention to detail. Even the effects are carefully planned and artistically painted. I always wonder where Bob got the energy to could pay so much attention to every aspect of his films. He wasn't merely concerned with the gags or story. He was attentive to everything, from the broadest strokes down to the minutest detail.


Perversion mixed with cuteness - Clampett's trademark.
He loved doing these shadow scenes.


The happiest poses are in Bob's cartoons.
More cartoon impossible stuff just for the pure fun of it.

Here's another of one of his dynamic cuts. Not only is this an arresting angle, after following stock left and right shots, the animation of the brick is beautiful. He cares about a damn brick!
The way this mere prop animates adds a ton of artful "oomph" to the impact that follows.



Later, I'm going to post the animation of the cat shadow boxing. It's pure beauty in motion and only could happen in a cartoon.

Look how cute all this stuff is! Bob loved to combine cute sweetness with sick jokes. What a great recipe for fun!


How different is this from the flat moodless cartoons in vogue today?
I find it hard to believe that pure flatness is so popular amongst animators today. It's so cold and lifeless. It sure doesn't do anything for the general audience.
I can understand some experimenting with graphic looks now and then, but to only do that? Doesn't anyone want their characters to come to life? To exist in worlds full of warmth, mood, atmosphere and a variety of emotions?
You've heard of eye candy? This is heart candy.



Clampett should have made features. He's got the film chops, the endless supply of ideas, the natrual sense of character, and all the heart, mood and sincerity to bring you a wealth of emotional experiences.
Here's the most beautiful goofy dog I have ever seen. (I'm sure this was inspired by Milt Gross, who Clampett loved)



I have to post more stuff from this cartoon and I will, too!

Design 2- Style - Chuck Jones' Scaredy Cat

Chuck Jones is one of my favorite cartoonists and a huge influence on me.
I sometimes think of him as two people:
1) The entertainer that made really funny regular folk type cartoons from roughly 1945-1950
2) The stylist/designer who made beautiful soft cartoons from 1938-1945, and then again from 1950 to the rest of his life.

As an artist, I like his experimental and artsy cartoons.
As a regular type guy with normal man needs, I like the 1945-1950 period when he made hilarious cartoons like Pest In The House, Long Haired-Hare, Rabbit Punch, My Bunny Lies Over The Sea and one of my all time favorite cartoons, Scaredy Cat.

Jones is in his finest form in this cartoon. You can tell he really thought about it and worked hard. The drawings and poses are all really strong and solid, the acting is great and he uses a lot of imagination in one particular area of the cartoon-Sylvester's takes.

Jones did his best cartoons-at least in my opinion- when he had a good structure figured out and he could spend his time concentrating on one main creative aspect of the cartoon.

Mike Maltese wrote Scaredy Cat. It's a very funny idea and a funny story, so that part is well taken care of. Now Jones can concentrate on what I believe he thought was the most important part of the cartoon-Sylvester's reactions-his "takes".


Here's a take (above) that's only on screen for a very few frames. Jones' direction in this cartoon is so masterful and confident that he can draw and time his takes with such clarity and power that he barely leaves them onscreen for you to register them - but you do and it's perfect! Some of the takes-like the one above are arrows that lead your eye to the following scene of the mice doing some ghostly gag. He uses the device throughout the cartoon. Very clever indeed.

Jones was a master at drawing poses that really tell you how the character is feeling, in ways that are hard to describe in words. Look at the funny attitude Sylvester has above and below. These poses aren't arbitrary, they tell you more than one thing at once.


If you remember from my post "Design 1" I said Jones was mainly a stylist but sometimes used his design ability. (Design and Style are 2 different things)

He didn't often use it to create new types of characters (he did sometimes and I'll post about that later) but he would use it for funny reactions. For most of this cartoon, Porky and Sylvester are pretty much "on-model". Jones always felt he needed a strong reason or excuse to break from model-or create something new.

Sylvester's extreme fear is a really good reason to create some funny new faces. These use Chuck's design ability.


Go see all the great poses from Scaredy Cat that Duck Dodgers made for us at:
http://classiccartoons.blogspot.com/2006/04/sylvesters-takes-from-scaredy-cat.html


Chuck had an odd habit. Whenever he made an outstanding and original cartoon, he would make it again. Sometimes a million times, like The Road Runner Series. Usually the other versions of the same story don't turn out as good as the breakthroughs. I'm not sure why. Maybe, once he made something that really worked, he figured he could turn it into a "stock" idea and every time he made it again, it would be easier and faster and cheaper.

That way he could spend more time on his next firsts. I have no way of knowing, but his firsts tend to have more life and more elaborate animation and lots more custom poses drawn by Chuck himself.

Here are some frames from Claws For Alarm-a remake of Scaredy Cat. Note how the characters are drawn by comparison with Scaredy Cat. It seems like the main creative part of the cartoon is now in the backgrounds instead of the characters. It is still well drawn and funny, but Chuck (rightly) doesn't seem as inspired to make a cartoon that he's already done.





http://classiccartoons.blogspot.com/2006/04/sylvesters-takes-from-claws-for-alarm.html

Incidentally, have you ever noticed that every other director's Sylvester is generally funnier and drawn better than Friz'? That's very odd, considering that Sylvester is associated mostly with Freleng.

Friz

Clampett- This is the first Sylvester model drawn by Tom McKimson for Bob Clampett. Below is my favorite Sylvester cartoon ever: Kitty Kornered

http://classiccartoons.blogspot.com/2006/01/100-greatest-cartoons-of-all-times.html

Robert Mckimson.

Ben Washam's Style

I'm not that good at naming which animators did what scenes in Chuck Jones cartoons, partly because Chuck did most of the key poses himself. There are certain styles I know I like a lot but am never sure who drew them.
There is at least one animator in the early Jones cartoons that really stands out.
His drawings are really tight and carefully balanced designs.
Greg Duffel told me this scene was by Ben Washam.
Whoever it is has a really appealing style. Crisp, angular, clearly posed and staged, and fluid confident movement.

This is a very modern look for Bugs Bunny considering it was only 1945.

The very next scene below seems to be a different animator. Bugs is more rounded and closer to the McKimson/Clampett model sheet.Just for contrast, some of the other Jones animators' drawings are not as tight:

These drawings are not as confident. The facial features are not anchored on a solid head shape. They float and shift around. It's possible that could be because of the cleanup or inking, I don't know.




Mike Kazaleh thinks Washam animated that scene I posted about awhile ago...

http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2008/01/jones-acting-continued-head-motions-in.html

To me, it doesn't look anything like the Bugs animation above, but maybe Washam changed his style periodically.


Mike gives us some hints for how to recognize Ben Washam's style:


Washam's animation always had an unusual quality.

It looks as if the head, shoulders and hips are weights that are loosely connected by sticks, with the hip being the part initiating the action.

The shoulders then rock in a counter motion, followed by the head.

As the shoulders try to move the head, the head has a little more than the usual cartoon inertia that must be overcome.

When the head finally moves, there is a lot of drag on the end of Daffy's bill, it then smoothly arcs out before popping into the next pose, but it is still a step behind the body.

These are not neccesarily unique ideas in themselves, but the particular way that he times it makes it distinctive.


Warner Bros. cartoons in general seldom have action on 2's during a pan (even when they could get away with it.) In the first scene where Daffy walks towards the camera, it starts moving on 1's when the pan begins, which has the effect of softening the action.

Washam also animated the scenes of Elmer trying to "shush" Daffy.

Later in his carreer, Washam's animation became even more angular, and the motion almost abstract. This tended to work better on stylized characters (like in his work for the Bell Science films) than traditional designs, although he still did good stuff at WB.

Things would slow out in an arc, and then suddenly pop into the next pose with a little follow through. Sometimes the character would slow out, and pop to the next pose, with the body stopping dead, and the arms (or ears, in the case of Bugs Bunny) providing t