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!"
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.
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.
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?
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!
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.
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.
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
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...
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 the follow through.
Best,
Mk-
Hair Raising Hare:
Greg Duffel told me that Washam did the animation of Bugs in Hare Raising Hare
where Bugs tip toes down the hall and taps a hammer on it.
I always loved that scene because of the crisp way it moved, and the stylish angular drawings of the poses.
But that looks totally different to me than what you are describing.
Is it someone else?
John
Yeah, I just looked at that cartoon, and Washam did do the scene of Bugs tip toeing withe hammer, it's a funny scene alright, although in some ways it's not typical of his work (the scenes before and after that were Harris'.) Maybe Chuck worked a lot of that out before hand? A little more typical Washam scene is near the beginning, when Bugs tries to kiss the robot, and where Bugs is in the scientist's arms.
As for imitating Benny's style, a funny thing... by the late 70's, his animation had become somewhat formulaic. Washam began to have classes at his home about time for anyone interested. I knew a few people who took his classes, and the short term effect of it was their animation looked a bit like Benny's, largely because they were using his timing formulas.
I personally think Rod Scribner was the most talented and versatile animator in our whole history. He worked in lots of different styles: He animated the wildest and best acted scenes of the 40s, then transitioned into the more stylized designy UPA world of the 50s. Many other classic animators tried to make the transition and never quite got it. A few excelled. Scribner jumped at the challenge and created a whole form of motion that matched the designs.
Here he is at what I think was the peak period of animation history-the mid 40s in Bob Clampett's super unit.
Eddie has a great analysis of what makes cartoon animation so much different than any other medium. Here's the scene in motion below.
You know, Clampett and his animators were not just animators. They were also great comedians. They control the animation and make all these wild actions flow around perfect comedy timing and staging.
Watch you favorite stand up comic and study his pauses, his poses, the way he or she focuses your attention on certain points of the jokes and their acting/reacting. This is all a high amount of skill in storytelling.
Imagine having to learn those difficult skills and also the crazy amount of animation skill that goes into 40s cartoons. Egad! Among all these top animators, Rod was the star. I also really like Bugs' personality in these cartoons. He's playful, rather than spiteful like he became later. A much more appealing down to earth kind of wiseacre.
A story of a warm wonderful man who also just happened to be a genius
Rod Scribner's granddaughter Julie has some really sweet stories about her funny Grandpa. It's great that she shares this with all his fans who barely know anything more about him besides the fact he was probably the most creative single animator in our whole history! It's really cool to see how such a talent was also a loving family man.
Maybe you could let her know in the comments how much you appreciate his talent and her generosity in sharing some stories about this cartoon hero!
Sweet “Papa” Scribner Papa gave me my creativity, and I will never forget him, or the qualities that he possessed. He was a wonderful man, very funny, and so special to us all. I am attaching three photos: One of Papa and I when I was only about 3 or 4. I had a favorite doll named Drowsy, and he used to tease me about taking it from me. (you can see I had an old and a new one!). Anyway, you can see what a stylish dresser he was. He did smoke cigarettes, and I don't remember him without one. The other two photos are of pictures that my husband had framed for me from Papa. He worked with Charles Shultz, and did the films like, "Snoopy Come Home".
Rod Scribner, my Papa, was a great grandfather, and used to bring my sisters and I pastel crayons, and drawing tablets. He would sit on the floor and show us how animation worked by drawing a character on 3 pieces of papers, and then flipping them quickly before our eyes.
The funniest story I have of Rod Scribner is when he told my sister and I to be creative, and after he left, we took all the pastel crayons he gave us and drew all over our bedroom walls until they were covered. We were so proud to show our Mom, but when she came in , she shrieked and made us scrub it off until the wee hours of the morning. When Papa heard of what we did, he held his stomach and laughed until he almost fell down. We weren't laughing because of course it took us hours to clean off the mess. Papa was always pulling pranks, and we loved him for that. You would always see a smile on his face, or his funny laugh, and it was contagious.
Eddie will be envious of Animation’s Greatest Salad Maker The biggest secret I have about Rod Scribner, is that he invented a salad dressing that we have thought about patenting, and selling. If you enter our family, we joke about having to kill you if you ever find out the secret to "Papa's dressing". No one has died yet, but no one has yet to make it the way it's meant to be made (outside of the family that is!!) Some have tried, ALL HAVE FAILED!
That is it for now. I will have more later. I hope that I have given you some insight into Rod Scribner's life. He was a beautiful man, and one I am proud to call my PAPA.
thanks to David Germain for this great link below!
Holy cow! Aggie (tomorrow's Franz Waxman) told me yesterday marked 2 years of my blog already. I always figured I'd have run out of stuff to talk about long ago.
Maybe I could collect my thoughts and try to explain why I'm doing it.
1) I have a big mouth: I'm always thinking about what makes stuff work and how to try new ideas. I talk to my equally theoretical friends all the time about cartoons. Writing my latest obsessions and thoughts out makes me zero in on them in more detail. So I learn a lot myself by trying to articulate clearly what began as vague observances and notions in my muddled brain.
2) To help widen other cartoonists' tastes and horizons: Not everyone has access to a lot of our cartoon history and legacy. I've been collecting cartoons, toys, comics and illustrations for decades. I had a big library at spumco and always encouraged the artists to take advantage of it. Like these guys at Dic who didn't really appreciate it.
I think today, more than ever, it's hard to see the heights that cartoon art has reached if you are only getting your influences from modern animation and comic strips. They don't run many classic cartoons on TV anymore. Modern comic strips are very primitively drawn (and written) compared to comics of 50 to 90 years ago.I think that the more influences you have, the more you can avoid being trapped in a current "style". Having a style (the way some people today think of style) is an extremely creatively limiting handicap. I think being aware of a huge assortment of individual styles (as opposed to group styles) and being able to draw well without having to rely on simple stylistic tricks allows you to think up many more ideas and execute a much wider range of characters, stories and technical challenges.
I sure don't expect everyone to agree with me on this point, but for those who do have eclectic tastes and want to know more about what's done, I'm more than happy to share whatever I've discovered in search for great cartoon art and ideas. The cartoonists today who have the most unique styles and the widest range of functional abilities also have a lot of influences. They don't just imitate a group style. Jim Smith, Katie Rice, Nick Cross, Mike Kazaleh, Bob Camp, Dave Feiss, Chuck Gammage, Eddie Fitzgerald and others don't imitate, yet they all have their imitators. There are quite a few younger cartoonists appearing that have a wide range of influences, which is highly encouraging to me. Combine this with functionality and you will be the next leaders of the business!
Kali, Rex, Mitch and lots more!
Also, there are so many great helpful blogs out there. Kevin Langley, The Animation Archive, Temple Of The Seven Camels, Bob Jaques' Popeye blog, Theory Corner, Michael Sporn, Hans Bacher and more.
The passing on of wisdom to the next generation
These generous folks all share their knowledge and lots of history. I will soon do a post about some of my favorites. Too many to list today!
This is a renaissance in archival cartoon archaeology!
3) To inspire a return to cartoon roots: Since hardly any modern cartoons really embrace what distinguishes cartoons from other media, I want to try to find others like me who like cartoons to be cartoony.
like Spaz Williams' grandparents
Eddie and I talked about this while shoving greasy pizza into our faces yesterday. Eddie told me about some recent critiques of classic cartoons we loved. The critiques consisted partly of complaining about gags that just couldn't be done in any other medium.
We came up with a new theory about how to critique the great cartoons. To me (and others) the heights of cartoon art are more like music than they are like literal stories. Music has its own special language to describe its structure and melodies and we need a language like that. Otherwise, we are stuck trying to describe cartoons in terms of other media like live-action film, or novels. While there is some overlap between what cartoons do and what other artistic media does, there are also blatant difference. Those differences are what define us, what set us apart from other forms of entertainment.
I'm going to contact Daniel Goldmark -who studies classic cartoon music, and see if I can get him to sit down with me and Eddie to watch cartoons and try to find useful terms and structural concepts from the movements and patterns in music. It may give us a jumping off point to help us describe our favorite cartoons.
These cartoons below could not be critiqued in terms of plot structure or logic, yet they are among the most moving and creatively inspired of all cartoons.
Swing You Sinners Coal Black and De Sebben Dwarfs Baby Bottleneck You Belong To My Heart Bad Luck Blackie
4) To Teach Principles and Techniques To The Next Generation Of Cartoonists: Not every cartoonist is interested in the classic artistic and cartoon drawing tools, but for those who love old cartoons and would like to have those skills, there is no place I know of today where you can learn them. I know this from experience, because I have hired so many cartoonists straight out of college and have had to personally teach what used to be basic skills to them.
You really can't afford to do this while actually on a project. Networks expect you to start drawing functional drawings the day you begin a project. They can't tell the difference between a truly descriptive controlled drawing and a flat uncontrolled drawing. They don't know that one makes a cartoon much more effective in telling a story and they don't care.
I've spent so much of my own money training people and have decided I can't afford it anymore. So I figured when I started this blog, I'd just put up my old manuals and then people could teach themselves. That way, next time I start a major project, I could just find the people who really wanted to do the same sorts of cartoons I like and who already have the tools I know I need.
5) To encourage Analysis:
If anyone is to bring back some of what we like about classic cartoons, we need to be able to break down what we like into its separate elements and then start applying those elements to our own work. This can be a difficult process and it hurts to break down our prejudices, but it's the only way to begin to understand why we like certain cartoons. Then it is important to apply what we learn to our own work and that is even harder!
But you really can't understand an artistic concept fully, until you can do it yourself. First, discover a concept, then do it a few times until it sinks in.
I hope I have unveiled some elements of what makes cartoons work, but only each individual can make themselves learn it by doing it.
6) Blind Habit: It's become a habit to do this stuff. I really don't expect everyone to agree with everything I say, or which cartoons I like. The danger of publishing your own opinions publicly is that those who disagree with you sometimes take it too seriously - especially online!
I think most people who come here are probably in 80-90% agreement with my overall view. Basically that classic cartoons are mostly of a much higher quality than modern cartoons. We may disagree on whether Chuck is better than Bob, or whether Disney is more artistic than Avery, but in the broad scheme of things those are really minor differences.
I'm amazed at how those small differences sometimes explode into huge flame wars! Really, what we all agree on is what I hope will someday come back into fashion in the animation world. There are many forces against us, so I hope a few of us will find a way to collaborate on what we agree on and take back a place for ourselves in the business that those like us created and made so successful and unique in the first place.
So thanks to everyone who has encouraged my incessant rambling and striving for ways to make more cartoon fun!
7) Crass Capitalism
Oh yeah! It doesn't hurt to have people contribute! Thanks to all the latest pals who know the sincerest form of appreciation.
Mitch Lodolt Mitch Leewe Dan Mozgai John Guy David de Rooij
This post is to reward Mike for his contributions. Try not to take it too seriously... Yogi reflected the times quite accurately.
Late 60s
Uh oh!
70s
When these Ray Dirgo comics came out, I was shocked at how formless they looked. The 70s had arrived. The funny part is, they kinda lok good compared to what happened after.
When I saw cartoons drawn like this, I knew that it was over.
80s
Evil corporations preach morals to the poor audience. This has never gone away.
Bob was born in San Diego in 1913, and from the time of his earliest memories he was fascinated by the color comic strips in the Sunday newspapers, and he would try to copy the drawings of the various characters from the comic strips. As Bob got older, and could read and write, he began making up new gags and situations for the various characters, oftentimes continuing from the end of the strips as they appeared in the newspapers. He also became acquainted with the various early-century children’s adventure books, with their rich illustrations and fantastic stories.
BOB DABBLED IN ALL AREAS OF ENTERTAINMENT
Eventually Bob’s parents moved to Los Angeles, when Los Angeles was a much smaller city than it became later, and lived in a neighborhood that included several theater stage performers and movie actors. Movies were still in their primitive early days then, and of course were black-and-white and silent, but they seemed like magic to the young Bob. And stage theater in Los Angeles then was pretty elaborate, so it made quite an impression as well. Bob was experiencing and thinking about these things all the time, imagining new things that could be done in these various mediums. Along the way he was also introduced to puppetry and magic acts. With Bob’s enthusiastic and self-confident personality, he began attempting to impress the neighborhood kids by creating puppet shows, which he performed on the back porch, hiding behind the railing to manipulate the hand puppets.
As a teenager, Bob played with a home movie camera and attempted to make an amateur short live action movie -- another example of thinking staging, continuity and cutting at a relatively young age. (He even went to Leon Schlesinger’s Pacific Art and Title Studio to have title cards made for his movie. This was the first time he met Leon Schlesinger.)
http://filboidstudge.blogspot.com/2006/07/robert-clampett-cartoon-and-story.html Los Angeles in those days had about five different newspapers, and Bob frequently submitted cartoon drawings into the cartoon contests in the papers. His cartoons won prizes and eventually attracted enough favorable attention that he was offered a contract with the Hearst newspaper syndicate, which guaranteed him full employment at $75.00 a week once he finished high school (which was still a few years away then). In those days $75.00 a week was big money, and Bob had his Dad keep the contract for him. In the meantime, the Los Angeles Hearst paper paid Bob’s tuition to Otis Art Institute, where Bob was introduced to serious illustration and the Fine Arts, and also let Bob hang around in the art department at the newspaper offices, where he observed real professionals doing their work.
But then animated cartoons appeared in the movies, with Felix the Cat particularly catching Bob’s interest. Bob went to the projection booth and asked the projectionist if he could see some of the actual movie film, to see how Felix was drawn for motion. The projectionist cut out a section of the film and gave it to Bob to take home and study.
Eventually the theaters began showing sound movies, including Disney’s Mickey Mouse, and that’s when Bob realized that sound cartoon movies was the medium that would allow him the fullest outlet for his ambitions as a cartoonist and a performer. What appealed most to Bob was the realization that in animated cartoons, like the Felix the Cats, literally anything was possible, and so the artistic and entertainment possibilities were unlimited.
Somewhere along the way, Bob’s family ran into hard times. Bob’s father became unable to financially support the family, and (I’m not clear on the details) somehow dropped out of the picture. Bob had to leave high school early, before completion, to get a job to support himself and his mother. Despite his contract with the Hearst newspapers, he decided to get a job in animation at the Disney Studio, but the Disney Studio was at that moment overcrowded and was building new work space across the street. They told Bob to come back when the new space was completed, but instead Bob went across town and got a job at the new Harman-Ising Studio, where he began working on the first cartoon in the new Merrie Melodies series.
I think what makes Bob stand out among other animators, is that his style is not only inspired by other animation. He is inspired by the overall world of entertainment. He loved Jolsen, Cagney, comics, Jazz and he put all this entertainment and performance energy in his cartoons. It's entertainment first with Bob. It was this philosophy and strength of character that allowed him to resist the lure of imitating Disney. While Walt was such an overpowering influence in the industry and so many others blindly tried beating him at his own game, Clampett just did what came natural to himself.
I would say Avery and Tashlin also had this built in resistance to following trends, but Friz seemed always content to be mature and do what the current acceptable style is and get it in on time. If singing teapots is the current rage, fine; if sarcastic wiseguys come into style, he'll do that too, although a bit more reluctantly. -John
Hey, check out this great drawing Shane Glines did of Jack Kirby's character: Crystal the Elemental girl. I love the colors too! Shane, explain your theory on the colors...Boy, if someone made a superhero on TV designed like Shane's take, it would be a huge hit. Here's the poster it was cartooned from. Here's a modern reprint with colors pumped too much: I loved this character when I was a kid.
I love the way they presented cartoons in the 1960s. Cartoons would be bookended by rousing title songs and introduced by bumper animation between the story cartoons. This was a great way to present "old" cartoons but make them seem as if they were new and special.
The other kind of classic cartoon format is the non-formatted "grab-bag" cartoon block. The syndication model. We used to watch "Cartoon Carnival and "Cartoon Party" and a million variations of these local TV packages. They would run classic cartoons, but mix together different studios and eras. The prints were usually pretty crummy too.
The effect of this sloppy packaging cued us in to the fact that these were "the old cartoons" and though many were entertaining, they didn't get the full impact of the packaged cartoon shows that seemed like they were specially-made . Syndicated cartoon shows seemed like they were bargain-basement leftovers. It didn't help that they would mix classic fully animated cartoons with super low-budget made-for-TV cartoons, like the Al Brodax Popeyes, Dodo, Hercules, Lippy The Lion and such.
When I was consulting for the early Cartoon Network, they had whole 3 hour blocks of "used-cartoons" like "Down Wit' Droopy D" and I explained my theory to them.
What I really wanted to do, was repackage the 40s Looney Tunes in a similar way that WB packaged the 50s Bugs and Daffy cartoons into the Bugs Bunny Show.
I wanted to make a new title sequence and bumpers, only in a style that would be a caricature of the Clampett-Avery 40s version of the characters.
The Bugs Bunny Show aired on Saturday afternoons at 5:00 when I grew up (sponsored by The Kraft Teddy Bears), and I always ate my TV Dinners and Salisbury Steaks on my Cartoon TV tray while laughing uproariously to Chuck, Friz and McKimson cartoons.
I wish they would go back and re-attach all the specially made bumpers and the original "This Is It" Theme song intro to the 50s Looney Tunes package and re-air them (and go back to the original un-remastered prints).
This kind of presentation does a lot to make kids think the cartoons are new and not recycled cartoons.
Hanna Barbera and many original TV cartoons also used this fun format.
They restored a few on this set and it's really fun way to watch cartoons.
Milt Gray is an animator, director and cartoon historian. He has interviewed countless golden age animators and artists and was a personal friend of Bob Clampett. I first met Bob I think at Milt's. Milt has spent thousands of hours studying animation frame by frame from classic cartoons and is quite an articulate writer on the subject of what makes cartoons tick.
My Take on Bob Clampett - by Milton Gray
I have several observations on Bob Clampett that I would like to share, particularly at this time as there seems to still be in some people’s minds an image of Bob as a ridiculous or grossly irresponsible person, an image largely invented and perpetuated by a very envious Chuck Jones (and subsequently Stan Freberg).
Clampett Was A Living Cartoon Character
Bob Clampett did have a very exuberant and mischievous personality, and as a result people reacted rather strongly to him -- they either loved his crazy antics or disdained him as undignified. But it is important to know that there was no meanness in Bob’s character (despite some terrible -- and untrue -- stories that have circulated about him). What was true is that Bob virtually always made the other person feel “included” (rather than ridiculed) in whatever horseplay or practical jokes were going on. And in addition, the Bob I knew was frequently very cordial and generous to whoever came to him with a question or a request. In an age when there are so many mean people everywhere, there is a common tendency to look for ulterior motives when someone kind or positive comes along. Bob exuded the simple joy of being alive, which some people are too cynical to appreciate.
His Characters Were Sides Of Him
These qualities of Bob’s personality permeated his cartoon characters. Although Bob’s version of Porky Pig (and later Beany and Cecil) was always a very sincere and energetic, if somewhat naive, young person, most of Bob’s other characters ranged from eagerly mischievous (like the Marx Brothers) to outright hysterical.
(By contrast, for me Chuck Jones’s Bugs Bunny tended to be inactive and overconfident to the point of extreme smugness, while Jones’s Daffy became greedy to the point of premeditated villainy. I far prefer Clampett’s hysterical Daffy and prankster Bugs -- they are so much more passionate and energetic.)
Clampett Daffy above, Jones' below (I forget where these came from, tell me and I will link to you)
Clampett Bugs above, Jones below
Jones and a few others liked to attack Clampett in later years for allegedly taking too much credit for the success of the Warner cartoons. But I believe that Clampett does deserve a lot of the credit, and here are the reasons as I see them:
From the first day that Clampett came to work at the Harman-Ising/Schlesinger/Warner cartoon studio (in 1931), he was brimming with ideas for cartoons, which made him very different from practically everyone else at the studio then -- serious minded people who had scarcely thought about funny characters or imaginative gag situations before landing their first studio job. This unique characteristic of Bob’s originated in his inquisitive personality, all the way back to his early childhood.
Animator and historian Milt Gray has written an article about what he feels are Bob Clampett's contributions to the Warner Bros. style.
This post is just to give some background context to get a feel for what was happening at Warner Bros. cartoons in the early days.
The very first Looney Tunes by Harman and Ising were really cartoony.
The characters looked cartoony, had big expressive eyes and did crazy impossible things.
After about 8 of them they quickly decline and get blander and more on model, less cartoony.
If you watch the first 8 or so cartoons of Bosko you can find everything you would imagine a bunch of cartoonists would want to animate, including dirty jokes.
"Even with their limitations, these are frequently surprising and frisky cartoons. In "Bosko's Holiday" (1931), for example, Bosko whispers something (naughty?) in Honey's ear. She becomes indignant. As she turns her back and tilts up her nose, a little dog slips forward and licks her bottom. Now angry, Honey turns around and smacks Bosko (as if he would lick her bottom!). These cartoons could also be shockingly violent: in "Bosko's Store" (1931), a mischievous baby cat grabs a strand of barbed wire and pulls it between Bosko's legs -- making Bosko wince as his crotch is ripped to shreds."
BOSKO'S HOLIDAY 1931
Mike Fontanelli and I watched a pile of the first five years of Warner cartoons one night in chronological order and what became clear was the cartoons actually showed a steady decline in fun, design, cartooniness and humor.
I remember when I was in elementary school, I would race home every day at lunch to watch "Cartoon Carnival" which was a mixed bag of syndicated cartoons from the 30s and 40s.
They would run 3 cartoons for a half hour and usually I was pretty satisfied with my peanut butter sandwich and Woody Woodpecker and Daffy Duck cartoons. I knew these were older cartoons than the ones that ran in network cartoon shows. The prints were faded, scratched and full of splices ; even so, I loved the bouncy zany animation and great characters...BUT! There were 2 kinds of old cartoons that made me mad!
1) Animal Orchestra Antics: Any cartoon that had zany cartoon animals playing in an orchestra and knocking the toupees off each other with trombones infuriated me!
2) Things Coming To Life At Night Cartoons: These drove me nuts too. The ones where the old man would close up shop at night and head down to the graveyard and everything would come to life in the store. Salt shakers fell in love with toilet bowl cakes and then the evil potato peeler would chase them and try to rape the little blue virgin cake. Aaargh!
Whenever they ran one of these 2 types of cartoons in the middle of my sacred half hour cartoon lunch , I felt violated. Cheated out of my respite from education!
Here's one that made me wanna gouge my eyes out. I couldn't figure out why any real cartoonists would want to make stuff like this. Can you imagine stubbly men in suspenders, chewing on cigar stubs grinding out stuff like this? It happened a lot!
LITTLE DUTCH PLATE 1935
If you watch the early WB cartoons you will probably notice that same decline in fun and cartooniness...and in just plain appealing design! The cartoons get more and more conservative.
It sure doesn't give any indication that Warner Bros. will be a studio that rebels against Disney to create a whole new cartoony style that knocks Disney off its throne.
It's as if they made their first cartoons naturally - throw a bunch of funny cartoonists in a room to come up with gags, characters and stories and they did it with no thought as to what should a cartoon be. They assumed cartoons should be funny and magic. How naive!
But as Disney became popular, other studios started imitating what they thought Disney was doing. But as happens in almost all trends, the imitators imitate the worst parts of what is popular.
WB (and other studios too) copied the bland stories of Disney, the bland character designs and the less impossible gags. Disney was evolving in techniques, but Warners didn't have the budgets to copy the higher production values and more skilled animation that Disney was doing.
So as Disney evolved in one direction during the early 30s, Warner's was devolving in every direction.
Anyway, don't take my word for it. Watch the cartoons in order and see if you have a different observation.
"I love to Singa" is much like Freleng's "My Green Fedora" but has a smarter edgier sarcasm to it. Same animators, same kind of story, different director.
Frank Tashlin also appears and starts making funny clever cartoons.
Bonus: Here's an early example of great off-model licensing art.
Keep posted for Milt's Clampett article comin' up...
Here's some animation from my favorite period of Disney. I love the character design and the way it moves.The late 30s is when they were discovering and polishing the basic animation principles that we still sort of base modern cartoons on only we don't remember exactly how they work or what to use them for. The scene is interesting, because it has nothing to do with story or acting. It's just what they used to call "business". It exists purely to remind us about Goofy and to have some fun bouncy animation.
Warner Bros. cartoons used these same principles to tell more individual and original stories and to assert the artist's own world views, but it's interesting to see the principles here stripped of opinion and individuality- existing in wholesome purity. Line of Action and Clear Silhouette
Overshoot past the keys for accents
Settle into the final pose after overshoot.
Everything is bouncy and timed to music.
Many of the actions move on arcs. One pose will squash down in the middle of the action to move into the next pose. Always feature the ass.
Cartoons like this are all about the principles. They aren't very funny and nobody has specific personalities, especially not the director. These are strictly the basics drawn in a very appealing graphic style.
I kinda wish we could have a studio that would go back to these basics and from there move forward into individual styles and customization.
Today's full animation style is such a specific small collection of cliched actions that it is very hard to move forward from there.
I actually saw a movie the other day that didn't have all the stock acting and motions of most modern fully animated features.
It had a depressing drawing style to match the depressing subject matter and is not really my kind of thing but I was
impressed to see that the way it moved seemed more customized to what was happening in the story. It wasn't a collection of stock actions.
If only we could apply that kind of clear thinking to entertainment animation.
I always liked the BG pans in the early Roadrunner cartoons. They achieved a sense of depth by painting the BG on separate planes or layers. The road and cacti are painted on a separate layer from the mountains and the sky. Then they pan the foreground road faster than the background sky/mountain layer. This creates the illusion of perspective and 3 dimensions. I think it helps to keep the paintings and design somewhat stylized and cartoony because it is merely a flat illusion and not real depth. If it was really 3d, there would be an infinite amount of planes all moving at different speeds and that is of course impossible. I think this effect works much better than many Disney multiplane effects. In the Disney fake depth camera moves, they paint the BGs too detailed and "realistic". The more detailed the layers are painted, the more obvious that the layers are flat-that they are paintings. When you truck in on Snow White's cottage and the foreground trees pan apart and go out of focus, it looks like you are watching paintings of trees separate. Simple cartoony shapes allow you to suspend your disbelief. I love Robert Gribbroek's BG layouts because they are well designed, but not overly stylized like Maurice Nobel's. Noble's BGs are so extremely designed that they jump forward ahead of the characters and distract from the "reality" of the story. For me anyway. These are simplified and cartoony, yet inspired by the organic nature of the objects being caricatured. It gives the cartoons a feeling of open spaces and nature. That makes the cartoon more unique and really makes me feel the coyote's plight better. In the more stylized Roadrunner's I feel like I'm just watching a generic template of Chuck Jones cartoon tricks, rather than a special treatment designed for the characters and situation.
Need a simple run for an animation excercise? Flip will give you the basics
Don't you love how happy these 
What appealed most to Bob was the realization that in animated cartoons, like the Felix the Cats, literally anything was possible, and so the artistic and entertainment possibilities were unlimited.
