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.
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.
The effects style of many old cartoons were designed to match the medium, to look cartoony and appropriate to the graphic style.
Why you would want "realistic" effects in a cartoon is one of the mysteries of the ages anyway.
Here's a carefully animated subtle scene of Bugs Bunny talking to a man's buttocks.
Note the hard-to-draw tilt of his head below. Here's where your toy construction! studies will come in handy.
The animation is really great too. You can actually feel Elmer's weight bouncing around, even though it's all a blur. Go through the clip in slow motion and be amazed at the skill.
Look how alive Bugs is in the older pre-tude cartoons. He really was a wascawwy wabbit back then.
Compare to just 4 years later
I think the idea is that film-style blur effects can add believability to computer generated cartoons. So you can hardly tell this cartoon image from real life.
Clampett combined Fleischer's cartooniness with Disney skills and added his own unique imagination and control to them.
Clampett and his cohorts put the principles to use. They gave them a context. The principles are there, but they are in service of the story, character and entertainment. Each gag or bit of acting requires certain animation tools-but not every one every time. Classic Disney cartoons tend to use all the principles all the time with no control, no selection process. Everything deserves the same lush treatment. (I'll post some examples this week.)
Making A Gag Out Of Overlapping Action
The drawings in some Scribner animation look like they aren't even connected. When you still frame it, it looks like it would never work, yet when you watch it at regular speed, it not only works, it's incredibly smooth and has impact and calculated control. It isn't simply wild and crazy, as opposed to Jim Tyer for example.
You can see the hierarchy of forms and details in the hair here. The hair is drawn as a form in motion first, then the forms have a few extra hair lines drawn within the forms.
I like this blur effect for the eyelashes. There are only two drawings in the cycle and it looks sexy as hell.
Beauty gets crazy
Scribner exaggerates stretch, squash, overlap
Forms within forms- hierarchy
Great construction and exaggeration at the same time.
Look how damn sexy these drawings are!
I love the way McKimson drew and animated these flames. They have solid hand anatomy, yet they still waver like flames. What control!
http://www.cartoonthrills.org/blog/Clampett/Cuff/Mckfiresmall.mov
Clampett's style is evident in his B and W cartoons.
Here is a solidly constructed cat. It's so extremely solid that it looks like Clampett is making fun of construction.
