Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Original Jetsons

This is an interesting show. You can see from the layouts that real professional cartoonists are drawing it.
The design and balance is good.
It's a great concept- a sitcom family in space, where you make fun of all the futuristic gadgets.
The only problem is, the show never took advantage of its core elements. It's way too conservative.
The poses are bland, the gags are slightly silly but not outright funny and the animation is extremely conservative - even compared to the Flintstones or Yogi Bear.
As a kid, I loved Hanna Barbera and anything to do with space and the future, so I watched the show a million times.
This is how they hang people in the future. At least that's funny.
Even Carlo Vinci underanimates in this series. It makes me think that someone at the top actually told everyone to take all this great talent and the appealing designs and raw concept - but don't do anything too fun with it.

Something weird happened at HB in the 60s and to this day I can't understand how they squandered such amazing resources. I would kill to work with raw material like this.