Book Revue - Wolf With Axe

I think it's pretty obvious that Clampett was the most influential 40s animation director. His "looney" energy, character driven comedy and wild invention dragged Chuck and Friz along practically against their will for years. The whole attitude of Looney Tunes is based on Bob's personality (and some of Tex's). Everyone was influenced by and imitated Clampett superficially, but there are some things he did so well that almost nobody followed up on them. His style of custom movement for example. He directed the motion in his cartoons like nobody else. By the mid 40s, it was never enough to just tell the joke or get the character from this pose to that pose. The motion itself is mesmerizing. It's not merely "cartoony" as in early 30s cartoons. It's cartoony and unrealistic, but unlike early cartoons it has weight power, emphasis and control. It feels more real than reality. Clampett found a way to combine the magic and invention of early cartoons with the skills and principles of Disney animation.

Book Revue, like Tokyo Woes is a practical encyclopedia of amazing animation techniques that he just dumped on the whole business to let everyone pick up on them - and no one did. I don't get it.

Here's a scene that has a ton of energy and power, and it's totally cartoony.




















Antic, Bounce, swing and antic
This would merely be an antic in anyone else's cartoon, but here it's like an animation tour de force. The wolf actually antics a couple times as the axe bounces from its heavy weight.




..then instead of just going from the antic directly to the tree, the wolf swings the whole axe all the way around first. This builds up way more energy than a direct antic and hit. - he uses this same technique to get the characters into the scene. They don't just run directly to the tree - they go all the way around first, but it's animated so fast that you don't really see it. You feel all that extra speed and energy though.
Clampett packs more action into a scene than anyone, yet he does it with such perfect timing that you don't miss anything important. All the actions take place within a structured hierarchy.

Axe Hits and Recoils

When he finally hits the tree with the axe, he generates more power with this crazy long vibrating recoil...

CUT: Wolf wobbles and hat pops off

This scene always baffled me. I never quite understood what was happening, but it's animated so powerfully and with such great timing and fun that it just stands out like a piece of pure animation candy. The animation is the reason for it's existence. It's not exactly needed for story or even for the completion of the point of the scene. It's just really Goddamned cool.










http://www.cartoonthrills.org/blog/Clampett/46BookRevue/WolfRevueAxe-desktop.mov

The only person smart enough (that I can think of) that ever took advantage of Clampett's great animation techniques was Brad Caslor - almost 40 years later in his NFB cartoon "Get A Job". After Clampett left Warner Bros. in 1946 his style of movement was replaced (or abandoned) quickly with pose to pose animation and formula. Even his own animators never did this kind of thing again-probably because no one would let them.

To me, this is the whole reason to even do animation. -To make things move with such inventiveness and vigor that no other medium can compete with it. It should be fun to watch even with the sound off. Story, characters, design, backgrounds and the other arts we use to supplement our medium are all extra gravy, but without the basic ingredient of customized magic movement we are not taking advantage of what it's all about.

You can find better stories in books and movies. Better illustrations in magazines and on book covers, richer characters in Dickens and in classic sitcoms. Where else can you get get magic moving eye candy but in animated cartoons when they are in top form? - and why do so few places and people want to give it to you?

Daffy In Book Revue-Cartoony Believable Action

Here is the exact opposite of the "Human-Animal-Hybrid" school of animation that is so prevalent today (Shrek, Mr. Fox etc.). This is totally cartoony, completely unrealistic, yet far more believable as a living character than all those restrained, cautious and unsure-of-themselves detailed stiff modern things.

I first saw Book Revue shortly after I discovered Great Piggy Bank Robbery, Coal Black and a few other of Clampett's classics. I was initially disappointed with Book Revue because there was no story. It seemed to be a throwback to early 30s Merrie Melodies where things come to life for no reason. But I found that a lot of the scenes stayed with me - I couldn't get them out of my mind. This Daffy Duck scene is one of them. It seems like almost nothing (storywise) is happening, yet the animation of Daffy commands serious attention. Something about him and his severe belief in his mission is riveting.

STAGGERS

These are some great staggers. Bob Jaques used to call Ren and Stimpy "the Stagger Show" which I hadn't noticed until he pointed it out.
I love the way Daffy shudders to the Jazz music.
The animation in Clampet's cartoons is so different than in the other WB directors'. I was watching some 50s Looney Tunes last night with Mike Fontanelli and it was clear that they had devolved into "Layout Cartoons" (like what I do), rather than "animated cartoons". They are expertly done, but the movement eventually became secondary to the poses.
In my favorite fully animated cartoons, I am not as aware of particular held poses as I am of the whole actions themselves - and especially when the characters are so driven from within themselves that they don't seem to be drawings at all.

BIG ARC IN JUMP

You don't see these drawings in Daffy's jump, but you feel the dynamism of the action because the arc is so high.






DETERMINED WALK
This walk is great. It isn't just a standard formula walk; it really makes you feel how determined Daffy is in whatever he is about to do. Nothing else is important to him except his mission.
Part of that feeling is in the drawings-his expression and poses, but it's also in the great timing.
Daffy, even though he is skinny and slight, has weight and force in the walk. Can someone explain to me why CG characters have no weight? They always seem to be skating to me.

There is absolutely nothing realistic in this animation, yet to me, it's far more believable than anything modern that is crafted from Satan's recipe of formula and fear.
These animators in the 1940s had amazing confidence. They just took the scenes, did them fast with no executive interference, no formula and made the characters come to life. I think it's partly because they didn't think much of what they were doing. They took their amazing skills for granted.



This is sheer beauty to me-not just n the abstract of each flowing cartoony image - but in the intensity of Daffy's feeling. The drawings aren't just there to be examples of good principles, they do that as a secondary result of expressing the emotions of the character. Like how the Space Program gave us Velcro.




Pure, beautiful cartooniness, yet all subservient to a greater purpose.








http://www.cartoonthrills.org/blog/Clampett/46BookRevue/DaffyRevueComicCover.mov

I think that the closer animation gets to superficial "realism" the faker it looks. Do these look remotely "believable"?

Not as believable as if they just shot the actual actors.

This has been demonstrated over and over again in our history - going back to Snow White. Everybody (even then) loved the cartoony Dwarfs and noted the complete incongruity and stiffness of Snow White and the Prince. Well animated cartoon characters are far more "believable" than "realistic" mannequins.

...Yet the people who have stolen the medium away from the cartoonists keep making the same mistake. They can't let go of the impossible dream of making animation not be be magic. They are all ashamed to be stuck in our world and hope that by imitating realism they might get invited into the more respectable world of live action. Has anyone noticed that that has hardly ever happened? Tim Burton is about the only person who has made the transition and he is a cartoonist - not a "writer" or executive or producer type.