When one reads about the beginnings of animation, the names Dave and Max Fleischer are sure to be mentioned at one time or another. Though this generation of cartoon lovers and fanatics have largely settled on Walt Disney being the father of animation, the Fleischers actually played a huge part in the beginnings of the art form.
Out of the Inkwell, created during silent era, was very innovative in that it fused live action with hand-drawn animation. This was something that hadn't been explored in the past, and the Fleischers used something called "Rotoscoping," a technique they invented which used drawing over live-action film stills. This brought a new realistic look to the characters' movements, but also saved time and money. They used this technique to mimic Cab Calloway's dance moves in some of their cartoons in the 1930's.
In October of 1929, Fleischer Studios released a new cartoon series called Talkartoons, Which first featured Bimbo as the main character and introduced the widely popular Betty Boop. Although the Fleischer bros' Screen Songs and Talkartoons were very popular with the public, the inexpensive methods used to create the cartoons, along with new censorship in the industry, eventually cost them their competitive edge against Walt Disney studios.
In 1934, Hollywood was forced to begin following the Hays code, which meant a high level of censorship in new films that were released. Much of Betty Boop's sex appeal was curbed, and the public began to lose interest. Between 1931 and 1936, Paramount, Which held Fleischer Studios' distribution contract, had gone through 3 reorganizations due to bankruptcy. Management at Paramount decided to make more films geared towards general audiences, And they urged the studio to emulate walt disney cartoons. Color Classics began as a parody of Disney's Silly Symphonies.
Popeye the Sailor became the most popular Fleischer studios cartoon they ever produced, rivaling even Walt Disney Studios' famed Mickey Mouse series. The shorts were released in 1936, 1937, and 1939 and became so popular that they were sometimes billed alongside or even above the main features at some theatres.
Paramount, who held the distribution contract for Fleischer Studios, wanted to compete with the success of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, so they loaned the Fleischers the money to build a studio in Miami, Florida, to produce Gulliver's Travels. The animated feature film was released Christmas 1939 and had a decent amount of success, but not at the same level as its competitor. Superman, the animated series following the comic book superhero, was produced on a budget of $50,000 per episode, the highest of any Fleischer cartoon short, and was nominated for an Academy Award.
Even with their late successes with Gulliver, Superman, and Popeye, the Fleischers were still riddled with financial woes. The larger Miami studio produced high overhead with a larger staff, and they were forced to produce more material, some more successful than others, but most of the material released was not up to par with their successors. The Fleischer brothers had personal and financial disputes, profits were dwindling, and they frequently asked for loans from Paramount to keep the studio going. Paramount finally had to call an end to the financial burden and forced Dave and Max Fleischer to resign by the end of 1941 in order for the studio to receive funding for the 1940-1941 film season. On May 24th, 1941, Paramount assumed full ownership of Fleischer Studios, and the Fleischers oversaw production until the end of 1941. Mr. Bug Goes to Town was released on December 5, 1941, two days before the bombing of Pearl Harbor. It never recouped the $500,000 in production costs.
After Max and Dave left Paramount, Fleischer Studios was renamed Famous Studios in mid-1942. Dave moved to California and became the head of the Screen Gems animation studio at Columbia, and Max became Head of the Animation Division at the Jam Handy Organization.
The Fleischer brothers were a major force in early animation, bringing new technology and innovation to a growing art form, but were forgotten among the animation giants of the time. Though their names have been mostly forgotten by this generation, their work still remains an integral part of today's animation as we know it.
Animation as an art form and a form of entertainment had rough beginnings, but quickly became mainstream from the 1920’s into the 1950’s. In the race to become king of the mountain, studios such as Fleischer Studios, Van Beuren Studios, and Disney Studios had successfully brought dreams to life for people across the world to enjoy. But their success began to die out the late 50's, as the business changed and executives wanted a cheaper, more streamlined process. Eventually, the studios who once brought us groundbreaking animated short films to the theaters would be replaced with a new breed of cartoons that relied more on writing and voice acting than the animation itself.
Some creators such as animation great Chuck Jones used this Limited Animation as a way to stylize their work, but executives saw it as an opportunity to cut costs. This seemed to work well together, ushering in many classics such as The Flintstones, The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, The Jetsons, Mr. Magoo, and a slew of other classics, but along with the nicely stylized classics of the era came more than a few duds that were created on exectutive advice solely to suck the money out of childrens' parents' pockets.
Limited Animation used shortcuts such as using a collar or a necklace to separate a character's body from their head. That way, the animation companies could still animate a character speaking cheaply, and even animate the character's head turning while using one or two animation cels for the body throughout the entire speaking sequence. They would also allow themselves the liberty to simplify the backgrounds so that they would consist of some linework and sometimes very loose coloring, sometimes using one or two colors and disregarding the confounds of the lines. Other techniques used were panning the camera to simulate movement, "blurring" the character to show extreme speed without having to animate the actions, cel reversal to use a mirror image of the character rather than animating him or her again, creating stock footage which were animation sequences during different scenes, long recaps of previous episodes, among others time- and money-saving techniques.
Chuck Jones' 1942 Merrie Melodies short, The Dover Boys was one of the earlier cartoons making full use of the techniques of Limited Animation, but Warner Bros. was not impressed, pushing for more traditional animation. UPA, or United Productions of America, used Limited Animation in full force when they released Gerald McBoing-Boing and winning an oscar and inspiring every major animation company to use the cheaper form of animation. Warner Bros., MGM, and other studios began to follow suit.
Hanna-Barbera was especially fond of these newfound time-savers, using them in almost every cartoon series they produced, including Jonny Quest, The Flintstones, Scooby-Doo, Yogi Bear, The Jetsons, Space Ghost, The Huckleberry Hound Show, Top Cat, Wacky Races, The Quick Draw McGraw Show, The Magilla Gorilla Show, and even later episodes of Tom and Jerry.
Filmation was another company who used Limited Animation as a routine. Along with a series called Rod Rocket, they got their start producing the first few Chuck Jones Tom and Jerry cartoons. They went on to produce some Superman cartoons along with other DC Comics cartoons, and the first Archie Show in 1968, Star Trek: The Animated Series, and many, many other cartoons that used the retro new-wave style.
Animation has moved on to bigger and better things for the most part, but some of the techniques of Limited Animation are still around in one form or another. Flash animation, used mostly for the web and presentations, makes use of smaller parts of a whole subject being moved separately to create the illusion of traditional animation. Motion comics also move different layers of complex drawings to create the illusion of movement, but not striving to animate every character's actions or speech.
In the end, directors and studios have to find a way to balance the traditional values of life-like animation of the Golden Age and the cost-cutting techniques of Limited Animation. One thing is for sure, though. It is a lot of fun as a viewer to see what they come up with!
Looney Tunes has always been by far my all-time favorite cartoon series, and having begun in 1934, they have withstood the test of time throughout several generations of cartoon fans. Considering how very few of the early animated series came out of the Golden Age alive and kicking, the fact that the Looney Tunes name is still around says a lot.
Warner Bros. are going to put on their Bunny ears and try their hand once again at the world-famous Looney Tunes series. In February 2011, Warner Bros. plans to release a 26-episode first season of The Looney Tunes Show, wherein Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, two much-loved Looney Tooners, live in a suburban home. And their neighbors happen to be none other than other classic characters Yosemite Sam, Tweety Bird, Sylvester the Cat, Marvin the Martian, and Porky Pig.
The new premise might stand up to the new cartoon-loving generation who may not have grown up watching Foghorn Leghorn, Witch Hazel, and the massive cast of the vintage Looney Tunes made for the silver screen series. But, if WB wants to gain the trust of long-time fans of the series like myself, they've got a tough row to hoe.
The first thing I noticed about the new character designs by Jessica Borutski is that they actually reminded me of the art from the old, old Looney Tunes comic books released in the 1940's. When I heard they were doing a new series, the first thing I wondered is if the art would be close to comparable to the old cartoon shorts. So far, my opinion would be yes, the art looks great. Animation has come a long way in a sense, but when you tackle the task of remaking something as classic and unrivaled as Looney Tunes, you're going up against the styles of Chuck Jones, Tex Avery, and Bob Clampett. According to Jessica Borutski's blog, a lot of people are upset that she made Bugs Bunny mauve, and put purple outlines around Daffy. Yes, I would have liked to keep around the old colors, but I think that if done right, it should be barely noticeable. Not only will the new artists be competing with animators of old, but the writers will have something of a challenge ahead to create new situations with gags to bring the laughs that the old series did. The thing with the old series is that the crew were departing on a journey into an art form. Animation was (fairly) new at the time, and the sky was the limit.
Now here it is 80 years later, and a whole new generation will have to draw on inspiration from a different society and make different stories work with characters who were created decades ago, pleasing die-hard fans and television-affixed kids alike.
And then there's the Wile E. Coyote/Roadrunner bit. It seems Warner Bros. has decided to convert them to 3-D animation for a 2 1/2 minute short in each episode, and a 3 minute short before some movie features in the theaters. I don't know about you, but they appear to me to be testing the waters with the 2-D loving crowd for possible 3-D series or movies in the future. Corporations are slick like that, you know. And, though 3-D animation can be a beautiful art form given the right talent, character design, director, etc., I would rather them leave the characters rendered at least similar to how they were originally created. I'm sure Ben "Bugs" Hardaway and Cal Dalton didn't envision Bugs in full massive 3-D with stubble, zits, and boogers. The LT characters should be remembered as what they were created as. Go changing that, and I can go changing the Mona Lisa, or Michelangelo's Sistene Chapel paintings. They're dead, they won't care if I put a fuchsia bra on Moses. Nyaa! No, they won't, but you can bet there will be a lot of people out there who will. Now, if they were to get new directors and designers to create a new set of characters in the spirit of Looney Tunes but not a rip off of the old characters (*ahem* Babs and Buster), I'd be interested in seeing how that turned out in 3-D. I admit, the stills I've seen of the Wile E. shorts are impressive, so perhaps they will capture the spirit of what the characters were all about, even though they will be rendered a little more realistically than we are used to. But, I guess we'll see in a few months, eh?
The name "Merrie Melodies" also comes into play in the new television series, as WB has decided to throw in another cartoon short with the same title as the old Looney Tunes counterpart series where "The Tasmanian Devil, Speedy Gonzales, Marvin the Martian and other classic characters" sing original songs in 2-minute music videos.
Hopefully the series will live up to the Looney Tunes name, and our generation will have its very own contribution to the legendary series. So, unless Warner Bros. makes a left toin at Albuquerque, The Looney Tunes Show may turn out to be promising indeed!
March 25, 2002 - A date remembered by some as the day an art form was greatly impacted. On that day, more than 200 Disney artists working at Disney’s Feature Animation Department in Burbank, California were told they were losing their jobs. They were part of a 75-year era when Disney’s animators were considered at the top of their tier. But, new technology, new business leaders, and a new business model changed the way feature animation was created.
After the Lion King became such a huge success, Jeffrey Katzenberg, who was recently hired on at Disney, began seeking out artists in a big way. Artists began getting agents, managers, and lawyers to help them get more money for the work they put into animating the mega-million dollar works. Soon, Disney began to employ the help of “Creative Executives” and producers in charge of making every animated feature they produced a blockbuster hit.
But in the 1990’s into the early 2000’s, animated features began to saturate the market, and moviegoers began to become more inclined to stay RE-clined at home. Disney pushed for their upcoming film Treasure Planet to be the next big thing, but in the meantime allowed the creators of Lilo and Stitch to work their magic under somewhat less regulated conditions than the Treasure Planet crew.
Lilo and Stitch, which was produced in Disney’s Florida studio, enjoyed great success over Treasure Planet, which was largely considered a flop.
By 2000, hand-drawn animation had begun to take a back seat to the newfound technological wonders of computer animated films, including the smash hit Toy Story. Disney had decided to hire in freelancers when they were needed, and to employ the help of Asian animators for much less money (A now widely popular business practice known as “offshoring.”)
These things all led up to the world saying “goodbye” to one of the most important eras in animation history, where BambiSnow White and the Seven Dwarfs was born, along with Dumbo, Pinnochio, Cinderella, and a slew of others.
There was a film made documenting the day the animators were sent on their way. It is called Dream On Silly Dreamer, and it acts as an homage to the age of hand-drawn animation and a documentary filmed in the last days. You can read more at: http://www.dreamonsillydreamer.com/.
What’s cooler than a Gummi Bears reunion? Attending one! According to Jymn Magon, writer/story editor for Disney’s Adventures of the Gummi Bears, only 50 tickets area available to lucky adventurers interested in being present as many of the cast from the Gummi Bears appear and share stories, sketches, photos, and more in a live web meeting. Registered users can ask the cast questions, as they reply live.
One such story, as the Jim Hill Media website states, was from Magon as well. He told of his original concept in where a character named Scummy Gummi, a “piece of candy that worked for the villainous Licorice Whip.” They soon dropped the idea and went for a medieval setting, where Gummi Berry juice was the bears’ passion and the terrible Duke Igthorn was constantly out to get them.
According to jimhillmedia.com, the show was to be conceived just a week after Michael Eisner took over at Disney, and he based it on the candy his son was obsessed with while he was away at summer camp. Luckily, Magon said, Eisner was able to sell Disney’s first attempt at producing an animated television series, as far-fetched as it was, to NBC.
According to Jymn Magon and Jim Hill, there will be many stories shared at the reunion, and you may be able to sit in. So be there, be square, or be a Gummi Bear!
