Animation of Yesterday, Today

Watching over clips of Beavis and Butthead in class and watching more clips of it and clips of Ren and Stimpy made me think about what people my age think now think of the 'adult' cartoons we watched when we were growing up. The clip of Beavis and Butthead we watched in class was called "Couch Fishing" and I was really excited that we were getting to watch it. That was one of the cartoons that I watched as a young kid and I have always remembered it as being a funny show. However, I couldn't even muster a smirk when the clip was shown.

And after watching clips of Ren and Stimpy as well as more stuff from B & B, I can no longer say that i enjoy watching the cartoons that I grew up on. Those cartoons have no meaning, no lessons, and they have a very immature sense of humor and in no way should parents allow their kids to constantly watch something that has no social value. Go back and watch "Couch Fishing" and tell me what the purpose of that clip is. It actually implies at the end that a little kid wanted to be 'cool' and hang out with Beavis and Butthead, but instead they let him take the fall for something stupid that they did. It's fine if you enjoy that type of humor, but that's not my point. My point is also not that I won't watch any Beavis and Butthead episodes. But my point is that those shows are so stupid and they have no social value.

Representation in Animation

For last weeks assignment, I watched the movie Shrek 2. I think that the movie has a lot of social representation, and it gives clear examples of it. I would also like to bring up that if you just watch Shrek 2 and not any of the other Shrek movies, then you don't know what time period that the movie was based in. That is the case with me, as Shrek 2 is the only one of the movies I have seen. I don't know whether it's based on modern times or medieval times. It has the same 'style' of communication that we do today (we don't speak like Shakespeare), but in the movie there is a king and a queen, which obviously we do not have today.

The king and queen are both older white people and the king kind of has this strange, meaning look about him all of the time. Even when you see him before he sees Shrek, he just kind of looks different from your stereotypical rich, healthy king. It must be intentional that he looks that way, because he's one of the bad men through most of the movie. Another example is the character Donkey. Donkey is a very loud and obnoxious donkey, but he also seems kind of low in self-esteem. After he drinks some potion, the dark colored, weak looking donkey, who is also voiced by a black man, turns into this majestic white stallion and automatically becomes high on confidence and self-esteem.

I'm not trying to say that the creators are racists or socialists or anything, but those two examples are only two of several examples of socialism. So feel free to discuss in the comment section and let me know if I'm for some reason wrong about what I'm saying.

Representation in Adult Animation

I was watching another episode of South Park the other day and right after that I watched a Family Guy episode. In both episodes, at some point in them, they joked around with their one black character by using stereotypical and racist jokes. In the South Park episode Token, a little black boy, joins a band that Cartman creates even though he says he can't play bass guitar. And Cartman keeps telling Token that he can because he's black. Token then plays a smooth bass line and says, "god damnit."

In the Family Guy episode, Brain was driving a cab car and he's about to pull over to pick up Cleveland, but remembers something he forgot and drives past him and it pisses Cleveland off as he thinks he didn't get picked up because he was black. These are jokes that adults can easily understand but some kids cannot. And then, if you watch a movie like Shrek 2 adults understand that the "ass" is voiced by Eddie Murphy and once the small, dark colored donkey drinks 'happily ever after potion,' he turns into a white stallion. This is something kids don't consciously pick up on, but it does set up a 'white at the top' culture.

I think that's more dangerous than adult animations jokes like the examples I gave from South Park and Family Guy, because it represents 'cultural norm' in its hyper-realism.

New final project idea...?

Okay, for this week I would like to ask for your input on something. I'm thinking about changing my final project from a paper on why animation itself is more of an art form that a source of entertainment to doing a still image project on baseball.

I have an idea about shooting a baseball game and also capturing all of the natural sound to tell the story of the baseball game. To me, still image animation MUST have natural sound, otherwise it loses a lot of the story. It's like watching television without sound, or just looking at a bunch of pictures that leaves you with questions about what's going on. Natural sound itself is a powerful source when also visually showing something and it's also useful in radio.

I'm sure most of you would rather do a project than write a 10 page paper, but at least tell me what you think of my projects idea. Thanks.

Using two kinds of animation in one show

I must apologize to those who don't like reading about South Park constantly, but to be honest, that show directly relates to what we talk about and there are also several examples you can pull from their episodes to use as examples. I'm going to use them again, as an example to say that using two different kinds of animation in one animated show, or any other piece of animated work, should be done more often in today's world of animation.

I'm sure that a lot of people would disagree with me when I say this because it doesn't exactly fit "traditional" animation. However, I present to you the South Park episode, "Make Love, Not Warcraft."

Here is a link to a faster example for you, it shows you within 30 seconds the different kinds of animation it uses.

This is a perfect example of how two kinds of animation works. Watch that episode, or at least the other video I provided a link for to understand the point of the story, and try telling me that that episode could have been as good as it is if it didn't use Blizzard's animation technology. I can assure you that it wouldn't have worked out as well. As a side note, that is actually Blizzards animation technology. When South Park had the show idea, they contacted Blizzard and Blizzard was nice enough to do the animation for them, which is why you always see Blizzards' logo in the episode.

This topic also reminds me of a particular Family Guy episode (I can't remember the name) where, at the end of the episode, Peter is talking a bunch a garbage towards FOX, and right before he walks away he says something like, "It's not like they can take our budget away" and as he walks away, Peter turns into this blocky character that can't walk and he just wobbles of the screen.

Final Presentation

I'm going to use this post to kind of bring about a discussion based on what my final paper will be on. I think that animation itself is far more an art form than an entertainment source. I'm talking about nothing more than the animation itself. All of the music and the voices are additions to the animation. Although animation can be used as an entertainment form, the animation itself is art.

I would like as much input as I can get on this from you guys. What do you guys think about my debate? Is there anything specific that you think I should look at in order to make a more convincing argument? Thanks for your input in advance.

Is Animation Vulnerable?

This post is basically going to ask you whether or not you think animation is more vulnerable that real life television and movies. What I mean is, do you think that mistakes are more easily caught? Since animators have complete control over what goes on the air, does that put a microscope over everything that they do?

Let me give you an example. Everybody used to say, when the movie Gladiator came out, that there were a few mistakes in it. People told me that they were able to see people trying to carry cords out of the way and that the big over-head mic can be seen as well. I've seen that movie three or four times and I have never been able to catch it, so I'm guessing it was fixed by the time it was sent to pay-television.

But if you were to watch a certain South Park episode called (and I'm sure you'll laugh), "Mr. Garrison's Fancy New Vagina (season 9 ep. 1)," you will notice that after Kyle gets a "negroplasty" he goes back home and is talking to Stan, Cartman, and Kenny. At this point he is wearing a white and orange South Park basketball jersey, but then his dad walks outside to tell him it's time to go to the All-Star game, his jersey switches to a white and black all-star jersey. Kyle did not leave the spot he was in, and it shows the jersey switch after a cut-away. I noticed that the first time I saw the episode.

So please discuss, is animation more vulnerable than televsion?