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?

Medical Uses of Animation

I was wandering around on youtube earlier tonight and I stumbled across a few different animated videos that I thought were pretty interesting. This video is one of the videos I stumbled on. It's an animated video that shows different animations of the human body, such as DNA strands, birth, and neck movements along with some other stuff. It got me wondering how often animation is used for medical purposes. Animation can be used for a lot of things, and one of those things is education.

Whether or not this is something you have already realized, but we as students see animation basically every day. Powerpoint presentations often contain some sort of animation in it. If you watch the news or shows like ESPN's SportsCenter, the graphics that they show are all different types of animation. For students involved in medication or the human body, or even geology students, animation is key to their studies.

Animated videos like the one I have given in the link have the ability to show students what they can't see with their own eyes. It can offer students an easier way to learn how different things work or how it looks. Take for example, this video. It explains the effects of smoking, but it does it in a far more scientific way rather than just saying "you can have lung problems." That video is a perfect example to my point which, as I stated earlier, is that animation is actually more important to education than what many know.

65 Years of Smokey the Bear

In this post, my main point will be to show you how and why animation can be used to trick the viewer into some kind of emotional state. I am going to talk all about Smokey the Bear and why he has been influential over his 65 years of life.

The first thing that you need to know, and probably already do know, is what his message is. His message is and always has been, "if you start a fire, remember to put it out," and "only you can prevent forest fires." So if that is his messages, why did his creators make him a bear? Why isn't he Smokey the Deer or Smokey the Squirrel? Something that has more relevance to all of the worlds forests'. Bears are huge, girthy animals that look and are dangerous in real life. But not in the world of animation.

He is Smokey the Bear because he was animated to look as cute as a teddy bear that many children have by their side. I mean, what's more cute to you...



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Smokey's message itself draws emotion, especially to those have have suffered due to a fire, but it is Smokey himself that draws in your attention. Everybody knows who Smokey the Bear is. If somebody told me they had never heard of or seen Smokey before, I would call them a liar. Smokey is a grade school classic. His cute smile and his cries for help have been heard for over 65 years in class rooms and his looks draw more emotions than his word. This is the perfect example of how animation can be used to draw emotion.

South Park Analyzation: Part 2

In this post I will talk about another scene from a different episode of South Park. This time, I will pull a scene from the episode "Cartoon Wars." This is the first episode of a two parter in which Trey Parker and Matt Stone are showing why the writers of "Family Guy" are really not that funny. In this scene, South Park uses its own animation to impersonate a "Family Guy" scene.

In this scene, the animation is not too different from what it actually is in Family Guy. There are some slight differences, as the characters' in this episode are made to make them look a little bit more ugly. The dog is also a different color here than what he is in "Family Guy." I'm not really sure why they made it this way, or like that for every other cartoon they portray, but I'm guessing the FCC or copyright has something to do with it.



These two pictures here are to allow you to look for yourself what the differences are from the real Family Guy (right) and from South Park's version (left). As you can see, there are slight, but noticeable differences in the pictures. Not only the differences with the carpet and rug, but almost everything about them is slightly different. From the clothing to the window everything is different, but if you're somebody who has watched both shows, you'd still recognize who they are portraying.

The Early Days of Felix the Cat

For my second blog on animation I will explain the beginning scenes of "Felix the Cat: Eats Are West." Made by Pat Sullivan, the early days of this animated cartoon was actually made with pictures taken of the Felix the Cat sculpture made out of paper mache, but I'll get more in depth with that later.

At the start of this cartoon, Felix is shown walking through a farm yards with his head down. It then cuts to Felix stopping in front of a tea store and he jumps up and down with a big smile on her face. He starts to walk up to the store, but then stops and pulls out his pockets, which is strange in itself because he's a cat and cats don't have pockets. When he sees that he has no money, he looks at the screen and starts shaking his help. He stats to think and a question mark is shown over his head. On a hook attached to the tea store is a tea pot. So what Felix does, is take the question mark and pushes the tea pot back so that tea will spill out and into his mouth.

Next, he walks up to a flap jack sign, which shows a waitress holding a pile of flap jacks. Felix actually reaches into the sign and takes the flap jacks as if they're real and he runs off with them. Then the waitress comes to life and starts chasing him. Felix then takes the flap jacks and suddenly they turn into wheels, as he uses them to build a little manually controlled cart. After he runs through a fence, the cart breaks and he sees the waitress catching up to him and three exclamation points. He takes the three exclamation points and the bottom of the broken cart, ties the exclamation points up and makes them into a propeller. So then he starts to fly away from the waitress. In just a couple of scenes, Felix uses what shows his emotions to help his cause. He also is able to take what appears to be fake things, such as the flap jacks in the sign, and tries to use them as what they would be if they were real.

Felix the Cat was first electronically televised in 1928 in New York and, as I said earlier, was made of paper mache. From felixthecat.com's history page: "The 13" Felix the Cat figure made of paper mache was placed on a record player turntable and was broadcast using a mechanical scanning disk to an electronic kinescope receiver. The image received was only 2 inches tall, and the broadcasts lasted about 2 hours per day."



As the picture shows, Felix was placed on a record player turntable with lights surrounding him. Pictures of Felix would be taken for almost a decade, as this was how they began Felix's life on television.

Analyzing a Scene in South Park: Post 1

For my first blog on animation, I'm going to take a look into a specific scene in a South Park episode that helps narrate the story. The point of this particular scene in the episode "Grey Dawn" points out the racism and hatred of one of South Park's main characters, Eric Cartman. Cartman and classmate, Kyle Broflovsky (a Jewish boy), have been in many wars of words and even a couple of fist fights. Cartman is also a known racist towards African American's, as shown in one episode where he called his one black classmate a "black a-hole," except in full terminology. So this sets up who Cartman is.

In this episode, they boys of South Park are directed to stop old people from driving. All of the elderly people in this episode go to Country Kitchen Buffet before the day starts, so the boys were trying to think of a plan to keep them from getting inside the buffet. Of course, Cartman is the first to think of a plan. Keep in mind, if you don't already know, these character were initially made with colored paper trimmings, and now hold similarities to the styles of shows, such as Looney Tunes and Family Guy.

So the boys were all sitting around a camp fire and Cartman starts to say his idea. As soon as he starts to explain his idea, it cuts from the fire place to scenes identical to what he is explaining. His plan was to have the boys all "cleverly" disguised as black people. In this scene, you see they boys dressed in black outfits with black paint on their faces that doesn't even cover their entire faces. They then break into the building, and Cartman straps a bomb on to Kyle's chest and they "say their tearful goodbye's" as Kyle walks into the buffet and Cartman detonates the bomb and the buffet and Kyle are no more. You can watch this episode at southparkstudios.com and by clicking "episodes" at the top of the website.