Mikekush's Blog

Does anyone remember or know about the late 80s days of the Simpsons who were much more differently animated than the Simpsons of today? Their mouths and noses were jutted outward and were not the iconic characters of American TV that we know today. Here is a example of the early simpsons characters.

Animated characters often go through different phases and evolve to make them more appealing to audiences. According to Ch.5 in Of Mice and Magic Ed Lundy wanted to make Woody Woodpecker a more expressive character from his early 40s counterpart. The early 40s Woody had a much longer beak and spiked up hair. While the late 40s and early 50s Woody had a shorter beak and his hair combed downward but without touching his head.

Interestingly enough this trend in the evolution of animation also continued with the show Family Guy. Seth Macfarlane made an animated short called Larry and Steve in 1997 that would feature a working class man named Larry and his dog Steve. The relationship between them would resemble the relationship that Peter and his dog Brian would have later on in the series Family Guy. Steve, like Brian was the snarky and sarcastic dog with a monotone voice and Larry was the dim-witted owner but usually with good intentions.

Over time many animators seem to recycle some of their characters and make improvements on them. These characters retain many of the qualities that make them unique and are tweaked approriately to the animators’ discretion.

This week I commented on Ian Crawford’s blog and Kristina Wade’s blog

I just recently watched Pinochio for the first time in many years. It was interesting to see how most of the characters other than the fairy who brought him to life were animated much differently than the others. She was animated much more realistic looking than most of the other characters in the film.

A point to bring up in this movie though is the lack of political correctness of today in what the characters are doing and saying as well as some disturbing images that would probably frighten the children of today. For example there is the one scene of the fox smoking a cigar down the street and talking with his friend about schoolchildren. Had this been done today, people probably would have thought he was a child molester.

There is another scene of Pinochio smoking a cigar with his friend Lampwick as well as drinking alcohol. Lampwick is also seen smoking a cigar and drinking alcohol.

During this scene Lampwick is shown being transformed into a donkey and frantically running around screaming. His transformation is slow and appears to be very painful. It is done using almost all shadows. Had it been done today it would have been done using computer animation which would be less effective.

I commented on Kristina Wade’s blog and Ian Crawford’s blog

I stumbled upon an animated short named “Wild Dogs” made by Catherine Hicks, a Ringling College of Art and design student. Exaggeration is a key component of the short’s ability to giving her characters personality and is effective in conveying the plotline without any of these characters speaking in any intelligible manner. The facial expressions of the dogs show a wide variety of emotions on display.

Animation has come a long way since the days of Gertie the Dinosaur. These expressions on the dogs’ faces show alot more than the stomping of a happy dinosaur. The dogs are able to show confusion, doubt, surprise, etc. At one of the points in the animation, the shorter dog is able to deceive the other to take the entire dinosaur skeleton instead of just the one bone. Through the motioning of the hands and the widening of the eyes, the animator is able to depict this situation without words.

Although the plot is a bit generic and straightfoward, this animation strives in its ability to present its characters with personality. The taller dog definately appears to be more gullible while the shorter dog is manipulating and aggressive. The quick transitions and changes in their facial expressions is also very well done like the aggressive dog that goes from growling to an extremely happy grin as he looks down at the bones which he will soon have. These facial expressions are very anthropomorphic. For example when the dog is whining and pouting about his stash of bones. Unfortuantely I don’t think the background of this animation is very special so thankfully these characters have alot to offer personality-wise. After reading Ch. 3 of Mice and Magic I learned how the addition of sound to animation must have had huge impact on the way characters could be portrayed. Although this short doesn’t really have the characters speaking words, it does have them making sounds to display their emotions.

I commented on Phillip De Marco’s blog and Samantha Francis’ blog

South Park has always been one of my favorite shows on TV since I saw it when I was maybe 9 or 10 years old. I remember hearing all the hype about this crude show that no of the kids’ parents would let them watch but many of them did anyway. The creators of the show are Matt Stone and Trey Parker who were friends from college. They originally made the animated short “The Spirit of Christmas” with stop-motion animation using construction paper featuring Jesus and Santa fighting each other and early versions of the four kids of South Park. The short became immensely popular as it spread around the early days of the Internet. The pilot episode was also made of construction paper stop-motion animation. One can imagine how tedious this process must have been for the both of them.  This is the original Spirit of Christmas, please don’t watch if you are easily offended by foul language.

As you can see this is a very primitive version of what South Park would come to be. Each of the facial expressions are much more limited than they would be in  future episodes and the episodes of today. The simplicity of the animation in this and the early episodes of South Park are what captivated many people like myself to the show. While the Simpsons had the cel style, South Park had its own unique take on animation. I personally think the fact the animation wasn’t like what you would usually see made the show that much funnier. The show always has had controversy following it with its violence, profane language, sexual inneudos, and mocking of mainstream society.

The aspect of the show that has kept it fresh is its social commentary and political satire. The show has a habit of  making fun of both left and right wing views.  With the show’s animation now being done by Adobe Illustrator and a program called AutoDesk Maya, the show is able to make new episodes at an incredibly fast speed. In fact the episode about the election of Barack Obama was done less than a day after he was declared the winner in 2008.

As you can see the animation is very distant from the construction paper animation of the first episode. Stan’s dad Randy(the excited character) is hopping around with glee as his arms and legs are moving up and down. He runs from side to side with  his eyes looking up as if he is extremely grateful. There is no way that the construction paper stop motion could have showed those feelings.

South Park is still going strong into its 14th season and 13th year being on the air of Comedy Central. Some say that the show has lost its steam but I think its still great and America certainly supplies Matt and Trey with alot of great material.

I commented on Danyael Hughes’ blog and Myca Taylor’s blog.