cartoons

[egypturnash]

On Friday afternoon, I ended up finally watching a DVD I had lying around. It was a homebrew collection of B&W Popeye cartoons that one of the people at Spümcø had put together, and tossed a copy of at me. Just six shorts from1938, at very low compression ratios to allow for study and analysis, if I knew how to single-frame the PS2's DVD player, which I don't.

There was a smile on my face through every minute of this. The old Fleischer cartoons just never fail to amuse me. There's a joy in them, a love of the medium and the magic of it that's not always in even the most wonderful current stuff. Everything's funny-looking, and fully animated. The stories don't make sense; two of these six cartoons can be summed up as "Olive has a problem, Popeye spends a few minutes trying to solve it and fails, then eats spinach and does it in double-time... and just before the iris-out, everything breaks again". It's just absurdity.

I do still think that animation can tell some amazing, moving, serious stories... but damn, this reminded me that it's just the entertaining magic of moving drawings.

Plus Popeye and Bluto beating the shit out of each other never fails to amuse. Because each pounding is some kind of gag. I'm a little surprised to find myself still amused by watching two guys beat the hell out of each other as my attitudes change, but... Popeye and Bluto are funny beatings regardless of your hormones.

I was tempted to think of trying to screen-grab some cycles for LJ icons, but the only one that really looked good for that was the loop of Indians dancing around a fire in "Big Chief Hug-a-mug"*, and... eh. I have no idea what I'd use that for.

There's no deep meaning to this entry. Just a reminder that, damn, I'm a sucker for those old Fleischer cartoons from before they ruined themselves by trying to follow Disney's lead.

* Popeye and Olive are out west. Olive ends up in the hands of an Indian chief who needs a wifesquaw. Popeye fails to prove his manly worth until he eats spinach and pounds the whole all-male tribe into the ground. No, not very PC.

Comments

[perlandria.livejournal.com]

The ones with the opening and closing doors on the ship in the credits are always my favorites.
I hear ya.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Yeah, those are the Fleischer ones. <3 Popeye.

[perlandria.livejournal.com]

*giggles*
You think living with Paka, not just an animator but also a jew, I wouldn't know those were the Fleischer ones? <3 <3 <3 Fleischer!

[gen.livejournal.com]

I still adore the old Fleisher episodes of Superman. 'Realistic' animation, and yet the monsters and animals and things were still down in the boneless toony style. Plus back then it was logical for Superman to knock back lightning bolts by punching them. Ahh.. For the old days where radiation gave you superpowers....

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

I've only seen a couple of those. But Fleischer cartoons are just animated goodness. I need more of the early Betty Boops, fro mwhen she was still chased around by lechers...

[kamenkyote.livejournal.com]

Peggy, I can't recommend the Superman cartoons enough. They're public domain, and showing up on DVD for ridiculous prices. They REALLY define the 30s/40s Superman, better than their comic book counterpart, and actually suggested powers that appeared there first, before in the comic (I think X-Ray vision was one of these). Also, you can feel the heart, soul and love that was put into these. They compare to and outshine a lot of current day, if not most current day animation. They're especially powerful as there's so little dialogue. They just let Supes be himself.

Also, be on the lookout for the extra long Popeyes; I think there were a few, like "Aladdin and the 40 Thieves" that were like 17 minutes long.

-T'

[unciaa.livejournal.com]

I worship the original Superman cartoons. The style was... wow. :)

[dv-girl.livejournal.com]

Yay! Popeye! Have you ever tried to imitate his walk? it's insanely complex.

I love the old Popeye and am really scared to death of what the new CGI version is going to do to it. :/ I have a bad feeling.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

I like having a functioning spine - I've never tried doing Popeye's walk.

A CG Popeye? I hadn't heard. I do not want to imagine it. I really don't. Guh.

[dv-girl.livejournal.com]

I ment imitate his walk as an animation.

PS: Your add-comment thing is awsome!

[doodlesthegreat.livejournal.com]

The Fleischer cartoons are almost entirely gems. Have you ever seen any of their silet "Out of the Inkwell" series?

[mandrill.livejournal.com]

Any Fleischer cartoons are good. Even the primitive Koko the Clown and Inkwell shorts! I grew up watching and loving old Popeye cartoons but didn't discover the Betty Boop shorts until later on. Yes, you're right...it's too bad that the Fleischer studio later on weakened their own unique quality by trying to imitate Disney.

[radd.livejournal.com]

The Disney imitation was a big problem, and not at all limited to Fleischer. Dreamworks and Fox Animation suffered from that too, as well as others. I think it was a case of "Hey look! Those Disney folks are making money! Let's do exactly what they're doing, but poorly, so we can make some easy cash, too!"

I'm also dissapointed about the current ideas that CG is a replacement for tradtional animation, as if 3D CG models make pencil and paper obsolete. I've always thought that was just like saying that markers make paints obsolete!

But yea, a lot of the old Fleischer works are just grand. I think there's a DVD out with all their old Superman cartoons on it. In fact, I know there is because I almost bought it. It was cheap too, like 10 bucks, unfortunately at the time I was on a tight budget. You should keep an eye out for it, though.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

And lately Disney's been imitating Disney, too. So to speak. It's endemic to the entire American animation industry. Partially because in the early days, they were the leader in innovation, breaking new technical ground - though the Fleischer studios weren't without technical savvy: the invention of the rotoscope, and those wonderful turntable set shots - and being the first to dare a feature.

Imitating what you've seen work before kinda works okay, for a while. Doing something true to who you are might fail, but it might also succeed. It's a bigger risk with bigger potential results either way.

Yay business.

[radd.livejournal.com]

But if you continue to imitate, the audience gets tired of it. They stop going to your movies, because there's nothing original or new about them, and before you know it some moron jumps up and claims traditional animation is dead, and blames it's death on the people that wouldn't go to see his company's movies. This same idiot then goes on to claim that oranges make apples obsolete.

[kinkyturtle.livejournal.com]

This sort of thing always makes me think of Winsor McCay's comment to his contemporaries in the animation community in 1927:

"Animation should be an art ... what you fellows have done with it is making it into a trade ... not an art, but a trade ... bad luck."

'Course, the problem is that it's really hard to find people who are good at both artistic vision and business sense (for marketing that vision properly so that it'll find its audience).

[martes.livejournal.com]

I loved the old Fleischer Popeye shows. I particular like the ones where Popeye keeps muttering to himself.

[momentrabbit.livejournal.com]

Back in Animation History (Boffo class that), we reviewed a few Popeyes. According to the instructor, the original voice actor for Popeye was getting a little insistent on a raise: there was an animator who not only impersonated Popeye quite well, but mumbled commentary as Popeye to himself as he drew. The studio asked the animator if he'd like to do the voice work (as well as draw, I suppose), and he agreed: the rest, as they say, is history.

Which reminds me of Mel Blanc's commentary on how he got the job at Warner Bros. He finally got a chance to try out (a story in itself). They already had a guy for Porky Pig, but his stutter was genuine, and thus they went through /reams/ of tape recording him trying to read his lines: very time consuming, because he just couldn't get it out in a short fashion. Thus was Mel asked:

"Can you stutter?"
'Why, cer-tt-ter-se-cert-certai-ter-ter-ofcourseIc-c-can."
"Can you stop?"
'Sure.'

Beginning a long and fruitful career.

[lediva.livejournal.com]

if I knew how to single-frame the PS2's DVD player, which I don't.

Pressing select brings up a full menu of functions. I believe one of them is frame-by-frame.