Baker's Animation Showcase

Come on in, come to the place where fun never ends. (Shenanigans!)

Moderator: Fizzbuzz

Mr. Big
User avatar
いいんですよ
Rarity's Roughnecks
Posts: 931
Joined: Mon Oct 30, 2017 11:00 pm
Gender: Male
Location: Tennessee
Contact:

Baker's Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Sun Jul 05, 2020 12:45 pm

I figure I should make this its own thread now.

Thread for indie animation. Whether old or new, student film or not, here's a thread for it.
Last edited by Mr. Big on Thu Aug 13, 2020 11:49 am, edited 1 time in total.

Mr. Big
User avatar
いいんですよ
Rarity's Roughnecks
Posts: 931
Joined: Mon Oct 30, 2017 11:00 pm
Gender: Male
Location: Tennessee
Contact:

Re: Indie Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Sun Jul 05, 2020 12:45 pm



Found this student film a while back. What has a cute style has a REALLY dark ending (that's thankfully off-screen :-I )

Mr. Big
User avatar
いいんですよ
Rarity's Roughnecks
Posts: 931
Joined: Mon Oct 30, 2017 11:00 pm
Gender: Male
Location: Tennessee
Contact:

Re: Indie Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Sun Jul 05, 2020 12:47 pm



I found out about Australian animator Felix Colgrave a while back. He has this really bizarre style that's also very beautifully done. Like imagine "Yellow Submarine", but even more trippy.

"Double King" is pretty much that. Somebody described the film as Looney Tunes meets Terry Gilliam, and...yeah, that sums it up.

According to Colgrave, it took 2 years to make this short. Truth to be told, I'm amazed it "only" took 2 years, due to the level of detail in the animation.

Mr. Big
User avatar
いいんですよ
Rarity's Roughnecks
Posts: 931
Joined: Mon Oct 30, 2017 11:00 pm
Gender: Male
Location: Tennessee
Contact:

Re: Indie Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Sun Jul 05, 2020 1:00 pm



One from 1959. Ernest Pintoff started out at UPA, and had a brief stint at Terrytoons (he directed a cartoon classic, "Flebus", there) before he founded his own studio. He made commercials there, but he used the profits he made to produce his own personal films, this being one of them.

"The Violinist" has a "be yourself" message that's probably done to death now, although I imagine in 1959 that wasn't as overdone. It's still a fun film with great music (composed by Pintoff himself). The late Carl Reiner did all the voices.

The film was nominated for an Oscar, but lost. Pintoff would later win few years later with "The Critic", which had Mel Brooks voicing. Pintoff eventually gave up animation altogether (according to Gene Deitch, he was "restless" when it came to the animation process) and went to directing live-action. He directed episodes of "Dallas", "Knot's Landing", "MacGyver", "Hawaii Five-O", and other shows before retiring. He died in 2002.

Mr. Big
User avatar
いいんですよ
Rarity's Roughnecks
Posts: 931
Joined: Mon Oct 30, 2017 11:00 pm
Gender: Male
Location: Tennessee
Contact:

Re: Indie Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Sun Jul 05, 2020 4:08 pm

This is a neat use of pixel animation that utilizes traditional animation techniques.


Madeline
never existed
Semper Pie
Posts: 1003
Joined: Tue Mar 20, 2018 3:45 pm

Re: Indie Animation Showcase

Post by Madeline (?) » Sun Jul 05, 2020 5:46 pm

Oh my, I was hoping for a thread like this!

Gonna start with a short Mr. Big already mentioned, “The Critic.” If only because I love Mel Brooks’s VA here :-I


Mr. Big
User avatar
いいんですよ
Rarity's Roughnecks
Posts: 931
Joined: Mon Oct 30, 2017 11:00 pm
Gender: Male
Location: Tennessee
Contact:

Re: Indie Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Sun Jul 05, 2020 6:49 pm

"This is cute. This is nice. WHAT THE HELL IS IT!?"

"Could this be the sex life of two things?"

Mr. Big
User avatar
いいんですよ
Rarity's Roughnecks
Posts: 931
Joined: Mon Oct 30, 2017 11:00 pm
Gender: Male
Location: Tennessee
Contact:

Re: Indie Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Sun Jul 05, 2020 6:57 pm

The story of how that cartoon came to be is great on its own. Brooks was at a movie theater that happened to be showing a Norman McLaren film. Behind him was an elderly Russian man who was complaining about the film throughout, wondering where the plot is. This inspired Brooks to commission Pintoff to make the short.

Brooks requested that Pintoff didn't show him any of the animation in advance. He was to improvise his dialogue as they were screening the finished film to him, which was recorded and dubbed in.

Here's a typical McLaren film to give you an idea of what they were like, which he co-directed with Evelyn Lambart. He pioneered in drawing directly onto film:


Mr. Big
User avatar
いいんですよ
Rarity's Roughnecks
Posts: 931
Joined: Mon Oct 30, 2017 11:00 pm
Gender: Male
Location: Tennessee
Contact:

Re: Indie Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Sun Jul 05, 2020 8:37 pm

While I'm on animation that was drawn directly onto motion picture film, I've been fond of "Kick Me", another Oscar-nominated film that I felt was well-deserved.


Mr. Big
User avatar
いいんですよ
Rarity's Roughnecks
Posts: 931
Joined: Mon Oct 30, 2017 11:00 pm
Gender: Male
Location: Tennessee
Contact:

Re: Indie Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Sun Jul 05, 2020 8:52 pm

I wonder if the projectionist screening this for the first time freaked out near the end, when the film appears to melt on-screen :-I

Mr. Big
User avatar
いいんですよ
Rarity's Roughnecks
Posts: 931
Joined: Mon Oct 30, 2017 11:00 pm
Gender: Male
Location: Tennessee
Contact:

Re: Indie Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Mon Jul 06, 2020 1:27 am



Another Ernest Pintoff cartoon. Dayton Allen, who did the voices, was a regular voice actor for Terrytoons in the 1960s. He did Deputy Dawg, for example.

Also, I noticed that Len Glasser did the designs. I actually met him several years ago in LA, when he was part of the older animators' hangout that I was invited to go to. He was funny, but also cantankerous (I think he had less kind things to say about Terrytoons head Bill Weiss than Gene Deitch did, which is amazing when you consider how much Deitch fucking hated Weiss).

I showed Glasser some drawings I did and basically said they stunk. However, few years later Glasser wrote on Facebook that he really loved another drawing I did, so I guess by then I improved enough. :-I

!saak
User avatar
🎜 joie de vivre 🎜
Semper Pie
Posts: 97
Joined: Tue Oct 31, 2017 3:50 am

Re: Indie Animation Showcase

Post by !saak (?) » Mon Jul 06, 2020 4:23 am

heck yeah! thanks for sharing!

Mr. Big
User avatar
いいんですよ
Rarity's Roughnecks
Posts: 931
Joined: Mon Oct 30, 2017 11:00 pm
Gender: Male
Location: Tennessee
Contact:

Re: Indie Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Mon Jul 06, 2020 11:17 am

I've been a fan of DeadlyComics since his days of doing Pony fan animation. He's since done shorts featuring his own characters. He has a way of combining 2D drawn animation with CG elements.


Mr. Big
User avatar
いいんですよ
Rarity's Roughnecks
Posts: 931
Joined: Mon Oct 30, 2017 11:00 pm
Gender: Male
Location: Tennessee
Contact:

Re: Indie Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Mon Jul 06, 2020 11:57 am



With me going on about Ernest Pintoff, here's his most well-known cartoon, "Flebus", produced in CinemaScope at Terrytoons under Gene Deitch's reign.

The fact that this cartoon came out of Terrytoons, a studio not known for being artistically daring, is amazing.

Also, this is an excuse for me to talk about the cartoon's animator, Jim Tyer. Tyer was already an "old guy" in the animation biz by the time this cartoon went into production, having started during the silent movie days, but he was known for his surreal, stretchy-squashy animation, experimenting a lot with it. This is especially more pronounced when he joined Terrytoons; his animation was, often time, the best part about the cartoons. Here's a sample of his animation work:



Supposedly Tyer was one of the few veteran animators at Terrytoons that embraced the kind of change Gene Deitch brought to the studio. Some say he took the new direction as a challenge for him, and did some great animation during this time at the studio. "Flebus" is probably a culmination of that era for Tyer.

Tyer's style was visible even during the limited animation era of TV cartoons. He animated a bunch of "Felix the Cat" cartoons for television, and even though those cartoons had no screen credits (a common practice with a lot of early TV cartoons), his animation is extremely easy to spot.

Oddly, despite his willingness to experiment and do crazy animation, Tyer was also a rather uptight Catholic. The last thing Tyer did was animating for Ralph Bakshi's "Fritz the Cat". Tyer was disgusted by the debauchery in the cartoon's storyline, so much so that after he turned his scenes in to Bakshi, he cursed to himself and retired from animation for good. He died in 1976.

Mr. Big
User avatar
いいんですよ
Rarity's Roughnecks
Posts: 931
Joined: Mon Oct 30, 2017 11:00 pm
Gender: Male
Location: Tennessee
Contact:

Re: Indie Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Mon Jul 06, 2020 12:59 pm



"Quasi at the Quackadero" was made by Sally Cruikshank, who was one of the big names in the independent animation circle in the 1970s. The style can be described as "what if Max Fleischer's studio was still around in the 1970s". She made the film while working at E.E. Gregg Snazelle's studio (who received a "special thanks" credit in the titles). She talked about her experience working on the film:
The job was to experiment with animation, and do commercials for him when the jobs came in. He also hoped I'd figure out how to solve 3-d without glasses. Needless to say I didn't solve 3-d. I didn't even do very many commercials over ten years, but I showed up at 8:30, took an hour off for lunch and worked till 5:30. I was paid $350 a month, and I could live on that then. He encouraged me generously without ever paying much attention to me. These days if an opportunity like that even existed, you'd be forced to sign all kinds of rights statements for characters and content created, but this was before Star Wars and he just seemed to be happy to have me around. We were never particularly close. It spoiled me for any job after that. I made all my 'Quasi' films while I was working at Snazelle
She was living and working in San Francisco at the time. According to her, it was possible to make a living there with $350 a month in the 1970s. Wow, times really did change :-I

Mr. Big
User avatar
いいんですよ
Rarity's Roughnecks
Posts: 931
Joined: Mon Oct 30, 2017 11:00 pm
Gender: Male
Location: Tennessee
Contact:

Re: Indie Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Mon Jul 06, 2020 11:16 pm



Another Felix Colgrave short I liked. This was made for Adult Swim

Mr. Big
User avatar
いいんですよ
Rarity's Roughnecks
Posts: 931
Joined: Mon Oct 30, 2017 11:00 pm
Gender: Male
Location: Tennessee
Contact:

Re: Indie Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Tue Jul 07, 2020 12:46 am



Since I mentioned Norman McLaren, here's a documentary showing him work.

In this film, he literally DREW the soundtrack. This documentary explains how it's done.

Mr. Big
User avatar
いいんですよ
Rarity's Roughnecks
Posts: 931
Joined: Mon Oct 30, 2017 11:00 pm
Gender: Male
Location: Tennessee
Contact:

Re: Indie Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Tue Jul 07, 2020 12:03 pm



Another student film, this one from Canada. This is pretty cute :allears:

Be sure to watch the credits.

Mr. Big
User avatar
いいんですよ
Rarity's Roughnecks
Posts: 931
Joined: Mon Oct 30, 2017 11:00 pm
Gender: Male
Location: Tennessee
Contact:

Re: Indie Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Tue Jul 07, 2020 1:49 pm



Another student film. Jon Minnis did this during a summer program at Sheridan College in Canada, producing the film in only 3 months (which he was able to do because he planned the whole thing out in advance before taking the course, thus giving him more time to animate the film during that time frame).

The film did well in film festival circuits and won Minnis an Oscar for Best Animated Short, making it one of the very few student films to win the award. Minnis later had a career in TV animation, having directed episodes of a show called "What's With Andy?"

Mr. Big
User avatar
いいんですよ
Rarity's Roughnecks
Posts: 931
Joined: Mon Oct 30, 2017 11:00 pm
Gender: Male
Location: Tennessee
Contact:

Re: Indie Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Tue Jul 07, 2020 1:51 pm

Also, PPPP is represented in the end of the film :-I

Mr. Big
User avatar
いいんですよ
Rarity's Roughnecks
Posts: 931
Joined: Mon Oct 30, 2017 11:00 pm
Gender: Male
Location: Tennessee
Contact:

Re: Indie Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Tue Jul 07, 2020 6:46 pm

Before creating "Wander Over Yonder", "Foster's Home", and "Powerpuff Girls", heck, before he started working for Cartoon Network, Craig McCracken's best known creation was "No Neck Joe", a series of shorts he did for Spike & Mike's Sick and Twisted Animation Festival.

Yeah, that was the actual name of the festival. There were actually a mixed group of animation there (Don Hertzfeldt and John Dilworth were both regulars years ago), although some of them definitely fall into "Sick"

Anyway, so what was "No Neck Joe" about? It's about a kid who has no neck.

That....that's it.



The animation's definitely on the crude side; Craig McCracken has a great design and storytelling sense, but he was never that skilled as an animator compared to Genndy Tartakovsky and Lauren Faust, both of whom can animate really well. Craig was heavily inspired by early Hanna-Barbera cartoons like "The Flintstones" and "Yogi Bear" and it's especially apparent here.

Mr. Big
User avatar
いいんですよ
Rarity's Roughnecks
Posts: 931
Joined: Mon Oct 30, 2017 11:00 pm
Gender: Male
Location: Tennessee
Contact:

Re: Indie Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Tue Jul 07, 2020 7:57 pm

Another regular from Spike & Mike was Mike Judge, who did a few independent animation back in the day, including the original version of "Beavis and Butt-Head". He did two shorts featuring the characters for the film festival circuit before MTV picked it up ("Frog Baseball" and "Peace, Love, and Understanding").

Here's one he did, featuring a proto version of Bill from "King of the Hill".


Mr. Big
User avatar
いいんですよ
Rarity's Roughnecks
Posts: 931
Joined: Mon Oct 30, 2017 11:00 pm
Gender: Male
Location: Tennessee
Contact:

Re: Indie Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Wed Jul 08, 2020 12:32 am



Oh this is a neat one. A student film that Steve Hillenburg (late creator of "SpongeBob") did while studying at CalArts. It was shown in a bunch of film festivals, including the Ottawa International Animation Festival. Joe Murray also had a film in the same competition, "My Dog Zero", and happened to see Hillenburg's cartoon at the screening.

He was in the process of starting up production of "Rocko's Modern Life", and was impressed by Hillenburg's film enough to offer him a job directing on the show. The rest is history.

Mr. Big
User avatar
いいんですよ
Rarity's Roughnecks
Posts: 931
Joined: Mon Oct 30, 2017 11:00 pm
Gender: Male
Location: Tennessee
Contact:

Re: Indie Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Wed Jul 08, 2020 12:46 pm

I saw this cartoon a while ago. I won't link it here because of its nature (the link I gave goes to an article ABOUT the film), but imagine if Newgrounds was around in 1989 :-I

Mr. Big
User avatar
いいんですよ
Rarity's Roughnecks
Posts: 931
Joined: Mon Oct 30, 2017 11:00 pm
Gender: Male
Location: Tennessee
Contact:

Re: Indie Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Wed Jul 08, 2020 2:43 pm



Something from Italy. Bruno Bozzetto has a long career in animation, being one of the big name animators in Italy since the 1960s. He even did some amusing Flash animation during the early years of the medium.

His frequently used character is Mr. Rossi, who appeared in numerous short films and some feature films. The best known is probably the first one, "An Award for Mr. Rossi", embed above.

Mr. Big
User avatar
いいんですよ
Rarity's Roughnecks
Posts: 931
Joined: Mon Oct 30, 2017 11:00 pm
Gender: Male
Location: Tennessee
Contact:

Re: Indie Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Wed Jul 08, 2020 5:16 pm



John Dilworth is best known for creating "Courage the Cowardly Dog", which aired on Cartoon Network for 4 seasons (and rerun for years afterwards), but he's very much an indie filmmaker who has numerous short films under his belt. He's still making them today, in fact (and he has a YouTube channel showing his behind-the-scenes processes).

He already had several shorts made before he got to "The Dirdy Birdy", but it's the one that made his "mark", and the one where his trademark style is on full display. It was a favorite in film festivals, including Spike and Mike, and aired on MTV.

And it's a hilarious cartoon.

Mr. Big
User avatar
いいんですよ
Rarity's Roughnecks
Posts: 931
Joined: Mon Oct 30, 2017 11:00 pm
Gender: Male
Location: Tennessee
Contact:

Re: Indie Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Wed Jul 08, 2020 5:34 pm



A student film that's very much inspired by classic cartoons (the "fuck" bomb notwithstanding). I like it.

Mr. Big
User avatar
いいんですよ
Rarity's Roughnecks
Posts: 931
Joined: Mon Oct 30, 2017 11:00 pm
Gender: Male
Location: Tennessee
Contact:

Re: Indie Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Wed Jul 08, 2020 10:57 pm



I talked about Deitch a lot, so here's something he actually directed. "Munro" was based on a story Jules Feiffer did for his compilation book; he previously worked with Deitch at Terrytoons, being one of the writers on the cartoon "Tom Terrific". The story centers around a 4-year old boy who gets drafted into an army.

Deitch was ousted from Terrytoons at this point (a story of its own) and as with most ex-UPA staff, opened his own studio, Gene Deitch Associates. It was a dream project of his to adapt Feiffer's story to animation, but he had trouble seeking funding. As he himself noted, this is an anti-military cartoon, something that was rather risky to produce during the anti-communism movement and the US government taking close look at Hollywood for subversive messages (Deitch himself strongly denied he was a communist and said he wanted nothing to do with it).

He had storyboards done at his studio, looking for a way to get it made, when a film producer named William L. Snyder came to meet with him. Snyder had a deal with a studio in Czechoslovakia to produce cartoons on the cheap and was looking for an American animator to send there to supervise production. Deitch was reluctant, until Snyder noticed the storyboards for Deitch's "dream project". So he made an offer: he'll finance the cartoon's production on the condition that he goes to Prague.

Deitch figured he'd only spend a year at most in Prague and return to the US; he ended up staying there for the rest of his life.

"Munro" did get made, with animation done in Prague. It went on to win an Oscar for Best Animated Short, which profoundly changed Deitch's career. The Oscar win enabled him to get more work, including the rather polarizing "Tom and Jerry" revival, "Krazy Kat" and "Popeye" TV cartoons, and a bunch of personal projects that he convinced Snyder to bankroll, including a dozen "Nudnik" cartoons that got theatrical distribution through Paramount.

It's a good cartoon overall. Gene's then-3 year old son, Seth, voiced Munro. His former wife, Marie, voiced Munro's mom and the little girl. Majority of the voices, including the narration, were done by Howard Morris, who had a long career in film and animation. People who grew up in the 1980s and 1990s will know him best for Wade Duck in "Garfield and Friends" and Flem (Chicken's best friend) in "Cow and Chicken".

Mr. Big
User avatar
いいんですよ
Rarity's Roughnecks
Posts: 931
Joined: Mon Oct 30, 2017 11:00 pm
Gender: Male
Location: Tennessee
Contact:

Re: Indie Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Thu Jul 09, 2020 1:49 pm



"The Ant and the Aardvark" was one of the later theatrical series to come out when those were very much fallen out of favor with television becoming the dominant force, but DePatie-Freleng had a contract to produce something like 300 cartoons for United Artists. The 17 cartoons later proved to be popular when they were eventually shown in television on Saturday mornings.

This one was written by Irv Spector, who was a long-time storyman for Famous Studios. It's a rather funny cartoon where the Aardvark uses a computer (who talks like Paul Lynde) to learn how to catch an Ant. John Byner voices all three characters.

This one also got censored when it aired on television. Around the 3 minute mark, when Ant says "Man, he must be having a bad trip" after Aardvark accidentally sprays himself with bug spray. It was either redubbed with a completely different line (taken from another cartoon), or spliced off altogether so it just showed the Ant standing in reaction. The original version was finally restored during the 2000s.

Mr. Big
User avatar
いいんですよ
Rarity's Roughnecks
Posts: 931
Joined: Mon Oct 30, 2017 11:00 pm
Gender: Male
Location: Tennessee
Contact:

Re: Indie Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Thu Jul 09, 2020 2:06 pm



This is a very late cartoon from the Terrytoons studio, released in 1965, but they were still trying out new characters with mixed success. The idea with "Sad Cat" is that he's a male Cinderella if even more shabby and miserable.

The character wouldn't be notable if it wern't for the person who directed his early cartoons: Ralph Bakshi. Bakshi joined Terrytoons in the late 1950s as a cel inker, but he eventually rose the ranks to animator, then finally director. The above cartoon, "Gadmouse the Apprentice Good Fairy", was Bakshi's first cartoon as a director.

However, Bakshi found that being a director at Terrytoons didn't really mean much. Unlike, say, Looney Tunes, where the directors like Chuck Jones controlled all aspect of the production, directors at Terrytoons were really glorified animation supervisors. The storyboards and the voice track were controlled by the story supervisor (in this case Tom Morrison), and the directors were expected to take what was already approved and have it animated. The production pipeline at Terrytoons was an early version of how TV animation studios would make cartoons.

Not that this didn't stop Bakshi from giving it a persona touch. As he said in later interviews and autobiography, he would take the pre-approved soundtrack and recut them (or in his own words, "fuck with it") just so he can say it was his own thing. Not only that, Bakshi often animated the cartoons he was assigned to direct himself.

"Gadmouse" is no exception, as Bakshi did all of the animation himself. Including this:

Image

:-I

Mr. Big
User avatar
いいんですよ
Rarity's Roughnecks
Posts: 931
Joined: Mon Oct 30, 2017 11:00 pm
Gender: Male
Location: Tennessee
Contact:

Re: Indie Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Thu Jul 09, 2020 6:54 pm



Here's an anime. "Kitten's Studio" from 1959, produced by Toei Animation and directed by Yasuji Mori.

Yasuji Mori was an animator with a long career in anime best known for his appealing designs. He was most likely the first true "sakkan" (animation director) in the business, where he would supervise other animators' drawings and make corrections so that they're on model. Mori had a really appealing character design and had a long career doing that and animation direction. He most notably trained Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata when they joined Toei, learning the skills from him.

Mr. Big
User avatar
いいんですよ
Rarity's Roughnecks
Posts: 931
Joined: Mon Oct 30, 2017 11:00 pm
Gender: Male
Location: Tennessee
Contact:

Re: Indie Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Thu Jul 09, 2020 10:35 pm



I don't have much to say about this one other than that I remember seeing it years ago on AtomFilms (remember that?).

Keith Thomson, who directed this, was a former editorial cartoonist. It's pretty obvious just looking at it.

Mr. Big
User avatar
いいんですよ
Rarity's Roughnecks
Posts: 931
Joined: Mon Oct 30, 2017 11:00 pm
Gender: Male
Location: Tennessee
Contact:

Re: Indie Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Fri Jul 10, 2020 3:46 pm

When the Pink Panther (and other DePatie-Freleng) theatrical cartoons started airing on Saturday Morning television, they would fill up the half-hour timeslot by creating filler interstitial bumpers to fill in the gaps the shorts can't fill. Many feature the Panther, but they also created ones featuring the Inspector, Ant & Aardvark, and others.

Here's a complete set of bumpers with the Ant & Aardvark. One thing you may notice is that they're mostly pantomimes. They were done to avoid bringing back John Byner to do the voices. Many of them feature a narrator (done by Marvin Miller) interacting with the characters, though.

These bumpers are still neat, however. I wish the DVD releases feature them as bonus materials:


Mr. Big
User avatar
いいんですよ
Rarity's Roughnecks
Posts: 931
Joined: Mon Oct 30, 2017 11:00 pm
Gender: Male
Location: Tennessee
Contact:

Re: Indie Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Fri Jul 10, 2020 11:29 pm



This came out today. A pilot of sorts for a webcomic coming soon. This is REALLY fun.

Mr. Big
User avatar
いいんですよ
Rarity's Roughnecks
Posts: 931
Joined: Mon Oct 30, 2017 11:00 pm
Gender: Male
Location: Tennessee
Contact:

Re: Indie Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Sat Jul 11, 2020 3:43 am



About half of the Blue Racer cartoons takes place in Japan for some reason. Or rather, a stereotypical version of Japan. Early cartoons had the titular snake chase after the Japanese Beetle, who was an expert in karate.

As you can imagine, it wasn't exactly the most sensitive portrayal of the Japanese people, which makes this one a curious entry in the series. For this one cartoon they brought Mako to voice the Japanese rooster.

Yes, THAT Mako. The same one who would voice Aku and Iroh decades later. This cartoon was his first voice acting in animation, and one thing I noticed? His voice wasn't that far-off than in his better-known roles in "Samurai Jack" and "Avatar".

There's still stereotypes present. Note the sign says "Finger Ricking Good Flied Chicken." :-I

Mr. Big
User avatar
いいんですよ
Rarity's Roughnecks
Posts: 931
Joined: Mon Oct 30, 2017 11:00 pm
Gender: Male
Location: Tennessee
Contact:

Re: Indie Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Sat Jul 11, 2020 4:14 am

With all the talk about indie animation, I should share something from the granddaddy of 'em all, Bill Plympton.

Plympton got his career going doing newspaper cartoons for weekly alternative papers throughout the 1970s and '80s, doing illustration work for numerous clients, but he's always had an itch for animation.

In the 1980s he was able to get some animation stuff going. He did a couple of films when he was asked to animate a music video based on a song Jules Feiffer wrote, "Boomtown". Plympton wound up doing it pro-bono because they had no money in the budget, only agreeing to it because he wanted to animate something.

The experience turned out to be a positive one for Plympton, and it made him want to take a crack at it. He heard that one can probably make animation on the cheap for $1,000 per minute. Plympton, realizing he has a thousand bucks to spare, decided to self-finance his next film, which turned out to be "Your Face"



"Your Face" wasn't Plympton's first film, as I indicated earlier, but it was the first one to feature his trademark style. The film wound up being a hit, appearing in festivals, cable television, even gained an Oscar nomination. Thus began Plympton's independent animation empire.

Plympton has a strict mantra he follows: his films has to be cheap, funny, and short. He maintains he still follows the "one thousand per minute" rule for his budget in order to guarantee he recoups his budget easily, although there were times he admitted went overbudget.

Plympton even created multiple animated features, all animated by himself. Gotta say, it's working well for him.

Incidentally, Plympton later remade "Your Face" as a couch gag for "The Simpsons", with Homer in its place:



Maureen McElheron sang the song in the original short; Plympton slowed her recording down to make it sound deep.

Mr. Big
User avatar
いいんですよ
Rarity's Roughnecks
Posts: 931
Joined: Mon Oct 30, 2017 11:00 pm
Gender: Male
Location: Tennessee
Contact:

Re: Indie Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Sun Jul 12, 2020 12:05 pm



1960s was a dreadful period for Looney Tunes, with a slew of unfunny Daffy and Speedy cartoons, budget cuts, and the introduction of rather forgettable new characters like Cool Cat and Merlin the Magic Mouse.

However, they occasionally put out interesting cartoons during this period that stood out, and I count "Norman Normal" amongst those. Neither a Looney Tune or a Merrie Melodie, but a "Cartoon Special", the short was based on a song by Peter, Paul and Mary. The cartoon was sort of a "things happen" short about a man who meets with his boss, talks to his dad who doesn't understand him, and goes to a party. It had a social commentary theme going, although exactly what the message is is kinda muddled.

Still, gotta hand it to Alex Lovy and Bill Hendricks for trying something different during this rather poor period of Warner cartoons. Worth watching at least once.

(Sorry for the abbreviated clip above. It's all I can find on YouTube. You should be able to find a full cartoon if you search around *cough*)

Mr. Big
User avatar
いいんですよ
Rarity's Roughnecks
Posts: 931
Joined: Mon Oct 30, 2017 11:00 pm
Gender: Male
Location: Tennessee
Contact:

Re: Indie Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Sun Jul 12, 2020 12:28 pm



"Nudnik" was a series of 12 cartoons Gene Deitch made in Prague, which had distribution in the US by Paramount Pictures. Paramount still had Famous Studios (barely) going at this time, but they were willing to pick up cartoons from outside producers to be released alongside their in-house stuff. They released several from Deitch and John Hubley, likely fueled by their Oscar nods.

Nudnik was influenced by the silent films featuring the likes of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, featuring a homeless man trying to make it in their lives. However, Nudnik had an extraordinary bad luck. Everything was after him, whether it was other people, animals, or even inanimate objects. Even the opening intro, where Nudnik fails at nailing a poster, indicates what the cartoon is like.

Nudnik may very well be the most miserable character ever. I showed a few Nudnik cartoons on group streams a few times, and I recall the reactions were mixed, mainly because wow, everyone hated the poor shlub.

Nudnik is a pantomime series, but a couple of later ones had Gene Deitch narrating due to Paramount requesting it because they felt pantomime cartoons "don't sell" (which is an odd thing to say when you consider the most successful theatrical cartoon in this period was the "Pink Panther", which had no dialogues). Deitch said adding narration to the cartoons was akin to "peeing on a perfectly good soup".

Mr. Big
User avatar
いいんですよ
Rarity's Roughnecks
Posts: 931
Joined: Mon Oct 30, 2017 11:00 pm
Gender: Male
Location: Tennessee
Contact:

Re: Indie Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Sun Jul 12, 2020 12:34 pm



Everybody knows this one, but Don Hertzfeldt uploaded a HD restoration on his official YouTube channel, so here it is.

What else can I say other than "brilliant"? Just one:

"My spoon is too big!" :-P

Mr. Big
User avatar
いいんですよ
Rarity's Roughnecks
Posts: 931
Joined: Mon Oct 30, 2017 11:00 pm
Gender: Male
Location: Tennessee
Contact:

Re: Indie Animation Showcase

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Tue Jul 14, 2020 11:58 am



John Hubley certainly had an active career in animation. Originally at Disney, he left during the strike and found work at Screen Gems, Columbia's animation studio, before he got involved in UPA, where he became creative director. He had a hand in developing Mr. Magoo and directing his early outings. However, his stay at UPA would not last. The HUAC started sniffing around the studio looking for communists. He refused to name names and was forced out of UPA.

This did not damage his career; he started his own studio, Storyboard Inc., and had a long and prosperous career in commercials. This was because commercials have no screen credits (thus Hubley's name wouldn't be present), and also because HUAC never bothered to look into the commercial side of the film business. It was barely on their radar.

Hubley got a LOT of work doing commercials and made a comfortable living through them. He used the profits he made from making advertisements to finance his personal films, which he made with his wife Faith Elliott. One of those was "Moonbird", which featured their sons Mark and Hampy doing voices. The film shows Hubley experimenting more than his UPA films. Very nicely done.

Post Reply