Animation Art

[EddMarkStarr]

It wasn't that long ago when cartoons utilized detailed drawings, creating detailed backdrops for the foreground characters.
The 1964 Hanna-Barbera series, "Jonny Quest", brought comic book quality art to a television series. Makes me wish I had talent.

 

[Dargelos]

Animation the old fashioned way was so labour intensive, it needed vast teams of artists working all through the night. Some were talented, most were doing repetitive
jobs, copying and colouring, tedious time consuming work.
Old school animation's greatest masterpiece, just my opinion, was Tom And Jerry, The Night Before Christmas 1941
MGM had lots of money at the time and they could afford to spend whatever it took to create this sumptious visual quality. It was a wise investment as these old toons are still making a profit from them over eighty years later. Since the humour is all visual, they have been popular on TV all around the world no matter the language.
Full versions of TNBC keep getting deleted from YT for $$$ reasons, so instead use the link to the Archive;

The Night Before Christmas - (1941, Restored) : MGM : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

*HBO Max print Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for fair use for purposes such as criticism, comment,...

archive.org

 

[Peloso]

Animation the old fashioned way was so labour intensive, it needed vast teams of artists working all through the night. Some were talented, most were doing repetitive
jobs, copying and colouring, tedious time consuming work.
Old school animation's greatest masterpiece, just my opinion, was Tom And Jerry, The Night Before Christmas 1941
MGM had lots of money at the time and they could afford to spend whatever it took to create this sumptious visual quality. It was a wise investment as these old toons are still making a profit from them over eighty years later. Since the humour is all visual, they have been popular on TV all around the world no matter the language.

I was never a big fan of Tom and Jerry, but I still love the Warner Brothers stuff. Can't say whether the animation was better or worse than at MGM but the directors were better. So many iconic gags.

I can't stand all the Pixar computer generated stuff. It creeps me out, especially when humans are in them. It's too close to realistic, which lends them an almost nightmarishly surreal quality.

Ren & Stimpy took mayhem of the 40's and 50's cartoons one one-upped them. John K was a true maverick.

 

[EddMarkStarr]

Animation the old fashioned way was so labour intensive, it needed vast teams of artists working all through the night. Some were talented, most were doing repetitive
jobs, copying and colouring, tedious time consuming work.
Old school animation's greatest masterpiece, just my opinion, was Tom And Jerry, The Night Before Christmas 1941
MGM had lots of money at the time and they could afford to spend whatever it took to create this sumptious visual quality. It was a wise investment as these old toons are still making a profit from them over eighty years later. Since the humour is all visual, they have been popular on TV all around the world no matter the language.
Full versions of TNBC keep getting deleted from YT for $$$ reasons, so instead use the link to the Archive;

The Night Before Christmas - (1941, Restored) : MGM : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

*HBO Max print Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for fair use for purposes such as criticism, comment,...

archive.org

I still remember the Dick Tracy cartoon series from 1961 by UPA. It was pioneering the adoption of simple backdrops and limited character movements. Since it really came down to saving money, the UPA style of animation became the norm. No one took simplicity as far as Terrytoons Productions. Their cartoon series , "The Adventures of Tom Terrific", were so awful the characters didn't have consistent coloration throughout an entire episode. Even the lines representing Tom's clothes would disappear, then reappear at random. Maybe the lowest point in all of animation for television.

 

[Dargelos]

Oh no, Gene Deitch. He made 13 Tom And Jerry episodes in the sixties on a shoestring budget using Czech artists. The visual quality was so poor T&J fans call it blasphemous and yet his stories were wildly imaginative, they could have been good if they had spent any money at all making them. Greed, it ruins everything.

 

[EddMarkStarr]

Early Hanna-Barbera cartoons, like "Ruff and Reddy", used every trick in the book to keep costs low, but the stories were always cool.

 

[Dargelos]

Ruff And Reddy I have never heard of. The US had lots of TV channels so there was a demand for low budget material for the hick stations as well as the good stuff for the better ones. We only had two TV choices so we could be more fussy about what we imported. If we wanted crap animation we had our own;

Captain Pugwash makes South Park look sophisticated.

 

[TickTockMan]

Years ago I did a Kickstarter thing for hand drawn animation. I have always preferred it over the computer stuff.

Here is the first episode from that Kickstarter. It was made by a lot of ex-Disney artists.

 

[EddMarkStarr]

Ruff And Reddy I have never heard of. The US had lots of TV channels so there was a demand for low budget material for the hick stations as well as the good stuff for the better ones. We only had two TV choices so we could be more fussy about what we imported. If we wanted crap animation we had our own;

Captain Pugwash makes South Park look sophisticated.

Wow, I've never seen "limited animation" quite like this! But it works when conveying a story. I don't have anything from my past that compares to Captain Pugwash.

 

[EddMarkStarr]

Years ago I did a Kickstarter thing for hand drawn animation. I have always preferred it over the computer stuff.

Here is the first episode from that Kickstarter. It was made by a lot of ex-Disney artists.

Yes, I've heard that a group of animators want to keep mixed-media (hand drawn) animation alive in the 21st century.

MechWest is going in the opposite direction. They're all in for computer animation.

 

[TickTockMan]

Yes, I've heard that a group of animators want to keep mixed-media (hand drawn) animation alive in the 21st century.

MechWest is going in the opposite direction. They're all in for computer animation.

There is rumors in my Disney groups that Disney may greenlight a hand drawn film again soon. I hope it is true.

 

[EddMarkStarr]

There is rumors in my Disney groups that Disney may greenlight a hand drawn film again soon. I hope it is true.

Ohh Pleease Let It Happen!

Disney needs to break its losing streak and start producing art quality animation again.

 

[EddMarkStarr]

How's this for a setup?

In the 1950's, RCA had gathered one of the most expansive collections of recorded music, including music for children.
RCA's collection also included fairy tales set to music, and that prompted an idea.

Instead of allowing their collection to sit in a vault, RCA contracted with animators and cartoonists to adapt the music library into broadcast ready TV animation.
The animated series was called, "Mel-O-Toons", organized by New World Productions.

Note to spare use of color and the minimalist backdrops.
A cartoon series created from recorded musical fairy tales - take a look!