Um...
Here's a few thoughts I found floating around inside my head today. I thought you might like to read them.
I received in the mail today my copy of the Garbage Pail Kids cartoon series on a 2-disc DVD set. Perhaps I should have taken it as a foreshadowing of things to come when, after I wrestled my way through the two layers of plastic and sticker protection, I saw the sloppy disc art inside. It's hard to describe, but suffice it to say that somebody over at the DVD production people for CBS doesn't at all have an eye for what discs should look like. Aside from that, there was no booklet. I dunno, maybe an episode guide would have been in order? I have watched two episodes so far. At worst, I figured this cartoon series would have been typical of the cartoons I watched as a child. I missed the He-Man and Transformers and Thundercats stuff by a few years, so I grew up with Police Academy, the Real Ghostbusters, Beany and Cecil, Garfield & Friends, the Addams Family, and to a lesser extent Alvin & the Chipmunks, in addition to older Warner Bros., Hanna-Barbera, and Walter Lantz cartoons, which still were always on television somewhere. And as this cartoon was slated to come out in about 1987/88 or so, I figured it would be somewhere in the range of the new shows on the air back then. What I was really hoping for, at best, was something along the lines of some good old Ruby-Spears animation.
Gosh, I don't even know where to start, I have so many things to say about this cartoon. First of all the theme song is just some guy singing "Oh-oh-oh-oh, nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh, nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh". The show is broken up into your typical two ten-minute segments, the first with random characters, the second with the main "Kids" of the show, with some other shorts in between. I think my main complaint is the writing of the show. First of all, there's nothing funny in the show at all. The plots are shoddy, nor does one scene flow into another very well. I wish I had a better website so I could go through one particular episode and explain what I'm talking about here, but suffice it to say that my little brother could have done a better job coming up with a storyline for the show. And you can tell that whoever was writing the show actually tried to throw some jokes in there--mostly visual stuff that was happening sort of anti-climactically, at the end of a scene, by a minor character, which is not where your attention wants to be drawn, unless it's very, very funny. Aside from that, the artwork and animation of the show was really sub-par, even worse than many of the stiff, flat shows I watched as a child. The lip-syncing only works about 95% percent of the time--sure, you say, that's a lot, but you notice the 5%. Or at least I do.
Am I being nitpicky here? Do I really have a good vantage point from which to criticize? I mean, come on, the cartoon I did was crappy at best. Pretty dang good for my abilities and the time I spent, but that's only because my drawing ability isn't completely crap. While my drawing and animation abilities are still far below that of the people who had to paint every frame of the Garbage Pail Kids cartoon, I'd like to think I know a little bit of what makes good cartoons, even if only second-hand. You see, I've been reading John Kricfalusi's blog lately. John K., in case you don't already know, is the creator of Ren & Stimpy. Yes, Ren & Stimpy in the early 90's was pretty raunchy (though, believe me, heavily watered down by network execs), and the newer episodes on Spike are even worse (from what I hear; I haven't watched them). But doggone it, that's some sweet artwork. John K.'s secret is that he looks to early cartoons for his work. I'm beginning to get the impression that the early animators knew a lot more about cartooning than people nowadays. You'd think it would be the other way around, right? Techniques would get handed down and improved upon, new styles would emerge, and innovation would abound, right? Decades down the road, we should have the best cartoons ever made, right? *Ahem*. May I direct you once more to the Garfield 2 trailer below? Sure, CG is great visually, but look at the content.
And again, the Garbage Pail Kids cartoon. I've heard John K. complain alot about the flat, lifeless characters in most cartoons in the past twenty or thirty years. Compared to the stuff his Spumco people put out, he's totally right. The GPK 'toon looks obviously like it was produced solely to milk a little more money out of the Garbage Pail Kids craze. There was no great single idea pushing the show, or wish to make it any better than any other show on air then. No, they just wanted to sell some more toys. There was lots of protest against the show getting on TV before it was to air--in fact, it got pulled from CBS's Saturday Morning line-up almost right before it aired. But, you know, I think letting the show air would have done more to kill interest in GPK than anything else. I hate to say this, but it will be a little bit of a struggle to watch the other 11 episodes.
Speaking of John K., though, looking at the artwork on his website really sobers me up as an artist. Man, do I ever suck at drawing. I don't draw nearly enough. I should be drawing every chance I get, trying out new looks and poses and directions to take my art. Maybe some day I'll get good at it. Until then, I'll just try to make more flat, crappy cartoons with Flash and hope that maybe the hilarious jokes will make up for it.
Geez, what a rambling, unorganized post that was. Sorry to make you suffer through that. I just had to get my thoughts all out, irrelevant though they may have been. I have other thoughts, too, but perhaps that's enough for one night? Thanks, whoever's reading this (which, at this point, may be nobody at all, I dunno).
I received in the mail today my copy of the Garbage Pail Kids cartoon series on a 2-disc DVD set. Perhaps I should have taken it as a foreshadowing of things to come when, after I wrestled my way through the two layers of plastic and sticker protection, I saw the sloppy disc art inside. It's hard to describe, but suffice it to say that somebody over at the DVD production people for CBS doesn't at all have an eye for what discs should look like. Aside from that, there was no booklet. I dunno, maybe an episode guide would have been in order? I have watched two episodes so far. At worst, I figured this cartoon series would have been typical of the cartoons I watched as a child. I missed the He-Man and Transformers and Thundercats stuff by a few years, so I grew up with Police Academy, the Real Ghostbusters, Beany and Cecil, Garfield & Friends, the Addams Family, and to a lesser extent Alvin & the Chipmunks, in addition to older Warner Bros., Hanna-Barbera, and Walter Lantz cartoons, which still were always on television somewhere. And as this cartoon was slated to come out in about 1987/88 or so, I figured it would be somewhere in the range of the new shows on the air back then. What I was really hoping for, at best, was something along the lines of some good old Ruby-Spears animation.
Gosh, I don't even know where to start, I have so many things to say about this cartoon. First of all the theme song is just some guy singing "Oh-oh-oh-oh, nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh, nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh". The show is broken up into your typical two ten-minute segments, the first with random characters, the second with the main "Kids" of the show, with some other shorts in between. I think my main complaint is the writing of the show. First of all, there's nothing funny in the show at all. The plots are shoddy, nor does one scene flow into another very well. I wish I had a better website so I could go through one particular episode and explain what I'm talking about here, but suffice it to say that my little brother could have done a better job coming up with a storyline for the show. And you can tell that whoever was writing the show actually tried to throw some jokes in there--mostly visual stuff that was happening sort of anti-climactically, at the end of a scene, by a minor character, which is not where your attention wants to be drawn, unless it's very, very funny. Aside from that, the artwork and animation of the show was really sub-par, even worse than many of the stiff, flat shows I watched as a child. The lip-syncing only works about 95% percent of the time--sure, you say, that's a lot, but you notice the 5%. Or at least I do.
Am I being nitpicky here? Do I really have a good vantage point from which to criticize? I mean, come on, the cartoon I did was crappy at best. Pretty dang good for my abilities and the time I spent, but that's only because my drawing ability isn't completely crap. While my drawing and animation abilities are still far below that of the people who had to paint every frame of the Garbage Pail Kids cartoon, I'd like to think I know a little bit of what makes good cartoons, even if only second-hand. You see, I've been reading John Kricfalusi's blog lately. John K., in case you don't already know, is the creator of Ren & Stimpy. Yes, Ren & Stimpy in the early 90's was pretty raunchy (though, believe me, heavily watered down by network execs), and the newer episodes on Spike are even worse (from what I hear; I haven't watched them). But doggone it, that's some sweet artwork. John K.'s secret is that he looks to early cartoons for his work. I'm beginning to get the impression that the early animators knew a lot more about cartooning than people nowadays. You'd think it would be the other way around, right? Techniques would get handed down and improved upon, new styles would emerge, and innovation would abound, right? Decades down the road, we should have the best cartoons ever made, right? *Ahem*. May I direct you once more to the Garfield 2 trailer below? Sure, CG is great visually, but look at the content.
And again, the Garbage Pail Kids cartoon. I've heard John K. complain alot about the flat, lifeless characters in most cartoons in the past twenty or thirty years. Compared to the stuff his Spumco people put out, he's totally right. The GPK 'toon looks obviously like it was produced solely to milk a little more money out of the Garbage Pail Kids craze. There was no great single idea pushing the show, or wish to make it any better than any other show on air then. No, they just wanted to sell some more toys. There was lots of protest against the show getting on TV before it was to air--in fact, it got pulled from CBS's Saturday Morning line-up almost right before it aired. But, you know, I think letting the show air would have done more to kill interest in GPK than anything else. I hate to say this, but it will be a little bit of a struggle to watch the other 11 episodes.
Speaking of John K., though, looking at the artwork on his website really sobers me up as an artist. Man, do I ever suck at drawing. I don't draw nearly enough. I should be drawing every chance I get, trying out new looks and poses and directions to take my art. Maybe some day I'll get good at it. Until then, I'll just try to make more flat, crappy cartoons with Flash and hope that maybe the hilarious jokes will make up for it.
Geez, what a rambling, unorganized post that was. Sorry to make you suffer through that. I just had to get my thoughts all out, irrelevant though they may have been. I have other thoughts, too, but perhaps that's enough for one night? Thanks, whoever's reading this (which, at this point, may be nobody at all, I dunno).
posted by Casey at 12:25 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home