Cartoons

In recent blog posts, I've exposed my geekyness with my love of music and comic books. Let's delve further into my geekyness with something else that I love... CARTOONS!!!!

Last night I saw the movie, "Wreck-It Ralph". Before the movie, there was an animated short that played called, "Paperman". It was a cartoon that was simple. It had no dialogue. Just a couple of sighs. It got me thinking of the cartoons of the past and how back in the good old days (mostly in my parent's and grandparent's generation) they were actually funny. The cool thing about those cartoons, is they were one of the few things on TV that I could watch with my grandparents without me wanting to get away from them.

 "Paperman" was pretty, (in the words of my good friend, Tim DeShazer) right on. It had good writing and timing. You don't really see that any more with a cartoon. I remember watching an interview with the animator, Chuck Jones. He said that writing and timing is everything. Look back at some of the old Looney Tunes. Especially the cartoon, "Rabbit Seasoning". You'll see what I'm talking about.

Most of the cartoons this day in age focus on what they can do with computers. Not that it's a bad thing. You've seen what computers can do with both animated and live action movies. It's pretty amazing. I remember seeing, "Toy Story" for the first time and being in awe.

Look back at the cartoons of the forties and fifties. There's something special about a five minute hand drawn cartoon. Those artists and writers put a lot on the line entertaining people. In fact, they still play them from time to time on Cartoon Network. It's rare, but they still do.

I'm lucky that when I was a kid they would still show Looney Tunes, Tom and Jerry, and Disney cartoons on regular TV. Most of the kids I knew would run home after school to see He-Man and Transformers. Those were great shows, but I would run home to watch Bugs Bunny.

For some reason, the networks stopped showing the good stuff. I guess they were getting dated. A lot of the jokes, music, and references made no sense to the new generations. Nobody wanted to see Elmer Fudd blow off Daffy Duck's beak anymore. I still wanted to.

Sometime in the 90s as the old stuff was going to the cable networks, a big cartoon fan named Steven Spielberg tried to bring back some of the old style cartoons with shows like, "Tiny Toon Adventures" and "Animaniacs". I don't know what happened, but by the end of the decade those shows were gone. They didn't have the best writing, but it was the closest thing we had to the great cartoons of the past.

That's all folks.