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Thursday, May 31, 2007

Did UPA ruin cartoons?

At John Kricfalusi's blog, All Kinds of Stuff, a recent series of posts on the negative impact of UPA's stylized cartoons on animation has ignited a firestorm of controversy over a graphic revolution in cartoons that occurred over half a century ago.
John K argues that many of the fundamental principles of good animated filmmaking were totally dispensed with at UPA -- design and layout were emphasized at the expense of character animation, timing and entertainment value. He argues convincingly that the cartoons of UPA (Gerald McBoing Boing, Unicorn in the Garden, Mr. Magoo, etc.) were responsible for the downfall of animation.
As a sidebar to John K's posts on the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive blog, I posted a Quicktime of a cartoon that is both stylized AND expressively animated -- a KoolAid commercial from the late fifties directed by the King of Cartoons, Tex Avery.
New York animator, Michael Sporn reacted angrily to these posts on his own "Splog," incensed that UPA's legacy was being besmirched and furious that the artistic accomplishments of UPA were being compared unfavorably to kiddie commercials with none of the artistic aspirations of UPA's own films: Splog: Aaargh!
Amid Amidi, author of "Cartoon Modern", a book on modern design in animation, entered the fray and launched a volley of his own- first in the comments on Sporn's post and then on his own blog: Cartoon Brew: The Great UPA Debate.
The comments from the readers on all of these posts are just as interesting as the posts themselves, with impassioned arguments on both sides of the fence from cartoon fans, animation historians and top industry professionals.
Anyone who loves to really think about cartoons and analyze their impact and importance to the art of filmmaking will find hours of engaging reading by going through all these posts and reading the wide spectrum of opinions presented there. (Folks who like to see dogfights between pig-biting-mad cartoonists will find plenty of entertainment value in here too!)

(It's worth noting that while this Kool Aid commercial contains many admirable elements, its characterization of Native American people would now be widely acknowledged as racist. Like other artifacts of this period, this book reflects the popular culture of its time.) Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 03:02:21 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

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