Orbillenium Interview

All Artwork And Videos belong to Dwayne "Cheeks" Gissendanner

Dwayne “Cheeks” Gissendanner (a.k.a. 80s90sicon, Orbillenium, Orbcreation) is an artist who loves old-school stuff, namely cartoons, TV shows and music from the 80s and 90s. Over on Youtube, he became known for creating a really well-edited video series called “Y2K After Effects”, where he points out where things went wrong after the turn of the millennium, in terms of the entertainment industry, fanbases, humanity, and other things. He has currently shifted his focus from making these videos to working on his artwork and making plans to create cartoons. As a fan of this video series, as well as a fan of his incredibly awesome artwork, with its eccentric coloring, stylistic drawing, and that retro atmosphere, I see a lot of potential for the guy and I felt like getting to know him a little more and letting people know a little bit about him as well. So later on last year, I had the good fortune to be able to interview him through DA notes and learn some more about his creativity and insight.

LK: Your hobbies seem to consist of drawing, skating, video editing and old school stuff, from what I know of. Do you have any other hobbies or interests that I didn’t mention?

DG: Actually you pretty much got them all. There are times when I do Bboy but not much.

LK: What convinced you that the entertainment industry was going down the tubes?

DG: The day I turned on the TV and realized that I hated every channel I turned to. There was nothing of my interest I wanted to see and nothing to my liking on the radio. When I saw what kind of cartoons they were producing nowadays, I started looking up old school Nickelodeon videos and realized that entertainment was so much better back then. This was when I first discovered YouTube back in ‘06. I then started to watch videos of people ranting about today's entertainment. So I figured I could take a stab at making rant videos of my own. That was the start of the Y2K series.

LK: You sure Nostalgia Filter has nothing to do with this, that entertainment really was better back then in comparison to now?

DG: This is my first time hearing about this Nostalgia Filter. Most of my findings in terms of the way things were then and now were based on what I liked to watch and listen to, watching tons of Youtube videos, reading the comments on the videos and watching many rants on why other people thought that the past was better. Everyone has their own reasons for why they believe the past is better, some of them being the same as others. For me, it was all about the atmosphere. It's not just about TV shows and music, but the atmosphere that encompasses TV shows and music. The way people dressed, the kind of shows they watched and the Saturday morning experience of being able to wake up early to your favorite bowl of cereal and cartoons after having been enslaved through five days of school knowing that after that last Friday school bell, Saturday was a day that you earned and you treated it like it was your day to be a kid with no limits and full fledged childhood freedom. The way everybody connected with one another, the type of clothes they wore, the trends, and the people that would be looked at as heroes and idols, motivators that would help inspire their future (Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky, Hulk Hogan, etc.)

LK: Is there anything about today’s world that you do like?

DG: The only thing that interests me about today's society is technology. To me, it soared high while humanity failed, for it’s what we do on computers and phones now, and all the technical devices we have at our disposal that has made life better and easier.

LK: So the increased technology interests you the most about today. Is there nothing in the modern entertainment industry that you like or that interests you in the slightest?

DG: Not really. There may be some rare moments when something might catch my eye, but it doesn't happen often.

LK: Who or what would you consider influences for your artwork?

DG: Most of my influence comes from 80s and 90s videos whether it be promos, commercials or TV shows. Some of it comes from Saturday morning cartoon memories and videos. During the 80s and 90s, there were a lot of bright colors and random craziness in the promos and commercials, etc. Videos like this, for example: CBS Saturday Morning Promo 1989 (Author's Note: Sorry if I couldn't display the actual video in the blog, but it wouldn't bring it up in the "Search Youtube" section like I wanted. Anyways, here it is, for your viewing pleasure.) And as you can see, my artwork harvests a lot of bright colors as well. As far as whom, most of it comes from people who can draw better than me. It helps me focus on drawing better and making my work look just as good, if not better.

LK: So basically, 80s and 90s cartoons, promos, commercials, TV shows, and other stuff from your childhood, right? And do you consider people that can draw better than you to be some of the animators and cartoonists that created some of those shows you grew up on?

DG: Yes, and yes. Animators, comic book artists, Youtube artists and people on deviantART contribute to my inspirations.

LK: I’ve heard you talk some about cartoons and TV shows, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard your thoughts on movies. What would you consider to be some of your favorite movies?

DG: Well, I'm not much of a movie person, but I do have some favorites, like House Party, the Back to the Future trilogy, Friday, Space Jam, A Goofy Movie, and The Lion King, just to name a few.

LK: What about favorite TV shows, cartoons and/or anime, if any of the latter?

DG: Favorite cartoons are Ren and Stimpy, (the very show that got me into drawing,) Looney Tunes, Tiny Toons, Animaniacs, Doug, Rocko's Modern Life, Pepper Ann, Garfield, What-a-Cartoon Show, Dragonball Z, and there are many others I can't name. As far as shows go, pretty much 90% of anything Nickelodeon had on in the early to mid 90s and most of everything that came on Cartoon Network.

LK: What about the other 10% with Nickelodeon? Care to tell me that?

DG: The other 10% would be Hey Dude, Space Cases, Welcome Freshman and Aaahh! Real Monsters. Although Welcome Freshman and Hey Dude had damn good intro music, I found myself turning the channel after the intro was over. There was just something about the shows that I just couldn't connect with and the same goes for Aaahh! Real Monsters. Given how much I loved cartoons then, I just couldn't get into that show. Space Cases, I didn't like at all. I didn't like the intro or anything about the show. I think the only reason I thought that show might grab my attention was because it had the Black Power Ranger as one of the casting members.

LK: From what I gathered from your Y2K After Effects videos, you seem to like rock and hip-hop from the 80s and 90s when it comes to music. What do you consider your favorite bands/artists? Are there any other music genres that you like?

DG: I did have a lot of favorite rock bands like Metallica, Static-X and Slipknot, and I have a passion for "old school" hip-hop. These days, I pay no attention to what's on the radio and I can't remember the last time I saw a full-length music video on TV, let alone watched much TV. These days you can tell when people just don't care to put any effort in music, especially when the music videos are full of materialistic stuff and no real music. Nowadays, I listen to underground hip-hop, unknown artists and music on Youtube. As far as a favorite genre of music goes, I always had a thing for Smooth Jazz and I have recently got into Lounge music. Keeps me calm, and I enjoy being relaxed.

LK: Ok, so basically that would represent most of your opinion in regards to music. Any other bands/artists that you would consider favorites?

DG: Paul Hardcastle (Smooth Jazz), Damu Fudgemunk (Youtube Hip-Hop artist), and Ethereal Universe (Youtube artist)

(Like what you've heard so far? Check out some more here: Orbillennium Music Playlist)

LK: I’ve heard some of the music you’ve created. Pretty cool stuff. May I ask what inspired you to try your hand at creating music?

DG: I'm no musician, but I just got tired of hearing what everyone's definition of music was these days. So I took a stab at making my own music. I knew what type of sounds I wanted to hear, so I would attempt making my own music tracks.

LK: Do you have any original characters or concepts that you’ve come up with for shows and that kinda thing?

DG: Well for the most part, I haven't come up with any concepts for TV and stuff like that. I don't have any intention to put my characters on TV and what not. My goal is to build my Orbillennium name as a way to host quality art (my cartoon characters) and quality videos, like the stuff on my Youtube and deviantART accounts.

LK: I was going to ask you about your goals and that kinda thing, but that's a fairly decent answer as to your intentions. Do you have any other goals or other specific ones in mind? Also, about the name "Orbillennium", where did you come up with that?

DG: Well, my other goals would be to make comic books and/or online comics, videos and animations with my characters. The name Orbillennium came from me being tired of how this millennium has been in terms of humanity and entertainment. I thought it would be kinda cool to create my own millennium rather than just some company. The "Orb" name comes from an idea I had for a comic book company name that I came up with in high school called Orb Comics. But as time when on and things got more crappy in society, the “Orb” name soon branched into its own millennium.

LK: So I take it you’ve been trying to come up with some ways to combat these “Y2K After Effects”. How are you going on that?

DG: Well so far, not very good, given all the financial woes I’ve had and not having much motivation or free time to draw, with work and personal stuff and whatnot. I'm sure that sooner or later, things will start to go good for me and I can rise to the occasion of dealing with these Y2K After Effects.

LK: Oh geez, I'm sorry to hear that. Well, I hope for the best, since I see a lot of potential in you as an artist. I'd ask about what you do for work and all that, but that's most likely another question for another time. Anyways, next question: what do you use to create your artwork?

DG: I usually use HB pencils, Faber Castell drawing pens, and depending on the mood I'm in, I will either color it by hand with Prismacolor pencils or markers on Bristol board paper or I'll scan it in my computer and color it in Photoshop.

LK: How about your videos and music? How do you make those?

DG: Depending on what type of video it is will determine how I will approach it. For example, those Y2K videos I did. Everything starts with inspiration and motivation. I would watch several videos whether it was based on nostalgia or rant videos. In my head I begin to create a story of what I want it to look like. So with careful planning and editing, I try to bring out the scare factor of why things are the way they are in entertainment today. With the music I make it's no different. The only difference being that it's from a musical perspective. I am no musician, so I create by ear. I know what kind of vibe I'm looking for and what sounds I want to hear so I just start trying out different things until I come across something that compliments what I'm looking for. I don't have any high tech equipment or anything like that. All I have is a Midi keyboard and music software and so far, that is all I've really needed.

LK: Ok, but what software do you use to make your videos?

DG: I use Vegas Movie Studio 10 to edit videos, and I use FL Studio to make my music.

LK: Also, when I asked about your videos, you mentioned trying to "bring out the scare factor of why things are the way they are in entertainment today." So was it your intention to "scare people straight" with these videos? The Teeny Bopper Bacteria one in particular I felt was pretty terrifying.

DG: My intention wasn't to scare people senseless, but to give somewhat of a scare as to where entertainment is nowadays and where it's headed. And yeah, the teeny bopper bacteria video was illustrating the fail of the human race and who today's lack of entertainment is catering to. But the way I put it together, it looked like a virus that was spreading and infecting everyone that actually appreciates quality entertainment.

LK: I was talking to a friend about the bumpers, promos, and commercials on Nickelodeon back in the 80s and 90s, and how there was something in the classic Nickelodeon that the modern Nick sadly lacks that I couldn't quite put my finger on. He suggested that it was probably the surrealism and over-exaggeration in the look of the channel and that nowadays, the bumpers and commercials want to be as plain and generic as possible. Would you say that's part of the reason, aside from the lack of quality programming and the teeny bopper targeting, why most of these networks have fallen from grace?

DG: Well, that is true. There is also the overprotective parents who worry about everything being right these days and because there are a lot of rules out there nowadays in reference to what they can show on TV. And then there are the networks that are too afraid to take risk with some of the content that they showcase on TV, and are in constant fear of lawsuits and other overprotective parents complaining about kids’ entertainment.

LK: Ok, I've asked about some of the aspects of entertainment like cartoons, TV shows, movies, music and that kinda thing, but do you have any opinions about video games or are you not too familiar with gaming to have anything to say about them?

DG: Well I haven't put much in what's going on in the video game world other than the constant complaining and nagging about the graphics being what makes the game instead of the gameplay itself and what not so I can't say much about the gaming industry in general.

LK: I see. I take it you're not into video games all that much, then.

DG: Well, I'm not much of a gamer. I'm trying to get back into it but it's a slow process.

LK: Lately, I've been checking out old 80s and 90s commercials, and I noticed how they actually tend to be more genuinely entertaining than most of today's commercials. Do you think there's a reason for that as well? 

DG: If you look at some of the old commercials while there is an emphasis to promote and/or sell something, it doesn't feel like it was forced on the consumer. It feels more like it was done for fun....at least that's how I see it. It's almost as if commercials were made to entertain rather than sell something. And with less strict rules during that time and less influence from soccer moms and other overprotective parties on what type of content can be put on TV, it seems like people had more freedom and more fun to make commercials the way they did back then.

LK: Looking back at your response to my question of what convinced you that the entertainment industry was going down the tubes, you mentioned that you felt entertainment was much better back then. In what ways would you say they were better than today's entertainment?

DG: There was a better sense of creativity and fun. It felt like people weren't trying to impress corporations or parents. It felt like they were trying to impress themselves, which is why the entertainment had more quality.

LK: One would figure that, going by your other Y2K videos, you were just an overly nostalgic adult, but your “Childhood Innocence” Y2K After Effects Video seems to show that, as well as the state of entertainment, you feel concern for modern youth as well. I bet you consider childhood a very important time in someone’s life. Care to explain why you feel that?

DG: Everything that happens during your childhood years creates what will become of you in your teen and adult years. There’s always the old saying that everything begins at home. When you hear of kids who are disruptive and somewhat of a menace to society, it usually occurs from how they were raised as a child. Not everything is based on childhood, but a good majority of what happens in your childhood shapes you into what you will become later on in your life.

Entertainment kept a lot of us out of trouble and kept us all in a fun atmosphere making us want to do fun stuff, go out doors, etc. Some of that entertainment also taught morals and lessons in life. But when that 's taken away, you're left with menacing kids that cause trouble and are sucked in by peer pressure.  A good example of this is in the "Childhood Innocence" video. Near the end of the video there is a segment that discusses the peer pressures of what kids wear and how they act around others because of infatuations with certain celebrities and the fact that everyone thinks more about relationships and sex at a ridiculously young age than they do about where they will be in life.

LK: You certainly seem passionate about this, I can tell. Is it a fear of yours that children would grow up too fast?

DG: Well, I think that it’s already happened, but I do feel that it could get much worse.

LK: Oh dear. Like how so? Do you have any way you plan to prevent that and the other “growing up too fast” issues through your work?

DG: There isn't really much that can be done. Like the times change, people change as well. The only real way that things can get better is if they start learning to live better than they are now which will also take the help of parents who can raise them right and as far as entertainment is concerned, doing things independently like what I'm doing now may very well be the only way because trying to rely on corporations (as you can see by the way television entertainment is) isn't gonna do much good.

To end things on a positive note, he has just recently started a new website for the Orbillenium name, which can be found here: Orbillennium

Definitely check it out when you can. And to Dwayne, thank you for agreeing to do this interview and I hope you will be able to one day let your creativity shine for all to see.

Picture Books In Danger?

Not too long ago, I read this article from 2010 telling that picture books are no longer a staple for children. Part of it was due to the economic downturn, as was mentioned, but what got my attention was the mention that parents were pressuring kids to read text-laden chapter books over picture books earlier in their lives. And I don’t mean 10 or 12-year olds; I mean kindergarteners and first graders.

To hear parents instilling that kind of thing to their children this early in life absolutely DISGUSTS ME.

I’ve been reading since I was a toddler, and if there’s one aspect of literature that has always fascinated me throughout my childhood, it was the picture book. The illustrations that were contained in these wonderful tomes were one of the reasons why I got interested in drawing. I even came up with my own silly parodies that my mom would type on the computer while I dictated them, and then I would draw my own illustrations in them, even if, at the point in my life that I came up with them, they were very crude stick figures done in marker.

To me, one of the most fascinating aspects of picture books were the actual illustrations themselves. I mean, yeah, the stories and the wording did interest me as well, of course, but what really sucked me in and actually made me want to read them were the illustrations. The artwork of standouts like Dr. Seuss, Dav Pilkey, Bill Peet, Jack Kent, Lane Smith, Chris Van Allsburg, Mercer Mayer, Maurice Sendak, Stan and Jan Berenstain, H.A. Ray, Shel Silverstein, Berkeley Breathed, and the Little Golden Book artists, among others, always appealed to me somehow, whether it was the design, the detail, the colors, the visual humor, or even the atmosphere of the piece, and proved that some of these illustrators really knew how to create books that were visually interesting, stimulating for the imagination, and, more often than not, fun to read. And if they were writers as well or they teamed up with writers who acknowledged their skills and let them show off their work, that made it all the more better.

"Uggh, what a stench! So THAT'S why they're green!"

Too Dumb To Win An Award? Sure. Too Dumb To Not Be Funny? Heck No.

Uh, heh, I hope they don't mean "lost his head" in the same way that I'm thinking of...

"HEY, SHUT UP, YA MANGY ANIMALS! CAN'T A MAN GET SOME SLEEP AROUND HERE?!!?"

Or "How The Wolf Unintentionally Got The Negative 'Big Bad Wolf' Stereotype Associated With Him."

Notice that "Now A Major Motion Picture!" sticker in the corner? Yeah, that's not an out-of-date addition to the book at all.

You can tell that this is a very early Little Critter just by how it was drawn. It does make me wonder if Mayer was considered a "Poor Man's Maurice Sendak" at the time, though...

"Let the Wild Rumpus St- HEY, YOU THERE! NO SLEEPING AT THIS TIME!!!"

It amazes me how the Berenstain Bears went from fun, silly antics to cutesy moralistic fluff to having some religious "Living Lights" books published by Zonderkidz starting in the late 2000s for some reason. Talk about going Lighter And Softer! 

"This is Major George to Ground Control, I just stepped through the door, and I'm floating in a most peculiar way..."

"Now, Boy, I want you to give this special apple to a girl named Snow White..."

Who wants to guess that they just caught someone skinny dipping?

A staple in young children's reading since 1942, and let's hope it still IS...

But again, to hear of parents that are like that just makes me cringe, because it only further instills the stereotype that modern children grow up too fast. If I ever saw one of those parents telling their children they can do “better than this” or encouraging them to read this much text at such a young age, I’d feel the desire to take them away from their children for a second, and scold them furiously, something like, “Screw you, you insensitive jerk, just let your kids live their childhood out while they still have it!” I wouldn’t actually try a stunt like that, since I wouldn’t know what consequences it would bring about, but I would still want these people to learn a thing or two about raising their kids right. Childhood is one of the most important times in a person’s life, the point when they’re the most developmental, and to hear of parents that do such things really pisses me off. It makes me wonder if they ever took child psychology, like my mom did.

I myself have an interest in making picture books of my own at some point. Sometimes, I’d visit my local libraries to take a look see at their picture books and re-live some childhood memories of reading these stories while creating new ones from reading books I haven’t read before.

In 2011, I also ordered a picture book from Barnes And Noble done by an artist that I had taken an interest in, Brianne Drouhard, an animator who has done design and storyboard work for stuff like Teen Titans, The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes and Class of 3000. That book was Billie The Unicorn. It had a cute and surprisingly interesting story and endearing characters, and of course, Brianne’s incredible artwork. Every page explodes with stylish design and eye-popping color that demonstrates her incredible skill and instantly made me a full-fledged fan of her work.

(This last one isn't from the actual book, but it's still associated with the character and it looks great, so I felt like adding it, regardless.)

(A rough piece of fanart I drew for Brianne as a way for thanking her for the book. She felt I got the characters down with this one.)

Also, I’ve been checking out the work of illustrator William Joyce lately. You may know of him for recently being responsible for Dreamworks’ “Rise Of The Guardians,” and the incredible, highly-recommended, must-see 2011 Academy Award Winning Animated Short Film, “The Fantastic Flying Books Of Mr. Morris Lessmore,” created in association with Shreveport-based Moonbot Studios, (which can be seen on Youtube, for those curious,) but Joyce is a familiar name in both children’s books and animation, creating such books like George Shrinks, Rollie Pollie Ollie, A Day With Wilbur Robinson, (which was adapted into Disney’s Meet The Robinsons,) and The Leaf Men And The Brave Good Bugs (which has been adapted into the Blue Sky Studios film “Epic,” and was released this year,) just to name a few. I’ve only read some of them so far, like Santa Calls and Dinosaur Bob And His Adventures With The Family Lazardo, but I’ve really enjoyed what I read and definitely look forward to reading more. What amazing artwork! What imaginative storytelling! William Joyce has proven himself to be a creative powerhouse, and I’ve grown to really admire a lot of his work ever since learning of his name. I may be a young adult now, but I still appreciate picture books for reasons like those.

Just so you're aware, this isn't a screenshot from the actual animated short of "Mr. Morris Lessmore," but rather the book adaptation of the story.

Even though I have read chapter books and longer novels myself in my later childhood, I still don’t think there’s anything wrong with children reading picture books, as long as they are visually interesting and tell good stories while stimulating imagination and being fun to look at. I don’t know if things have changed much since 2010, but hopefully, there may be a resurgence of this format of literature, a day when parents will realize their mistakes and allow children to read more of what they want rather than what the parents want them to read, because no matter what anyone else says, picture books really are a great introduction to both the art of storytelling and the art of illustration for children. 

Mike Nguyen's My Little World

Sorry if I haven’t posted anything in a while. It can be hard when you’re trying to think of what all to talk about when there’s so much you want to say. I will try to get around to posting more whenever possible.

Anyways, on to the article.

One thing that tends to interest me about hand-drawn animated films over other mediums of animation is finding out who some of the artists and animators are and finding out what all they worked on or ARE working on. Some of these are pretty familiar, like many of Disney’s biggest names, but some aren’t very well known outside of certain animation circles. One of these names in the latter is Mike Nguyen, who, in spite of having an animation career that has spanned from Disney (Beauty And The Beast) to Warner Bros. (Space Jam, Quest Of Camelot, The Iron Giant) to Dreamworks (The Road To El Dorado) to others (Once Upon A Forest, The Pagemaster), is very unfamiliar to the public. Hopefully, his dream project will change that.

Since 2000, he’s been working on a hand-drawn animated film known as “My Little World”. I found out about it not too terribly long ago, but needless to say, just one look at that in-progress trailer on Youtube and I was fascinated by what I saw. Not only were the designs cute and appealing, but the animation was incredible. There was a real sense of flow, weight, and energy to it. But don’t take my words for it, check it out!

Doesn’t that just look so interesting? I’m not even a sports fan and I’m still intrigued by what I saw. It looks like it was created by someone that really understands the art of hand-drawn animation and really loves the medium. And with a career like his, Mike certainly seems like just the kind of person who’d work on an independent animated film project like this.

From what I heard, the story is pretty basic, about a little boy who is upset over a loss and is sent to stay with his aunt in the countryside for the summer, since his parents hope the change of scenery would do him good. While there, he befriends some of the local kids in town and gets drawn into their self-made summer soccer tournament. It basically sounds like a Hayao Miyazaki kid’s movie mixed with The Sandlot, only instead of baseball, the sport in question is soccer, or football, as it’s known to the rest of the world. And hopefully, there won’t be crude language or an unfortunate vomiting storm on a Tilt-A-Whirl set to The Champs’ “Tequila”.

However, just from what I’ve read on the film’s website and in interviews, Mike really put a lot of thought as to what his intentions and themes with this film will be. As he said in his recent interview with the animation blog, FLIP:

“My Little World is a hand-drawn theatrical feature film about the purity of innocence, the joy of living through simple day-life experiences and the very endearing warmth of true friendships. For me, such abstract and intricate experiences of feelings and emotions can be best conveyed through senses of motion - that is really what animation is wonderfully capable of.”

Just from the sound of it, I figure Mike’s out to make a movie that’s pure Sweet Dreams Fuel, an optimistic and bright film that embraces a lot of the wonders of simple everyday life, similar to such Hayao Miyazaki kid’s films like “My Neighbor Totoro” and “Kiki’s Delivery Service,” while intertwining such complex themes into its straightforward narrative while still appealing to the young AND the young-at-heart. As long as it doesn’t talk down to kids and treats them seriously, I’m all for it.

The film IS still in production as of now, though, and Mike had also mentioned in this interview that he’s trying to find investors willing to fund such a project. According to him:

“The problem has been that, although the budget of an indie animated film is very small compared to a studio film, it is still larger than a modest live-action production. And, to date, very few indie animated features from around the world have made their investment back, however small their budgets.

“I feel that smaller films with fresh, diverse and interesting contents will be a new future for the animation industry. The key to paving this path lies more in the film-makers than the investors. Every new independent animated film that has been released - and failed commercially - creates harder conditions for the next indie film to be made. But if just one independent film should succeed in a huge way, this will inspire a new framework in animated film-making, with a tremendous potential for growth both commercially and creatively.”

Well, I certainly hope that this movie is able to accomplish such a goal. However, there are two things I would like to suggest to Mike Nguyen on the highly unlikely chance that he’s reading this. One, consider Kickstarter in case you’re in need of extra funding and you haven’t found an investor yet, and two, avoid the Completion Bond Company like the plague. (Richard Williams wishes that HE followed that last step…)

I could go more into this, but I just want to conclude by saying that this sounds like a really, really good animated film and I hope its production and release is a success. I, for one, definitely look forward to seeing it. In the meantime, here are some links: 

The Home Page for My Little World and the production company, July Films: http://www.julyfilms.com

Mike Nguyen’s Blog, Rainplace: http://rainplace.net/ 

The FLIP Interview (March 6, 2013): http://flipanimation.blogspot.com/2013/03/introducing-mike-nguyens-animated.html 

A Harvey Deneroff commentary related to the film and Mike Nguyen (May 18, 2003): http://deneroff.com/Commentary/2003/0518.htm

The Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/My-Little-World/209995999029579 

The Youtube Page, where you can see some behind-the-scenes stuff related to the film’s creation: http://www.youtube.com/MyLittleWORLDmovie

Animation Insider Interview (March 22, 2012): http://www.animationinsider.com/2012/03/mike-nguyen/

Animation: Story Vs. Drawing

Art, again, by me. With this one, I decided to experiment with a little shading. I don't think it came out too good, but hey, ya gotta learn as an artist, am I right?

In one of my ebooks for the Art Institute, the book on storyboarding, “Prepare To Board! Creating Story And Characters For Animation Features And Shorts”, Nancy Beiman, the book’s author, had this to say in the introduction:

“Some people say that story is the only thing that matters in animated film. I agree. Good animation and good design never saved a bad story. Strong characters can make a weak story tolerable and a good story better, but characters develop within a story context. Each depends upon the other.”

Part of me wants to agree with the whole “story as the only thing that matters in animated film,” and part of me wants to say that is utter bullcrap.

Don’t get me wrong: story is an important part in animation of all kinds. I do love good stories, good characters and good storytelling, but here’s the thing: story is NOT, repeat, NOT the only thing that matters in animated film. Just like good animation and good design never saved a bad story, a good story never saved bad animation and bad design. I refuse to be engaged in a story if they can’t even make the characters OR the backgrounds look appealing in some way! Make the designs as generic as you want, but PLEASE try to put some effort into making it visually pleasing! The world really cannot handle another Delgo!

GAAAHHH!!! KILL IT! KILL IT WITH FIRE!!!

My personal belief is that both good animation AND good story are essential to the worth of an animated film. Having one without the other is okay, and it can still give some great results, but when they both work, the results are phenomenal.

I’m not one to stick completely with the views of an egotistical, whiny, narrow-minded, has-been animator with rose-tinted nostalgia glasses wielded to his face, but John Kricfalusi’s right: animation and cartoons must be allowed to take advantage of the medium they’re in. Honestly, if John K. ever met this Nancy Beiman lady, there would be a heated argument that would go on for days. 

Hell, I’m sure Bill Plympton would think similarly. I mean, yeah, he does like good storytelling, and he has been trying with each film to get a better, more emotional story, but he’s still heavily rooted in the art of animation itself and as he mentioned in his tutorial book, “Making Toons That Sell Without Selling Out”:

“I’ve been accused of making strange films with weak stories […] There may be some truth in their criticisms, but for me, story isn’t the end-all and be-all in the success of a film.

“How many times have you heard the expression ‘all great films start with a great story’? Talk about clichés! Well, I’m sick and tired of hearing that bull. Sure, there are wonderful films that are great because of the story, but please, give me a break! (P)eople describe great film as ‘cinematic.’ What does it mean? It means it’s a visual experience, something that has nothing to do with words.”

He then goes on to cite several examples to cite his reasoning, and he ended it with this little tidbit:

“If I hear someone use the expression ‘story is everything’ one more time, I’ll stick his or her tongue in my electric pencil sharpener—now that’s cinematic!”

Watch out, Nancy! Bill’s out to subject you to a cruel and unusual (but still really dang funny) punishment!

Dated LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG before it was conceived

The s*** that nightmares are made of

Can anyone tell me what appeal could be found in such lifeless looking garbage?

My brother’s belief is that the Golden Rule of Animation is this: “If it can be easily done in live-action, then there’s no point in animating it.” I agree with that, because animation is capable of so much more than live-action, and yet people over the years have wasted it on rather mundane things. For instance, teen shows that are animated but don’t bother taking advantage of the medium. Klasky-Csupo is guilty of this with As Told By Ginger and Rugrats: All Grown Up, and also with the overly EXTREME kid’s cartoon, Rocket Power. And Hanna-Barbera has made a career on cartoons with mediocre animation that often didn’t take advantage of the medium and what it was capable of.

Like I said, I love good, engaging stories and characters, but I love good animation and design as well. Animation is capable of so much more than people give it credit for. I think both story and animation have a mutual relationship, and they can work off each other really well when handled correctly. This is one thing that I want for future aspiring animators such as myself to understand about story and animation: neither one should be more important than the other. I think when Nancy Beiman states that “each depends upon the other,” I feel this shouldn’t apply to JUST the story and the characters, but the animation and the design as well. Honestly though, why make or work on an animated film if you don’t intend to make animation and design a big priority anyways? 

The World's Greatest Animation, Part Two

Welcome back to the second part of my review series of the DVD, "The World's Greatest Animation," the DVD chronicling most of the Oscar Winners/Nominees from 1978-1990.

Your Face (1987) Oscar Nominee

Bill Plympton

Bill Plympton's Your Face

(I can't find a Youtube link, so this will have to do.)

Anyone who knows about my taste in animation knows that I absolutely adore the work of Bill Plympton. The guy is a creative genius, considering how he usually comes up with the ideas and draws all of the animation frames himself, and I love his deranged sense of humor, his imaginative concepts, and of course, his funny, inventively bizarre animation. And this was the short where he made a name for himself. The premise is pretty basic, a guy sings about his lover’s face, and while he does so, his own head shape-shifts, morphs, and distorts. Bill Plympton took this concept and just went wild with it. The visual gags are just hilarious and surreal, especially considering how, no matter what happens to his face, it always returns to the normal shape somehow, and he doesn’t even seem to notice it happening.

Probably the most famous image from this short was the image of the guy with another version of himself coming in horizontally through his head by entering and exiting through the ears. One of the reasons that I love animation is that you can get away with showing surreal visuals like this in a way that’s acceptable and much more believable than you can if you tried to do it in live-action, with all the CGI and that stuff.

Funny bit of trivia, by the way: Longtime Plympton collaborator Maureen McElheron not only wrote the song, but she actually SANG it as well. That’s right, that man’s voice is actually her voice slowed down. Obviously, Plympton had to make do with what he had since, well, his films are made fairly cheap.

The ending, in which the hill he’s sitting on suddenly grows a mouth and swallows him up, is outlandishly funny, but it’s also bizarre and totally out of nowhere. I guess Bill Plympton was trying to find some way to end it, so, after all that odd imagery, I guess he decided to add something even more odd and unexpected, since the audience is pretty much capable of handling anything at this point, no matter how weird, that could occur as a punchline, and that’s part of what I love about Bill’s work: nothing is too out-of-place, no story or plot element is too contrived, too ludicrous, or too frustratingly inane, it just adds to the surrealism and atmosphere that his work tends to contain, and he makes such oddities humorously crazy and fun to watch to the point that you don’t really feel the need to question them. There’s no real point in doing so. It’s just great animation from a talented mind that really takes advantage of the medium, and this short serves as a basic demonstration of what Bill Plympton is capable of, in terms of animation.

I’ve lost track of how much I’ve watched this short from the past to the present, but I’ve seen it so many times and it just never gets tiring for me. It combines my loves of bizarre humor, great music and fantastic cartoon animation into one short film that I totally recommend to anybody, animation fanatic or otherwise.

RATING: *****/***** (5/5)

A Greek Tragedy (1986) Oscar Winner

Nicole Van Goethem

I’ll have to admit, this is one where I don’t really understand what the point is. The basic premise of the short involves these three caryatids trying to keep a crumbling temple together even after all these centuries. But after several things cause the rest of the temple to shatter, they all go off prancing into the distance. Um, OK, can someone tell me any more about this? Is this supposed to be feminist or something, because it kinda comes off like that, what with them being freed from this mundane task, but I’m not for certain. Anyways, the weakness with this one is that it has its interesting premise, but it doesn’t really go anywhere with it, just a few scenes with them trying to keep the temple up, it eventually breaks and they go off skipping and singing into the distance. Um… fun? Yeah, I’m clueless.

Again, I don’t get what exactly gave it the Oscar for that year, since it’s not really anything special, but it’s still an amusing short, nonetheless. The animation is well-done, the expressions and poses are fun, and it is clever seeing how they try to handle the ultimately-futile task of keeping the temple up even with the distractions and one of them acting differently. The character designs are funny because, unless you were told or you paid close attention, you wouldn’t be able to tell that those were actually women. Aside from the breasts, they don’t look anything like your typical cartoon female, and the only other hint is their vocalizations. Other than that, everything else about them is cartoonishly exaggerated, but I guess I do like that, since it shows that female characters don’t always have to be depicted the same way and the same style, they can look just about as odd as the men in some cases.

For some reason, I do like that closing shot that depicts two of the females in the distance prancing gracefully, while the other one runs past in a comedic manner. It’s very fun to look at, and it shows a nice contrast with the characters. And that little theme at the end? Dude, that will stick in your head pretty easily. I still find myself humming it on occasion, mainly when picturing the above mentioned scene.

I will say that even if I don’t get why this actually won the Oscar, I don’t get why so many people make a big deal that “Luxo Jr.” by Pixar didn’t win the award and this one did. I mean, I love Pixar, and that was a groundbreaking short that still holds up pretty well, animation-wise, but I wouldn’t go hating on the winner just because of that ordeal, especially since Pixar would eventually go on to do bigger and better things.

But yeah, it’s an okay short. Nothing truly Oscar worthy and I don’t really understand the point of it, but it has some nice things going for it. Give it a watch if you think it looks or sounds good.

RATING: ***/***** (3/5)

Anna & Bella (1985) Oscar Winner

Borge Ring

Netherlands native Borge Ring is considered to be one of the best animators in the world, and this Oscar winning short is definite proof of that. It basically depicts two elderly sisters looking at photos of their youth and reminiscing over them in what would eventually be revealed as taking place in the afterlife, and it serves as a brilliant depiction of what cartoony hand-drawn animation is capable of, both in style and in story. The film manages to cram so much emotion into eight minutes, and this results in a short that’s funny, cute, delightful, heartbreaking, dramatic, and sweet, all at once. Borge was previously nominated for an Oscar with “Oh My Darling,” another short that I really like, so it’s nice to see that the second time was the charm here.

It’s a very down-to-earth, “real life” kind of story about the lives of these sisters that could have easily been done in live-action, and yet it works brilliantly with the cartoon animation, due to how the medium is utilized and how it enhances the story, and that’s one of the reasons why I love it. Borge’s animation seems to make really good use of visual metaphors and clever transitions, most notably in one scene where the girls are standing in a field of flowers and as the flowers grow, Anna’s breasts and hips pop out in a violent jutting motion, before morphing into a young woman with a nice use of squash and stretch animation, then Bella follows with a simple pop. And just to add to the metaphor, men are compared to bees as they fly into the scene.

This one uses cartoon gags and reactions in a unique way, and you can never really tell if it’s meant to be for comedic or dramatic effect, since they often show up at moments that tend to be emotional. For instance, when the guy that Anna is with goes off with Bella and they literally fly to the moon, Anna literally shatters like glass. Later, following a car crash, Anna tries to save her sister by grabbing onto her ghostly form as it tries to leave Bella’s unconscious body. Things like that leave you wondering if you should laugh or be emotionally invested. Doug Walker of Nostalgia Critic fame stated that the sign of a great film was being able to make you feel and combine all sorts of emotions to give you a new and bizarre feeling, and this is a short that is totally driven on the emotions and visuals, so it utilizes them really well here.

Considering that Borge Ring used to be a musician, it’s interesting to note how the music is used, in that it was a specific theme played in different variations throughout the short. A leitmotif, if you will. Once you’ve seen this short a few times, it becomes easier to identify, and you might even find yourself thinking about it or humming it.

Again, this is a really down-to-earth story showing the life of these two sisters, and it’s still very interesting, even with the animation tricks to enhance the story. Sometimes showing the life of an individual, or even two, oftentimes is all you need to create a great movie or short. I honestly have no complaints about this one except that I would have liked to see more, but I guess that’s a good complaint. Anna & Bella is creative, it’s fun to watch, it’s a wonderful, well-told story, and you really feel for these two sisters since their emotions and character are depicted really well. It’s easy to see why Borge won the Oscar for this one, since it’s an all-around brilliant animated short that proves that hand-drawn animation can really be used for more realistic stories when handled properly in a way that takes advantage of the medium and turns it into an experience. Check it out. You won’t regret it.

Sadly, however, on February 1^st of this year, the house of Borge Ring and his wife, Joanika, burned to the ground, but they made it out unharmed. There has been a fundraising website started up in order to help them recover, since they have been getting on in the years. I would donate to them myself, but I don’t really have Paypal or anything like that yet. If you want to donate to them, though, you can find it here: Help Borge Ring I feel such a talented animator deserves the help, don’t you?

RATING: *****/***** (5/5)

The Big Snit (1985) Oscar Nominee

Richard Condie

If you wanted a short film that was weird in description but wonderful in execution, I’d probably point to The Big Snit. It ranked at #25 on the 50 Greatest Cartoons, and it’s another one from The National Film Board of Canada, this time, by the outlandishly talented Richard Condie, who helped Cordell Baker create “The Cat Came Back.” This short was enough to get me interested in the rest of his output.

This one tells a rather unusual story, which starts by depicting a man and wife playing Scrabble. The man’s struggling with the game, since his letters are all ‘E’s, so while he’s trying to decide his next move, the wife goes off and vacuums around the house. These two have rather odd habits. Sometimes the woman’s eyes go out of whack, so she has to constantly take them off and shake them a little to fix them, and the man has a tendency to saw at certain points. In fact, the habit of the latter sort of sets up things, since he’s a fan of this show called “Sawing For Teens”, which gets interrupted by a news announcement that nuclear war has broken out that both of them miss, due to the guy falling asleep while watching and the woman, well, vacuuming. That, and because the cat chewed on the cord to the TV, leaving them completely oblivious to the mayhem going on outside. Things get crazier when the wife catches his husband looking at her Scrabble letters, and they get into a big argument that winds up with the wife crying. The man looks at a photo of the two at happier times and, stricken with guilt, proceeds to cheer her up by playing on a little accordion. They reconcile, unaware that their world had come to an end.

It’s hard to define what makes this one work, it just works. The animation is fun, the character design is stylistically strange and simplistic, the two characters themselves are easy to relate to, the dialogue has a natural flow to it, the backgrounds are incredibly detailed, (and it’s worth watching through again to try and catch some of the hidden visual gags,) the humor is bizarre and quirky, the ending is touching, and the story can be looked at on different levels. In the 50 Greatest Cartoons book, John Canemaker said that “the film remains with you long after the laughter because the message is strong” and that it is “about the fragility of life and is recommended for people of all ages who may at one time or another have wasted precious time being in a snit.” And that’s a pretty good way of putting it. Of course, there’s other ways of seeing it and describing it as well, but that pretty much sums up why this is often looked at as one of the greatest animated shorts.

I guess another part of what makes this so great is because of how surprisingly poignant it is for such a goofy looking cartoon. Using a nuclear war as a backdrop for a couple outburst is a pretty dark concept, and yet the approach is so hilarious, so kooky, and so lighthearted. Richard Condie had even stated, “I tried to make it as funny as I could, yet there’s a serious undercurrent I can’t explain.” Well, whatever the case, the fact that he was able to combine weird and wacky with drama and pathos so well is truly a remarkable accomplishment.

As much as Anna and Bella deserved the Oscar win, this one is just as Oscar-worthy as that and some of the other shorts that I really love on this video. And even if it didn’t win the Academy Award for that year, it’s still highly respected and still worthy of being considered a classic cartoon short. I totally recommend it, especially since it’s such a one-of-a-kind film that depicts an off-beat, but still very down-to-earth portrayal of humanity. Never before and never since has a game of Scrabble gone this crazy.

RATING: *****/***** (5/5)

Coming next, a really strange game of charades, an obnoxious idiot badly reciting "New York, New York", another guy with a shape-shifting head, and one of the most annoying, monotonous animated shorts ever created by man.

The World's Greatest Animation DVD Review, Intro and Part One

Encore Records, a record/CD/movie rental store in Austin, was having a closing down sale, and one of the things I managed to get my hands on was an out-of-print DVD known as “The World’s Greatest Animation,” containing independent animated shorts from 1978-1990 that either won the Academy Award or were nominated for it. I love independent animated shorts, since they offer a very fascinating glance at animation outside of such big names like Disney, Warner Bros., Dreamworks, or anything else that has done animation over the years, even more so in the 70s and 80s, because at that period, from what I heard, animation was pretty much at a dead zone.

Most of the major animation studios of the Golden Age were closed down and Disney was struggling since the death of its founder, TVs were polluted with stale, lifeless cartoons from the likes of Hanna-Barbera and Filmation, who were using time-saving tactics to animation that often involved outsourcing to studios in other countries, (not usually a bad thing if they were able to do animation well enough, especially nowadays, but the overseas studios probably deserve at least a little more credit than they’re given,) the idiots responsible for the Action for Children’s Television (ACT) had forced these TV cartoons to include moralistic messages, even though cartoons really weren’t meant primarily for children in the first place, and there wasn’t a real place for an aspiring, innovative cartoonist/animator to go. Well, Ralph Bakshi did manage somehow, but even then, animation was still suffering a dark age around this time. Granted, it did get better by the 80s, with the groundbreaking notion of computer animation and the late 80s helping to start of an animation renaissance, but even then, it still had a lot of those stereotypical “Saturday Morning Cartoons” lingering around on TV at that time that were mainly considered “Half-Hour Toy Commercials” for the kids. Seriously, the music was awesome in the 70s and 80s, so why couldn’t the animation be as well? (I have nothing against these “Half-Hour Toy Commercials,” but a little more effort in the animation and storytelling would be nice for some of them.)

I don’t know what exactly had lead animation in that period to that state originally, but whatever happened, there was a lot that had to be done in order to keep interest in this under-appreciated art form alive. And a lot of independent animators were trying their dead-level best to do so, and it’s nice that there’s video compilations dedicated to displaying the work of such talents like this.

I watched this DVD, and since I’m all for showing that animation isn’t merely kiddie fodder and that it can truly be considered both art and entertainment for all ages when done really well, as well as supporting the cultural diversity of animation from other countries, I felt like stating my opinions and ratings for each short, since some I feel are better than others and others I feel were weak in comparison, in spite of winning the Academy Award. So I’m going to watch through them, some a few more times, and then I’m going to review them, before giving an overall review stating which shorts I feel are the best and which ones make the collection worth hunting down. The format will go like this:

Format:

Title (Year) Oscar Winner/Nominee

Creator

Video (if available)

Review Body

Star Rating out of 5

It’s possible that these reviews might contain spoilers, depending on whether you consider short animation as having spoilers or not, so I suggest watching the provided shorts before actually reading the reviews. And when I recommend them in the review, that means that I suggest these for anyone to watch as well, even if they don’t read the reviews. It might seem confusing how I’m going about this, but hopefully, you can judge for yourself if you want to watch the short first and then read the review or vice-versa. And it will be divided into parts since these reviews tend to get kinda long. Well, anyways, on with the show!

Creature Comforts (1990) Oscar Winner

Nick Park

Aardman animator and Wallace & Gromit creator Nick Park made this short as part of a series called “Lip Synch”, and interviewed British non-actors in a similarity to the “man on the street” Vox Pop interviews. The basic concept for this short involved interviewing zoo animals about how they feel living there. Nick used ordinary people of a housing development, an old people’s home and a family that lived in a local shop as subjects and asking them about things from a zoo animal’s perspective, and then the clay animation was done to accompany the recordings. The effect it creates is rather stunning. It does get hard to understand what they’re saying at times, probably because of the accents or the age of the interviewees or the actual recordings themselves, but I guess that’s part of what gives the dialogue a sense of authenticity.

Some of the animals interviewed include three polar bears, a gorilla, terrapins, and a mountain lion that complains about the food looking “more like dog food than food proper for wild animals,” as well as the “lack of space” and the “grass with pollen that gives me hay fever every day!” The mountain lion shows up the most in the film, and if what I heard was correct, he was voiced by a Brazilian student living in Bristol at the time, which is why the lion mentions Brazil at one point.

I do love the concept of interviewing zoo animals and learning what they think of their living quarters and their different perspectives of their life. If only that kind of thing would be capable in real life, that would probably lead to a greater understanding between man and animal. And while it’s not laugh-out-loud funny, there are some really amusing background events, including a bird that pulls on the beak of another one while the one being interviewed doesn’t notice. And even the subjects being interviewed look sort of humorous, noticeably this bush baby, whose giant-looking eyes are actually magnified by the glasses he’s wearing and his actual eyes are pretty small.

I heard that a “Creature Comforts” series was made recently built around this premise, but I haven’t seen it yet, so I wouldn’t know if it’s good or not. The original short is definitely really good, though. It takes a couple of watches to fully appreciate it or understand it, heck, I’ve watched it quite a few times and I feel like I haven’t quite understood all of the dialogue yet, but I still like it enough that I recommend it to fans of clay animation, Aardman, or Wallace & Gromit. It’s just a really clever, inventive short.

RATING: ****/***** (4/5)

Balance (1989) Oscar Winner

Christoph and Wolfgang Lauenstein

Wow, was this one just… weird. It’s a good kind of weird, however, especially given the way this short was made. It excels in its simplicity, using one setting, five silent characters and one object to express a surprisingly heavy theme involving human behavior.

The setting is a very unique one. Five skeletal-looking characters wearing long coats are standing on this unstable platform that tilts with every move they make, so they try to prevent themselves from falling into the abyss by relocating themselves and keeping balance every time one of them moves. They all go to the edge, pull out fishing rods, and cast them off into the abyss. One of them pulls up a strange box, which is revealed to play music when a key is turned. Eventually, this causes conflict that leads to all but one of them getting knocked over the edge and the last remaining character standing at the opposite side of the box, unable to go over to the opposite side without the risk of sending him and the box over the edge.

It is definitely a dark short, but what I really like about this one is the feel it has. The atmosphere of the whole thing is heavy and rather haunting. There’s no music aside from the box, just ambient creaking sounds in the background and it just adds to the overall eeriness. The story is basic, but it conveys a lot of different themes related to human nature, like curiosity, jealousy, selfishness, isolation, and so forth, and the setting and the title fit, since it basically depicts these characters trying to keep the platform from tilting too far over, and when this object comes in that arouses their interest, it just throws things out of whack. The ending especially gets pretty dark, what with one of them actually knocking the others off just so he can keep the object to himself, but as a consequence of his actions, finds that he can’t use it once he’s the only one left since they’re at opposite sides and another move would cause both of them to fall.

These characters themselves are completely identical. They have no real individuality, no voices, no personalities, and their faces are completely devoid of emotion. All of their thoughts and feelings are expressed through their actions, and they’re delivered in an effective manner, often leaving the viewer uncertain as to what their next move is. The stop motion animation itself is pretty nice as well, since, as mentioned, the characters express through their actions rather than their faces, and the actual tilting effect of the platform is well conveyed.

Dark? Yes. Creepy? Yes. Interesting and worthy of recommendation? Heck yes! I don’t guarantee that you’ll like it, but I’m sure you’ll find it interesting nonetheless.

RATING: *****/***** (5/5)

Technological Threat (1988) Oscar Nominee

Bill Kroyer

I really love this short, not only because it’s an entertaining cartoon that really takes advantage of the medium and some of the things it’s capable of, but also because it was made as an allegory/commentary on how computer animation served as a threat to traditional animators at a time that predated the big CGI boom in the 2000s. And who better to direct it than Bill Kroyer, who worked on the computer graphics for the original Tron? He and his wife Sue started Kroyer Films in 1986, a studio that would combine traditional animation with computer graphics, and this Tex Avery-esque short demonstrates that brilliantly.

The story involves these cartoon dogs/wolves working at an office, with all but one getting replaced by robots every time one of them falters, and it gets to the point where even the boss that is replacing them is replaced by a robot off-screen. The remaining wolf is nervously trying to avoid lagging behind in his work, but once the boss leaves, he takes out the robots in various cartoon fashions, one by one, until he has difficulty with the last robot. The ruckus the two create winds up causing the boss to bust in and nearly push the button, only for the wolf and robot to push the trapdoor underneath the boss, causing the robo-boss to fall through once he presses the button. The wolf and robot look down the hole before the wolf takes the opportunity and knocks the robot down the hole as well.

Personally, I think more hand-drawn TV animation in the 80s should have been like what is shown in this short: stylized, energetic, fast paced, creative and fun to watch. Tex Avery is one of my favorite animators, Golden Age or otherwise, so it’s easy to see how this is sort of a homage to his work, through the gags, the animation, the design and the tone.

The robots and all the backgrounds in the film were encoded, animated, and rendered as drawings on a computer known as the Silicon Graphics IRIS 3120 workstation, according to the end credits, and as dated as the CGI may be, it combines with the traditional animation brilliantly when incorporating hand drawn design onto the computer graphic framework, and the cartoon characters and objects that were done in the traditional 2D style fit equally well with the three dimensional objects in the background. Heck, it’s hard to tell that the backgrounds are in computer graphics!

The synthesizer music is totally 80s, and I still love it because of that. It helps add to the “computerized” feel of the cartoon, and I find it interesting to set quirky 80s synths, heck, 80s music in general, to wild, cartoony Golden-Age influenced animation. If I were allowed to animate music videos for 80s pop/rock, I’d definitely choose some wild Golden Age Animation influences for the style.

Overall, this is a really funny cartoon with a great point that isn’t shoved in your face, although it’s surprising to think this same guy would go on to direct the animated film with an obvious environmental message, Fern Gully: The Last Rainforest. Needless to say, however, I feel this short should be re-released, even if animation technology has really advanced since then, and I feel it should be recognized as the thought-provoking insight to the modern computerized industry, animation or otherwise, that it is.

RATING: *****/***** (5/5)

The Cat Came Back (1988) Oscar Nominee

Cordell Barker

The National Film Board Of Canada is very prominent when it comes to independently animated short films, as several of them are on this DVD. The first one of those on the video, as well as the first one I had seen of their shorts, is “The Cat Came Back,” ranked #32 on animation historian Jerry Beck’s list of the 50 Greatest Cartoons (I currently own a copy of the book,) and for good reason, as it is a hilarious cartoon that demonstrates how wild things can get when you employ the right amount of creativity. And needless to say, I freakin’ love this one. It’s one of my personal favorites.

Directed by Cordell Barker and produced with fellow award-winning Winnipeg animator Richard Condie (who will show up later on in the list,) and based on the song of the same name, it involves the character of Old Mr. Johnson trying to get rid of an obnoxiously destructive little cat, with each attempt leaving him as the one to suffer for it, as he gets increasingly desperate to remove it from the premises to the point of descending into insanity and the cat keeps on returning to destroy more of the house. The highlight for me is probably the railroad scene where he winds up grabbing the cat and taking off on a rail car, probably to abandon it somewhere or at least find a good place to tie it to the tracks, since he keeps running over various women tied to the tracks while operating the thing along the way. But when a cow tied to the tracks suddenly interrupts him, his reaction is priceless: “WHAT THE FFFFF…?!!?”

The ending is morbid animation hilarity and irony at some of its finest. After one last ditch attempt to get rid of the cat winds up killing Old Mr. Johnson and sending him into the air, his ghost returns to torment and taunt the demonic feline, but then his lifeless body falls back down to the earth and crushes the cat, creating nine little cat ghosts that chase after Mr. Johnson’s ghost as he flies off into the distance. It’s pretty obvious that this cat is a curse for Old Mr. Johnson, and that scene just clenches it.

Everything about this short works incredibly, the animation, the music, the color styling, the timing, the energy, the pacing, the humor, and even the actual style of animation itself adds to the deranged feel of the cartoon. It’s just really fun to watch. This is one that I feel deserves multiple re-watches since it’s so fast paced and zany that sometimes you might not always catch everything at once. That, or because it’s so freakin’ enjoyable that it’s hard not to resist its insanity. It’s totally hysterical, totally outlandish, and totally worth watching. Like the cat in the short, it’s possible that you’ll keep coming back to it.

RATING: *****/***** (5/5)

Coming next, a shape-shifting face, a strange Greek tragedy, two sisters' lives, and a scrabble-playing couple.