Comments on: Another Cat, Another Goldfish

By: Has

Has — Sun, 14 May 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Clampett’s “Baby Bottleneck” has the most simplified minimalistic backgrounds that I can remember in any Warner toon. I seems like Bob was being a little TOOOOOO stingy with the colored paint. The only strong background colors occur when Daffy gets whacked on the head near the end of the cartoon. I usually prefer the more eleborate backgrounds similar to this week’s Felix toon. Although you can find some well done simple designs that aren’t terribly minimalistic in “Waikiki Wabbit”, and “Inky and the Minah Bird”. The jungle settings and effects are pretty cool in those two toons. Marvin the Martian’s red carpet environment is also simple and effective without being overly minimalistic. Of course with all the computer rendering tools available now, backgrounds should have strength like Fleischer’s modelled environments. Anything less seems like a waste of tools, when working time is now less of a problem.

By: Dave Kirwan

Dave Kirwan — Fri, 12 May 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Well, I certainly thinks it’s fair to comment how far the guys at Warners had advanced the art in those areas (characterization, timing, sound design etc.) Keep in mind there’s about a seven year gap between the two films — huge, really, when you consider this was the era when the animation universe of knowledge and skill was expanding with unbelievable speed. I tend to think the pleasures to be found in “Neptune’s Nonsense” are a little more generic — you know, the “if you like thirties’ cartoons, this is a good one” type recommendation.

I think several WB directors started to experiment in stylzed backgrounds around this time. Jones had already made “The Dover Boys at Pimento University” in ‘42, Tashlin made “Scrap Happy Daffy ” and Norman McCabe made “Confusions of a Nutzy Spy”, both in 1943. I bet other Looney Toon geeks can probably site other early 40’s examples using simplified backgrounds.

By: tom_w

tom_w — Thu, 11 May 2006 00:00:00 +0000

I almost want to do a compare/contrast between today’s WB and yesterday’s Felix cartoon to point out how many things Jones got right and the Van Beuren guys didn’t, things like character, timing, and use of sound.

It seems a little for WB to be using stylized backgrounds. I wonder if this is the first, or one of the first, cartoons to have them.