This is not some thread for you to talk about the last Beavis & Butthead episode, but to talk about what makes animation good (or even better, bad).

The first thing you need to know about the art of animation is that the 70s and 80s sucked and chances are if you like a cartoon from that decade it's because you're either nostalgic to the point that you have lobotomized your ability to understand visuals and movement, or you're just a moron who hates art. My theory is that for two decades there was a widescale revolution wherein a bunch of crazy bands of blind people sought to punish people with eyesight out of hateful jealousy and so overthrew all animation studios and forced them to draw this sort of aesthetic terrorism.

Are you only talking about television shows? If so I really find it hard to disagree.

I'm talking about basically all traditional animation in the West.

No Ralph Bakshi or Gerald Scarfe for Dreww?

Bakshi's important for making cartoons creative again but I'm not really a fan. Scarfe's work is more interesting than most 80s stuff but I still think it's ugly--at least it's ugly in its own way.

I think both styles are "ugly," but I appreciate the form itself, especially Scarfe's elegant movement.
Lord of the Rings is something of an ironic pleasure though.

This can never be posted enough.

Posting this because it's awesome:

Yes it is. Post more awesome things?

that dude really just turned into a car

I'm a big animation buff, and I love many of the classic shorts of the silent/golden eras of animation.

Wether it's the brilliant timing and sight gags of the Looney Toons, the childlike innocence and suberb craftmanship of the Disney shorts or the twisted surrealism of the Fleischer cartoons. They all pushed animation into brave new directions for the time, it was all about being at the cutting edge back then.

But there's still some great animation now.

I really love Sally Cruikshank's stuff, really fucked up beyond belief.

Stupid generalisations ftl.

There has been some terrific western animation. They might not compare to the technical craftmanship of golden era animation but they often make up for it with great designs and imagination. Flapjack and Chowder are two that come to mind, sure they don't come close to the technical achievements of the golden era but they compensate by being original and colorful.



I love Bakshi, the animated LOTR was decent, I really dig it's slow atmospheric pace and a lot of the visual ideas, but it's not his best work.

That would be Heavy Traffic, Fritz the Cat, Coonskin, Wizards, American Pop. They all have their flaws, some pretty massive ones at times, but goddamn if they don't have some VERY inspired stuff going on. It's a shame the guy always had budget issues, meaning his films never really turned out exactly the way he wanted. He often approaches "ugliness" intentionally, because he wanted to take animation into a completely different direction from the Disney standard, but he was still capable of pulling off some technically dazzling scenes, that crazy freakout scene from Heavy Traffic after that guy gets shot in the head for example.

Hell even Cool World, which was a pretty terrible movie, even it had some great ideas. I mean the design of Cool World itself is one of the most awesome things I've ever seen in a movie ever.



And of course Bakshi's original premise for the film (a horror film) was a lot better than the final result (which was a result of executive tampering).

As for Scarfe, his caricatures are "ugly" but they're such an intriguingly unique kind of ugly, and he was still capable of some truly beautiful animation. The whole "Empty Spaces/What shall we do now?" segment of The Wall is one of my favorite pieces of animation ever, truly stunning from beginning to end. Especially the beginning with the flowers.

That is so fucking awesome picture.

Also, as much as I love Ren & Stimpy, John Kricfalusi IS a massive douchebag who can never get enough of having Bob Clampett's rotting, decaying cock in his mouth while basically insulting every other animator in existence (save his mentor Ralph Bakshi, who is the lord Jesus Christ) and going to ridiculous lengths to try and take all the credit for everything that's happened in animation for the past 20 years.

That's a guy absolutely NOBODY wants to work with, because he's such a dickhole. Since he hasn't really done anything lately he's spent pretty much the majority of his time ranting on his blog like the bitter old fuck that he is.

My comment was a follow up to the other one I made; I was talking about Western animation during the 70s and most of the 80s, not every single thing after the 60s. But seriously, animation during the 70s and 80s really truly was total unbelievable shit 99 percent of the time. There was obviously a renaissance in the late 80s and early 90s due to Bashki and John K. I'm a huge fan of the animation in Flapjack, Chowder, Adventure Time, and Spongebob.


He is a douchebag and I do think he underrates Spongebob, Rocko, Flapjack, and Adventure Time, but to say he insults every animator other than Bob Clampett really just shows you haven't really listened to much of what he has to say. The list of animators he loves is far too long to list here. And he really is the single most important Western animator of the last 25 years or so.

Anyway, watched Drip Along Daffy on my Looney Tunes Golden Collection today. That's just a hilarious cartoon. Perfect Jones at his height. Too bad there's not a decent version online. I may start uploading some gems to some video site if I can learn how to rip and upload things in decent quality without getting caught haha.