Blog Post #12: Short = Smart; Tall = Beautiful and Dumb???: I did some serious revisions to this. I changed my example from Elroy to Brain. I reworded some pieces. I liked this blog and chose it because (a) it was not on a feature film like most of my other blogs and (b) I think it is what history is all about- trying to draw conclusion from what is left behind.

Thank you so much!!! Hope y’all enjoyed my blogs…

Earlier films generally dealt with evil forces trying to prevent a hero from their goal, and the hero learns some sort of lesson in the process. While this is still the general template in which story lines tend to run their course, the evil forces and the hero’s journey tend to become more complex and relate-able. For example, in Monsters vs. Aliens the main character Susan learns not only to accept herself (the usual animation lesson). Susan learns that her fiance wanted her to not outshine him; unless her powers benefited him Susan realizes she should not marry someone like this. She also realized she should not have to mold herself into the  perfect partner just to be with this guy. This is a very deep storyline as opposed to those in earlier films like Snow White and Cinderella, where there are beautiful princesses with hateful step-parents that try to kill them or ruin their lives.

Another story that gets very complex is in the movie Up. In it, both Russel, the kid, and Mr. Frederickson, the bitter old man, have very realistic and complex issues. Mr. Frederickson is coping with life after his wife dies who he had been with his whole life. He tries to fulfill her life dream. In the end, he realizes that she viewed their life together as a dream and the greatest adventure. He even found a note from her telling him to have his own adventures, which helps give Mr. Frederickson closure and the ability to live life. The young boyscout Russel deals with issues many kids deal with today. Russel’s father remarried, and he does not want to play with him anymore. In fact, his stepmother even tells Russel that his father is annoyed by him. In the end, Russel finds a friend and father figure in Mr. Frederickson.

Even movies with princesses have gotten more complex issues. The Princess and the Frog addressed issues that different classes face. Tiana felt the need to fulfill her father’s dream. In the end, she realized she needed to make herself happy and everything else would follow. The Prince also had his own problems. He was dealing with issues of money. He needed to marry rich if he wanted to maintain his lifestyle. He also realized in the end that it was better to make himself happy then worry about money.

It is obvious with the evolution of animation has come the evolution of story lines. The result has been much more dynamic realistic looking characters that are easy to relate to. Since animations are for everyone and have entertained for about a century, what better way to keep audiences engaged than through real problems and real story lines with a little animated humor wedged in between.

I commented on Brittany Alberry and Brenda Weber’s post.

This idea becomes apparent in many popular 20th century cartoons. For example, the character of Dexter in Dexter’s Laboratory is a genius who is drawn as abnormally small and stout compared to other people his age.  His older sister, Dede, is considered beautiful and is animated as very tall, but her personality is very whimsical and child-like.  Another show with the same general premise is “Pinky and the Brain,” a short from the show Animaniacs. In it an abnormally small mouse named Brain keep hatching plans to try and take over the world, much like a mad scientist. People also regularly comment how ugly Brain is. There is only one problem with his attempts to take over the world. His friend, Pinky, a tall very dumb mouse keeps ruining everything. While Pinky is not necessarily handsome, he is considered better looking than Brain. This is not just a recent phenomenon. In the 1960s show Scooby Doo, Velma is the smartest member of the gang and coincidentally one of the shortest. Daphne, on the other hand, is beautiful and by no mean contributes really to any of their “mysteries.”

So what does this say about the 20th century? Apparently, we associate height with (a) being attractive and (b) being not necessarily the brightest. What type of stereotype is this? Height understandably can go with beauty because models have always been tall, but beautiful should not equal dumb. Plenty of beautiful people have been considered geniuses. In fact, Playboy had the most beautiful genius pose on its cover. Moreover, why is everyone who is smart, short. People like Albert Einstein was actually about average height by today’s standards, being about 5’9″. Bill Gates is around the same height. This is by no means short. People need to realize that despite the fact that cartoons are for entertainment, they may be sending the wrong messages about our culture to people in the future. Is this the message we want to send?

Dexter and Dede

Pinky and the Brain

Velma (orange sweater) and Daphne (purple dress)

Beautiful Genius

ETA: I commented on Brenda Weber and Gerard Thomas’ blog.

In this world they visit, animals dance alongside people and carousel horses ride off of the carousel along trails. There are even animated people who play music and dance. This movie was one of the earlier attempts to splice animation into a live feature film with real actors, with the exception of “Gertie the Dinosaur.” The characters even interact with the animated animals. Bert dances with the penguins. One penguin even steals a kiss from Mary. Mary even sings along with an animated band. This is not exactly done seamlessly. In fact, Mary appears to be singing in front of a television screen of cartoon characters during the song. The penguin dance looks a little better. This may be due to the fact that there are no real life penguins to compare them to, but there are real people. Despite the mistakes, this technique does add to the magic of Bert and Mary Poppins’ adventures. Oddly enough, Travers did not agree to this being in the film, but Disney decided to keep it adding the typical Disney touch of magic, characterized by talking and dancing animals, to the feature. In the end, it has remained one of the most memorable scenes in this film.  Below you will find the videos (please excuse the singalong bar).

ETA: I commented on Kristina Wade’s and Emily Witt’s blog.

The first and the most obvious of the musical allusions is demonstrated through the characters of Papa and Mama Mousekewitz. Their personalities, marital relationship, and even the way they dress mirrors that of Tevye and Golde from the 1960s musical Fiddler on the Roof. This seems to have been used for stereotyping because Tevye and Golde were easily identifiable Jewish characters whose story was also set in the early 1900s in Tsarist Russia. Below see pictures comparing the two sets of characters.

Papa MousekewitzMama Mousekewitz

Tevye

Mama Mousekewitz

There is also several other characters that appear to be modeled after other characters from musicals. Fivel’s friend Tony bears a shocking resemblance both in personality and looks to the character of Jack Dawkins or the “Artful Dodger” from the Dicken’s novel turned musical Oliver Twist which was originally written in 1838. Tony introduces Fivel to America and tries to teach him how to survive, much like the Artful Dodger. Another character from a famous book/musical that seems to appear in this film is the cowardly Lion from The Wizard of OZ who comes in as Tiger, the lovable cat who is not as tough as the others and attempts to conform but can’t. Not only is Tiger the same color as the Lion, but Dom Deluise, who does Tiger’s voice has the same sound to his voice as the Cowardly Lion. See images below to see the odd similarities between these characters.

Jack Dawkins AKA the Artful Dodger

Tony (on right) and Tiger (top middle)

Cowardly Lion

Finally, there is a reference musically to a musical that was written in the 1870s, the approximate time that An American Tail is set. After Fivel leaves the sweatshop, the music “Poor Wand’ring One” plays in the background. This is from the famous Gilbert and Sullivan musical The Pirates of Penzance. This song is sung to a poor young man who also wound up washed up on the shores of an island. He was a misfit not quite sure of where he fit in. This seems to be another obvious allusion for Fivel in this film. Overall, An American Tail seems to pull a lot from literature around the time to help the American audience identify with something they may not remember, immigrating to the United States and the long hard road to becoming an American.

I commented on Andrew Steward and Brenda Weber’s blog.

So Disney has done it again…or at least will try to. Since The Princess and the Frog did not exactly do as well as they wished, Disney will attempt to create another fairytale with its newest movie Tangled. Their newest creation, a new take on Rapunzel, follows in true Disney fashion. This movie, like almost all Disney movies, is an old tale which avoids any copyright costs. Also, though not a lot is shown from the movie in this clip, several things can be drawn from it. Tangled will be a combination of CGI and cell animation. Disney is attempting to mesh its old style animation with the very popular CGI technique. This is supposed to give the classic Disney character animation a 3D appearance.This is Disney’s usual attempt to adapt to the times while simultaneously maintaining its original style. Disney has been doing this since the 1950s when UPA’s unrealistic animation style became more popular than Disney’s realistic characters like Snow White.

Disney is also bringing in an all-star cast to entice audiences to come see its latest take n fairy tales. Rapunzel will be played by singer Mandy Moore. Stars such as David Schwimmer are also rumored to be adorning this cast. In it, Rapunzel will meet a street smart bandit, which will be quite a shock for a girl who has been locked away in a tower her whole life. Apparently, Disney is abandoning its traditional damsel in distress type princess character and making the bandit just as important as Rapunzel herself. Once again, Disney will be trying to adapt to the times. I am not quite sure that this much editing to a classic tale will be successful, but I am hopeful and excited to see Disney’s latest creation due to come out this year.

I commented on Brittany Alberry and Gerard Thomas’ blog.

These commercials would run during intermission to try to entice many of the movie-goers to go to the snack bar to pick up their favorite snack. They would make sure to assure them that they would not miss any of the movie. While these animations were not necessarily the greatest, they featured much of the characteristics of the UPA animation style that we saw in class this week. These commercials also included interesting characters, like talking hot dogs. Of course, like most animations at the time, these commercials featured catchy jingles that would keep people humming the tune that they heard and possibly want to get some popcorn. Overall, drive-in movies were another example of  a place that started the use of the cartoons, opening this advertising market even more for animators.

I commented on Emily Witt and Bonnie Hansen’s Post.

Alice in Wonderland : Not much was changed. I had to rewrite this when I originally wrote it because my computer somehow deleted it. So, it was already pretty edited. I did clean up some of the sentences to make them more understandable. Overall, no major reconstruction done to this post.

Disney Captures The Essence of New Orleans : I did some major reconstruction to these paragraphs and sentences. I added some sentences to make it flow a little better. I was hoping more pictures would be online now, but I really could not find any good ones. Overall though, it is the same thesis.

Below you will find a Winston cigarette commercial featuring the Flintstones. In it, Barney, Fred, and Wilma all are smoking. Obviously this was before it became illegal to do so, and it was before many understood the risks involved in smoking. I am in no way advocating smoking or cartoon characters doing so.This is an example, however, of adult product placements in a cartoon.

Growing up I remember many of my favorite cartoon characters getting drunk. Though the bottle was never labeled, it was simply understood. Did this mean my childhood friends and I attempted to get drunk? No. My father used to sit and watch these cartoons with me. Had some name brand been on the bottle, this would have been an excellent opportunity for product placement instead of the usual “X.” Either way, as long as parenting is actively being done, it seems children would not be falling down drunk in the streets.

By banning certain activities from cartoons, people are leaving out an entire market of adults watching these same cartoons that could respond to advertisements. This does not just pertain to adults-only products, product-placement for other items used in our daily lives would be an interesting advertising technique. Let’s be serious, Disney along with other channels are moving away from cartoons and replacing them with characters like Miley Cyrus/ Hannah Montana. At twenty-three, I have seen more cartoons than all three of my younger siblings and four of my younger step-siblings ranging from eight to twenty-two. I think if properly regulated in ways (like avoiding condom and cigarette placements)cartoons could become a great place for product placement.

I commented on Jeannie Hilleary and Kristina Wade’s Blog.