I have been re-reading The Great Cartoon Directors by Jeff Lenberg, and in the section on Tex Avery he discusses the origins of Elmer Fudd. Elmer’s first incarnation was as “Egghead” and he was apparently inspired by a popular comic actor named Joe Penner. Here is a short piece of Joe Penner, that has a bonus of Betty Grable and some animation.
Recently I’ve been thinking about conventional wisdom in creating stories. What I mean by conventional wisdom, is the stuff I’ve seen in blog posts, giving direction to animators in creating stories. Some of it comes from Kurt Vonnegut’s advice to writers. Rather than go into the entire list, I’ll paraphrase the basic ideas that I want to comment on.
All of that is valid advice for starting stories. However, I’m concerned that some people will start to think of these as “rules.” People like Kurt Vonnegut and Robert McKee, who wrote the book Story, are giving advice to writers, not animators. Animators create characters, and not all characters follow the rules. I’m thinking of characters, I will call “playful.”
For instance, consider Bugs Bunny. Bugs doesn’t want anything. Some people will argue that Bugs Bunny wants to be left alone, but I consider that to be nothing. Elmer Fudd wants something. He wants to kill the rabbit for food. Elmer is also the one who is faced with the many obstacles to his goal. The obstacles created by Bugs. Bugs becomes the sadist. Following the above advice, Elmer should be the protagonist. But Bugs Bunny is the character people come to see.
Bugs easily masters the situation with Elmer, or Yosemite Sam, or whoever. Charlie Chaplin’s tramp is the same sort of character. While he is usually poor and needy, and he faces challenges from bad guys, he so easily controls the situation, there is never much doubt he will succeed.
Playful characters are full of life, and energy, and wit. They are bold. They are confident. They do not shy away from challenges. They engage in the situation and master it with style. From the clever servants in old theatrical comedy to the Marx Brothers to Ace Ventura, such characters are performers who run the show, not puppets of the godlike writer. These are the characters this blog is concerned with.
What inspired the word “playful” was this quote by Johannes Galli, from his book Clown: Joy of Failure.
The clown should never be mistaken for being obstinate. Contrariness provokes an encounter, but the clown is seeking an encounter, because he wants to play.
The literary protagonist, who yearns for one thing, and ultimately gets it, is satisfied, and done. The playful character is never satisfied, he is always ready to play again. And audiences will come back for more.
Here is another idea for an animation exercise. If you want to do a lip sync scene, you could of course do a standard dialog piece, or you could do this very cartoony alternative.
Long before he was a star, Jerry Lewis got his start in entertainment doing a
One way to make it more interesting is to rapidly change the music. This next clip, from the movie Money from Home, begins with a Cyrano de Bergerac situation. Dean Martin is hiding around the corner providing a voice for Jerry to serenade his girlfriend. But things go awry when a dog chases him off and the woman starts playing the radio. Jerry has to struggle to keep up with the continuous changes in what he is hearing.
Lip sync doesn’t necessarily have to be to words. In one of his most famous clips, Jerry pantomimes to an instrumental piece.
A much older Jerry Lewis has a part in the feature film Funny Bones (which is a movie I highly recommend). I suspect it may be party based on Jerry’s life. In the movie, Lee Evans plays a character very much like the younger Jerry. He does this “radio” act, which includes spoken words and sound effects as well. You can begin to see how an actor might interpret something differently than another actor.
The next video takes his type of performance a step further. It’s half comedy lip
Reader Jonathan Cowles has reminded me of Andy Kaufman’s recreation of this act. Back in the day, Jerry Lewis would have to step off stage to change the record. Andy just had the phonograph right there on stage with him. The animation bonus here is Andy is singing the theme song from Mighty Mouse.
Obtaining a clip of music to work with is the challenge. It would be great if the 11 second club considered doing this. Maybe you are a student at a college that has sound design courses, and one of those students might be able to throw something together for you.
This is my first ever artist spotlight. William Garratt is an independent animator and writer based in Bristol, in the UK. Some months ago I happened on to a funny bit of animation he posted on Twitter. Since following him, he has had a regular output of short, clever, funny animations. What makes them work for me is the non-verbal nature of the comedy. For some hardcore slapstick action, here is his latest release.
Initially, Fight! was created in pieces. Each gag was a small cycling gif which he posted on social media. The square aspect ratio works well for Instagram. You will notice they very briefly return to the same poses. He then assembled them together into what you see here. This seems to be a really low-pressure way to work, which would make it more fun and spontaneous. It’s not easy to steadily produce work, and he has found a method that serves him well.
Seven Sunsets was produced the same way. He created seven different cartoon takes on sunsets. When assembled together they are a good example of blackout gags, which is something I posted about recently. Sometimes he sets parameters for the work, and you can see
Tales of Death and Disappointment is an even longer compilation of
I can’t resist including this next short. It’s only 37 seconds
Often people are curious about the tools used to create work, and William says he uses Flash to animate and then composites the elements with After Effects. He has won several awards for his work too. He has much more to show you on his website, halfgiraffe.com. There are a whole bunch more funny videos and a page of his single frame cartoons. Below is one of those. You can follow William on Twitter and Instagram. Like most independent artists, he is always interested in paid work!
