I recently discovered there is an adult competitive league for the child’s game of tag. It’s a one on one game played for 20 seconds on an obstacle course. It’s probably best to just roll the video.
Most animators are familiar with the sport of parkour, and this game obviously shares most of the same physical skills. I have seen many student videos that feature a character doing parkour, as a way to demonstrate body mechanics.
As an alternative exercise, may I suggest having two actors playing tag? I think this has some significant advantages over parkour.
Parkour is a solo event, but in tag, the players have a relationship, they interact. You can add emotions to the performance.
Tag includes a chase. Chases are a basic tool of physical comedy. Tom & Jerry, the RoadRunner, etc all include chases.
The environment could be anywhere. As simple or complex as you want. Where would be an inappropriate place to play a game? You can even have props a character can move to obstruct the chasing player. Get creative.
Chases can involve hiding, which allows for the possibility of surprise. Maybe the chased player ducks out sight, appearing in an unexpected place.
It can have an ending, with a player being tagged, which can be dramatized in any way you can think of.
There was a feature film, “Tag”, made about a group of adult men who had been running the same game of tag since they were kids. Perhaps watch that for inspiration. Here are a couple of shots from that.
Think about it like a Jackie Chan fight scene. Jackie is often trying to avoid blows, so he bends and twists out of reach. He gets extremely clever in setting up scenes.
Everybody knows the game of tag, so they can relate to what they are seeing. If you simply have “tag” in the title, viewers can immediately know what’s going on, and you don’t need to waste any time. PLEASE let me know if you do an exercise like this, I will promote it for you!
My previous post on Cantinflas was a collection of visual items and links I thought would be entertaining. Further reading has given me more things to say about Mario Moreno and his wonderful character. I want to share more about his life and work. It also helps me to assemble my notes for future reference.
Moreno was born on August 12, 1911 to a poor family. At fifteen, they sent him to an agricultural school, but after about nine months there he ran off to become an actor in a carpa, which is a traveling tent show. In the history of comedy, such itinerant troupes are the birthplace of many great performers. To keep his parents from finding him, he took the stage name “Cantinflas”
Initially, he performed a variety of parts. He was a dancer, he could be a comic bullfighter or a boxer who hams it up in the ring for laughs. These are all great experiences for developing the physical comedy component of his future characters. Comic bullfighting, by the way, is still a popular entertainment in Mexico. I found this very amusing video of a vintage example.
Cantinflas was equally well known for his verbal comedy, and there is a story about how that came to be. One evening, he was pressed into service as the master of ceremony for the show. He had never spoken for an audience before, and he was terribly nervous. When he did speak, what came out made no sense. He fumbled his words so badly, the audience found it funny. He had unintentionally created something special, and he developed his comedic style to take advantage of this happy accident. He used the tools of gibberish, double-speak, mispronunciation and wild exaggeration. He became so good, a word was created to describe it: Cantinflear.
I admit I had previously mistaken Cantinflas to be a rural peasant character. In my book, I discuss the archetype of the rustic, and his appearance fits the description. I have learned that he is part of the tradition of the pelado, which refers more to the urban poor. Specifically, Cantinflas is the primary example of what is called a peladito. Here is how Moreno himself describes the character…
“The peladito is the creature who came from the carpas with a face stained with flour or white paint, dressed in rags, the pants below the waist and covered with patches, the belt replaced by an old tie, the peaked cap representing a hat, the ruffled underwear that shows at any provocation, the torn shirt, and gabardine across his left shoulder.”
Cantinflas is often compared to another tramp, Charlie Chaplin. In fact, after he saw Cantinflas in his film Ni sangre ni arena, Chaplin is said to have called him “The best living comic in the world.” Like Chaplin’s Tramp, Cantinflas was an everyman, an underdog, struggling to survive in the world. Both men made films about circuses and politicians. Each was, however, customized for the culture he existed in. If you wanted to create a comic character in this vein, keep that in mind.
During the era of silent films, American movies worked just as well in Mexico as in any other country in the world. But when those stopped being produced, a new market for sound films in the Spanish language was created and filled by local talent. This was the beginning of the golden age of Mexican filmmaking. Because of this, Mario Moreno as able to become a superstar in Latin America and Spain. He has been honored with a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame.
Success didn’t cause Moreno to forget where he came from. He was quite philanthropic and supported charities for the poor. He was also president of the Mexican actors guild, and first secretary-general of the Independent Film Workers union. He continued to support the working man.
When I saw Pixar’s Coco, I kept my eyes open, hoping to find the great Mexican comedian Cantinflas. I did spot him very briefly. I had hoped for more, but perhaps they couldn’t find a part for him as they did for Frida Khalo. He is also in this promotional image.
Cantinflas was the creation of Mario Moreno, and August 12 is his birthday. Moreno was a dancer and actor who became supremely successful in Mexico but found only minor success in the US. I first knew Cantinflas from the 1956 film, Around the World in 80 Days. Moreno played Passepartout, the manservant to Phileas Fogg. In my opinion, he steals the show. Particularly in his bullfighting scene. Years ago I wrote a post about it on John Towsen’s blog “All Fall Down.” You can read it HERE.
Back in 2014 a biopic was released, and I posted the trailer for it HERE. I went out to see the first night and learned a great deal. He was a good man who cared about the people he worked with. I recommend searching for it streaming online.
As I stated, Mario was a dancer, and I should share at least one sample of his moves. I chose this next piece for its high production quality. I love this clip. I will point out two things about their costumes.
His low belted pants and short jacket emphasize his hip motion during the dance.
There was an animated TV show made from his character. The Cantinflas Show was an educational cartoon produced in Mexico in 1972. In 1982 Hanna Barbera recreated the show, with Moreno voicing the character in Spanish. The HB version was called Amigo and Friends. I find his caricature very appealing.
Moreno was a handsome man, with a friendly face.
While searching for images to use for this post, I found a great many caricatures of Cantinflas. Here are some that struck me as interesting. If anyone knows who created some of these, please let me know.
The fellow’s name is Leonard Barr. He was an actor, comedian, and dancer. He was also the real-life uncle of Dean Martin. This is not a highly skilled dance, as much as it is very funny walks set to music.
I am pleased to re-post my first guest blogger Betsy Baytos. Betsy is an animator, and an expert in dance, specifically the art of eccentric dance. Tonight, August 5, Betsy is presenting The Choreography of Comedy at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Los Angeles.I very much wish I could be there.HERE IS A LINKto the event, in case tickets are still available. AndHERE IS A LINKto a great introductory video that I am unable to embed. but is great fun.Scroll back through my recent posts to see more videos of eccentric dancers.
When I was first hired as a trainee at the Disney Studios at age 18, I had no idea how animation worked. But my early background in dance proved to be a bonus while working with my mentor, the great Eric Larson, one of Disney’s ‘nine old men’. Not knowing any better, I would physically work out the movement, (always dance), for the required personal tests. This instinctive ability to translate my extreme flexibility into cartoon characters, was a match made in heaven, and I was soon hired as a full-time in-betweener on ‘The Rescuers’ while assigned to a veteran animator that best suited my style, the amazing Cliff Nordberg (Three Little Pigs, alligators in Peter Pan, Evinrude in The Rescuers,etc.), renown for his most over-the-top, character-driven animation in our most memorable animated cartoons.
Walt Disney doing a few steps with Buddy Ebsen.
I had just discovered and was studying eccentric dance and immediately saw a powerful connection. What astonished me most, was the process in creating character, building a gag and making a step funny, was virtually parallel between the eccentric dancer and the animator. Their language was identical! I could not wait to get back to Disney and tell Eric, who only chuckled and mentioned these dancers were a staple of animators, as inspiration for many animated characters from its early beginnings. It made perfect sense, as Winsor McCay, an early pioneer in animation, toured the vaudeville circuit in 1906 as an animated chalk talk act, followed in 1914, with a stage performance teamed with his Gertie the Dinosaur, at that time ground-breaking, as one of the first developed personalities in a cartoon. Sharing the bill with the top eccentric dancers and witnessing their cartoonesque, exaggerated movement, must have ignited ‘character’ ideas as it had many other aspiring animators. I had to learn more and was stunned when learning my ‘eccentric’ mentor, Gil Lamb, turned out to be the spot-on model for Disney’s Ichabod Crane in “Legend of Sleepy Hollow’ and Buddy Ebsen, for Disneyland’s ‘Country Bears’. The link was getting stronger, as Disney artists Ken Anderson and Joe Grant spoke of the tremendous influence Chaplin had in animation. Grant himself, began a career as a Keystone Cop and had used Eddie Cantor and Charlotte Greenwood often as models. The prolific animation historian and writer, John Canemaker, clarified this analogy with his great Documentary short of Otto Messmer, who first translated Charlie Chaplin into an animated character.
As animation reflects our times, Chaplin’s ‘tramp’ character was introduced the same time as the animated personality was evolving, and much of Chaplin’s movement was soon emulated by Messmer’s early Felix the Cat character. Vaudeville was a treasure chest of eccentric dancers and visual comedians and a bounty for animators to use as reference in their ‘character’ work and still is. I was still processing all this when the amazing Dixieland Band, the Firehouse Five, comprised of animators Frank Thomas, Ward Kimball, and other visiting musicians, began playing outside the commissary during lunchtime. I could not help myself and began executing a rip-roaring charleston on the black-top. At first, a shock to the Disney employees trying to eat lunch as well as the animation staff, it opened up a life-changing opportunity, animation choreography! I was soon working with Don Bluth on ‘Pete’s Dragon’, and dancing as the dragon ‘Elliott’ in the parking lot while tapping into the eccentric ‘character’ process with a foam tail pinned to my arse. I worked again with Bluth in ‘Banjo’, soon after. It was here that Disney allowed me to take an unprecedented ‘leave’, to tour in Will B. Able’s ‘Baggy Pants & Co.’ Vaudeville/Burlesque Show, followed by Jim Henson’s ‘Muppet Show’, upon pleading how this rare opportunity, would only strengthen my animation, which it certainly did!
Upon returning to Disney, I was thrilled to work on my alter-ego and hero, ‘Goofy’, the consummate eccentric dancer, in ‘Mickey’s Christmas Carol’, and then, again teamed with animator Cliff Nordberg, began work on ‘The Fox and the Hound’, animating the owl ‘Big Mama’, and using the broadest character movement we could possibly conjure. It wasn’t long before the great animator Andreas Dejas called me in NY, to stage the ‘character movement’ in ‘The Emperor’s New Groove’. I was one step closer to bringing the eccentric style back into the animated cartoon.
I continued to animate and illustrate, while researching and studying eccentric dance, and when I made the decision to make this documentary, it was vital to film the animators themselves, discussing the eccentric dancer’s role in the evolution of animation.
Many are represented well in ‘FUNNY FEET’…Richard Fleischer, son of Max Fleisher and a renown Director (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Dr. Doolittle) spoke of his uncle Dave Fleischer, a great comic dancer in his own right, as the model for the first rotoscoped character (1915), ‘Koko the Clown’. Richard spoke of his sister, (then dating a young Ray Bolger), ‘eccentric dance’ act where she popped on and off the screen, and how his father, who loved eccentric dance, most likely modeled Olive Oyl from legmania dancer Charlotte Greenwood. Animator Myron Waldman’s interview details watching vaudeville/burlesque shows while creating Betty Boop and Popeye, and how Cab Calloway was the model for the ‘old man in the mountain’ and other characters. Chuck Jone’s interview was wonderful, detailing how he studied Chaplin, Laurel & Hardy and Keaton, but professed how Groucho’s walk became a signature in creating Bugs Bunny!
Frank Thomas & Ollie Johnston spoke a great deal about the physical comedians influence in their own work, specifically citing Chaplin, Laurel & Hardy, Red Skelton, and Buddy Ebsen. Ward Kimball elaborated on always searching for new walks and how animator Art Babbitt’s defining 360-degree walk for Goofy, made him a star, and how Steppin’ Fetchitt and Keaton played an enormous role in the development of Goofy’s ‘character movement’ and personality. Joe Barbera, of ‘Hannah Barbara’ provided incredible details on teaming Gene Kelly with Tom & Jerry, and later, on their ground-breaking collaboration for ‘Invitation To The Dance’. Al Hirschfeld, the renown NY Times caricaturist eloquently spoke of observing, then capturing in line art, all the great eccentrics that graced the NY stage, and how Bolger specifically, was inspired in his own movement by Hirschfeld’s illustrations. And the tradition continues, as the next generation of animators,(Andreas Dejas, Eric Goldberg and others) understand the importance of observing and tapping into these great ‘cartoon’ eccentric dancers. It all came full circle when the talented animation Directors John Musker and Ron Clements (Aladdin, Little Mermaid) approached me to bring the eccentric tradition into their next animated feature, ‘The Princess and the Frog’! I was thrilled to have the opportunity to again work with a wonderful animation team, and especially, to introduce this history, a precursor to their own work, to the next generation of incredible hip hop, break-dancers today. The surprise was instantaneous and I pushed them hard to capture the extreme movement necessary for animation. The reaction of the Cal Arts animation classes I instructed, was the same. ‘FUNNY FEET’ can help me imagine a dream to strengthen the relationship between dance and animation, training the two genres to inspire each other once again!
