John Kricfalusi, renegade animator and creator of Ren and Stimpy, has a blog in whcih he shares his musings on animation theory and history, as well as discusses his career as a lifelong cartoonist. I suppose you could call him an animation purist, or classicist, or something like that. It's pretty interesting stuff if you're interested in where cartoons come from and the theoretical structures behind traditional hand-drawn animation.
One story he's shared is about being invited by Dreamworks to come in and pitch an idea for an animated feature film. Unfortunately, it didn't go well. You can find Kricfalusi's blog entry recounting the incident here. (Be sure to read his entry before you continue on with this one.)
Here are a few of the films Dreamworks has put out over the years. Notice any of those 'arenas' the Dreamworks executives were describing to Kricfalusi?
An ant hill.
A bee hive.
A zoo.
An ocean.
Pretty groundbreaking and original, right? You get the right 'arena,' and this stuff writes itself.
Quick! We need an arena, stat! How About a fire station? Queue the clumsy Dalmatian with a heart of gold trying to earn his spots as the company's fire dog; queue the grouchy old pidgeon who lives up above the garage door and gets ticked off every time the the door opens and the trucks roll out; queue the sweet poodle who lives across the street at the nail salon and just knows the Dalmatian has it inside him to become a hero when – at the end of the movie – the fire station itself gets set on fire by - get this irony - a human fireman who leaves the oven one - and the dalmation must save all of the fire fighters who've treated him poorly the whole movie; queue the wacky feline sidekick who's always mocking the dalmation for not having spots; maybe throw in an organ-grinder monkey who’s always climbing a nearby apartment building and asking for quarters. Bingo! We've got our movie, gentlemen!
But I digress.
As you probably noticed in Kricfalusi's blog entry, that "desert arena with the plot of Casablanca" was already made...in the 1990s. Kricfalusi had a picture of the poster - Bugs Bunny in "Carrotblanca" (1995). Yes, it was a real theatrical short cartoon. So the execs at Dreamworks brought in a talented animator to get his ideas for a new movie, but instead ended up telling him to write a story that had already been made. And here it is. Give it a look.
Two questions: 1. What animated films from the past ten years or so, lackluster or otherwise, can you think of that were likely created using the 'arena method' of cartoon writing? (In other words, films in which the the setting came first, celebrity voices came second, and characters and story came in a distant third.) 2. Do you like "Carrotblanca"? Is it funny, original, engaging, and/or entertaining? Let me know what you think.
