Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/06/13/new-looney-tunes-cartoons.html
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This may be splitting hares, but why the yellow gloves? Yes, I know what I did.
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Hmm. It will be interesting to see if they will capture the feel of the originals (assuming that’s the intent) considering where we are now culturally compared to where we were back then.
I approach with caution, prepared for disappointment.
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It sure would be nice to see some decent animation again. American animation has been in a miserable condition for way too long. Kick Gendy Tartakovsky and his ilk to the curb where their cheap-ass visual garbage belongs.
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Yay! I heard new Animaniacs as well.
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New ‘Looney Tunes Cartoons’ are on the way
Just in time for the 2020 elections.
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Is there anywhere you can stream all the old cartoons in HD? Like, I’d love to be able to binge Warner brothers cartoons in chronological order on Netflix. I bought a giant DVD set years ago and it has a ton of cartoon stuff on it but it’s infuriating how they are just all jumbled up. Like at least sort by character or director or something if not chronological.
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Was that cell animation? Or just a good digital representation.
It would be kind of awesome to see cell animation again as a regular thing.
It would also be awesome if they got John Zorn to do some of the soundtracks, he is one of the few musicians who took Carl Stalling seriously and tried to expand on it.
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There’s a difference between bad animation and stylized animation. and sometimes cheap stylized animation is amazing. The early Yogi Bear cartoons had a minimal budget, limited animation (almost cheaper than something like aqua teen hunger force), but the expressions, the characters and the humor was top notch. I only worry that the opposite could be true with this (which I’m sensing in that preview)… which is to say: high frame rate, lots and lots of drawings and fast action, but somehow not meaningful or funny… I hope they prove me wrong. but if it’s anything like the golden era of animation it’s gonna depend a lot on who is directing each cartoon.
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It’s wabbit season. Now give me more Tom & Jerry.
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If this snippet is an example of what’s to come (visual sight gags hinging on absolutely no story), then I’m already disappointed.
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They’re doing awesome stuff with these and the crew is top-notch, all cartoonists, doing super-cartoony hand-animated old school stuff. No limited animation, lots of smears and funny drawings. I kinda wish they’d started off with one with more dialogue and fewer explosions to show they can actually write story (which they definitely can).
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It would, but I can see that not being “financially viable” these days.
Maybe they will leave the production up to the animators they’ve chosen, rather than the accountants, and we will get some who really want to dig into the old school processes.
My fingers are crossed that it was intended to be an eye catching and zany intro to the project, rather than an example of the cartoons to come. A teaser, set to music, with the feel of the BB/Fudd dynamic.
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If the only means to broadly inculcate classical music (these darksome days) is via animated mayhem then that by itself is worthy. --HYKGOML (hey you kids get off my lawn)
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This makes me so happy.
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i don’t think anyone, including animators, really want to return to cel animation. You can mimic the look digitally, and anyway when you work digitally you can see your animation played back immediately. modern technology is just better. There are shortcuts people take in animation because of computers (like the hinged puppet style animation in shows like metaloclypse) that make it look cheap, but that doesnt have to be the case. You can do traditional, full animation digitally.
maybe a good example of traditional animators being overjoyed at a technological advance: the invention of xerox technology. the animators LOVED it when their actual drawings ended up on the cels instead of having to be traced. I’m sure those old school animators would have killed to have have the technology we have now.
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" Looney Tunes Cartoons echoes the high production value and process of the original Looney Tunes theatrical shorts"
I hope so. The last “new Bugs Bunny” I saw just plain sucks:
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I see your point, and agree… to a point.
Yeah, classic cell animation can be mimicked through digital technology. If they go that route, I just hope it’s not half assed.
As for this:
I would point to Cuphead.
The animation techniques behind Cuphead are similar to that of the 1930s cartoons. Chad Moldenhauer, who had previously worked in graphic design, would hand-draw the animations and paint the backgrounds using watercolors, colorizing them in Photoshop.The gameplay runs at a framerate of 60, while the animation runs at 24, which is a film standard. Chad Moldenhauer also saw his process with its human imperfections as a reaction to the perfectionism of pixel art.
I’m guessing there are some animators who love the medium and would enjoy the challenge in spite of how much easier it is to create animation using modern techniques these days.
Going to frame-by-frame cell animation doesn’t require painting on actual cells. It could be as simple as cutting out automatic tweening across frames, or doing without other timesaving techniques that are handled by a processor rather than a person. Which is probably what you meant by mimicking.
For myself, I’m at best a neophyte student of animation. I’ve made some Flash & HTML5 animation for display ads over the years, and when doing that all shortcuts were a godsend. When I animate for practice or for fun, I prefer working frame-by-frame. It’s tedious, but when I finish I feel like I’ve accomplished something that not just anyone can do by fiddling with settings on a timebar.
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I kind of feel the same way. There’s some essential “fun” element that is missing from this preview. I dunno, I just can’t shake the feeling they’ll get it wrong.
