TVSquad

When a character is created for an animated series, it usually goes through several changes. Like any work of art, it takes several drafts before something is created that really works. In animation this is especially true, since the character most not only look good, but also be drawn in a way that allows optimum movement and flexibility. Sometimes characters actually change right before our eyes. The Bugs Bunny we recognize today looks nothing like he did when the character that would eventually evolve into him first appeared in the late 1930s. When Porky Pig first appeared in 1935's "I Haven't Got A Hat" he was positively gargantuan and rather grotesque compared to his thinner future self.

Animator Jeff Pidgeon wrote on his blog about working on Tiny Toons and coming up with the design of Hampton Pig. Apparently no one could come up with a design that executive producer Steven Spielberg liked, so a contest was held and Pidgeon's design found favor with Spielberg. However, his fellow animators didn't like the design because Hampton's body was too squat and difficult to pose and animate.

The reason this is interesting, to me anyway, is that it helps to explain why Tiny Toons was often chastised by people in the animation industry. On the surface it appeared to be a direct descendant of Looney Tunes, but there was something very calculated about the chaos in Tiny Toons. Writing and animation were treated as two distinct entities, and we were left with a show that always felt forced no matter how high it piled on the wackiness.

I'm not saying Tiny Toons was a bad show. On the contrary, I actually enjoyed it quite a bit. Looking back, however, I see it as a kind of lesson in how NOT to make an animated program. When Bob Clampett, Chuck Jones, and other legends in animation first began smashing their characters with anvils it was the result of form, style and imagination coming together to create something both hysterical and appealing to the eye. What this resulted in, unfortunately, is a still widely-held belief that there exists a magical equation stating "Anvil Falling On Head = Funny." This was the guiding ethos of Tiny Toons and similar fare, and while it claimed to be an homage to the classic Warner Brother shorts of yesteryear, I think it ultimately proved it really had no clue what it was that made those old cartoons so appealing in the first place.

These days, animators don't hearken back to the Warner Brothers days as much, opting instead to borrow form and style from places outside the U.S. like Japan. I still think the lesson applies, however. It's not enough to just emulate another style, you have to truly grok what it is that makes that style work. If you don't, then you're merely creating a bland carbon copy of what came before you.