September, 2008

Jeff Pidgeon:
I can see both sides of the issue.  In general, I'd lean toward the theory that characters end with the death of the original creators/performers.  Once the voice is gone, it's incredibly tough to find a new one - and by that, I mean the approach to its personality as much as recorded acting.

Many characters become a 'property' at some point after that happens - owned by a company instead of an individual.  I think that companies see an older cartoon character in that light, as an asset to protect, rather than a work in progress to improve.  Because of that, I think it's rare that an animated creation is allowed the opportunity to evolve that it had (however inadvertently) originally.

I think that most of the truly iconic characters we know today - Charlie Brown, Kermit the Frog, or Mickey Mouse, to name a few - were very different personalities at first, and were shaped and refined over time.

It's interesting that you chose Bugs Bunny, because I think Bugs is one of the more schizophrenic creations in animation.  He's been interpreted in a variety of ways, refracted through the lenses of several distinctive creators - to some degree simultaneously.  Tex Avery's Bugs is radically different from Bob Clampett's Bugs or Chuck Jones' Bugs, or Bob McKimson's Bugs - yet we still see Bugs (in almost all of the versions) as having an overarching unity and cohesion.

Bugs is one of the best arguments in favor of a character outliving its creators.  I think a new generation of artists can embrace a 'classic' character if they make it their own - a variation on the original, as opposed to an imitation.  Something new needs to be discovered - and in the current cultural context, in Bugs' case.  If that can happen, Bugs can thrive and entertain for years to come.  If it doesn't, he'll be a moving style guide for the current line of merchandising, and not much more.

Space Jam : Looney Tunes live in a cartoon world deep beneath the Earth's crust. They stop cartoons monsters from outer space by playing basketball with Michael Jordan. Based on Shakespeare's "As You Like it"*.

Carolyn Bates:
Great directors & animators can both honor and "get" a character and breathe life into an animated 'personality' whether it's for 90 minutes or 30 seconds.  At Duck Soup, we got to work on a wonderful campaign of Sylvester 9-Lives Cat Food spots that were truly funny due to the direction (Duane Crowther)   and animation (Amby Paliwoda), which caught all of Sylvester's spluttering, sufferin' succotash-ness.  Also at Duck, Sam Cornell revisited Woody Woodpecker in a show title and some theme park animation for Universal Studios Osaka and both bits were brilliantly funny and as wacky as the original.  Sam knew the characters, did great layouts, got the best animators and it worked.  What I loved best was that Sam got his own bit of silly lunacy into the animation, so his alter ego's in there too.

Personally, I don't think a beloved squash & stretch character should be taken from its drawn form into CGI or Mo-cap.  However, if a character's source was a static illustration or limited animation, then I think reinterpretation into CGI or Mo-cap is more acceptable.   My  preference is if a character was originally drawn, it should stay that way.  Flash is just a tool, so characters work when deftly directed & animated with the usual animation good stuff of careful timing & strong appealing poses by those who've had a traditional animation training. 

Mickey Mouse is totally into his awesome Nintendo in 1995's "Runaway Brain".

Dave Pruiksma:
I think characters are all of the era in which they were created or refined and should remain so, at least in appearance and personality. I can't imagine Bugs Bunny saying things like, "Awesome" or "It's all good". If he were required to do so, then it is my opinion that perhaps he would be better off dead. Neither can I fathom Pepe Le Pew going that extra step and actually having sex with his lady conquests. When Minnie Mouse went "Totally" in the 1980s, it was totally wrong/

Mickey should always be from the "Gee Whiz" school of expression - a four-foot mouse and his out of scale dog in a quiet suburbia of Anywhere, USA. Yogi should forever bamboozle Pic-A-Nic baskets and never stop to wonder if he should consider his cholesterol. Woody Woodpecker should never don a Hawaiian Shirt and ponder if his actions are actually harming the environment. Tom and Jerry are a mute cat and mouse and should never join together to help others. And let's not even talk about the bastardization of poor little Alvin and his Chipmunk brothers. The changes perpetrated on them over the years borders on the criminal.

The Chipmunks: Two generations later, they still suck.**

In essence, I feel that really good characters are timeless, as is their humor. There is a reason that the best characters of days gone by are still shown and are still enjoyed by new generations decades after their original creation and why so many of today's popular shows actually harkens back to the '50s and '60s for design influences and characterizations, ultimately paling in comparison to the original and falling by the wayside after only a few years. When something works it just does. I believe it is the coming together of the right elements and the right people at JUST the right time. It's magic, really.

Tim Hauser:
Sometimes what we most love about a character is the humor, tone, style, attitude of its creator as you propose.  The more married to that specific approach a character may be, the less likely it is to be revived successfully on film or in print.  Bugs, Mickey, Popeye, Daffy, Donald, Goofy, Tom & Jerry, The Jetsons and Flintstones, Jonny Quest, Peanuts etc all had original incarnations that were so creator-specific, that they have often been revived, but seldom successfully, or even when successful, not really interestingly (well, Charlie Brown has been lucky so far, because no one is allowed to do it).  If the original tone or attitude is missed, we tend to reject it.  

Severe modern revisionist versions - - even the likes of Mighty Mouse, Scooby Doo, Casper or Alvin - - may get attention for a while, but ultimately the "franchise" reverts to the popular version of yore and the remakes are largely forgotten.  And there is always the risk of serious rejection for the "re-imagined" version.  Or maybe it never really was that widely beloved to begin with (Speed Racer) and still isn't.

The characters that seem to better work for reuse are those with solid story foundations and thematic concepts, but less specific style and tone demands, like Batman or Superman, who both manage extreme creator changes and vastly different interpretations in look, style, attitude and tone in their many recreations, so long as they don't deny the intrinsic mythology we find appealing.  Though if and when that happens we also reject it (Superman Returns, Catwoman, the first Hulk).

And it's a tricky game.  Mickey may seem vague and easily repurposed, but he isn't.  His natural humor is of a specific style and era, the older and more whimsical the better (but that's hard-sell in Hollywood). 

I've sworn-off working with old characters a million times from all the development hell they cause, even when we love them (maybe especially then).  But often that's where the money is, and old properties have paid the bills consistently over the years, so one must be grateful for their persistence and goodwill.  They persist because of marketability: familiar titles and images and the warmth nostalgia engenders, so it interests rights-holders and licensees to bet on the familiar name rather than the unknown and unproven.  

That makes it a catch 22 in terms of actually getting new things off the ground.  But when the new idea does break through (but relatively speaking, how often does that happen?) - - like South Park or The Simpsons - - these tend to make a bigger impression than a remake - - because they have that freshness and authenticity you can't compare to anything - - Where a reborn character, even in success, will likely never be as good as the original, seeming like a faded magnolia or sun-bleached comic or worse.  

But the rehash works well enough, often enough to still be worth the managed risk.  And artists tend to want to crawl back into the nest to play with the things they found most delightful in youth.  Until that changes (will it ever?), we'll keep seeing the remakes.  

Only one thing will kill it and that's the desire (and current practice) of corporate owners to present only the recent, "relevant," poor versions to the general public instead of the good originals, which will ultimately fail to perpetuate the character's finer points to the next generation.  Better to keep the dream alive?

Of course, old characters offer one virtue we are sadly missing otherwise - - they were often based on personality, psychological and thematic areas from which society has now moved on, but still finds needed or appealing.  So long as new creations don't have this, there is an important role for the old characters to play in personifying these ideals (or even satirical concepts).  

The Death of Bugs Bunny by Steve Moore.

Nancy Beiman:
Bugs Bunny Lives!
Also Goofy, Donald, and Daffy. Any reports of their demise have been greatly exaggerated.

In animation, we refer to some characters as 'good actors'. This means that the character can provide a good range of body actions and facial expressions. It also helps if its voice isn't forced or artificial (Donald is a wonderful pantomime actor, but you wouldn't give him long speeches since it's a bit hard to listen to him for long periods of time. Mickey Mouse is a notoriously hard character to 'act' since he has very little vocal range. I liked him best as the boy-adventurer in films like Thru the Mirror, and incidentally, he has only a few lines of dialogue in that film).

Bugs Bunny is a Protean character who can change into anything he needs to be--a woman, a magician, a Genie, whatever it takes. Bugs is timeless. He's a marvelous character to work with and I would love to do so again. He can play anything!

As to whether these '30's and '40's characters can be updated for what is laughably termed 'modern tastes'--I refer you to the Little Movie That Could, known more familiarly to you as A Goofy Movie. It was fun, it was entertaining, it showed Goofy's terrific acting range...and it was a terrific hit. As it turned out, his Mambo dancing dates less and is 'hipper' today than son Max's "Powerline" act.

Yes, the great characters can still be entertaining today--just give them good stories.


*Not really.
**Really.

Rusty Mills:
On Tiny Toon Adventures we sometimes used some of the classic Looney Tunes characters in the shows.   As someone who grew up watching Looney Tunes every Saturday morning it was a thrill to be drawing these characters at Warner Bros. but often I feltI would rather be using them in their more classic roles.   I found doing work with the lesser know characters (such as Pete Puma) to be more fun.   Whenever we did use these characters we studied lots of footage of the classic cartoons to try and be as respectful to their origins as possible.  

"Baby Looney Tunes", part of the cartoon baby boom of the '80's. Yes, it really happened.

I worked on some new Looney Tunes shorts that were done   just before the back in action feature and though I was glad to be making the money I knew they were all wrong.   The people incharge had not made cartoons of this sort and even the production pipeline was messed up. They were having some of us doing "character layout" which was really animating the characters but without exposure sheets.   They would then have someone else time those poses, and place them on x-sheets that got sent overseas to be finished off.   To top it off the writing was completely wrong, filled with much of the same sort of drivel we find in many of today's T.V. animation. Needless to say only one of those shorts ever made it to the theaters after spending millions making them.

I also worked on Mickey Mouse Clubhouse where they have taken their classic characters and put them into a 3D world.   There's always the argument you heard that Walt liked technology   and would likely have done some 3D animation.   I don't think though that he would have placed Mickey and gang into 3D unless it absolutely had the same appeal as the traditional cartoons.   Mickey has evolved over the years but not until the 3D did he lose the personality.   Though I know the animators that work on these shows over in India work very hard, they don't have the classic training and understanding that is usually required for Disney animation.  

I remember hearing Mark Henn talking about how hard he worked on a test of Mickey so he could be promoted to animator on Mickey's Christmas Carol yet those same restrictions no longer applied on Mickey's Clubhouse.   That is because often theanimation process is looked at as an afterthought. It's just a mundane job that makes the characters move.   So all of the effort for making the characters act like themselves is in the scripts and storyboards. The translating from storyboard to 3D falls apart when you don't have the animators with traditional Disney style experiences doing the animation.   There also is the issue of scripts being written without intimate knowledge of the characters and what they would or wouldn't do.   Most of the pre-production artists on these shows know these characters very well yet are bound to follow a script that has them act in a non-characteristic way.

As an artist and animator I love working on the classic characters but would like to see the reigns in the hands of people who know the characters well.   Needless to say it also gives employment to many animation artist that would otherwise be jobless and that is always a welcome thing.   The biggest problem is if they are done wrong too many times the public will stop accepting new versions and may give up on the classics too.

Xeth Feinberg:
These characters are products of their era and original creators. Ideally, from a creative and moral standpoint, they should be gracefully consigned to history. Tex, Chuck, Fritz, etc. are all gone, as is the time and spirit that made their cartoons exciting, fresh and alive.

One might argue the only successful use of old characters since their glory days has been as mascots for corporations. More than a second of that is painful enough, whether it's Bugs, Roadrunner or Snoopy. As for their current staring power, these toons are corpses that should not be reanimated. They already WERE animated, and we can still enjoy them as they were, forever.

So watch them, celebrate them, appreciate them, be inspired by them, but let them rest in peace. I don't want to read "new" works by dead novelists, or see some digital version of Humphrey Bogart in a brand new movie (that's coming, no doubt) and I don't need to see Bugs and Elmer doing gags about cell reception or YouTube or whatever.

But perhaps a more important factor in the viability of all this is that these old cartoon characters are now products owned and controlled by corporations run by committees of executives. This is not a formula for creative rejuvenation.

The clever men of Termite Terrace succeeded precisely BECAUSE they largely escaped executive oversight and pressure. Most comedy and creativity does. As soon as the legacy of these classic characters became a precious corporate commodity to preserve, protect and enshrine, the comic potential drained away proportionately. When Mickey became the mascot for his empire, even Uncle Walt couldn't keep him relevant and fresh. Has anyone really laughed at a 'new' Mickey Mouse antic in the last 60 years? A Bugs antic in 40?

Finally, the best that can be hoped for in this situation is that some corporation, hoping, of course, to maximize the ultimate value of its property, gives some truly talented, appropriately-brained creative person or people (whoever that might be, however that may be decided) the freedom and budget to create new adventures/movies/shorts/whatever for some classic character(s). So maybe, just maybe, there is a tiny chance Bugs might be successfully dragged into the 21st century and by some miracle we'll truly appreciate the effort... and actually laugh.

Unfortunately, even this improbable result is philosophically at best a mixed blessing. The creative geniuses able to pull off such a feat would be far better served if their corporate overlords just gave them the freedom to create something new, of their own, for their own time. Likewise, the corporations would be better off not risking their legacy characters, but focusing on generating new properties to shamelessly and guiltlessly exploit. The cartoon characters themselves would be better off being celebrated as the charming inventions of real-life, historical creators... not as eternally exploitable 'actors' that can spring to life at the whim of whichever bean-counter is pulling the corporate strings in any given decade.

In conclusion, expect to see interactive CGI holographic Bugs Bunny beamed into your wireless i-Skull home multiplex social networking implant soon!

Q: In resurrection , should they be modernized?

Tina Price:
Maybe I'm just old but good animation character designs are designed for the medium they were intended to be animated in. It's a form follows function sort of thing. For instance Hanna Barbara and UPA designed characters for limited TV animation to basically save money and within that format they work very well. Those characters are not just about how they look but they are who they are based on their motion and the time period they represent, black and white, limited animation etc. A huge part of their personality is tied to the fact that they are limited animation characters and are flat, on 2's or 4's with walk cycles and zip pans.

Give designers the challenge that they live for and let them create new characters for new mediums. In wonderful 3D, or full animation 2D, crayon, clay or zippy flat flash or stop motion. Celebrate the medium with characters designed specifically for that medium and let designers and animators push the edges of a new art form by creating for it instead of just using it as a xerox machine of previous designs. .

Maybe I'm just not hip or current but if that is the case then go ahead and wire up the Pyramids for wireless so our iphones work inside and repaint the master works in Photoshop, and rewrite the bible to fit into a short version that we can put on YouTube. Seems we don't because they represent a time period as well as being a work of art and that is also part of their appeal.

Tim Hauser:
Only if it retains the charm and personality and style that made them interesting in the first place. Unrecognizable and ugly updates to still-good designs of yesteryear (like the George of the Jungle redo - - or Scooby Doo) are pointless in every way.   Often times "new" means more ugly and more different rather than more relevant or commercial.  

Sometimes we'd be better off going WAY back to the original design, or the best evolution of that design (Mickey Mouse in 1934-38, for example) rather than the most recent.   Newer is not always better when it comes to matters of art.   Most of the great old characters already have nice streamlined or stylized interpretations that would work for limited animation anyway.

Then again, some characters benefit from interpretive redesign (Batman the Animated Series, but not its lesser sequels and spin-offs). If there is a redesign, there should be a good reason or creative motivation to do so - - a creator with a solid concept for updating the core themes of the beloved character for instance in a new style, for instance. But to just do it for the sake of being "new" or "more current" or "hip & edgy" or "relevant and compelling" per a marketing executive who only wants to see the character done in the style of Nickelodeon or Cartoon Network for branding purposes - - that is not a good reason.

Carolyn Bates:
If the intent is to maintain the spirit of the original character, then I think the classic character design should remain intact.   The original studio has the right to modernize its characters since they own them.   That said, even though they weren't the same Looney Tunes characters, I hated the WB revamped design in Loonatics.

Rusty Mills:
My feeling is no.   Though there can be the argument that the characters changed along the way anyhow why not redesign them.   To me what makes classic characters   classic is that they have a timeless quality to them.   Too often modernizing them means losing all the style they used to have.   And often it also means putting them in the modern world.   The best classic cartoons don't rely on the time and place as much as they do character and most current cartoons rely on place as much or more than character.   The bottom line is if you want modernized characters in today's world then design a new show for that.

Yabba-Dabba-what in hell?

Dave Pruiksma:
The real issue, of course, would be who is doing the updating and their taste and level of talent. Personally, I hate the later modernization of the Modern Stone Age Fa-Mi-Ly. The new, twisted designs I've seen are really not a step in a positive direction and actually detract from the great original styling of the show. Then there were the "New" Secret Squirrels from cartoon network that didn't even take the original designs into consideration, flattening out both the style and humor of the original characters to the point where they were unrecognizable and even grotesque. The later examples, to me, are just self-conscious design school projects that do not take appeal or characterization into consideration, exaggerating features to ridiculous proportions for no reason at all.

Of course, I believe all characters go through a development process but, at some point, that process refines itself to it's zenith and that is where I feel it should remain. The Simpsons is an excellent modern day example of that theory if one goes back to look at the original characters on the Tracy Ullman Show and even the first or second season and then compares them to now. There was a definite evolution of the characters, but at some point they stabilized and that is where I believe they should remain. The Simpsons are of their world of Springfield, and that is where they should remain. Great humor and characters are timeless. Laurel and Hardy, Chaplain, Keaton, The Three Stooges, etc. They are frozen in black and white time capsules that make them immortal, classic and forever endearing. The classic characters were honed and perfected by very talented folks and they really don't need to be updated or "plussed". You want new, then CREATE new, but throwing leggings or a bright shirt or a bow tie on classic characters or distorting their proportions to into grotesque relationships, one to the other, is not creation, it is desecration and even further places and locks them in a time period - one that is not theirs. Better to enjoy what was, be respectful of the heritage of characters and let them live on with dignity.

3d Mickey floating through his Clubhouse. Warning: this song will remain with you like a Tommy's chili-burger.

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