What's your "art style?"

[Fatal hilarity]

Everyone I know agrees that the movie is immensely better. Still, we gotta give him credit for coming up with the concept (although it's still rooted in decades of cartoons that had a toon interacting with a human- it's just that he's the first to treat it as an entire alternate universe).
Actually, that sequel I mentioned has a scene where he retcons the original book as a strange dream that Jessica had. The man himself says it never happened! Go figure.

[kishi]

Well, if the man says it didn't happen, it didn't happen. ;D

He had to do -something- so he could write a sequel. The thing that got me was the whole "The Toons talk in speech bubbles" thing. :\ Dang, I mean, come -on-...that just made it three times as complicated.

I really think, that in this case, Disney actually did what a really good editor would have done with the original story. And that is went over it and worked all the overly-complicated stuff out of it.

I saw someone once give all credit to a toon/human universe to Gary Wolf. I refuse to do that because Max Fleischer did it with "Out of the Inkwell" and Walt Disney did it with the "Alice" shorts. (Alice was a real little girl in a toon world though.)

That was more than 50-60 years before Mr. Wolf wrote his story.

[edit] And if you want to get particular, "Gertie the Dinosaur" interacted with her live-action partner, Winsor McKay back in 1914.

[Fatal hilarity]

Yeah, those are the cartoons I was thinking of. Several WB cartoons and Disney's TV specials treat them like actors. What Gary K. Wolf did was distinguish these situations as a world separate from our own, with it's own rules.
The talk balloons are one of the main flaws of the sequel- it seems like he didn't want to let go of it, so it's neither here or there. What it needs is a heavy rewrite, or else it could never be truly canonical. Another problem is that the balloons aren't really important to the plot...
Also, he doesn't really understand Disney's version of the characters, and has a number of things that don't quite make sense. There are some scenes and characters that aren't really necessary, either.
I think he knows that Disney's version is better, but he doesn't seem to quite grasp WHY it's better.

The sequel did give me some ideas, though.

[wifeofsmartass]

I love watching those Alice shorts and Gertie, although I haven't seen the entire Gertie piece, just a segment. I'm always happy to hear others talk about such old cartoons pieces! ^_^ Who Censored Roger Rabbit is indeed a strange one; i checked it out at the library years back. Most times I think the book is better, but the movie is WAY better here in this case I think. I know what u mean kishi- toons talking in bubbles is just too much. X( lol

[kishi]

It would have only made sense for them to do it if they weren't animated cartoons but -comic strip- toons. :\

I'll bite that he was the first person to separate it officially. When I was really really little, I thought that Mickey Mouse lived at Disneyland. I mean actually lived there. Then "Uncle Walt" explained how cartoons are made and I was like "oooh...dangit." But still intrigued. When I was...four or five I explained to a lady what the word "Animation" meant. XD

[Fatal hilarity]

Roger is a comic strip toon in the original book, and so is Baby Herman. I don't know why he didn't get rid of the talk balloons in the sequel... maybe he had too much fun with it.
The way I see it, comic strips and comic books are made by photographing toons in poses, while the balloons and sound effects are drawn in later. Sometimes, if the toon is exclusively in comics, I like to think that they can produce balloons on their own. I also think that toons from silent cartoons can produce a balloon.
Of course, I kind of doubt they would be incapable of normal speech.

It's funny, because the official "story" behind Mickey's Toontown is that Toontown was right over the fence of the orange grove that Disneyland was built on... and so in the '90s Toontown was supposedly "opened to the public".

We're getting kinda off-topic here, aren't we? Well, I suppose it's about how we treat our toon fiction...

[kishi]

Yeah...sorry. XD

It's interesting though.

Well, that makes more sense now. But I agree...I dunno why he didn't lose the speech bubbles in the sequels where they're obviously 'movie' toons. Ah well, to each their own.

If there really was a Toontown, I'd want to go live there.

I've always liked the really old cartoons. Some of them are just as good or better than some of the new stuff.

[Fatal hilarity]

The best new stuff is very often rooted in the old stuff, I've noticed. Even Spongebob and Fairly Oddparents.
It's funny, because even though I grew up on Golden Age cartoons, they didn't really influence me until a couple years ago. Before then, I was kind of drifting from obsession to obsession, not really focusing on the full extent of my interests.

I've always considered myself a cartoonist, because, old-school or not, that's all I've ever really drawn in my life. I never wanted to become anything like Da Vinci in any way, especially since the majority of artists that can draw realistically are so darn technical that they forgot how to be creative.
If I did want to be able to do that sort of thing, I would've had to start at a young age anyhow. I don't want to stare at ugly naked people anyway.
My brother learned human anatomy just from looking at other people's drawings, anyway, so I don't really have to worry about it.

What saddens me is that the classical animation Renaissance is over before it even really got started. I grew up on Disney Afternoon shows like Darkwing Duck, Goof Troop, and such, and Steven Spielberg's shows- Tiny Toon Adventures, The Animaniacs, and Pinky and the Brain. Meanwhile, Cartoon Network was airing all the classics.
After WFRR, we saw a big blast of classic cartoon revivalism. Suddenly the old stars mattered, and WB and Disney were making shorts with them again. Disney, of course, was reeling in its success with its new movies.
Television cartoons were finally of the highest quality, and I honestly believe it stayed that way until just recently. There were hardly any bad series coming out of Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon. My fondest memories of Disneyland were often in Toontown.
Cartoon Network no longer airs any WB cartoons, and Toon Disney no longer exists, and stopped airing their Disney Afternoon shows or House of Mouse. While Nicktoons Network and Boomerang airs some their better shows, a lot of them are gone, and the closest thing you can get to seeing the classics are through Boomerang's MGM and Tom & Jerry blocks. Boomerang stills airs classic Hanna-Barbera and Duck Dodgers, though.
Now Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon have a bunch of dumb shows, in my opinion. Worse, Cartoon Network is airing live action programming, which goes completely against their original cartoon-only rule.
Disney even threatened to stop making traditional animation for a while there, while CG dominated the market.
I have hope, though- I pray that The Princess and the Frog, and later, Rapunzel, will breathe new life into it.

It's strange, really- I'm old enough to feel nostalgic. A lot of my favorite shows are being released on DVD... which makes me realize that I'm part of a previous generation.

[kishi]

I know. CN disgusts me. They used to be all about cartoons and now it's all about getting into Disney's popularity game with live-action shows. (And -those- disgust me as well. )

I miss the old Disney Afternoon shows...I miss seeing Mickey Mouse shorts on the Disney Channel. I'm one of those people who loves Mickey Mouse, but never gets to really see him anywhere. At least not in action...he's always just a standard pose on a logo anymore.

I'd love to see Mickey get a feature...that would rock.

[Fatal hilarity]

It's CARTOON Network, not Some Cartoons Among Other Things Network. Simple as that.
Your best bet for seeing Mickey shorts would be to buy the Disney Treasures DVDs. Unfortunately, they're out of print and expensive to buy used, so I'd recommend getting them without the tins to save money. Also, there are a pretty good number of politically incorrect moments in the early black and white ones.
A lot of the other old greats and '90s classics are available on DVD, too. Some, unfortunately, are not- The Angry Beavers for one.
I saw most of the Disney Afternoon shows when they were already in reruns. I never catch on to the popular stuff when it's brand new... It's funny, because I really only watched Goof Troop and Darkwing Duck, but I do remember the theme songs for DuckTales, The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers, and Bonkers... I probably saw a few episodes of those, but not many.

There WAS once a Mickey feature in the works around the time A Goofy Movie was being made- but after DuckTales the Movie flopped, it was aborted. Apparently there were plans to make features with all the classic characters! Well, we got House of Mouse later on, which was pretty darn good... personally, I like them better than most of the originals. (MOST, mind you...)

That's one thing I'm doing to improve my art: watching all those cartoons and things I saw as a kid and haven't seen in years. Y'see, there was a time when I couldn't concentrate on my interests (because of middle school bullying) and I forgot a lot of things I liked, and my memories of them faded. That's amazing, really, because they were my first influences- my roots! So I mean to restore my memories, map out my artistic development, and take new inspiration from them.
Unfortunately, that means taking advantage of legal grey areas...

[kishi]

Grey is a good color.

I actually have a couple of the Disney Treasures ones that I bought when they were new. (At $30 each. Ouch. That's why I don't have a complete set.)

Did you know they've released more DVDs of the older shorts?

video.barnesandnoble.com/DVD/Walt-Disney-Animation-Collection-Classic-Short-Films-Mickey-and-the-Beanstalk/e/786936789263

I have the first three.

Mickey and the Beanstalk also includes - The Brave Little Tailor, Thru the Mirror, Gulliver Mickey and Mr. Mouse takes a Trip

The Three Little Pigs also includes - The Big Bad Wolf, Three Little Wolves, Lambert the Sheepish Lion (<3!), Chicken Little (the -first- one, not the CGI movie), Three Blind Mouseketeers, and Elmer Elephant.

The Prince and the Pauper also includes - The Pied Piper, Old King Cole, Ye Olden Days, and A Knight for a Day.

They've also released three more.

The Reluctant Dragon - Also including: Ferdinand the Bull, Goliath II and Johnny Appleseed

The Wind in the Willows (This should interest you weasel loving folks), also includes: The Ugly Duckling, The Grasshopper and the Ants, The Golden Touch, The Robber Kitten, The Little Wise Hen

The Tortoise and the Hare, also includes: Babes in the Woods, The Goddess of Spring, Toby Tortoise Returns, Paul Bunyan, The Saga of Windwagon Smith

I got my first three from Walmart for $13, so if you're interested and can check there, I would.

[Fatal hilarity]

Oh, those collections? Well, I dunno... I would imagine they're less complete than the Disney Treasures sets. I'm a hardcore completist, you see.
It's part of my research on Golden Age cartoons- I want to see ALL that the major studios made, to understand what's typical of them. When you only see the best of the best, you're only getting the extremes. When you look at the more obscure stuff, you're getting much more of a very broad spectrum.
This is especially important to a good number of my own projects, like Toon Patrol fanfiction, and other original works taking place in the WFRR world.
Also, I can see what other things the studios who made all those cartoons on my old childhood VHS tapes did way back when.

EDIT: Oh, man... I'm reading that Roger Rabbit story, and it's awful. It's such a broad, uninformed caricature of classic cartoons that I doubt he had seen any in years... he makes the toons do supposedly "toony" things that hardly make any sense and aren't at all appropriate. He doesn't even seem to realize how brutal, even fatal, toon physics are to humans. Everyone's out of character.
It also looks like he likes the idea of a human becoming toony. For those of you that don't know, that was a major plot element in the sequel novel, but this time it makes less sense.
In fact, that may have been the most bizarre, confusing thing I've ever read.

[kishi]

I know, I was just pointing out some that might be more easily available for other people.

I wish I'd have been able to round up all the Disney Treasures DVDs, but I don't think it would be possible now. :\ Not without spending -far- more than I'm willing to.

I've probably seen a lot of it, and just don't really remember the titles. I -know- I've seen the Bugs Bunny 'War Toons'. I watched them on a local station when I was a kid...before it became Politically Incorrect to show them.

And yeah...the Roger Rabbit story almost reads like a -really- bad fanfic. o.O I kept waiting for it to get better and lost an hour of my life in the process. XD

[Fatal hilarity]

Their expense is the reason why I only buy them one at a time, and when we can afford it. It's worth it, I think.