Anthropomorphic animals and human relations in animation

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x.elle.x

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Have you noticed the different type ways cartoon studio use of relationship between anthropomophic animals and humans in animation.

Cartoons in which there are both talking animals and humans, I noticed in Hanna Barbara, the animal that could talk and act human did so freely to humans in their world. And it was just a way of life, even in shows in which some animals talked and others animals did not, animals talked and some acted even more human, and no one thought nothing was unusual about it. I think it continue to HB's successor Cartoon Network Studios, in which if animals talked, the humans knew about it, or the animals didn't talk at all. My Gym Partner Is A Monkey is a obvious example.

On the flip side, Disney mostly did the opposite. The cartoons in which the worlds had both anthropomophic animals and humans, mostly the animals only talked to the audiance, the human characters either didn't know, or the animals just translated to the audience their speech. There was quite a few accpetions of course, Cinderella, The Jungle Book, and The Rescuers. (though I noticed the human characters that talked to the animals, had no human family or friends, humans with no human companion, and maybe were so missed up, they could understand the animals)

I guess that means in the HB world, it is normal for humans to talk with animals, while in the world of Disney, if you talk to animals, you didn't have a normal life, and probably have a screw lose.

Warner Brothers mixed it up more than Disney and HB. Sometimes the animals and humans talked to each other, other times they did not.

As I stated earlier, in the Hanna Barbara if a animal talked, he can talk to all of the characters in their world human or not. Though in the early episodes of Scooby Doo Where Are You, it wasn't clear if the rest of the gang understood Scooby. I really think the writers what direction they wanted to go with Scooby, and decided the other characters understood him as much as the audience.
 
Interesting thread. The series “Brandy & Mr. Whiskers” had a rather unique portrayal of what you’re talking about. Brandy Harrington was anthropomorphic, and could walk upright and talk to humans, though she would still be treated like a dog by her owners; she sat on their laps and was petted, and even ate out of a bowl, amongst other things. Granted, “Family Guy” had done that first, with Brian, as he was still treated like a dog despite being anthropomorphic. Still, that sort of thing is typically rare.
 
Brian was like Scooby Doo's family in his world. He is the only talking animal in his world. (not counting the Gold Fish characters from American Dad, if you consider those two shows connected) He is the only talking animal, and no one thought that was weird.

Example when Brian visited the farm in which he was born. The farmer said "Lots of dogs were born here." Than Brian responded "I was the one that could talk." Than the farmer says "Oh Brian." That is real funny stuff.

One other thing, in the episode of Johnny Bravo in which he meets the Scooby Doo gang. He questioned the gang, how they can understand Scooby Doo. Yet in the Johnny Bravo world is full of anthropomorphic animals. I never understood why that was unusual to Johnny. It made no sense for Johnny to ask that question, talking animals is normal in his world.
 
I've gotta say my favorite take on anthros is in the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen volume 2, where you see Rupert Bear and a number of Victorian-era anthros as being the creation of Dr. Moreau.
 
The point was supposed to be that Scooby doesn't talk very well. His dog-speech was even more distorted in his Johnny Bravo appearances :)
 
Yes he is nothing like Anthropomorphic character. He doesn't talk, have a human job, etc. He just smarter than his owners. He is the opposite of what we are talking about.
 
Courage spoke more in the earlier episodes, and both humans and animals could understand him....Eustace and Muriel just heard it as babbling. His universe is chock full of anthropormorphic animals and weirdos running around, and people don't seem to give a crap.
 
Eek! the Cat was chock full of curiosities. Eek himself was (mostly) regarded as a house pet, yet there were other animals depicted on the show (such as Elmo the Incredible Elk) who were anthros and lived independent of humans. Eek's girlfriend Annabelle started out as a pet, but as the series progressed, she became independent of humans, while Eek remained a pet, which added a curious tone to their relationship. In hers' and Sharky's 1st appearance, Sharky was the other pet of Annabelle's unseen owners, but in a later short, Annabelle claims Sharky as her pet.

What was equally strange was how Eek never spoke to his human owners, yet he spoke to other humans on the show, like how in the short "Shark Doggy Dog", he met and spoke to Don Cornelius.

Sharky the Sharkdog only spoke in grunts and growls, yet everyone else on the show could understand him.
 
Again, magically enhanced talking animals are a tad off-point. What's being discussed here are talking animals who just talk directly to humans with no explanation of how, like Brian on Family Guy, and their relations to the humans of their respective worlds.

Also, Klaus from American Dad is technically a human whose brain has been transplanted into the body of a goldfish. He wasn't born an animal, so it's no mystery why he talks. Same deal with Salem on Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, who was a warlock turned into a cat.
 
What about mutated animals that were animals in their previous stete? like the TMNT? I remember Irma having an unholy crush on the green teens for some reason.
 
Scooby Doo's world has a few other talking dogs (Scooby's various cousins and siblings, plus a few other talking dogs---a talking French poodle showed up recently on "Shaggy and Scooby Doo Get A Clue"...).

The Flintstones and Jetsons' world (presumably one and the same) has talking animals----all those asides the animal appliances of the Flintstones gave, for instance (which Bedrock's denizens mostly ignored, treating them as "appliances", though they talked back to them in a few instances---such as the deal Fred makes with his "tape recorder" in the "Man Called Flintstone" movie to get out of a tight spot...). The Jetsons' future, of course, has Astro...

-B.
 
I'm probably going to be making a web cartoon about an anthropomorphic cat, the plot of which will heavily involve him interacting with humans. I haven't finalized the script yet, but he is going to be seen as a 'pet' of one of the characters. There's also a dog character who doesn't, at this point at least, have any 'owner'... I still need to figure out exactly how it's going to work, but I thought it might relate to this topic.

I noticed the thing about Disney humans only talking with animals when they're [seen as] oddballs, and I've often been confused by the internal logic of the Hanna-Barbera shows with talking animal-human interaction, such as Wally Gator etc.

On the Raccoons, the animal characters could all talk, except for Broo the puppy, who actually was treated like a normal dog by the other characters, and served as their pet (he couldn't talk). The older dog character, Schaeffer, was originally supposed to be the human characters' pet (along with Broo in the early series episodes), and when he was with the humans he acted like a normal dog.
After the first season, when the human characters were removed from the show, it wasn't clear where he lived, although Broo now seemed to be Bert's pet. Eventually Schaeffer opened a restaurant, and the "kindly barkeep" sort of became his main 'persona' in the final seasons.
 
It's like Little Bear, even if the story itself is older. All the animals are pretty much regular animals aside from the Bear family who is anthropormorphic. They all speak, yet still do animalistic stuff from time to time. And don't get me started on that dog Poppy.
 
The Raccoons confused me as well. It seemed to me Schaeffer and the others tried to keep the animal intellegence a secret from the humans, yet they had their own city, they had houses and buildings, they lived like people, Sneer had his own media empire, they had tv stations. How are they going to keep that a secret?

Maybe those human characters knew that animals could talk, it was just Schaeffer's ability to talk that was a secret. After all Schaeffer was the only talking animal that didn't wear cloths or glasses.

Off topic, but I consider Snoppy a anthropomorphic dog, even though he doesn't talk. He does everything like a human, except for talking.

On the subject of web cartoons, why not a current event parody about Michael Vick. Have some anthropomorphic dogs take the witness stand.
 
I know these are not real animals. But in Pokemon, Meowth is the only Pokemon that talks. And no one seems to notice that as being unique. Many times Team Rocket is in disguise, Meowth is disguise as another Pokemon who just happens to talk. Yet Ash and company don't seem to find that weird.
 
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