Disney vs WB

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Raymond C88

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Watching the Looney Toons marathon on Cartoon Network, I remember them now, and I always loved them.

So it got me to thinking, which was better in the golden cartoon theater era Warner Brothers or Disney.

Which studio did the best theatre shorts?

I think Disney gets all the fan fair, with the amusement parks, etc., but when I was a kid, as far as me and my friends were concern Looney Toons blow Disney away. And in the modern era, they never really soften up imagine as much as Disney did.

And their works as a whole, I know his early cartoons were different, but Donald and Goofy cartoons were way more funny than Mickey's. Mickey Mouse imagine as a nice guy, didn't add much humor oppose to Donald, Goofy, and their Warner counterparts.

Also honorable mention to MGM, this is just between Disney and Warner Brothers, but they were right up with the big two.
 
They're both great, but I gotta give it to Warner Bros. Warners excelled at slapstick and weren't afraid to push the envelope whereas Disney was more conservative. Though Disney excelled at storytelling and artistic merit; something Walt always strived for.
 
I always preferred Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies to the Disney shorts. I just found them to be a lot funnier. The fact that WB cartoons weren't directed toward kids allowed for some outrageous things that you just wouldn't find in a Disney cartoon.
 
I enjoyed the Looney Tunes more, mostly because I was exposed to them more over my lifetime compared to the Disney shorts, though there are plenty of good fun Disney shorts.

Someone pointed this out before, but it's actually true that Disney and WB back then are like Disney/Pixar and Dreamworks now. Disney has and always will try to push the boundaries of the art of animation, and Looney Tunes, like Dreamworks, relied on pop culture gags, that barely hold up to today. Luckily Looney Tunes was filled with great slapstick, and enjoyable characters that helped make them well remembered to this day.

We won't know if Dreamworks will be enjoyed as much as it is today, until maybe 20-50 years from now.
 
While I could always enjoy the classic Disney shorts, particularly the ones with Goofy or Donald, but my favorite will always be the Warner Brothers cartoons. Comedy will always be my first love and the Looney Tunes shorts were just plain funnier, plus they had that subversive "bad boy" edge that Mickey and the gang just didn't possess.
 
I like Disney mostly for their movies,and Warner Bros for their short cartoons....most of the "Looney Tunes" characters are just funnier,IMO (I can't think of any Disney shorts I like as much as "What's Opera,Doc?" or the cartoons where Bugs and Daffy are arguing over what hunting season it is to avoid being shot by Elmer Fudd)...
 
I've always been much more of a fan of the WB cartoons than of Disney's. Really the only Disney cartoons that I've ever been a fan of are Kim Possible and Phineas & Ferb.
 
As a classic animation buff, I have to correct you on that. Neither studio produced their cartoons STRICTLY for kids. The people who worked on the cartoons made them primarily for themselves. Of course, these cartoons were originally released in theaters accompanying feature films (including those that wouldn't necessarily interest kids) and were meant to be viewed by people of all ages.

Now, theaters did often host "kiddie matinees" on the weekends where they showed cartoons to kids. Those same cartoons were also shown during the regular movie times.
 
Warner Bros, no question. Their shorts are some of the funniest animation ever made.

I can't believe how many people buy into Disney's whole "we're the greatest, we invented good animation, if you don't do it like us you're doing it wrong" thing. Yes, they pioneered lots of new techniques, and they have the smoothest animation, but in terms of character, story, and general entertainment, they've almost always been pretty crummy. Some of their shorts were good, and Pinocchio is a fine movie, but it astounds me that so many people are consistently entertained by all their formulaic character designs, personalities, stories, acting... pretty much everything about them is formulaic. They also influenced the rest of the animation industry in a lot of negative ways (similar to UPA in the 50's). Other studio's unique, funny approaches to animation were abandoned in favour of trying to get as close to reality as possible. Fleischer is probably the best example. They chucked all their funny stuff out the window trying to pursue the 'illusion of life.' Cartoons should be more fun to watch than real life... Isn't that the whole point?

Everybody also tends to play down the fact that for about twenty years they were basically stagnating (mid-60's to mid-80's). I love their Winnie-the-Pooh shorts, and I've got a nostalgic soft spot for Robin Hood and the Rescuers, but they really weren't accomplishing much for a long time.

I hate to bring up John K because I know he's controversial here, but I agree with pretty much everything he has to say about Disney. Disney always claimed that they were focused on acting, and 'believability', and yet they recycled the same stock characters over and over, going through the same movements, expressions, etc. They had some good ideas, but Warner Bros (and to a slightly lesser extent, MGM) actually took those ideas and used them properly.

A big part of the reason I'm so annoyed by Disney right now is that I'm in animation school, and Disney is being held up as the be-all, end-all Holy Grail of Animation that we should strive to achieve, and apart from a couple of other people, everybody seems to buy into it. But the thing is, these students don't actually seem to be that entertained by Disney. Their sense of humour is more along the lines of Family Guy and other modern shows, but they seem to think that Disney is good simply because they're told so, and I feel like saying "don't you realize that there are cartoons that are funny AND have good animation?"

Anyway, sorry if I'm offending anybody here. I'm just kind of sick of Disney at the moment.:sweat: For the record, I do enjoy 101 Dalmations and the Lion King, along with the stuff I mentioned above.
 
Actually I kind of understand that.

My college's animation program advertises its 3D animation above all else, and the 2D animation was pretty lousy for the longest time. I like Disney's animation, and its fluidity, but dang it, animation works two ways when it comes to humor: good writing, and animation that makes you laugh just by overexaggeration. This is why of all the Disney animation studios, their Australian one was my favorite, because the animation was fun to watch (Extremely Goofy Movie being a prime example).

I'm hoping I'm not going off on a tangent. But the point is that like it or not, the (12) principles of animation crafted by Disney animation are as essential to animation as the principles of art is to....art. In my college we're required to learn both. Only then, are we allowed to animate and draw anyway we want.
 
I agree that they're important, but there are lots of really amusing cartoons out there that don't use all of the principles that much. The Fleischer cartoons of the early 30's, and Ub Iwerks' Flip the Frog series, both ignore many of the 12 principles, and yet they're still really fun to watch. Or it could also be argued that they use rough versions of those principles, before Disney refined and named them (but Disney didn't invent them). Either way, my point is that Disney gets a lot more credit than it should.

I agree with most of what you said though, I don't mean to be argumentative. But anyway, this is getting off-topic. Back to Disney vs. WB...
 
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