Do u think people forget the "Anything goes" way?

[Kunmui]

I decided to bring this up, but I had a long thought about it before posting it. I got the idea after looking a few peoples thoughts in the "why people are so harsh on today's cartoons" thread, some of the people have stated some good points. Although I think the big thing on why people are not so keen on today's cartoons is the old "Anything goes" way in cartoons. Where basically anything crazy can happen in cartoons, from eyeballs popping out of heads to basically anything.

Now for granted most cartoons these days in my own opinion are made by people who don't know how to make cartoons, and just do it for money. Although I will admit that there are a few good cartoons today that are made by cartoonists{Yes actual cartoons}. Although most of them dont seem to carry on the anything goes way. So do you think people in the animation industry as of today have forgotten about the anything goes way of cartoons?

 

[MrD]

How well the "anything goes" mentality of cartoons works in today's shows usually depends on the genre. Comedies tend to take a looser hand with the laws of physics and reality, since they're usually intended to be an exaggeration. Chowder is a good example of this, however it's also proof that this idea can be taken too far. Breaking the 4th wall and wild takes can be done too much to the point where they take you out of the story and the characters lose all sense of substance and humanity. You don't want your characters to just be "experiencing objects" or walking gags without faces and souls.

Action shows, by contrast, can't rely so heavily on this mentality. In order for a show like, say, Generator Rex to work, you have to accept that not everybody can just pull things from behind their backs (i.e., Hammerspace) to solve problems or survive getting run over by a car by just becoming flat like a pancake and then re-inflating themselves by blowing on their thumbs, because if they could, the stories would be much shorter and there'd be no distinction between the 'super guys' who can defy physics and the 'average citizens' who can't and therefore need to be saved. Shows with a more concrete setting wouldn't work if it featured characters bugging their eyes out and the like.

 

[wha]

Yeah, i miss the old wacky slapstick-type cartoons. But then again, it's hardly just in this past decade or so that these types of cartoons have been few and far between: they have been quite rare during most decades ever since the end of the golden age of American animation. Or to put it another way, they have been rare ever since cartoons moved from the movie screen to television. They hardly existed at all on television during Hannah-Barberas dominance of the 60's and 70's (not counting re-runs of older cartoons, of course), and was still exceptionally rare during the "toy commercial toon" era that lasted thoughout most of the 80's. Then some time in the late 80's and early 90's, they had a reinissance started by shows such as Tiny Toons and Ren and Stimpy, which started a trend that lasted 'till the mid 90's, during which time we got shows such as The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, The Twisted tales of Felix the Cat, Cow and Chicken, Timon and Pumba, and many many more which recaptured the insane spirit of the silent age and golden age shorts. But like stated, since the latter half of the 90's however, these kinds of cartoons have become rare again.

 

[Unknowingly Creative]

I, too miss that slapstick, and 'anything for a laugh' approach to cartoons. We live in an era where the industry is handcuffed by suits who think that the slightest bit of humor will offend some group of people, or sending a 'bad' message to kids. This kind of overprotective mindset is why the next 'Tex Avery' has yet to emerge, and change things for the better. :sad:

 

[Juggalette]

I'm not sure I agree that this style of animation is gone or dying out. In fact, I think it has experienced a resurgence in the past couple of years, particularly on television. I've been noticing quite a few of the children of Ren and Stimpy, which was itself a child of Tex Avery and Bob Clampett. debuting on the small screen lately. Silverstar mentioned Chowder. The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack is another show that takes expressions, poses, and just plain weirdness to extremes. More recently, there's Adventure Time with Finn and Jake. Even Spongebob Squarepants falls into this category. I caught part of an episode where Spongebob was crying so hard that his tears were coming out in big arcs and his head (as much as Spongebob has a separate head) was movin to one side in a long, smooth motion, then back in a jerky, staccato movement like a rotating sprinkler head.

Whether extreme, anything for a laugh exaggeration automatically makes for good or better quality animatin is debateable. It's a style and we all have our particular stylistic preferencs. Animation that goes for lots of highly exaggerated takes is not necessarily going to be better than more realistic or reserved animation, and vice versa. As Sliverstar points out, the "anything goes" style can be taken too far. Also, keep in mind that animators like Avery and Clampett were working in the theatrical short format, which is all but extinct today. Wild exaggeration can work really well in these small chunks. But when you have to fill a half-hour TV show, or multiple episodes of a half-hour TV show, it can be harder to keep it up and still have an entertaining cartoon. It gets progressively harder to keep topping the last take you did over a longer and longer period of time and too uch repetition of anythng can get boring fast.