I love these detailed faces they did in Fleischer cartoons in the 30s.
These are from 1936.
The cartoon credits Seymour Kneitel and Roland Crandall as animators.
I'm not sure who did this scene but it's Jim dandy.

I wonder who decided to make Mickey flesh colored? Do you think there was a meeting where they debated it hotly? They must have thought that the new colors would be more identifiable to Arians.



I like both these cartoons a lot because they look so great. ...and I love the way they move. The style is so different from how we animate today. Much more experimental and tailored to the ideas.

Here's how animation moves today:

I saw some of this stuff one day in the lobby at MTV and was amazed how much stock animation acting was used. Is there some animation manual somewhere that lists all these actions and formulas? Maybe they just store all the actions in the computer and call them up as needed. I'm waiting for a good comedian to mime the way modern animation moves. Actually Eddie does it really well and it's a total crackup. You should see him do his animation song about being himself and spreading his wings to soar like an eagle.

One of the things I like about this style of animation is how direct it is.
Unlike some Disney animation, the story actions aren't buried under a mountain of extraneous secondary animation principles - like too much squash and stretch, too much non-stop action, too much overlap etc.
You can see all these poses clearly and each pose and action carries us through the story without distraction.



Not every part of the character is moving an equal amount, so we know what we are supposed to be looking at.
In some "full-animation" the characters never stop moving and each part of the body moves as much as the rest at all times. Toby Tortoise stands out as a very direct cartoony Disney cartoon. Maybe it was an experiment, who knows?
A lot of the actions are funny in themselves. They aren't moving just for the sake of being "full-animation" or to show off the budget.






















http://www.cartoonthrills.org/blog/Dis/36/TobyTortoise/3fight2AssWhupping.mov

Here's a cartoon with design and animation that turns cartooning into high art. At least for me.
The design is super cartoony and appealing, not aiming at "realism" or "believability" at all.
The graphic look of the cartoon is not typical of Disney, but reminds me of Otto Messmer's Felix the Cat comics.
If you took Messmer's design sense and added some of the principles and techniques that were discovered by animators in the 3os you would get "Toby Tortoise Returns".



The animation principles are not just there to be functional; they are turned into design elements. Each pose is beautiful. Not only that, but the way the characters move is beautiful in a really cartoony way.
The principles are not overbearing or in the way of the action as in many late 30s cartoons.
I love the tortoise's walk across the ring. Really rubbery, but clear and magical as all get out.



The animators take a lot of liberties with volume and "logic" for the sake of entertainment and fun.
I think Ward Kimball animated a lot of scenes, but am not sure which ones.
"Toby Tortoise" must have had a big influence on Bob Clampett, because I see many scenes in his cartoons that remind me of this one.



http://www.cartoonthrills.org/blog/Dis/36/TobyTortoise/1DogRefTortoiseIntro.mov

http://www.cartoonthrills.org/blog/Dis/36/TobyTortoise/2FightStarts.mov


I've got a bunch more clips from the cartoon and will post 'em soon. What's especially interesting to me, is that you can see the animators experimenting and getting more cartoony as the cartoon progresses. I love when you can see a cartoon that is so progressive that it actually evolves before your eyes. In 6 minutes! No sticking to the rules. It looks like they were having fun making it.