A while ago Rex and I were discussing how ugly modern animation design had become and why. We discussed what the ugliest of ugly styles was.

We decided that Dreamworks wouldn't count because everyone pretty much agrees that they make the ugliest "toons', - even the folks who subscribe to other modern animation styles.

I suggested one modern style that drives me nuts - the inverted curves theory of cartoon design. I don't know where it came from, but I started noticing it about 10 years ago. It's the theory that all objects-even characters- need to look like they are made from apple cores. Or--they look like they are made of play-dough that has been squeezed by sweaty gorilla hands.

I was in Meltdown the other day and I found a huge section of books teaching you all the mistakes you can get away with in animation today. There were a zillion "How To Be A Character Designer" books - more of them than there are pimples at the SDCC. And they are filled with anti-construction applecore inverted curves characters. These imploded characters are very hard to read at one glance because they have so many awkward dents breaking up their silhouettes. It's like taking a cheese grater to your eyes. I'd love to know who started this trend. I wonder if his anatomy bends inwards instead of outwards like the actual world of forms.

It seems that everything current is the opposite of what makes sense. It's cool to be backwards.Pretty soon I'll overhear kids arguing about what the best flavor of ice cream is- armpit or gym socks.

The inverted curves theory is especially popular in Canada. That means it must be at least 15 years later than when it was cool here.

There is only one thing nastier than an inverted curves character, and that's a "toon" with inverted curves and 'tude.

I don't watch much TV but I keep seeing these guys plastered all over every magazine in the world and can't figure out why they are famous. By the 'tudes on their faces, you'd swear they are being passed off as being handsome or cool or something. Does anyone actually think that? Is media that powerful that it can completely make your natural sensory abilities invert?

Pete Emslie sent me his wish for the next combo animated icons matched with the latest throwaway live celebrities:The Spumco gross close up paintings wouldn't be able to compete with the natural hideousness of these actual living creatures.

100 years from today I bet this century is going to be remembered as the Age Of Ugly.

Human eyes, but a cartoon expression that actual human eyes don't ever make. Maybe he has a tick in his left eye.

The human body but with cartoon proportions adds to the perversion. To me that makes him look like a sideshow freak, rather than a wacky cartoon character, but then I'm "old-school".

I wonder when this type of thing started and what the reasoning is behind it?They must think there is something wrong with this design. But then why make a movie of it? Because the stories and characterization were great? Has the whole world gone crazy? I would love to be in on a meeting when some big executives decide how they are going to fix old cartoon characters by changing everything that made them popular. Is there film of a meeting of executives doing this? Now that would be pure entertainment. They should make a movie about the nutty world of executives who hate common sense.
This reminds me of when Hollywood takes comedians who are really popular on Saturday Night Live or other shows and then makes depressing serious movies with them. Modern Hollywood purposely goes against what seems to be common sense. They are supposed to be trying to make money, but they go go out of their way to play against everything they know the public expects and wants. It's like a big contest between the major studios for who can make the sickest ugliest most depressing 90 minute torture sessions. It's the modern Inquisition.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/movies/2010/04/mighty-mouse-remake-paramount.html

I used to wonder about how many people it took to let things get to the state of affairs of animation in the 70s and 80s.

If I had a time machine, I would travel back to 1945 and show some animators these images and tell them what was going to happen to cartoons in a mere 25 years. I just want to see the look in their eyes before they lock me away in the crazy house.
Even in 1960, nobody would believe you could get something that looks this awful on TV.
"In the glorious future of the 1980s, we won't be able to afford toes."

Yet this was totally acceptable when I started in the business.
I used to try to calculate how many wrong decisions it would take for shows this ugly and amateurish to get on the air.
First, the studio head has to think it's alright to have his name on the product. He doesn't mind being spit on on the street by mothers whose children they've punished.
The design department has to be filled with people who can barely hold a pencil and who hate cartoons.
An executive or 2 or 3 has to have grown up without ever seeing a Disney cartoon, or a Looney Tunes or even an early Hanna Barbera cartoon. They have to have never opened a comic book to know what professional standards or good drawing, design and appeal were just a few years earlier.
A million unlikely accidents have to have taken place to allow the implausibility of this to actually occur. Maybe there are a million universes and the laws of chance just stuck this one with all the right mutations to allow cartoons that are the exact opposite of what common sense decisions would evolve naturally.
Imagine that it's possible for someone to be in charge of an animation studio who has never animated; someone who doesn't know that the more "realistic" you design your cartoons, the harder it is to animate and therefore the crummier it will look. Imagine that he doesn't know that it costs a lot more to draw semi-realistic characters and so therefore there will be less animation. Or that it's ok to animate for peanuts with slave labor in the Orient.
Imagine this person doesn't know that action characters or superheroes are not allowed to be violent on television. That's a lot of things to not know about animation. Can such a person exist? Apparently lots of them did and probably still do. OK, even if a person that ignorant could theoretically exist and had power - and he wanted to go ahead and do everything wrong by animating "realistic" characters on tiny budgets, you would think he would at least hire a professional superhero artist who can draw well and has an appealing style to design the show. At least!Ruby-Spears (just about one of the worst studios in history) actually did hire Jack Kirby - but never used his designs or poses! I remember asking people about that and the excuse was "well Kirby's great, but you can't use his style as is. It's not 'animatable'."

Actually, Ruby Spears had at least 2 geniuses in-house, and probably more, so how is it that the cartoons are so Godawful? Every studio had some top talent in it, but refused to take advantage of it.

Even characters that were once appealing and funny became hideous by the 1970s. How?

Who would OK drawings like these? Apparently, lots of people did.



Think about it: A whole bunch of important people had to look at this drawing and approve it. The designer, the layout supervisor, the animation director, the executive, the studio head and more. They all took a look at it and said "Yeah, that's just fine. Dandy! Put it on the air, pronto!"
Here is what passed for "cartoony" shows.
Ye Gods! ...then there's this abomination!
What's even more unbelievable than the mere fact that all cartoons degraded to this state after the glorious Golden Age of the 30s to 50s is that today, there are people who are nostalgic about it. I got most of these off some site that thinks the 80s had a high artistic and creative standard.

This is proof that we are living in an alternate universe.