The Rise of Duton Lang

This is a short that features an incredibly odd and quirky character named Duton Lang. No description could adequately do Lang justice. I can't really do justice to the cartoon. Duton Lang is quite a character-but the same can also be said of the narrator as well. Quirky, far too neglected short. Worth tracking down. Most recommended.

When I watch cartoons, I sometimes have a different perspective than some viewers. In this case, several other reviews loved this cartoon and could easily look past the amazingly poor quality of the animation. While I, too, liked the plot and characters, I just for the life of me can't give a very favorable review to a film that represents, in some ways, the downfall of cartoons.

In the 1950s, after many years of amazingly brilliant cartoons from Warner Brothers, MGM and Disney, newer "innovators" emerged with the idea that the audiences were stupid and there was no need to make high quality backgrounds or animate cartoons with 24 cels per second. Because these cartoons were so cheap to make, it was no wonder that they made money and soon the major studios began producing crappy cartoons as well. Eventually, by the 1960s and 70s, cartoons were, for the most part, dreadful and unlike the 40s and 50s, adults refused to watch them--because they had appeal only to the most undemanding audiences.

UPA, the maker of this cartoon, was at the forefront of making these newer crappier cartoons. While this one did have a cute story, I can't help but cringe to think that by 1960, all cartoons looked about like this one technically.

By the way, UPA later made the Mr. Magoo films (also of very dubious quality when it came to the animation). If you look carefully, one of the characters in the film has a head that looks almost exactly like Magoo.

A glorious age of animation and general cartooning where modern art philosophy merged with mainstream commercial and entertainment art design giving us some of the most thoughtfully drawn cartoons ever made. The animation styles and figuratism in these works were so good you'd never notice the lack of animation unless you were just obsessed with old 'circle based' style of cartoons which pioneers of this style were desperate to break free from. The only awful thing to come out of this style are todays outliney cartoons which are a horrid bastardization of modern design.

With that said, this was a wonderful little short that tells a fun but cautionary tale quite amusingly well. It's a shame some UPA shorts like this are so hard to find around online. UPA won't release most of these officially, but have no problem sending out takedown notices on youtube. If you can, please do try and at least find some collection that includes this short. It's a wonderful work as was nearly everything UPA was doing back then.