Animation Magazine - Issue #28 March/April 1994
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Text version:
In the last issue, I discussed Bob Clampett's "The Great Piggy Bank Robbery." As a traditional story, the "plot" of this cartoon has its problems. There are three premises and thus three setups to explain before Clampett can get to the actual "story" of the cartoon. How does he surmount these problems?
Partly by accelerated pacing. Clampett can give you more information in less time than any other filmmaker in history. But that takes incredible skill and experience. Don't you try it.
Also, rather than let the setups drag the story down, he does what only a really talented Cartoon Director can do; he makes the setup as entertaining as the story itself. Right from the first scene of "The Great Piggy Bank Robbery" you are completely involved in what's going on. Through the drawings, the animation, the acting, the timing and music you are totally with Daffy Duck.
The first setup, as told in words is a totally normal situation. In Clampett's hands it's an insane, demented, emotional frenzy, almost dirty in its naked exhibitionist display. That's what Clampett's Cartoons are. That's what truly makes them different than everybody else's. They're NAKED. And Clampett knows that naked is a good feeling. You don't need a story to be naked. When you are naked you have to wear your soul on the outside of your skin. You know what's wrong with Disney
Cartoons? You get the feeling that the animators have never been naked.
Clampett didn't need to spend such a disproportionate time setting up Daffy Duck's personality. We know who he is. We've seen him before. Hell, his name tells us who he is. He didn't need to spend
so much time on the "character." He could have gotten us right into the "story." He didn't have to — he wanted to.
Clampett really loves his characters obviously as much as he loves his surreal ideas. He's willing to spend an inordinate amount of story time on Daffy Duck just by himself because he can make the character so gripping. So naked.
In another great acting scene, with ferocious animation by Rod Scribner, the second setup reveals Daffy Duck in his role as "Duck Twacy." What is happening is not as important as how it's happening. These unbelievable drawings are performing an entertainment experience that no other medium can perform. This whole Cartoon is the perfect use of the Animated Cartoon's inherent properties, with all the priorities in the right place.
This kind of Cartoon story can't be written. It has to be drawn. And even more important, it has to be animated. Even the drawn storyboards for a Clampett Cartoon don't do justice to the finished films. While they are very funny, they are only still-drawings and written dialogue and they are not yet a performance. Clampett's Cartoons transcend the material that went into them. As his Cartoons moved down the creative production line, he enhanced them with whatever creative tool he had at his disposal. This may seemlike an obvious thing to do, but actually it is very rare for a Cartoon to get better each step of the way. Friz Freleng's funniest Cartoons are no more or less funny than his storyboards. Even the drawings are no more exaggerated.
In modern Cartoons, the production actually gets worse each step of the way. Merely because the first step (the, ugh, script) is considered the only creative element in the Cartoon. The storyboard is
supposed to be a literal interpretation of the script, the layouts a literal interpretation of the storyboard, the voice "acting" a literal reading of the repugnant dialogue and so on down the line. With everyone creatively involved on an Animated Cartoon trying to only preserve what little creativity exists in the script (which was written by someone with no skills in the other areas) and without a Director pushing the creativity all the way along the production, you can't help but end up with the poorest use of the medium.
When you try to merely preserve something, you actually end up losing a generation; you end up with an inferior copy. The more copies you make, the further away from the original you get. This results in Saturday Morning Cartoons. (By Saturday Morning Cartoons, I mean anything that uses the Saturday Morning Cartoon production system, regardless of whether the product actually appears on Saturday mornings, or weekday afternoons, Thursday evenings or on the big screen in movie theaters.)
Modern Cartoon writers demand that the artists down the production line religiously follow their scripts. The Artists and Directors are not to use their skills to enhance the Cartoon in any way. This is
insanity; worse, it is criminal insanity.
In a Clampett Cartoon, each step of the production process dramatically improves the Cartoon. Clampett uses his Artists,' Composers' and Actors' special and unique skills to enrich the story in ways the writer never imagined, even when the writer was himself! This is an extremely important lesson for anyone creatively involved in Cartoons. Anybody who really cares about the medium and wants to contribute to Cartoons that will stand the test of time, must realize that the Cartoon creative process is organic and can not be frozen by a script or story. The story is just a means, it is not the end! Clampett knew this better than anyone.
To put story structure ahead of Animation's advantages, particularly the funny drawings, is to completely miss the point. Now I don't suggest we write bad structure on purpose; absolutely not, but we need to realize where the entertainment in a Cartoon is coming from. Structure should be simple. Situations should be settings for entertainment, but they are not the entertainment in themselves.
It is important to realize that Animation Directors make the Cartoons work — or not. Writers don't. Only a great Director could have made "The Great Piggy Bank Robbery." Or Snow White, for that matter. These performances were much better than the material.
In all performance art, stand-up comedy, radio comedy, movies and television, the performance is the art, not the writing. The writer's job is to provide situations and material that the performers can perform. The writers are subservient to the performers. Jackie Gleason is his writers' boss, not the other way around. If he isn't satisfied that his material is suitable to perform, then it isn't performed. While the scripts for the Honeymooners are pretty good, the situations are pretty standard sitcom material.
What stands out is Gleason and his cast's wonderful performances. Scripts are funny, but actors are funnier. Other actors performing Honeymooners scripts would be meaningless.
In Cartoons, the Director is the star performer. He is an Animator who knows his medium and guides all the creative people involved in the process, including the writers. He is the writer's boss. Or at least — he should be.
The viewpoints expressed herein are those of the author and not necessarily the opinion of the publisher and staff of Animation Magazine.
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