So I know it's been awhile.
I haven't forgotten about you, not at all. I've actually been thinking about you quite a bit, in that I've been trying to determine what I want to write about first. I've made some lists, weighed some options, did a bit of research...you know, all the right things. But then, I started watching cartoons and Veronica Mars.
Yes, you heard me. Cartoons. Veronica Mars.
As a kid, I had an interest in animation. I was addicted to drawing. I drew on everything. I was never into coloring books, because I wanted blank pages to draw on instead. I even drew on chalkboards. I remember one time, when I watching Bedknobs and Broomsticks for the tenth time, I paused the screen to draw the possessed knights marching to battle on my largest chalkboard. It was my favorite scene of that movie and truth be told, it still is my favorite. So I really wanted to draw it. I took out my easel and everything. So it should come as no surprise that to finish my drawing of the knights I went so far as to glue feathers to the chalkboard. You know, to get their helmets just right.
Fast forward to my phase where I would stay up late at night to watch the more 'adult' cartoon shows. By which I mean, Toon Heads, The Tex Avery Show, The Flintstones, The Jetsons, etc. Kids generally were into the newer ones, which I was into as well (who didn't like Doug, Scooby Doo, Dexter's Laboratory, or a little Courage the Cowardly Dog?), but these were the ones that were on later, closer to the average kid's bed time. My parents learned fast that they could send me to bed but not to sleep, so I was able to stretch out my bedtime more and more, until they finally would push me into bed and close my door every night. Before then though, my mind was filled with the old-school cartoons and great animators, showing me things like, "The House of Tomorrow" or the Flintstone's "The Swimming Pool" episode. I loved it. There were even sometimes these short clips that would get my imagination engine humming:
Then The Powerpuff Girls came along and I became a complete and utter slave to them, in that I watched them incessantly and drew them everywhere. I drew them so much, it's something I can do in my sleep or with my eyes closed. I have drawn them for kids I've babysat. I've left them scrawled on chalk/whiteboards from middle school to college. They're all over about 3 of my sketchbooks, cover to cover.
I'm not joking.
Then, after coveted evenings spent watching Kim Possible, Darkwing Duck, and Teacher's Pet passed, reruns of The Powerpuff Girls feigned to hold my attention, and I had seen almost every episode of Pokemon and Digimon worth seeing, it suddenly stopped.
And for a long time, it stayed that way. Years passed and the most animation I saw was the yearly Pixar film.
Until in the last few years of college, it came back to me. Suddenly, I was hooked by Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away. I had to see Coraline. I wanted to re-watch my favorite Disney film, The Great Mouse Detective. I had to get my hands on Gay Purr-ee and Cats Don't Dance again. It was necessary to watch the entirety of Brendon Small's Home Movies. I made lists of foreign animation films I needed to see, from The Triplets of Belleville to Persepolis.
Anyways, this is my explanation for watching cartoons: because I'm still that little girl that loves drawing and seeing other people's drawings. It doesn't matter to me if they're in a gallery, or if they're playing on the television to a bunch of kids; I see art.
Cartoons, or rather animation, are under-appreciated sometimes, because they are generally thought of as for children. Yes, some actual 'adult' cartoons exist, like Futurama, Family Guy, The Simpsons, and all that, and while they have their place, they're not what I'm talking about. Cartoons have the capacity to appeal to both children and adults, whether it be because the adults are kids at heart or just parents trying to keep their child quiet for 90 minutes. Pixar has been changing the way animation is perceived for years, making adults fall in love with their films and shorts, not just the kids they aim to please. Other studios have started stepping up, creating films like Despicable Me or How to Train Your Dragon, which have big followings of their own, particularly in the tween/early twenties crowd.
And don't forget, it's a lot harder to actually create characters, write a story, and animate it to last anywhere from 10-90 minutes or less, than you think. Even more effort if you're doing something like stop motion, such as Coraline or The Nightmare Before Christmas. Wrapping my brain around that sort of animation makes my brain hurt; it requires a completely different set of dedication. Can you even imagine spending more than 5 minutes just making a character blink and wave their hand? Now think about how long it must have taken Disney's animators to create the first Disney full-length animated film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves back in 1938. Without computers.
I'm proud to watch cartoons. I will quote Regular Show in my daily life. I will watch Adventure Time with Finn and Jake by myself. I will spend nights re-watching Teen Titans and admiring the style and use of expressions. I will watch Hey Arnold! and reminisce about my own childhood. I hope other people my age and older will join me, but if they don't, it won't stop me.
As for Veronica Mars?
I can only ask why it has taken me this long to get on the bandwagon in the first place. It's amazing.
New, and more serious entry, next week.
I haven't forgotten about you, not at all. I've actually been thinking about you quite a bit, in that I've been trying to determine what I want to write about first. I've made some lists, weighed some options, did a bit of research...you know, all the right things. But then, I started watching cartoons and Veronica Mars.
Yes, you heard me. Cartoons. Veronica Mars.
As a kid, I had an interest in animation. I was addicted to drawing. I drew on everything. I was never into coloring books, because I wanted blank pages to draw on instead. I even drew on chalkboards. I remember one time, when I watching Bedknobs and Broomsticks for the tenth time, I paused the screen to draw the possessed knights marching to battle on my largest chalkboard. It was my favorite scene of that movie and truth be told, it still is my favorite. So I really wanted to draw it. I took out my easel and everything. So it should come as no surprise that to finish my drawing of the knights I went so far as to glue feathers to the chalkboard. You know, to get their helmets just right.
Fast forward to my phase where I would stay up late at night to watch the more 'adult' cartoon shows. By which I mean, Toon Heads, The Tex Avery Show, The Flintstones, The Jetsons, etc. Kids generally were into the newer ones, which I was into as well (who didn't like Doug, Scooby Doo, Dexter's Laboratory, or a little Courage the Cowardly Dog?), but these were the ones that were on later, closer to the average kid's bed time. My parents learned fast that they could send me to bed but not to sleep, so I was able to stretch out my bedtime more and more, until they finally would push me into bed and close my door every night. Before then though, my mind was filled with the old-school cartoons and great animators, showing me things like, "The House of Tomorrow" or the Flintstone's "The Swimming Pool" episode. I loved it. There were even sometimes these short clips that would get my imagination engine humming:
Then The Powerpuff Girls came along and I became a complete and utter slave to them, in that I watched them incessantly and drew them everywhere. I drew them so much, it's something I can do in my sleep or with my eyes closed. I have drawn them for kids I've babysat. I've left them scrawled on chalk/whiteboards from middle school to college. They're all over about 3 of my sketchbooks, cover to cover.
I'm not joking.
Then, after coveted evenings spent watching Kim Possible, Darkwing Duck, and Teacher's Pet passed, reruns of The Powerpuff Girls feigned to hold my attention, and I had seen almost every episode of Pokemon and Digimon worth seeing, it suddenly stopped.
And for a long time, it stayed that way. Years passed and the most animation I saw was the yearly Pixar film.
Until in the last few years of college, it came back to me. Suddenly, I was hooked by Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away. I had to see Coraline. I wanted to re-watch my favorite Disney film, The Great Mouse Detective. I had to get my hands on Gay Purr-ee and Cats Don't Dance again. It was necessary to watch the entirety of Brendon Small's Home Movies. I made lists of foreign animation films I needed to see, from The Triplets of Belleville to Persepolis.
Anyways, this is my explanation for watching cartoons: because I'm still that little girl that loves drawing and seeing other people's drawings. It doesn't matter to me if they're in a gallery, or if they're playing on the television to a bunch of kids; I see art.
Cartoons, or rather animation, are under-appreciated sometimes, because they are generally thought of as for children. Yes, some actual 'adult' cartoons exist, like Futurama, Family Guy, The Simpsons, and all that, and while they have their place, they're not what I'm talking about. Cartoons have the capacity to appeal to both children and adults, whether it be because the adults are kids at heart or just parents trying to keep their child quiet for 90 minutes. Pixar has been changing the way animation is perceived for years, making adults fall in love with their films and shorts, not just the kids they aim to please. Other studios have started stepping up, creating films like Despicable Me or How to Train Your Dragon, which have big followings of their own, particularly in the tween/early twenties crowd.
And don't forget, it's a lot harder to actually create characters, write a story, and animate it to last anywhere from 10-90 minutes or less, than you think. Even more effort if you're doing something like stop motion, such as Coraline or The Nightmare Before Christmas. Wrapping my brain around that sort of animation makes my brain hurt; it requires a completely different set of dedication. Can you even imagine spending more than 5 minutes just making a character blink and wave their hand? Now think about how long it must have taken Disney's animators to create the first Disney full-length animated film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves back in 1938. Without computers.
I'm proud to watch cartoons. I will quote Regular Show in my daily life. I will watch Adventure Time with Finn and Jake by myself. I will spend nights re-watching Teen Titans and admiring the style and use of expressions. I will watch Hey Arnold! and reminisce about my own childhood. I hope other people my age and older will join me, but if they don't, it won't stop me.
As for Veronica Mars?
I can only ask why it has taken me this long to get on the bandwagon in the first place. It's amazing.
New, and more serious entry, next week.
