Category Archives: Animation Analysis

Tracey Ullman

Fame is a funny thing. When it gets too big, it works against you, and you become overexposed. You’ve seen it time and time again; a company pushes a performer or a movie so hard, you can’t recall a time when you weren’t sick of them. Even their positive qualities become tiresome.

Then eventually, we acknowledge their talents, allowing that they were revealed during a time of intense corporate saturation.

Before 1986, there were three television networks; CBS, NBC, and ABC. Then in October of that year, Fox became the fourth, co-founded by the tyrant Rupert Murdoch. Fox would introduce a slate of unusual programming over the following two years, which included Married… With Children, The Arsenio Hall Show, 21 Jump Street, and a variety program (with animated bumpers) called The Tracey Ullman Show.

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Filed under Animation Analysis, Bad Influences, Faint Signals, Girls of BIUL, Nostalgic Obsessions, Thousand Listen Club

Animation Analysis: The Iron Giant

If you’re reading this on Christmas afternoon because your family is driving you nuts, and you have the technology, I suggest that you legally download The Iron Giant, from 1999. Gather everyone around, and watch it with them. It will make your holidays extra wonderful.

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Filed under Animation Analysis, Movies You Missed, Robot Toy Fetish, Saturday Movie Matinee

Rock Monglers

In 1986, the greatest animated film based on a toyline in history premiered. It had celebrity voices, stunning visuals, and in the years following, it became an unstoppable cult classic.

A few months prior to that, Hanna-Barbera produced a cheap, ugly little movie, as is their wont, this time about warriors that turn into rocks. It had “celebrity voices” and the same discount animation they always used, and was quickly (and deservedly) forgotten. It was called GoBots: Battle of the Rock Lords.

aka "Gaybots, Babble of the Cocklords" (Petey, 3rd grade)

aka “Gaybots, Babble of the Cocklords” (Petey, 6th grade)

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Animation Analysis: Watership Down

Watership Down is a book written by English novelist Richard Adams, published in 1972 to worldwide adoration, about a cluster of wild rabbits who leave their home after the weakest of them accurately foresees its destruction. It is generally regarded as a literary classic, and perhaps most delightfully, it includes appendices of rabbit mythology, and a glossary of the lapine lexicon. In 1978, it was adapted as an motion picture by director Martin Rosen.

In my eyes, this adaptation is the finest animated film ever produced. Ironically, I was first exposed to it as a kid, because it was mistaken for a kids’ movie.

It isn’t.

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It looks inspirational, but it’s actually a rabbit being strangled with a wire.

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Animation Analysis: Fritz the Cat

In 1972, there was a schism in the world of “underground comix”. Its poster boy, Robert Crumb, had licensed his controversial Fritz the Cat to a pair of Saturday morning cartoon men, for a feature film production. Depending on whom you ask, the final result is either the fault of Crumb’s intransigence, the director’s dabbling, or the distributor’s trepidation about the content. The reality is that Fritz was never meant for franchising.

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Filed under Animation Analysis, Bad Influences, Faint Signals, Movies You Missed, Nostalgic Obsessions, Saturday Movie Matinee