Archive for category Television
Thinking vs. Entertaining: Just Kiss and Make Up
Posted by kjohnson1585 in Animation, Film, Television, Uncategorized, Video Games, Writing on October 5, 2010
I saw Inception three weekends ago and, for the most part, it rocked. In fact, I mentioned on a comment board that Inception “(intellectually) rocked.”
It got me thinking, and I’m not talking about the multiple layers of what was a dream and what was real in the movie. It got me thinking about the oft-debated role of entertainment in the world today, of the power of pop culture and the supposed responsibility it has towards the viewing public at large. Should it be a purely-entertaining spectacle, a visual and narrative means to appeal to the “lowest common denominator” (a phrase which I loathe to the core, in that it belittles the worth of the average person – to the point that they lash out into, oh, let’s say, Tea Partier-like mentalities)? Or should it be a thought-provocative, challenging piece of work that really forces its audience to ponder the world around them?
After hits like Inception and The Matrix, can it be both?
Short answer: of course not. Financially-speaking, it’s impossible. You need the best screenwriters, the best directors, the best action-choreographers. You need to spend time tweaking the script to have all the depths necessary to push narrative boundaries, yet maintain enough comfort food (action! explosions! hot womens!) to keep regular audience members entertained all the way through. It’s known as a high-concept film, and you can’t finance all of them at such a high level of quality. That kind of money just doesn’t exist.
Yet, even with small budgets, I would think a certain amount of intellectual-to-entertainment value could be maintained. Look, I’m all for explosions, fart jokes, gratuitous sexual scenes, and all those silly moments films and TV shows have to hook viewers. I’m a guy. But it doesn’t take a million dollars to put all of that into a framework or layer of content that seeks to say something about the world or human nature. Even if it’s nothing new or ground-breaking, a form of entertainment can really hit upon a certain truth that affects its viewers at a deeper level, even if that depth is skin deep.
Part of it is on audience members. Alan Sepinwall is partially credited for the new wave of TV criticism that focuses on close analysis of television shows, which corresponded perfectly with this “golden age of TV” that we’re apparently experiencing. There is much to be said of the kinds of great, heavy moments that TV is indeed producing, but let’s not be coy – these shows are also immensely entertaining. Breaking Bad has all the rich, wonderful elements worthy of dissecting: issues of identity, influences, family, violence, and so on. But it’s also the most entertaining, exciting, balls-to-the-walls hour on television today.
Sepinwall’s style of analysis is approachable and clean, and has been embraced by so many critics and spread across so many fields; video games and comics and music now have episodic, closer readings of their contents, as well as still maintaining their basic core. In time, cartoons of every level will begin to have something like that (outside of Pixar films), something that I’m hoping to be a part of. [Hint, hint.]
I digress. Part of the sudden fall of the indie wave in the post-Tarantino landscape was because of the number of boring indie films. These filmmakers lacked the training and experience to maintain clear pacing and exciting stories (melodramas can be exciting!), and only get caught up in their intellectual exercising. Contrast that with the vapid yawn-fest of this summer’s flock of movies – all spice, no substance. And financially, it showed.
(Note, I’m still believe there is a place for fun, silly movies like The Expendables and deep, thematic movies like There Will Be Blood. There’s always room for both types, and depending on the mood I’m willing to watch them both. However, in terms of increasing the quality to the current-television, 90s-animation, or 80s-comics level, it’s possible to do both.)
Education and critical thinking don’t have to be pretentious, maudlin, platitudinous acts. Which classes do you best remember in high school and college? The lame ones? Or the ones where your teacher or professor tried to bring life into the curriculum? It’s not that average audience members ignore smart material. It’s simply that you can’t present just the smart material. You need to jazz it up. It has to be presentable, fun, and engaging. It’s something schools should be trying, and it can’t stop once you reach the theaters.
With this new wave of TV, and the sad summer save for the hits like How to Train Your Dragon, Toy Story 3, and Inception, entertainment, even high-budget summer blockbuster, will hopefully try to be smarter, more grounded with its stories, and really seek to prefect that blend of high-octane excitement with narrative substance.
Did We Miss Out? The Mr. Men Show/Krypto The Superdog
Posted by kjohnson1585 in Animation, Television, Uncategorized, Writing on August 9, 2010
A while back, Cartoon Network flirted briefly with programs aimed at preschoolers and kindergartners for early morning weekday TV in a block called Tickle U. It didn’t last long. Why? Because young-children based programming is HARD. Young children have fickle, hard-to-pin down attention spans, and coupled with parents keenly in-tune with what their toddlers are watching, it requires a tremendous amount of research, dedication, and experience. (I highly recommend Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point, as he delves deeply into the complexities that went into the successes of Sesame Street and Blue’s Clues.) The Disney Channel has experience. Nickelodeon has experience. Cartoon Network? The channel that, at the time, simply re-aired classic cartoons and more quirkier, new programming like Dexter’s Laboratory? Not so much.
I bring this up because on a particular slow day, I happen to catch the short lived Mr. Men Show (2008-2009) revival on Boomerang, which has become a hybrid of classic-classic cartoons and CN’s dumping ground of “shows that never made it”. It’s programming is uncanny, a mix of then-and-now, seemingly stuck in a temporal loop of cels and Flash files of various framerates. I love it. Mr. Man seemed destined for the early prime-time kids market, but like that idea, it fizzled in the water.
This picture alone tells you the potential hilarity we missed. OR Mr. Grumpy will not take your shit.
Mr. Man is a series of books by Roger Hargreaves that involve emotions/states of mind represented as colored-blob characters, forced into situations where their strictly one-dimensional attribute comes at odds with, oh, whatever Hargreaves felt like. These books were along side your Harold and the Purple Crayon and Good Night, Moon, and the bright, insane characters always appealed to me, as well as their blind commitment to their forced nature. They were cute, simple, and straight-forward; depending on the character, they could be a tad scary.
Imagine, then, you’re commissioned with the task of animating this into a long run series for a year. What do you do? Sure, you could go the ‘lesson-learning’ route, a route that Nick Jr. or Noggin certainly would have done. Cartoon Network animators aren’t the young-ish type, and so went with a unique and oft-bizarre story of a whole world of Mr. Man/Little Miss types, creating what -would- have been an almost infinite clash of pure-emotions. It was animated improv: “You play a perpetually angry person; you play a naughty tease; the setting is a nightclub and you both left your wallets at home. Go!”
The result was a goofy, self-aware, eccentric assault of really brief gags, skits, and musical interludes all centered around two themes, lasting for twelve minutes each. The first was yard work; the second, preparing a parade. Unlike the very simplistic, kind, and melodic flow of shows like Oswald and Dora the Explorer, Mr. Man had surprising rich gags (Mr. Quiet’s understated commentary was a gem and poised to have him the show’s star) and some bizarrely risque material, like Miss Naughty’s light hints at sexual promiscuity – which ended up mostly as practical jokes. But it’s there, and quite hilarious when you pick up on it. The Mr. Men Show was erratic, to be sure, and the seemingly random cuts from skits to musical cues to five-second shorts was rather hard to swallow. But underneath the exterior was a delightful and subtle bunch of jokes.
DID WE MISS OUT? I’d say we did; although parents might “enjoy” it more than their children.
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Krypto the Superdog. I doubt this is funny even in context.
I wish I had similar sentiments for Krypto The Superdog (2005-2006), a clear throwback to the era of Saturday Morning Cartoons. We follow the exploits of a canine house pet who rocks Superman powers and fights evil cats and alien animals and teach lessons. The problem is that animated shows today are self-aware, and when a cartoon tries to engage in its campiness and play it straight – instead of exploiting it – its cheesiness becomes grating.
In one episode of Krypto, we’re already forced to endure lessons about judging people (well, animals) and “great power coming with great responsibility,” the latter lesson gained from what I assumed to be Superdog’s future sidekick, a cat named Streaky. (This particular episode was pointedly awkward and borderline disturbing, and the awful line-readings and less-than-stellar animation didn’t help.) It’s not a stretch to assume this show was definitely for children (perhaps the older set), but even they may find it boring, as today’s youth are so adept with Twitter and Youtube and any other animated program that breaks the 90s mold. For something made in the 21st century that had such dated aesthetics and writing, one can’t help but experience the show with this —> :/ expression.
DID WE MISS OUT? Nah. With not one single interesting character on the show, it’s probably better off in the distant backburner.
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I’ll be doing this feature every so often I catch an episode of something on Boomerang or CN late night or something.
Introducing the Cast of my Upcoming Webtoon!
Posted by kjohnson1585 in Animation, Television, Uncategorized, Webtoon, Writing on July 26, 2010
My apologizes, again, for the lack of updates, as I had to prepare the cast for my webtoon for their formal introductions.
Meet Dylan Montgomery.
Dylan is a tabby cat with a panache for the finer things in life. He’s driven to succeed, meticulous and clean, and fancies himself as an intellectual. He’s approachable, but every so often he does get a bit haughty, being from a wealthy family. He’s aware of this, though, and tries to keep his more pompous mannerisms in check.
His moralistic sense tends to be stronger than his will to succeed, disapproving of illegal, unethical, or corrupt methods in order to get ahead, which ends up hurting his chances more than he believes.
Meet David White.
David is boring, because he’s a human. Beyond that, he’s an aspiring artist who’s actually pretty good at his work, but not so much with hobnobbing and networking. Slightly geeky and very skinny, David knows a little about everything, but can never commit because, like so many post-college graduates, he has no idea what he wants to do -exactly-.
He looks like a hipster, and he can talk like one, but he certainly isn’t one. In fact, he hates them, despite knowing deep down his chances with them are better than making it out there in commercial art.
Meet Chase Rabin.
Chase is a beagle, a canine of adventure and fun. Former urbanized street banger and part frat-boy wannabe, Chase has the energy of a thousands suns inside him, waiting to burst out. Somehow he forces himself to control this (sans meds), simply letting out his excitement through crass jokes, minor acts of aggression, and the free use of bodily functions.
His enjoyment of simple pleasures masks lack of ambition masks his underlying intelligence and willful attitude. He -can- be more productive if he wants to be, but… well, he doesn’t want to be.
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Things are coming together. I have the voices selected, which will begin recording this month, and I have the script for the short 98% done. Come September, I hope to have the storyboards in the works!