Disney’s official fan convention, D23 Expo, is currently in progress (at the time of writing this, it’s the final day)! I’ll quickly list some of the announcements that caught my interest the most.
Penny looks lit in that Tiana gown!
I was naturally excited to see a brand-new look into the second season of The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder. Something was telling me beforehand that an update on the series would drop around this time. My expectations for it to be as entertaining as season one are high! Can’t wait for February!
Next, on the Pixar side of things, we got preview images for their upcoming projects Elemental (and yes, I agree the blue guy does look like Osmosis Jones), Win or Lose (their first series not based on one of their films, not counting SparkShorts), and Elio.
I’m getting vibes of the Big Nate series on Paramount+ with this animation style here.
But easily the biggest surprise was their announcement of…[drumroll]
Speaking as a fan of the first film, it sounds interesting, but I thought Pixar said no more sequels after Toy Story 4 (plus, they already broke their promise by alluding to the possibility of making sequels to the Lightyear spin-off film). Oh well. I’m still optimistic to see Riley’s emotions again, even if I’m a little concerned about Bill Hader and Mindy Kahling not returning as Fear and Disgust respectively (those two happen to be my favorite characters).
Moving right along, we finally have our first teaser for the Little Mermaid remake starring Halle Bailey as Ariel. In just that one clip of her singing “Part of Your World”, Halle proved my expectations right about her doing a beautiful interpretation of the fish-tailed girl, on par with Jodi Benson’s original performance. Screw the haters! You go, Halle! I can’t wait for May 2023!
The last one I’ll bring up for this post is Walt Disney Animation Studios more or less returning to their 2D-animated roots for a feature film with the upcoming 2023 movie Wish (seriously, though, can we stop with these generic, single-word titles for animated features?) Technically, it’s 3D animation with a 2D watercolor filter over it (almost like that lovely Paperman short), but still. Sounds like Eric Goldberg wasn’t kidding when he brought up the idea of Disney returning to 2D. Also, the movie’s premise exploring the origins of the wishing star that’s so symbolic of the company is a sweet way of celebrating their forthcoming centennial.
Beautiful concept art.
However, going back to Disney+ stuff, it’s too bad there doesn’t seem to be any new updates on Rhona Who Lives By the River, which is supposed to be Emily Kapnek’s second animated series since As Told by Ginger. I totally forgot that was supposed to be a thing. Hopefully, it’s still coming out soon.
So those were some of my thoughts on the D23 announcements. I’m curious to hear YOURS!
DISCLAIMER: This post contains affiliate links from the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
Let’s talk a little bit about Floyd Norman. Well, technically, we’ll be talking a lot about him today since this is a review of his book, but I’ll briefly introduce him to the unfamiliar. Basically, this 86-year-old animation veteran is an underrated legend, a Disney Legend to be precise (though he’s worked for several other studios as well). In 1956, Floyd, already an admirer of their films, was brought into the Walt Disney Studios during his late youth, back when Black animators in the industry were scarce at best. During those early years of his career, he would graduate from inbetweening projects like Sleeping Beauty and The Mickey Mouse Club, to playing a vital role in crafting The Jungle Book‘s story, all while being mentored by “Uncle Walt” himself and his top animators collectively known as “the Nine Old Men”. Overall, Floyd’s resume consists of a mix of him storyboarding and assisting animation on Disney films (both from the main Feature Animation studio and Pixar), laying out dozens of ’70s and ’80s Hanna-Barbera cartoons, and even running his own studio with business partner Leo Sullivan called Vignette Films, where they did those “rocket launch countdown” sketches in Sesame Street‘s first season, short films celebrating Black history, and the pilot to Fat Albert. Seriously, this man’s career is one worth going on about.
Ever since I watched the documentary film Floyd Norman: An Animated Life in 2016, I’ve look up to Mr. Norman as if he were my unofficial mentor. As an up-and-coming Black animator myself, I not only appreciate Floyd’s accomplishments once his career was at full swing, but I also emphasized with both his fascination with learning how the pros work their magic, and his relationship with trial & error. With that said, it really helps that he is an awesome storyteller who shares insightful article after insightful article through his lenses as someone who worked alongside Walt Disney himself. He is this likable mix between someone who never wants to stop learning, and your typical “back in my day” senior citizen. Not many animation people from those Golden years live up to this current era we’re in, so we should be grateful for Floyd’s presence however longer it lasts.
In addition to telling these amusing studio stories through interviews or blog posts, Floyd is gifted with the ability to satirize the animation industry through gag cartoons, making him one of the few notable editorial cartoonists whose specialty is riffing on the relatively unsung politics that goes on behind the toons. The book that I’m reviewing today, Son of Faster Cheaper, is one of a few collections of such cartoons that Floyd doodled based on his observations of his workplaces like Disney, Hanna-Barbera, and Pixar. To be more precise, it is a sequel to, as you might have guessed, Floyd’s first compilation entitled Faster! Cheaper!: The Flip Side to the Art of Animation (1992). At the very beginning of Son of Faster Cheaper, Floyd recalls its predecessor being a “publishing experiment”. While I’ve yet to get a copy of Faster! Cheaper! (thankfully, it’s back in print again since October 2020), I do believe that experimentation really paid off. Also in that same opening page, he briefly brings up a fire that happened in an unidentified (in this book at least) LA animation studio, quotes an investigator asking, “Who would burn down a cartoon studio?”, and then quotes an artist responding with, “Apparently, you’ve never worked in one.” As hyperbolic as it may seem to compare a hazardous fire to beefs between animators, that opening paragraph was a good way of preparing us readers for the creative team craziness Floyd’s got to share.
The gag cartoons are organized into seven chapters. The first one, “Working for Walt”, is self-explanatory, as it illustrates Floyd’s partnership with “the Old Maestro” from the mid-50s to the mid-60s. The cartoons typically caricature Walt as a vexed, hunchbacked curmudgeon who somewhat intimidates his team of animators and artists. Even his harsh cough was jokingly referred to as a sign that “man is in the forest.”
Chapter Two, “The World of Bill and Joe”, focuses on poking fun at (you guessed it) Hanna-Barbera and their cheap business practices during those bleak times in American TV animation in the ’70s. One highlighting gag involved a smirking “Taskmaster Bill” Hanna reading a newspaper announcing the Year of the Rat, telling “Hollywood Joe” Barbera, “Hey Joe! We oughta do well this year!”
In the next chapter, “The New Disney”, Floyd illustrates the atmosphere that the Walt Disney Company was inhaling upon his return during the ’80s (in other words, the Eisner/Katzenberg/Wells era starting in 1984). The relationship between executives Michael Eisner and Frank Wells, and their tendency to make money out of anything with the Disney brand on it (even literal dirt as depicted in one gag) were just wonderfully lampooned.
Chapter Four, “The Story Artist”, is also self-explanatory, as Mr. Norman shows us how truly “crazy” and “thankless” the position of a storyboard artist could be. At Disney, in Floyd’s point of view at least, storyboarders are treated as scapegoats if the movie they worked on bombed, tediously spend up to four days going over a few panels, and tend to get attacked by the director for failing to please him. In fact, quite a few of these gags remind me of the scene in “Stimpy’s Cartoon Show” from Ren & Stimpy in which Ren (portrayed as a caricature of his own problematic creator) dramatically tears down Stimpy’s storyboards due to not meeting his satisfaction.
In Chapter Five, “Animation Boom”, we get a clever portrayal of how much of an “Animation Bizarro World” Walt Disney Feature Animation was during the Renaissance era’s second half following The Lion King‘s surprise success. At this point in his career, Floyd returned to Disney once again in the ’90s as a story artist on films like The Hunchback of Notre Dame (on which he got his first on-screen credit in a Disney production…took them long enough), Mulan, Sweating Bullets (a.k.a. Home on the Range), and the eventually scrapped Wild Life (which, from what I heard, would have been pretty risque on the levels of Shrek). Gag cartoons that highlight the chapter include…well, ALL five that satirize Hunchback, but especially the one where the three main characters are dancing idyllically, lampooning Disney SOMEHOW making a kid-friendly(-ish) adaptation of Victor Hugo’s grim novel.
Contrary to its title, the sixth chapter, “What I Really Want To Do Is, Direct”, sums itself up by saying, “Anyone who wants to direct, probably shouldn’t.” As you might have guessed, Floyd’s cartoons in this chapter illustrate the stressful nature of directing. Constant story revisions, listening to the dreaded “I want” song, and getting yourself “re-pinned” (literally) are among these challenges.
Finally, we’ve reached Chapter Seven, “To Insanity…And Beyond!”, in which the Disney animation work environment since the 21st century is covered. As the title implies, Pixar, where Floyd contributed to Monsters Inc. and the nightmarish production of Toy Story 2 (amazing how THAT film still managed to turn out great), plays a major part here. Computers are in, and pencils are out, to the point where you might be caught dead if you’re drawing with one. Beefs between Michael Eisner and Pixar founding fathers John Lasseter and Steve Jobs were apparently common, particularly around the time of Disney agreeing to purchase the CGI studio in order to continue collaborations. Right off the bat, my favorites in this chapter include one cartoon where a Pixar employee alerts his disgruntled fellow artists to “start having fun” for the cloying news reporters who barely know the true temperature inside an animation studio, another where a man shows a woman a framed piece of “original Disney digital art” (literally a computer code!), and yet another where Floyd himself is depicted as a Survivor contestant being “voted off” the Disney Feature Animation “island”.
Throughout these seven chapters, Mr. Norman mostly presents his editorial cartoons as loose, rough, black-and-white sketches, although a few did seem to be originally full-colored. Since these were drawn within multiple decades, the quality control of his cartoons varies, whether they’re drawn with pencil or ink. The caricatures could range from single-pass scribbles that still form the recognizable shapes of a human, to much cleaner sketches with a more clear (but still stylized) depiction of what it’s aiming to visualize. I assume the reasoning behind the sketchiness of Floyd’s cartoons being rather inconsistent is due to either dependence on the amount of spare time available for him to doodle each of them, or simply his skills going through metamorphosis. Either way, this, along with a couple of typos like misnaming “the 1990s” as the “the 1900s” on one page, is just nitpicking. The one-liners and cynical remarks written are the shiniest stars of these gag cartoons, while Floyd’s cartooning style holds its own set of lively charm to sprinkle on said jokes.
To sum everything up, Son of Faster Cheaper is a very amusing satire collection to come from the self-described “Mr. Fun”. Even if you haven’t worked professionally in the animation industry yet, you could be at least someone who loves to research juicy behind-the-scenes trivia, thus still finding enjoyment in this book. I look forward to expanding my library with more Floyd Norman titles, including the original Faster! Cheaper!, Animated Life, and How the Grinch Stole Disney. Once again, we should be all blessed that such a terrific, young-at-heart animation veteran has been sticking around the planet for this long to provide witty commentary in the form of doodles.
If you’d like to keep up with Mr. Norman, follow not just his own social media accounts (Twitter, Instagram) but also the social media pages for the team behind Floyd Norman: An Animated Life (Instagram, Twitter, Facebook). Also, if you’d like to see AND hear Floyd illustrate his stories about working at Disney, check out his Vimeo page (the “Walt’s Bran Muffins” video is particularly intriguing).
Time to rant about a factual error that (almost) unironically pissed me off so much that a simple Twitter thread isn’t enough to unleash my butthurt nerdiness regarding today’s subject!
Recently on Netflix, I watched episode one of the two-part (at least so far) docuseries The Holiday Movies That Made Us, which was a spin-off of The Movies That Made Us, which itself is a sister series to The Toys That Made Us. Like its relatives, The Holiday Movies That Made Us is comfort food for pop culture nerds alike, whether you’re already a hardcore fan of the episode’s subject or not. The inaugural episode told the awesome story of how the 2003 classic Elf was born. There was so much interesting trivia I learned about for the first time, like how lawyers swarmed around the filmmakers due to them taking a little too much influence from Rankin/Bass’s Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, or how Wanda Sykes was going to be casted as the Gimbels manager, explaining why Faizon Love mistakenly had “Wanda” on his name tag (hilariously, both actors later appeared in the sitcom Black-ish). But perhaps the most shocking secret behind Elf was that part of the movie was filmed in an abandoned Vancouver mental hospital! I’m not joking. But overall, the Elf episode was a really good watch. As I expected, The Holiday Movies That Made Us got me hooked. Thus, I was excited to move on to the episode about The Nightmare Before Christmas, despite not watching that film in its entirety as of yet (I have faith that it’ll be good, though).
Then…THIS:
And if that wasn’t bad enough, they said it a second time, like 20SECONDSLATER:
Okay…what in the name of Will Vinton is this bullcrap?! “That doesn’t sound right. That doesn’t sound right!” I said to myself as I heard the narrator spread this gross misconception. Now, I’m sure the people behind the That Made Us universe of docuseries generally deserve a lot of credit for putting together such amusing, high-quality, and (presumably) well-researched content. But claiming that The Nightmare Before Christmas is “the world’s very first stop-motion feature-length movie”? Are you serious?! Come on, you guys aren’t some casual-at-best animation fans who probably think Steamboat Willie was the first thing Disney ever made, if not the first animated short EVER. You are a team of professionals with budgets and resources! Where were your proofreaders before you got this approved? Just why? How?
Of all my years coming across common animation misconceptions, from “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is ‘the world’s first animated feature film'”, to “ReBoot is the’ world’s first all-CGI TV series'” (that title actually goes to the obscure French series Insektors; watch The Wacky Delhi’s video on this debate), this is probably the first time I ever heard such a lie about The Nightmare Before Christmas. In fact, I’d argue that it’s even more infuriating than the Snow White factoid. At least with the false claim about Snow White coming first, the rather mundane specifications of it being the first American animated feature, as well as being the first cel-animated one, are quite easy to glance over. Although, one shouldn’t be naïve to think the USA was the first or only region to experiment with the medium in those early times. On the other hand, there is absolutely NO excuse to casually say, “Nightmare B4 Xmas iz 1st stop motion movie eva in wurld!”. Hell, it wasn’t even the first American stop-motion film (that title belongs to a 1954 adaptation of Hansel and Gretel released by RKO), so I can’t call the aforementioned myth a sign of some USA superiority complex.
I know Wikipedia isn’t always a reliable source, but take a scroll down their list of stop-motion films made all around the globe, and you’ll find out that Nightmare is estimated to be the world’s93rd. And yes, even TV specials that are forty-something minutes or longer, such as Rudolph (ironically one of Tim Burton’s influences for Nightmare) and Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town, can apparently qualify as “movies” based on their duration. Oh yeah, and you’ll also see a number of cutout-animated films on the list, because, as a friendly reminder, stop-motion isn’t limited to 3D objects like puppet figures. So, you want to know what the actual first stop-motion movie in the world is? Why, it’s our old lost friend from Argentina, El Apostol (1917), the world’s actual first full-length animated feature, PERIOD! The first ones to use puppets like The Nightmare Before Christmas were the 1933 Soviet film The New Gulliver (which was partly live-action as well), and the 1937 French film The Tale of the Fox (released just eight months before Snow White). As for American stop-motion features predating Nightmare by a decade or more, there are some titles that shouldn’t be too obscure for animation buffs, including Rankin/Bass’s 1967 Halloween flick Mad Monster Party? (which I constantly forget to check out every October), and Will Vinton’s 1986 classic The Adventures of Mark Twain (which you should at least be aware of for THIS frequent candidate for Most Disturbing Moment in a Kids Movie). Again, what excuse did the people behind The Holiday Movies That Made Us have to claim Nightmare was the first?!
Admittedly, after hearing the narrator spit that lie out of her mouth, I actually switched the episode off, and watched Jeopardy! instead. At the time of writing this post, I haven’t returned to Holiday Movies‘ second episode (aside from taking the screenshots above) to watch it fully. Thus, I’ve yet to know if they even corrected themselves after the intro. If they did, good on them! I’ll update this post once I DO decide to watch the whole thing. If they didn’t…DAMN IT!
While I’m not immune to making the occasional one myself, factual errors are something I take pretty seriously, especially if they’re being spouted out by people who should know better and could DO better. Claiming that The Nightmare Before Christmas was “the world’s very first stop-motion feature-length movie,” is enough to make animation historians like Jerry Beck and Thad Komorowski cringe, and late stop-motion leaders like Will Vinton roll in their graves. Not that they necessarily dislike Nightmare themselves, of course. There might have been even more mistakes like this that the people behind The Holiday Movies That Made Us, and its sister series, had made, but I simply forgot about or never noticed them. Either way, the Nightmare one sticks out like a sore thumb, more so than the more forgivable mistake of crediting Tim Burton as the film’s director (sure, he created the concept, but the film itself was directed by Henry Selick). The many stop-motion movies that preceded Nightmare Before Christmas may be obscure by comparison, but as a historian, it’s kinda part of your job to unearth such obscurity. No popularity bias should be necessary. End of story.
Well, safe & happy holidays, everyone! Here’s a GIF from the NFB short Christmas Cracker to lighten up the mood:
DISCLAIMER: This post contains affiliate links from the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
Sorry for the delay, folks.Click here to read the first half of this review before reading this one.
Not Just Cartoons‘ biggest flaw stems from how inconsistent its depth is, in terms of the information given through the interviews, the amount of pages each Nicktoon gets, and even with the amount of production material vs. publicity art. On one hand, you have Jim Jinkins seamlessly telling us the essential details of how his show Doug came to be, along with looking back at how making it was both hard and positively impactful. Meanwhile, on the Invader Zim side, Jhonen Vasquez wastes most of his time talking stuff that even causal fans like myself already know (say, did you know Zim is green?). The most interesting thing he revealed was that he was just 22 years old when Invader Zim was greenlit, meaning he was even younger than Seth MacFarlane, who got Family Guy at age 24. The rest of the Zim interview takes more interesting routes with executive producer (and secondary Nicktoon founding mother) Mary Harrington and head writer Frank Coniff sharing what the experience working on the show at Nickelodeon Animation Studios was like (apparently, Jhonen’s office was a magenta color that was the opposite of Zim‘s darker tone). I should note that both the Doug and Zim chapters are four-pages-long, with the former displaying more depth in information, and the latter showing more depth in the production art featured, namely the big collage of model sheets and layout drawings.
Speaking of Zim, just to briefly go off-topic, there was a new Invader Zim art book published this year. Even as a very, very mild fan of the show, I gotta say it looks worthy of picking up, and guaranteed to cheer up anyone disappointed with the show’s little coverage in Not Just Cartoons.
Moving on to the amount of pages each show is covered for, regardless of popularity, some will get four, six, eight, or ten pages worth of info and art. The two exceptions, at 12 pages each, are Ren & Stimpy and SpongeBob, arguably the most important Nicktoons of them all. Also, I find it ponder-worthy how Rugrats, which still had its record for longest-running Nicktoon at that time, only got eight pages, while the inferior (but not bad) Wild Thornberrys has two more. You’d think Tommy and the gang were inevitable choices to get the maximum of 12 pages, much like their fellow starter-ups Ren and Stimpy. Then we have how not all shows get an even balance between filling space with promotional art and behind-the-scenes material. Hell, All Grown Up! doesn’t a single trace of production stuff like storyboards, sketches, model sheets, backgrounds, layouts, or whatever! Just promo art, with one of them being a poor-resolution screencap from the TV movie “RV Havin’ Fun Yet?”, which was incorrectly captioned as a shot from the original “All Growed Up” backdoor pilot special from Rugrats. Actually, the only chapters that use just promo art efficiently are the ones for Oh Yeah! Cartoons and Random! Cartoons. The postcards for all those pilots are real works of art in and of themselves, enough to warrant various collections published by Frederator themselves.
Going back to the subject of Klasky Csupo, perhaps the most infamous thing about this book is how the studio’s namesakes, Arlene and Gabor, were not brought on to do fresh, exclusive interviews. They only got one archival quote each during the Rugrats chapter. Meanwhile, other Klasky Csupo bigshots, including Paul Germain, Emily Kapnek, Eryk Casemiro, and Kate Boutiller were all brought on for the ride. In the acknowledgements, it says, “Nickelodeon made every attempt to invite Arlene Klasky and Gabor Csupo to participate in the book. To Nickelodeon’s great regret, they declined.” Some suspect the reason why Arlene and Gabor couldn’t come on was because they were still feeling a little bitter about how the Nick executives basically screwed Klasky Csupo over due to contractual disputes, thus ending their 15-ish years of making hit Nicktoon after hit Nicktoon. But the sad story of how Klasky Csupo turned into a shell of what it once was is something reserved for either a separate blog post of mine, or a YouTube video by either Saberspark or Company Man.
And yet, Nick somehow had the guts to bring in their most controversial creator of them all. The same guy who they fired just one year after his show premiered. That’s right! The Bob Clampett-worshiping, Kirk Douglas-addicted, high horse-riding “legend” himself, John “Raymond Spum” Kricfalusi! And no, none of the Ren & Stimpy people who were just as responsible for the show’s brilliance–whether it’d be Bob Camp, Vincent Waller, Bill Wray, Lynne Naylor, or her late husband Chris Reccardi–got to be interviewed. It’s John, and John alone. Perhaps it was because Jerry Beck and John K. were friends at that point…that is until Jerry committed the heinous crime of (*gasp*) praising Thad Komorowski’s tell-all fest,Sick Little Monkeys: The Unauthorized Ren & Stimpy Story! But in all seriousness, the entire history of Ren & Stimpy is one of the juiciest behind-the-scenes animation stories ever, and I can’t wait to get a copy of Sick Little Monkeys to satisfy my craving for such juice. The free preview alone was enough to get me hooked!
So, yeah. Those are all the flaws I could think of regarding Not Just Cartoons: Nicktoons!. But do they cause me to alienate myself from the many things I do love about it? Absolutely not! Although, for obvious reasons, I might just ignore John K.’s interview from now on. Sure, some of his quotes like “Every element that touches your hands has creative potential–use it,” do hold good advice on their own, but there are less toxic animators out there who could tell you the same things.
ERRORS AND INTERESTING OBSERVATIONS
At one point during the Fairly OddParents chapter, a caption says that “the Crimson Chin is Timmy’s favorite comic book character”…but a couple of pages later, it says “Catman [is] Timmy’s favorite character”! Look, I know he’s a fan of both heroes (plus Crash Nebula), but I’m pretty sure the Chin is #1 in Timmy’s book.
A caption in the Aaahh!!! Real Monsters chapter describes two poses of the Snorch and Zimbo as “the original monster concepts”, implying that they’re early concept art, when they’re actually the final character designs.
This is a little minor mistake, but the premiere date for SpongeBob was written as April 1st, 1999, rather than May 1st. Though imagine if the show premiered with the episode “Fools in April”.
Conclusion
To simply quote the back cover, “this book is a must-have for every animation enthusiast, design aficionado, and cartoon alike!” I wholeheartedly agree! But if I were to add one more ideal customer, it would be fans of the Nicktoons’ golden age. Not Just Cartoons may be 10+ years old, but until Mr. Beck decides to officially get You Can’t Do That on Television: The Rebellious History of Nickelodeon published (refer to Part One of this review to know what I’m talking about), you wouldn’t find another book that does this vibrant of a job paying tribute to arguably the greatest aspect about Nickelodeon as a whole: its original animation (up to 2007, of course). And besides, let’s be honest here. With a few exceptions like The Loud House and The Legend of Korra, most of the Nicktoons after Avatar: The Last Airbender aren’t considered household names. At best, they’ll be categorized as underrated gems that deserved better, but got dumped because their success couldn’t compete with CheeseHead BrownPants’s. And at worst, they’ll simply be labeled as bad and unmemorable. Although, quite a few formerly loathed cartoons have seen a positive resurgence in popularity on social media recently, like Fanboy and Chum Chum for example. Yes, I’m serious. Even creator Eric Robles noticed it. Kinda sweet, honestly.
But all in all, I’m incredibly grateful to have Not Just Cartoons: Nicktoons! in my prized collection of animation art books. I remember back in 2014, when my desire for obtaining it was at an all-time high, it was no easy task finding a decent copy online for an affordable price, given how Not Just Cartoons was already out of print. Fortunately, after helping my mom with her home office work, I was rewarded a copy from Amazon for under 45 bucks in March 2015. Thus, I gotta thank her for this. While my library will continue to grow with more and more high-quality books, the Nicktoons one is gonna remain the few that I’ll guard like Atlantean treasure (or a bubble, like in Atlantis SquarePantis).
DISCLAIMER: This post contains affiliate links from the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
Yes! My blog is back from the dead after a nearly three-year hiatus! But, wait…if it was just a hiatus, shouldn’t it be compared to a coma instead of death? Ah, whatever. I’ve been feeling a Nicktoons mood lately, if my new YouTube project 30 Nicktoon Doodles! is any indication. So, what better way to further express such a mood (on top of reviving my blog) then to do a LONG-overdue review of what is currently my favorite animation art book in my growing library: Not Just Cartoons: Nicktoons!?
Boy, where do I start with this bad boy? Well, how about explaining the book’s existence in the first place? 2007 was, for some reason, a particularly ambitious year for Nickelodeon’s cutting edge library of original animated series. Firstly, we saw the debuts of a total of five Nicktoons (El Tigre, Random! Cartoons, Wayside, Back at the Barnyard, and Tak and the Power of Juju). Secondly, there was a four-day “Superstuffed Nicktoons Weekend” marathon during American Thanksgiving on the main Nick channel, plus the “100 Greatest Nicktoon Episodes” marathon on sister Nicktoons Network (though I’m disappointed they ranked “Stimpy’s Invention” at number #78, along with them snubbing some As Told by Ginger episodes that were greater than the two they went with). Thirdly, a special Dec./Jan. issue of Nickelodeon Magazine was published, featuring some nifty trivia (though they wrongfully implied that all three claymation Arnold shorts were made for Sesame Street, instead of just the third one), and a MASSIVE collage of 181 characters from 27 different ‘Toons (I assume Squidward’s the one who took the photo, since he’s surprisingly absent from the collage itself)! And FOURTHLY, a third crossover video game, Attack of the Toybots, was released during the fall. I would like to point out one notable thing about the game, and that’s the fact it marked the first time in years Billy West provided Stimpy’s voice, after cooling down his understandable grudge against The Ren & Stimpy Show (that John guy was pretty much trying to kill poor Billy’s vocal cords in the recording booth, you know).
Now we’ll move on to our focal tie-in to that beefed-up Nicktoon celebration: a thick, perfectly-square showcase of vivid production art, written by one of my heroes in animation nerddom, Jerry Beck. So, Mr. Beck seems to be the right guy they could chose to take on this project, considering his acquaintance with Nickelodeon dates back to as far as 1994 when he was their movie division’s vice president. Of course, this relationship wouldn’t stop there. Jerry would come out with another visually-pleasing Nicktoon art book,The SpongeBob SquarePants Experience, in 2013. As a die-hard SpongeBob fan, I’ll definitely review that semi-masterpiece in the future. Oh yeah! Mr. Beck even created a pilot for Random! Cartoons titled Hornswiggle. Haven’t seen it yet, but its art style, reminiscent of something like The Ant and the Aardvark, does look very appealing.
But, also, uh, remember in my #NickAnimation25 blog post when I mentioned a “sequel (sort of)” to Not Just Cartoons: Nicktoons! that Jerry was working on? Well, quite coincidentally after I brought up You Can’t Do That on Television: The Rebellious History of Nickelodeon to one of my Twitter followers, Jerry wrote an article on Animation Scoop explaining why the book has yet to be officially published! Apparently, much like that Cartoon Network 20th Birthday art book (a must-have collectible in my eyes), The Rebellious History of Nickelodeon was never intended for sale to begin with, but rather it was just a gift to Nick employees from the past quarter-century. Not to mention, its designers at a studio in Utah named Stuck (marking their first time designing a book) revealed a little too much a little too early, since Jerry was keeping this project a secret for some time. Ultimately, Rebellious History ended up with “no ISBN number…no used copies on eBay…[and] no historical footprint,” with the only copies existing being Jerry’s own “author’s copy”, and a thousand others that were rumored to have been “destroyed.” Shame. You know, with the Nicktoons’ 30th anniversary on the way, let’s hope Jerry changes his mind about Rebellious History, probably even going as far as to revive it to cover 4-5 extra years of Nick Animation. A section on Glitch Techs or Welcome to the Wayne would be nice.
Anyway, enough backstory! Time to review this beauty of TV animation merch! So basically, Not Just Cartoons: Nicktoons! is a 280-page-long guide to the lineup of original animated series that not only helped Nickelodeon reach a higher ranking as a top-performing cable channel, but also helped breath new energy into the TV animation business after years of mundane, mostly product-driven fodder (with the occasional gem here and there). 31 “official” Nicktoons are covered in the book, starting with Ren & Stimpy (which was technically the oldest to be conceived, though it was the third Nicktoon to premiere on the same August 11th as Doug and Rugrats), and ending off with the then-upcoming Mighty B! (which, given the show’s clear R&S influence, is kinda of a good “come full circle” move). Now, the reason why I put “official” in quotation marks in the previous sentence is because this book has chapters for six shows whose statuses as “official” Nicktoons are still hotly debated to this day:
KaBlam! (though this semi-obscure animation showcase is occasionally acknowledged by Nick Animation themselves through social media)
Oh Yeah! Cartoons and its spiritual successor Random! Cartoons (similar to whether or not The What a Cartoon! Show is a Cartoon Cartoon itself, it’s debatable whether these two other pilot showcases from Fred Seibert could be categorized as Nicktoons on their own)
Kappa Mikey (being primarily a Nicktoons Network original, it was only sporadically shown on the main Nickelodeon channel)
Wayside (it’s a Canadian program produced by Nelvana, and it mostly aired on Teletoon and YTV. Plain and simple.)
Tak and the Power of Juju (it’s based on a video game that Nick themselves developed with THQ, but Nick Animation actually acknowledged the show on YouTube during their 25th anniversary)
The one semi-official Nicktoon whose absence still irks me to this day is John Callahan’s Pelswick. Fortunately, it’s not a show I really care about, but if Wayside–which was incorrectly referred to as “the first Nicktoon produced by Toronto’s Nelvana Studios,”–could be included, why not wheelchair-bound Doug Funnie? Either Jerry Beck completely forgot about Pelswick (as did many folks), Nick’s loss of rights to the show prevented its inclusion, or Nick had realized it might have been an image-crushing move to give a kids’ cartoon to a guy who drew gags that rival Drawn Together in terms of tastelessness (though to be fair, Pelswickwas based on children’s books John Callahan made on the side of his blue humor cartoons).
Regardless, I personally like to refer to Not Just Cartoons: Nicktoons! as justification for why the six shows listed above should be categorized as at least semi-official entries in the canon. As for Pelswick, well, he’s in this famous tune, plus the Nicktoons TV channel launch promo (beware of SpongeBob’s horrifying off-model animation, though). And to those who were disappointed by Pelswick‘s absence, here’s a page from Nickelodeon Magazine to cheer you up:
Going back to the book itself, after a foreword from the then-president of Nickelodeon, Cyma Zarghami (BTW, I thought it was funny when she admitted that Angelica Pickles of all characters was the network employees’ “role model”), we get into the 31 programs given their own chapters. The format for each section would have it begin with one page containing the bulk of info on whatever given cartoon through interviews with creators and network higher-ups, and the opposite page filled by either a single piece of art (usually a promotional one) or a collage of production art/BTS imagery. Afterwards, the visuals dominate the rest of the cartoon’s chapter, with the only text written are Jerry’s footnotes describing each image, and the occasional quote from the preceding interview in bold letters. Rinse and repeat. Hey Arnold!‘s chapter is the only one whose interview is continued onto the next page.
So, about those visuals, can we talk about them? They’re hands-down the reason why I cherish Not Just Cartoons so much, aside from my huge love for Nicktoons in general. Designed by Nick’s own branding department, the book’s graphic style is perfectly representative of the channel’s image at the time. “Colorful” and “loud” are the two words that quickly came to mind when describing it. Orange, white, green, and black make up the color palette for the covers, table of contents, chapter transitions, and the leaky-outlined characters displayed in those three aforementioned parts, along with circles and splat shapes. The lettering on the chapter transitions is humongous, which is where the “loud” part especially comes in. As for the table of contents, I find it to be a creative choice to have the characters’ images be used in place of the show titles. I’ve seen a couple of people criticize this, due to it supposedly making it hard to find a specific Nicktoon, but I experienced no such inconvenience. Another thing I heard complaints about regarding the book’s design is its green, squishy dustjacket with “NICKTOONS!” in the center. The intentions were understandable (slime has been a Nickelodeon staple since the days of You Can’t Do That on Television, after all), but the slimy dustjacket has been said to create an unpleasant smell after some time. The second-hand copy I got from Amazon didn’t come with it, and I think that’s a good thing based on what I heard.
But with all of this being said, Not Just Cartoons‘ overall presentation is reflective of the Nicktoons’ simultaneous appeal to all ages. Kids will marvel at the bright images of their favorite shows, while adults (of varying degrees of cartoon nerdiness) could dig the retrospective stories shared, and appreciate the inner workings that make an animated series possible.
As for the art featured in Not Just Cartoons: Nicktoons!, a great chunk of them are stuff worth staring at again and again. From the Ren & Stimpy storyboards (namely for “Big House Blues” and “Stimpy’s Invention”), to the big Rocko model sheet that reveals some obscure trivia about our favorite wallaby, to the collection of SpongeBob B-movie parody posters that were made for a calendar, to the image of Ginger and “friends” surrounded by a whole lot of handwritten words in the background (including lyrics to the theme song!). Oh, and did I mention that the aforementioned big Nicktoon collage from Nick Magazine covered one side of the foreword section? I could go on, man!
The interviews are generally informative, and thought-provoking in the sense that they definitely get me picturing the events of the BTS stories occurring as described. In particular, just imagine seeing Nicktoons founding mother Vanessa Coffey jumping out of her chair and running out of her office the moment Jim Jinkins pulls out his unpublished Doug book while pitching his Dougseries (Vanessa wasn’t horrified or anything, just really excited to tell the other Nick execs about their new potential hit). It’s to a point where I like referring to this book like it’s this almighty “Great Big Book of Everything” in regards to pre-2008 Nicktoons.
One instance where I used Not Just Cartoons as a cited source was in the comments of The Mysterious Mr. Enter’s review of The Angry Beavers. Basically, at the start of said review, Enter was asking why Norbert and Daggett were both labeled as “Angry Beavers”, when it’s really Dag who comes closest to being the “angry” one of the duo. I wrote a comment explaining the reasoning behind the show’s title, which was Mitch Schauer’s “initial concept for The Angry Beavers was to have two bad-tempered, politically incorrect beavers who hated anything that was a fad or a cause and ripped anything popular in the media or magazines to shreds.” At the time of writing this, my comment has garnered over 430 likes, with one user replying by saying they love Not Just Cartoons: Nicktoons!, too…except for that one “unreadable” part in the Wild Thornberrys section with the caption reading “Eliza surrounded by tigers,” when they’re CLEARLY leopards or jaguars or whatever Marsupilami is.
Errors likes those are rather minor nitpicks, though. Yes, as much as I adore this book, it realistically isn’t perfect. Tune in next time as I go in depth about the flaws I’ve seen in this otherwise thrill ride of a volume!
I love posters like these that summarize the product with such an eye-catching execution while getting in all the important characters.
Ah yes! Another major animation anniversary that I was waiting all 2017 for (second to Cartoon Network’s very underwhelming 25th birthday)! 80 years ago, 20 years away from an entire CENTURY, Walt Disney unleased his terrific way of saying, “Ha! I told you pretentious naysayers I could make an hour-and-a-half-long cartoon picture! It’s a ‘folly’ no more! I’M KING OF THE CARTOON BIZ!! Well, I technically already was king of animation thanks to the mouse, but NOW I’M SUPER KING!! CHOKE ON THAT, YA JERKS!! Now excuse me as I try to figure out how to make this bratty wooden puppet as likable as that bug who crawls around him.”
That’s right! The one that started it all (for the Disney Animated Canon at least), Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs! A perfect way introducing of the stereotypical Disney movie formula. The climax of Walt and his brilliant crew making a name out of themselves in the 1930s animation industry. Whether you find it a purely fun experience (‘specially on an artistic standpoint), or a dull, obnoxious sack of sugar that’s nothing more than an extended Silly Symphony due to its lack of a complex story, this film was nonetheless highly important to keeping the Disney name alive. As someone who considers this my favorite of the “Golden Age” Disney animated movies (consisting of Walt’s first five features), I could see how folks of 1937 and 1938 were left amazed by these 83 minutes of hard work. The titular dwarfs were all adorable, the Queen/Witch was…well…WICKED, the Magic Mirror was quick to pointing out that the Queen was holding a pig’s heart instead of Snow White’s, the Huntsman was a charming sissy, and just all the lively animation, beautiful artwork, and striking emotions it displayed. Overall, you couldn’t ask for a better graduation from the experimental school of Silly Symphonies.
Speaking of graduation, for the rest of this paragraph, I’m going to metaphorically describe how Snow White turned out to be a landmark in Disney’s history, by taking inspiration from the speech Ginger gave at the end of the amazing As Told by Ginger TV movie “Butterflies Are Free”. Laugh-O-Grams and Alice Comedies were the little eggs that Walt laid using his pen. Eventually, these eggs were able to hatch out two caterpillars, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit (before he fell under the torturous hands of some jerk named Charles Mintz) and that delightful rodent, Mickey Mouse. Then, Mickey split into a bunch of smaller caterpillars with big plans on their minds, otherwise known as Silly Symphonies. Out of these shorts came the cocoons, a.k.a. key elements such as individual characterization, three-strip Technicolor, and nailing the multiplane camera. Finally, a flock of big, beautiful butterflies burst out of those cocoons bringing smiles to millions of theatre goers with how grand it was! And that flock of butterflies spawned other flocks for the next 80 years!
And that’s what should be respected the most about Snow White. Not the absolutely obnoxious misconception about it being “the first feature-length animated film ever” (more on that later), but how it is a great story in animation history on how Walt’s ambitious goal of creating a moving piece of art that rivals any of Mickey’s best shorts came to fruition despite skeptics in and out of Disney Studios. More than five decades later, this type of story was repeated when John Lasseter, an animator fired from Disney after pitching an all-CGI film, wanted to make an all-CGI film about toys, eventually resulting into a movie that may be even more revolutionary than Snow White, the masterpiece known as Toy Story!
Alright, now as much as I enjoy Snow White, both as its own thing and as a cherished piece of film history, I would like to politely get this little problem regarding this film of my way…
WILL YOU PEOPLE STOP CLAIMING THAT SNOW WHITE IS THE WORLD’S FIRST FEATURE-LENGTH ANIMATED MOVIE EVER MADE?!?
Hon! Est! Ly!
Look, I know that 1917’s Argentine El Apostol has been lost for DECADES (possibly forever, I’m afraid), and that the oldest-surviving animated feature, Germany’s The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926) is just plain obscure (even if it apparently made a huge impact on Steven Universe creator Rebecca Sugar), but you shouldn’t have to be a professional animation buff like Jerry Beck in order to believe that there were at least EIGHT animated features from various foreign countries made within TWO DECADES before Snow White. Ah-ah-ah! I see you reaching for the keyboard in order to type, “uh, but is it at least the first animated movie with sound and color?”! Wrong, and double wrong! 1931’s Peludopolis, another Argentine movie, had a synchronized soundtrack provided by Vitaphone, and Prince Achmed had its film soaked in blue dye.
“Okay, well isn’t at the VERY least the first animated feature from Disney specifically?” you might ask. Well, to be honest, that’s where things get tricky. From what I discovered this year (or maybe last year), there was a 41-minute…thing, titled Academy Award Review of Walt Disney Cartoons, a compilation of Oscar-winning Silly Symphonies (with no bridging segments as far as I can tell) produced to promote Snow White seven months before its premiere. But considering its short length, it isn’t considered a true feature film by institutes like AFI (yet the one-minute-longer Saludos Amigos is). Heck, not even the official Disney encyclopedia by Dave Smith included it as an entry! So…in other words, if you want to believe Snow White was Disney’s first movie, that’s perfectly fine. I’m certainly with you on that. But still, remember that other thing exists, too? (tilts head like Dr. Hutchinson from Rocko’s Modern Life) ‘Kay?
So, Disney is a phenomenal provider of animation, there’s no doubt about that. But occasionally, I can’t help but interpret them as the one kid in class who gets all the credit for a big school project that others had worked on, too. Walt himself gets too much credit as well; technically speaking, he wasn’t even that much of a legit animator than he was a film producer. By the time he hired people like Ub Iwerks and Friz Freleng in the mid-20s, Walt gave up on hand-animating his own shorts. Also, he never directed any of his animated features, especially not after he failed to direct one Silly Symphony titled The Golden Touch, which apparently turned out to be a disaster. I’ve seen the short two years ago, but it wasn’t that bad.
In short, when it comes to making the products that he had the most success with during his lifetime, Walt barely did jack crap. Almost all of the credit belong to the many hard-working artists who worked at Disney during the Golden and Silver Ages, including Ub, the Nine Old Men, Joe Grant, Bill Tytla, Grim Gatwick, Art Babbitt, and my man, Floyd Norman.
Misconceptions aside, Snow White, and Disney feature animation in general, turning 80 truly is an important animation milestone to acknowledge this year. And what more can I say about Disney’s significance in keeping animation alive? They may not have always been first, but if there is one thing they DO deserve credit for, it’s perfection! Perfection of the slightly overlooked medium of animation! And that’s why, eight months before this anniversary, I put a lot of heart and soul into this massive beauty of a collage:
Can you name all of the characters I included!
Originally, I wanted screenshots of each film to make up the collage, before deciding that digitally-painting the characters on FireAlpaca in a style reminiscent of the Disney Golden Books was a much more special execution. Outside of the big #80, we got the birthday girl, Snow White herself, centered in between the ‘8’ and ‘0’. I would bad if Mickey was excluded, so there he is in his famous apprentice outfit on the bottom left corner. Besides, he does appear at the beginning of several VHS tapes of Disney movies, right? Tinker Bell was also a mandatory inclusion to the picture, since she’s the company’s second mascot after Mickey. Finally, I’ll address the inclusions of the Reluctant Dragon, a Mary Poppins penguin, Roger Rabbit, Jack and Sally from The Nightmare Before Christmas, and the one and only Buzz Lightyear. They’re honorable mentions, essentially. Walt Disney Animation Studios did take part in development and/or production of those films, whether they’d be fully animating the characters of Roger and co., or collaborating a little bit with Pixar in conceiving Toy Story. And like I said earlier, the story of Toy Story is quite reminiscent of that of Snow White.
Oh, and I managed to blend the man himself into the starry sky, and have the iconic 1985-2006 castle on the bottom right! All of this make up a magic tribute!
Well, that does it for 2017, everyone! It’s been a crazy year for me, in terms of my art improving and becoming semi-popular on Twitter. Here’s an artistic lookback on my year:
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FINALLY! I’ve returned to what was supposed to be the main course of this blog, after a year since my last review.
Walt Disney was a brilliant man, man! Need I say more? Over 115 years old, he’s the idol of millions of aspiring animators like myself, even if he never actually animated any of the productions he’s best known for. Still, his persistent, imaginative self was key to building up his company’s beloved image. I love Walt for Mickey Mouse and his friends, Silly Symphonies, and a lot of the animated films made during his lifetime, including the most important one of all, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. And with that film turning 80 years old soon, I’m going to conduct a long-overdue review of the first non-fiction book about Disney’s creations I ever own, in honor of it, and the man who started it all.
It may not be as elaborate and dreamy-looking as the ever-so-popular (yet pretty expensive) Art of Walt Disney (2011) by Christopher Finch, but what The Disney Book offersinsideis far from cheap. The only thing that’s really cheap about this book is its title. You know, Dorling Kindersley, whose specialty is publishing encyclopedias and visual guides like this (soon, The Muppets Character Encyclopedia will be up for a review) has published a visual history book on the Walt Disney Company before. It was called Disney: The Ultimate Visual Guide (2002) by Cynthia O’Neill, published perhaps to celebrate 80 years of Disney Studios. I removed that book from my wish list after discovering how The Art of Walt Disney is apparently a gazillion times better, but maybe it can go back on it again. As a nerdy collector, I don’t have too much of a problem with owning two books on one subject that could be over 10 years apart from each other, as long as they each contain a lot of photos, artwork, and information not shared with one another. For example, I own both Sesame Street‘s 30th and 40th anniversary books, each containing tons of different pictures, fun facts, and other trivial goodies. Also, when the Nickelodeon book, You Can’t Do That on Television: The Rebellious History of Nickelodeon, comes out (or, at least, ifit comes out), I’m still gonna own 2007’s Not Just Cartoons: Nicktoons!, because I highly doubt that the former is gonna showcase any art from something like Wayside.
Not to mention, the hefty 600+-page-long Walt Disney Film Archives, and the latest version of Disney A to Z: The Official Encyclopedia recently came out, so they’re new must-haves for my collection. Plus, so many other Disney books on my wish list…my shelf’s gonna need reinforcement soon.
Back onto The Disney Book, the moment when I first saw this book on the internet, I put it on my Amazon wish list faster than you can say “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!” Prior to buying it, I got myself feeling intense anticipation and anxiety when fellow blogger Mitchell Stein reviewed it when it first came out, especially when he concluded his review by saying, “Never has an official guide from the company ever been so informative and revealing as The Disney Book.” With that said, I was expecting this to be the quintessential book about the entertainment powerhouse, giving at least a verbal mention of everything Disney has produced that has some level of popularity or significance in pop culture. Out of everything, I really hoping for Gravity Falls to be mentioned. SPOILERS: it wasn’t. More on that little flaw later.
Without further ado, let’s start the meat of this review!
What’s Inside?
Written by a professional Disney aficionado named Jim Fanning, who works for the official Disney fan club D23, our nifty, 200-page guide to the world-famous company is divided into three chapters for each of their three main resources: animation, live-action, and theme parks. Since I mostly love Disney for their innovations in animation, the first chapter, appropriately titled “Drawn Disney”, is the one I check out the most. But first, we start off with Jim giving a cliched introduction talking about how Disney is a synonym for magic and happiness. Plus, he points out how The Disney Book is loaded with rare artifacts, production pieces, and memorabilia, all dug up from the Cave of Wonders that is the Walt Disney Archives. And yes, those things covered in the book certainly do make it worth checking out. Some of the VERY special artifacts (rather it be a one-of-a-kind Pinocchio marionette, or the multiplane camera first used in The Old Mill) get two pages of coverage each. I won’t spoil all of the best goodies in this review.
However, since I don’t own much Disney art books like this (the only other one I have at the moment is An Animator’s Gallery: Eric Goldberg Draws the Disney Characters), I’m not sure which archival materials made their book debut here, and which ones were previously included in another book.
After Jim’s intro, we get an illustrated timeline covering Disney’s first nine-and-a-half decades by mentioning some key historical events, naming the company’s presidents, and listing every single featurefilm released by Walt Disney Pictures (plus some noteworthy shorts)! Sadly, it doesn’t mention such events as the Disney strike of 1941, the tragic death of Disney president Frank Wells, or the launches of mature film divisions Touchstone Pictures (yet Who Framed Roger Rabbit is listed in the timeline) and Hollywood Pictures.
Oh, and speaking of Frank Wells, I absolutely find it hilarious how NOWHERE in The Disney Book mentions that treacherous, egotistical former chairman who goes by the name of Jeffrey Katzenberg. Look, Disney, I know that Katzenberg has acted like a prick to you guys during and after your rough times in the ’80s, to the point where animation reviewer Mat Brunet listed him as an honorary Disney villain at one point. But, ignoring all the times he started fights with Michael Eisner and Roy E. Disney, tried to snatch the presidential throne away from the late Frank, and attempting to do such crap as sending “Part of Your World” to the cutting room floor, he at least made SOME positive impact on your company. After all, he was a key player during the first half of the Disney Renaissance. Okay, let’s get back on track. BTW, I highly recommend you watch Waking Sleeping Beauty to learn more about Katzenberg’s crazy time at Disney.
The first chapter starts off, predictably enough, by talking about Walt’s early days as an ambitious young man who was obsessed with drawing cartoons, and built his first studio, Laugh-O-Grams. Then, it moves on to the launch of the eventual media monster in 1923, with Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Alice Comedies, the births of a certain round-eared icon and his co-stars, and the revolutionary works of art that are Silly Symphonies. As for the feature films, well, to get out the elephant in the rumpus room, not all of the Disney Animated Canon films are even given a single paragraph discussing them. Honestly, I anticipated that. No way in hell should anyone expect Disney to give a whole page to something as forgettable as Saludos Amigos (or any of the package films, really), or the disaster that was The Black Cauldron. If they would, that’d be amazing. My point is that we should have all expected Disney to give more attention to significant classics like Bambi, Sleeping Beauty, One Hundred and One Dalmatians, and The Little Mermaid, while demoting great films like The Great Mouse Detective, The Fox and the Hound, The Rescuers Down Under, and The Emperor’s New Groove, to nothing more than a mention in the measly timeline. Well, that’s prestige for ya.
Anyway, the canon films that are really discussed in The Disney Book with a page or two are, in chronological order:
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (obviously)
Pinocchio
Fantasia
Dumbo
Bambi
Cinderella
Alice in Wonderland
Peter Pan
Lady and the Tramp
Sleeping Beauty
Yeah, see what I mean about the predictability here? Let’s continue anyway:
One Hundred and One Dalmatians
The Jungle Book
Robin Hood
The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh
The Little Mermaid
Beauty and the Beast
Aladdin
The Lion King
Pocahontas
Mulan
Lilo & Stitch
The Princess and the Frog
Tangled
Winnie the Pooh – 2011 (kinda)
Frozen
Big Hero 6
A couple of others, specifically Hercules, Tarzan, and disappointingly enough, Wreck-It Ralph, were merely mentioned in a section pointing out some “Easter eggs”, some of which I honestly never noticed prior to getting this book.
Despite not giving all 54 entries of the Canon at the time an equal amount of coverage (or in the case of some, none at all), The Disney Book offers some great production art for the ones that ARE talked about, making up for all those flaws. Also, when talking about each of them, Jim Fanning does so respectfully, as if they’re all equally worth appreciating. That’s sweet and all, but I personally think Sleeping Beauty in particular is one of the weakest animated films during Walt’s lifetime. I’m sorry if that opinion felt like it came out of nowhere.
We can’t have a single chapter dedicated to animation without giving praise to the kings of computer animation, Pixar! Jim spent eight pages sharing information primarily on the company as a whole, so there are no individual pages in the chapter given to each Pixar film, with the exception of Brave, that provide a sizable amount of interesting info on them. Two of my favorite parts of Jim’s Pixar coverage are the “Introducing Pixar” section for the studio photos (that “Love Lounge” though…), and the “Easter Eggs” section which reveals some of the times the Pizza Planet truck, and Brad Bird’s favorite number, A113, pop up.
Now, why is Brave the only Pixar film with its own page, instead of something superior like Toy Story? Well, it’s because that spoiled brat Merida is an official Disney Princess, and a recurring aspect in the “Drawn Disney” chapter is back-to-back Disney Princess pages. So, for example, you have Jasmine on page 86, and Pocahontas on the page after that. I find that to be cool. Although, Snow White is the only princess with more than one page dedicated to her, due to her film’s importance.
Moving from the big screen to the small screen, we have Disney Television Animation getting some recognition for their 30+ years of work. Now, this is the part that had me concerned more than anything else. I’m aware of how Disney has this attitude to treat its animated TV series like red-headed stepchildren compared to their features and theme parks, and that upsets me a little. Underrated gems like Lloyd in Space and Teacher’s Pet have completely faded into obscurity (despite the latter being acclaimed enough to win FIVE Emmys during its two-year run), and even shows that were once hugely popular such as Recess and Kim Possible are rarely acknowledged by the company nowadays. Heck, they’re not even mentioned in this damn book (although the movie Recess: School’s Out got a verbal and visual mention in the timeline)! Honestly, though, I had little to no expectations of The Disney Book mentioning obscure stuff like Shnookums & Meat, Filmore!, and Dave the Barbarian. However, when it comes to the cartoons that ARE still remembered nowadays, such as Phineas and Ferb and Gravity Falls, I thought there should be no way for the book to neglect talking about them. Holy crap, was I shockingly wrong. Not only did it not mention Gravity Falls, a show that is just as beloved as classics like DuckTales, but they didn’t even mention the show that saved Disney Channel from a slew of forgettable cartoons like The Replacements and The Buzz on Maggie. This is one of the most shocking and disappointing things about this colorfully-titled book. Now, I may not be a huge fan of Phineas and Ferb, but I still accept the fact that it was to Disney Channel what SpongeBob is to Nick; both are very profitable flagship cartoons of their respective channels with 200+ episodes, and Dan Povenmire in the crew. Also, I must remind you, this was published in 2015, the year Phineas and Ferb came to an end. My God, Disney sure wanted to get the show out of their mind ASAP, didn’t they? On a semi-related note, I wonder how good Milo Murphy’s Law is.
Well anyway, I’m thankful that House of Mouse is my favorite animated series from the actual House of Mouse, since it gets a verbal and visual mention. But yeah, it’s seriously too bad that no Disney TV cartoon made after Gargoyles (besides any Disney Junior shows or the ones starring Mickey) is mentioned in this entire book, not even those two former Disney Channel/Disney XD juggernauts. Rest in peace, Phineas and Ferb and Gravity Falls.
Wow, some rant THAT was.
Switching back to a positive mood, another highlight “Drawn Disney” gives us is an eight-page gallery “tour” showcasing the Disney Studios’ past and present incarnations, and what went on behind the scenes in the olden days. We get to see Eric Larson (one of Walt’s Nine Old Men) draw real life Dalmatian puppies while working on One Hundred and One Dalmatians, actress Kathryn Beaumont acting as the live reference model for her Alice role, Louie Prima jamming up “I Wanna Be Like You”, and Walt himself providing inspiration for the characters’ actions in Pinocchio (apparently, he’s as funny as Charlie Chaplin). Just as awesome is a replica of a 1940s animator’s desk with all the original animation tools on display, looking like it came straight out of The Reluctant Dragon (actually, that was the intention). Ever wondered what the Disney crew would eat during their lunch break? The desk has the original menu tasked on it. It’s one of the many interesting artifacts The Disney Book exhibits.
Okay, this review is turning out to be longer than my last one, so let’s wrap up this chapter with the last thing it covers. It’s a video game! And no, it’s not the hugely-successful Kingdom Hearts, which is also surprising. It’s Disney Infinity! Yeah, you know, the plug-the-little-figure-into-the-console game series that was sadly cancelled after two years? Now, I imagine that if you’re a huge fan of Disney Infinity, you might feel one of two possible emotions:
You’d be overjoyed by The Disney Book covering this awesome game.
You’d be grieving the too-soon loss of this game, and feeling disappointed that the game’s fate didn’t exactly live up to John Lasseter’s optimism.
Or both.
I haven’t played Disney Infinity myself yet, but even I feel bad for its sudden cancellation. Well, on the bright side, at least there’s another Kingdom Hearts in the works. Did you see the preview with the Toy Story characters? Man, the animation quality on Woody, Buzz, and the other toys really shows how far we came when to comes to the toys being represented in video games.
Well, that’s all for the animation side of this book. Let’s move on to the live-action chapter, “Disney in Action”. Since I normally don’t have too much passion when it comes to Disney’s live-action productions (not counting those starring the Muppets), I won’t be long with this one.
Let’s jump right into which movies are talked about in this chapter:
Treasure Island
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
Old Yeller (an easy candidate for favorite live-action Disney movie for me)
Darby O’Gill and the Little People
The Shaggy Dog
Swiss Family Robinson
Pollyanna
Babes in Toyland
The Absent-Minded Professor
Son of Flubber
Mary Poppins
The Love Bug
Bedknobs and Broomsticks
Tron
The Rocketeer
Pirates of the Caribbean
Enchanted
Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland
Maleficent
Cinderella (2015)
On the television side of things, the iconic Mickey Mouse Club and Disneyland (a.k.a. The Wonderful World of Disney) get a mention, but the most attention is given to (some of) the sterile Disney Channel original series, particularly Lizzie McGuire (which reminds me, have you seen Hilary Duff lately? Hubba hubba!), Hannah Montana, and High School Musical (the first two movies, I’ll admit, are guilty pleasures). Now, I usually have little to no interest in the live-action DC sitcoms, but I’m surprised That’s So Raven, its “anime” spinoff Cory in the House, and The Suite Life of Zack and Cody aren’t mentioned, ‘specially considering they’re all WAY more worth watching than, say Liv & Maddie. Dog With a Blog is a guilty pleasure at best, though, because it reminds me of ALF for some reason.
Now, the weirdest thing about this chapter is that there is a section for stop-motion animation, particularly discussing The Nightmare Before Christmas, Frankenweenie, the 1959 short Noah’s Ark, and the “March of the Wooden Soldiers” sequence from Babes in Toyland. Since stop-motion is undisputedly a form of animation (unlike traditional puppetry), why couldn’t they have this in “Drawn Disney”? Eh, you know what? I’m too burnt out by the angry nitpicking during the first chapter to nitpick on this issue any further. Let’s just roll with it.
Finally, our last chapter, “Experience Disney”, is, in case you haven’t guessed, all about the Disney theme parks. Even as someone who doesn’t have any personal connection with Disney Parks (not that I find them uninteresting; I just haven’t experienced them in person yet), I say it’s easily the second best chapter of The Disney Book, after “Drawn Disney”. Before we even get into the history of the so-called “Happiest Place on Earth” (sometimes I wish they’d drop that nickname, given certain controversies), we get a gallery of some nice attraction posters (my favorites being the ones for Mickey’s PhilharMagic and Stitch Encounter, both at Hong Kong Disneyland), and a showcase of the talented Imagineers at work building costumes, Audio-Animatronics, busts of the U.S. presidents, etc.
Here’s the list of some Disneyland and Disney World attractions this book covers:
Magic Kingdom (the 1953 sketch of the map is just so rich in detail)
“it’s a small world” (I love Mary Blair’s concept art style, BTW)
Animal Kingdom
Epcot
Haunted Mansion
Space Mountain
Pirates of the Caribbean
In addition, as far as the international Disney Parks goes, Tokyo Disneyland, Disneyland Paris, Hong Kong Disneyland, and the then-upcoming Shanghai Disney Resort are all there. So many wonderful photographs, concept art, and one-of-a-kind antique souvenirs (ranging from collectable pins to Disneyland flags) galore in this chapter! Gosh, I’m so stumped on what else to say. Well…uh…the photo of the Tokyo Disneyland Christmas parade is a particularly gorgeous piece of work. And…uh…frig it! Let’s wrap this thing up!
Oh! I almost forgot! As you can figure out on the cover, this book comes with a special collectable coming straight from Walt Disney Pictures: an “original 35mm filmstrip” from Brave. Despite the fact that it’s from a film I personally could care less for (neither Merida nor the Queen were all that likable), the filmstrip is surly a goodie I must keep safe when not in use, similar to all the neat, interactive things I got in The SpongeBob SquarePants Experience (another book I look forward to covering). Now, apparently the filmstrip is different in each copy of The Disney Book; here’s a photo from Amazon:
And this is what the one I got looks like:
It’s actually a frame from La Luna, the short that played alongside Brave in theaters.
Errors to Be Wary Of!
This might be because my expertise on Disney isn’t as strong as my knowledge on Sesame Street (though it’s very strong nonetheless), but I didn’t really notice as many egregious errors in The Disney Book as I did in 40 Years of Life on the Street. Here’s what I spotted easily:
Nothing too severe, but Jim Fanning referred to the animated Winnie the Pooh series from the late ’80s as The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh rather than The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. He would get it right several pages later, only this time he incorrectly says the show debuted in 1987, instead of 1988. You got the premiere year right the first time, Jim, so why suddenly get it incorrect?
If I discover more stuff said in the book that’s actually false, I’ll update this post. For now, though, I’ll say that The Disney Book‘s way more competent in keeping things factual than the Sesame one.
Conclusion
Despite not being as extensive as I hoped it’d be, I still love The Disney Book, and highly recommend it as a very good, relatively inexpensive alternative to something like The Art of Walt Disney. In fact, I might as well nickname it The Art of Walt Disney: Super Lite Edition! Also, I think it’s a great resource for grade-school kids who are assigned to do a project regarding Disney, as this book does seem a bit sugar-coated when discussing the company’s history (no dark events besides Walt and Roy O.’s deaths are mentioned). Finally, I must say again that all the rare archival materials uncovered and explained in The Disney Book are vital in making it a worthy part of your Disney collection. However, if you still want a book that covers pretty much every single thing imaginable in Disney’s history, then I also recommend you seek out Disney A to Z, which surprisingly doesn’t cost too much for an 800+-page-long encyclopedia.
Now for my next Disney review, An Animator’s Gallery, I’ll assure you that it’ll have just as much gushing as this one!
[UPDATE (May 1, 2018): This article is now slightly outdated, because not only did Evil Con Carne eventually become one of my top 10 favorite Cartoon Network shows, but it has, in fact, officially replaced Sheep in the Big City as the most underrated show on the network in my opinion. The more I exposed myself to the charm of Hector, Boskov, Ghastly, and especially Skarr, the more my fondness of the show increased, to the point where I now think that it’s on par with The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy in terms of hilarity, and cleverness. Evil Con Carne is up there with As Told by Ginger as one of the most important, most influential “formerly-overlooked, obscure-ish” cartoons I ever became a fan of. And it was all thanks to that scientist chick.]
Boskov’s jumping for joy as he finds out he has a new fan!
Remember in my Cartoon Cartoon post when I said that I should give another chance to the often-neglected former sidekick to The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, and maybe it’ll turn out to be less mediocre than I thought it was for so long? Well, it’s official: ever since May, after watching some episodes on YouTube, Evil Con Carne has proven to be such a hilarious and charming show enough for me to label it an underrated gem (but not on Sheep in the Big City levels of underrated). While it obviously remains an inferior show to its super popular sibling, as well as numerous other Cartoon Network shows (though I need to rewatch stuff like My Gym Partner’s a Monkey to see if they’re still as good as I remembered them being), I will admit that my new appreciation for this series of diabolical misadventures grew to a point where I wish it wasn’t cancelled as soon as it did, along the lines of other criminally-underrated cartoons such as O’Grady and Baby Blues. Not counting that “official series finale” from 2007 via Billy & Mandy, “Company Halt”, Evil Con Carne only lasted for 13 half-hour episodes, consisting of segments from Grim & Evil, and brand new ones.
Sure, when it comes to cartoons about trying (and failing) to take over the world, we’ve already got great stuff like Invader Zim and the unmatchable duo of Pinky and the Brain. And years later, there was a YTV series that I was into four years ago called League of Super Evil, whose existence I often forget about. But with Evil Con Carne, considering it focuses on such an unusual antagonist (a former rich playboy blown up to his brain and stomach, and attached to a circus bear of all specimens) with a pair of cool minions (a jealous general who’s rightfully the breakout character, and a hot major doctor who’s become my biggest cartoon crush since Ginger), it’s got so much potential that warrants at least an additional 13 episodes. Even frigging Mike, Lu & Og lasted longer than Evil, and that show is blander than Pelswick. And even Sheep brought higher ratings for Cartoon Network…at least during the premiere. Although, to be fair, I currently don’t know how well Evil did in ratings.
Now, let’s dive into the backstory of my acquaintance with this show. I’m thinking of this article as something of a spiritual successor to the one on how I fell in love with As Told by Ginger.
“Search and Estroy” quickly became a favorite episode of mine.
My earliest memory of Evil Con Carne was seeing it in its indigenous home of Grim & Evil in the early 2000s on Teletoon…at night. As I mentioned in my last post, Teletoon thought the dark antics of Grim and Hector Con Carne (as well as the time-travelling adventures of Otto, Larry, and Tuddrussel) weren’t suitable for daytime viewing. And yet a cartoon about a cow and chicken who suck on pork butts is? Damn CRTC. Back onto Evil Something Another, I don’t remember exactly which segments I saw on Grim & Evil, but I’m taking a wild guess and say “Emotional Skarr” was one. The way General Skarr was feeding his pigeons through his mouth, and how he was monologuing to himself were probably among my VERY vague memories of Evil Con Carne. As for memories that aren’t so vague, Evil Con Carne‘s one and only game, Battle Forts (where it’s basically Hector and Estroy aiming weapons at each other from their respective bases), has always been among my favorite games to play on Cartoon Network’s website. And dare I say it’s better than many of the Billy & Mandy games that came out since 2003 (except for Harum Scarum). For many years, Battle Forts was the only Evil Con Carne-related thing I cared about. Well then again, I wasn’t able to find access to the show until around 2009, when I stumbled upon the episode “Gutless!” (the show’s first post-G&E segment). The part where Boskov lets all the gas out of Hector’s stomach for almost a minute was memorable, but it didn’t made enough impact for me to become a fan of the show.
Then, on Halloween 2012, Cartoon Network Canada did a marathon of Billy & Mandy. Sounds appropriate, right? However, all the sudden, after the episode “Chicken Ball Z” (which, funnily enough, contained a cameo by the ECC gang at the end), the Evil segment “Max Courage!” played. This surprised the hell out of me; it was like The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy suffered a mini identity crisis, thinking that it was still Grim & Evil…even though the Evil part was played after two straight Grim segments, rather than being sandwiched in the middle. Other than being thrown in there as filler (kinda like how Mr. Warburton’s pilot Kenny and the Chimp was shown as an odd piece of filler in between the first two Kids Next Door shorts), I had no idea why Maxwell Atoms was like, “You know, I’m too damn pooped from switching back and forth from Billy & Mandy to…uh…the other one. I don’t feel like coming up with an idea for the third Billy & Mandy segment of episode 9. Guys, is it okay if I just throw in this Evil segment we completed to fill in the gap or something? Thanks! Now where’s my beer?”
[UPDATE (May 1, 2018): As I got hammered into my skull (no pun intended) last October through the Wayback Machine, “Gutless!”, “Chickenball Z” and “Max Courage!” technically WERE produced for Grim & Evil in the first place, but they just didn’t premiere in the USA until the split between the two segments in 2003. Oh, don’t worry. I’ve got a LOT to say on proving that it makes sense that there are actually more than 13 G&E episodes made. It’ll either be a video or blog post. Or both.]
Don’t get me wrong, though; it was actually cool to get another taste of Carne, even if it did feel random. But once again, no major impact was made on me. Although, I do fondly remember the part where Dr. Courage was questioning Major Dr. Ghastly’s feelings for Hector, leading her to run away nervously. That made me joke to myself that Ghastly went off to…do something…in private…
Not to mention, Dr. Courage taught me how to pronounce “Con Carne” correctly!
Later on, I checked out an upload of the musical episode “The Pie Who Loved Me” taken straight from a 2012 airing of the show during Cartoon Network’s 20th anniversary edition of Cartoon Planet. Honestly, Evil Con Carne‘s inclusion on the revised Cartoon Planet block simultaneously made me feel amazed and envious. On one hand, I was amazed that CN even bothered to re-air such a little-known series as this one. But on the other hand, I was like, “They aired frigging Evil Con Carne, but not the superior Sheep in the Big City or Time Squad, despite those two being acknowledged in some 20th anniversary bumpers?!? DANG IT!!” Actually, I will admit I’ve now made the decision that Evil is slightly better than Time Squad, but it obviously still pales in comparison to the brilliance of Mo Willems. Speaking of acknowledging obscure Cartoon Cartoons, does anybody know if the network remembered about Mike, Lu&…never mind.
2015 was when I decided to try out the pilot episode…for about a minute or two before switching it off because of how underwhelming it felt. Around the same time, I came across MeltingMan234’s review of the show, and I believe that’s also when I became familiar with the fact that Maxwell and his crew decided to give Evil a makeover for the final few episodes. This glossy art style upgrade further contrasts it from its superior sibling series. Honestly, I have mixed feelings about the redesigns, and to a lesser extent, the second season as a whole. Let me get the main pro of the art shift out of the away: Ghastly is more of a bombshell than ever before!
*drools like a lovesick dunce*
It’s no wonder why a majority of the best fan art of her is based on her season two design. Examples (WARNING: Mildly NSFW):
This particular art by BlueDragonKaiser, which I discovered in October 2015, was the mallet that hit my hormones into labelling Ghastly fappable really pretty.
When I discovered this drawing by Grimphantom in April 2017, it made my fondness for Ghastly’s cuteness explode into pieces of outright infatuation.
Of course, this won’t be the last time I gush about Dr. Ghastly in this article.
As for Boskov, his final design isn’t too hideous, but it looks so bulky that it seems jarring compared to his cuter design in the earlier shorts. Not to mention, he now looks an awful lot like Stimpy.
Should have laid off the honey when you had the chance, eh, Boskov?
Don’t have much to say about Hector and Skarr, though.
As he said in a few interviews (like the ones by RebelTaxi and Cartoons Vs. Cancer), as well as a Q&A session on Reddit, Maxwell Atoms tried to make the final days of Evil Con Carne as grand as they ever were before. Working on two shows simultaneously was a difficult feat for Maxwell, so he made the decision to continue on with his longtime passion project, Billy & Mandy, while letting the other one die peacefully. In short, Maxwell thinks the second season of Evil is the best. I respect his intentions and opinions, but as enjoyable as all of the season two episodes were, I personally favor season one more because those episodes gave me harder laughs. Also, while I mean no offence to the new designs of the characters (ESPECIALLY not towards Ghastly), I find the earlier looks of the gang to be simply cuter, especially with Hector and Boskov.
Wait, I think I’m getting ahead of myself.
MeltingMan234’s review was also where I learned that the show got an “official series finale” segment on Billy & Mandy in 2007 called “Company Halt”, three years after Evil Con Carne was supposedly cancelled. It made me wonder, why doesn’t Wikipedia have the show’s end date be March 16, 2007, rather than October 22, 2004?
♪ Together again/Gee, it’s great that they’re together again (albeit for one episode) ♪
Well, I guess we could go back to Dr. Ghastly, because she ended up being the token that led me to my successful attempt at getting into Evil Con Carne.
Shout out to the Tumblr user who found this rare, lovely publicity art of Ghastly in a Cartoon Network magazine.
Oh, Ghastly! Even when I was eight, I found Ghastly to be cute, although not to the same extent as my current mindset. Specifically, I was turned on by a publicity drawing of her in a sexy pose; it was used on her character bio on Cartoon Network’s website. Sadly, I’m having a hard time tracking that picture down, so I currently just have to settle with its inclusion in the title sequence.
This brings back memories in a way.
Actually, screw that! I went as far as to recreate this character art in FireAlpaca.
Actually, screw that as well! One night after I did that drawing of Ghastly, I FINALLY happened to find the original picture (sorta) on an archive for Cartoon Network’s Cartoon Orbit site. Happy happy joy joy!
[UPDATE (May 1, 2018): Actually, screw THAT as well! Last night, I FINALLY found that Ghastly art as I remembered seeing it on her bio on Cartoon Network’s site back in 2007! So with that, mission accomplished!]
As to where exactly I found it, well, I was browsing through ECC fanart on Deviantart, and came across THIS.
Anyway, you know what’s odd? Even when I wasn’t a fan of the show, I would sometimes think of Dr. Ghastly whenever I see Grey DeLisle-Griffin’s name. Maybe it had something to do with that one time viewing of “Gutless!”.
As I mentioned above, October 2015 was when I came across BlueDragonKaiser’s beautiful drawing of Dr. Ghastly in a kitty cat dominatrix outfit while Googling the show for some reason. But considering that I had my schediaphilic hormones fixated on Ginger Foutley at the time (which have thankfully died down since last year, even though I still appreciate her as a character), the picture wasn’t able to let my attraction to Ghastly reach burning levels of passion until April of this year.
Yeah, so while I was looking at pictures of Major Dr. Ghastly for reference when drawing the Evil Con Carne gang for my Cartoon Cartoon collage, I ended up ogling at them, especially the fan art (like the other two from Deviantart mentioned above). And from there, I fell in love with the intelligent, blue-eyed, bespectacled, redheaded creation of Mr. Atoms. To be honest, it’s hard for me to dissect the reasoning behind my rather sudden infatuation with Dr. Ghastly of all cartoon women. But then again, given that it’s infatuation, there really isn’t a legit reason behind my passionate feelings for this “evil” mad scientist beyond my pituitary gland finding her pretty all of the sudden. I put “evil” in quotation marks because I really don’t see her that way. While she’s obviously far from angelic, Ghastly is easily among the kinder characters on the show. Maxwell said himself that he loves how “she’s just sort of a regular, smart, dorky girl who got in with the wrong crowd.” I admire her for those reasons as well. And remember: the primary reason why Ghastly is working for Hector to begin with is because she fell in love with him back when he had flesh.
Oh, that reminds me: please don’t get me started on how in the name of C. Martin Croker was Ghastly able to have a fully-human son with Hector in the future. ‘Cause even in the future, Hector’s still sentenced to living as a brain and stomach attached to a frigging bear! Actually, I theorized that Ghastly mixed some of Hector’s DNA (perhaps from a loose hair lying on the collar of Hector’s white T-shirt) with some of her DNA (a hair pulled straight from her head), poured the formula into a syringe, and inserted it in her uterus. Alternatively, maybe Ghastly DID went as far as to do it with Boskov out of her uncontrollable lust for that talking brain. Well, if Family Guy could prove that a human and an animal (i.e. a dog) could have a fully-human child, why shouldn’t Evil Con Carne? And if that’s the case, then I sincerely applaud Maxwell Atoms for getting away with such implications past Cartoon Network’s radar! As if a show about a pair of kids who befriend the bloody Grim Reaper of all things wasn’t edgy enough for a children’s channel.
So anyway, now you know how Major Dr. Ghastly became my biggest Cartoon Network waifu since Dexter’s Mom. Hell, I don’t even think I was this obsessive with her as I am with Major Doctor. But in the end, my favorite Evil character to watch and laugh at isn’t Dr. Ghastly, but rather that charming living chew toy, General Skarr!
I really don’t blame Maxwell for wanting to continue writing for Skarr, even after ECC‘s cancellation.
So, with my huge crush on Major Dr. Sexpot obsessively brimming my brain, I’ve developed not only a craving to give Evil Con Carne another chance, but also a need to rewatch Billy & Mandy as well. And that’s exactly what I did. Ultimately, this led me my overall admiration for Maxwell as an artist to grow bigger than ever before. So, I added some Evil episodes to my Watch Later playlist on YouTube, watched a couple of clip compilations, and check out TwistedDanns’ “Top 6 Favorite Evil Con Carne Episodes” video in early May to give me some recommendations on which episodes to check out. “Ultimate Evil” was his pick for the best episode; for some reason, I predicted it. Yeah, it was incredibly weird of me, a newbie to the series at the time, figuring out the top spot. All I already knew about “Ultimate Evil” was that the (unfortunately) brief scene of Dr. Ghastly belly dancing is fairly popular.
Oh mama…
…though I question why, in this one episode, Ghastly is drawn with colored outlines, while everyone else has the usual black outlines. Ah, who cares? I’m in love!
Hmm? Oh, sorry! I was just…uh…
SO AS I WAS SAYING…
TwistedDanns offered some great recommendations, but here are the episodes I ended up watching to get myself really liking the show (in no particular order):
“The Time Hole Incident”
“Max Courage!” (again)
“Emotional Skarr”
“Evil Gone Wild”
Believe it or not, the pilot (this time, I ended up laughing my @$$ off at the part where a Commando randomly bites Hector like a chew toy)
From there on, I checked out episodes that were even better than the ones I listed above, including “Search and Estroy”, “Bring Me the Face of Hector Con Carne”, “The Trouble with Skarrina” (the one that made Skarr replace Ghastly as my favorite character due to how hilariously naïve he was), and “The Right to Bear Arms” (which I knew would be hilarious just by looking at a screenshot of it). Out of all of them, “Search and Estroy” easily turned out to be so good that it inspired me to make a YouTube Poop based on it, which is scheduled to be uploaded on the show’s 14th anniversary, July 11th, 2017.
The bizarre, Yoshimaniac-inspired thumbnail I made for YouTube Poop: Skarr vs. the Forces of Evil Con Carne.
Oh, I almost forgot! May 1st was when I completed my hearty tribute picture of Dr. Ghastly.
Fun Fact: When I tweeted this beauty, Phil LaMarr (voice of Hector) liked it! Too bad it hasn’t caught the attention of Grey or Maxwell yet.
So, yeah. After watching all of those episodes (with only a few more to go), I apologized to Evil Con Carne for underestimating its hilarity and relatively unusual misadventures. However, at the same time, I was feeling such disbelief to face the fact that I’ve grown so fond of a show that’s still pathetic compared to its big sister…all because of some nerdy fictional character who’s nothing more than a series of rough drawings that were sent to Rough Draft Studios in Korea, cleaned up, scanned onto the computer for inking and painting, sent back to Cartoon Network Studios, and finally given the lovely voice talent of Grey Griffin. Oh, wait. I forgot they’re supposed to record the voices before the animation begins. My bad. The point is, as the weeks went by, I became more and more accepting of my new interest in this obscure little sibling of Billy & Mandy‘s.
Now, remember earlier in this article when I said it was unfortunate how Evil Con Carne got canned so quickly, due to it having some potential going for it? Well…I can’t believe I’m saying this, but out of all of Cartoon Network’s shows, I’d like this one to be revived the most. Yes, even more than Sheep in the Big City, whose 26 episodes are at least serviceable enough. If there’s one other Cartoon Network show that deserves a return, it’d probably be Space Ghost Coast to Coast (I seriously think Tom Kenny should be the new voice of Zorak). And yes, I even think ECC is more worthy of a reboot/revival/whatever than Billy & Mandy. Well, if I want more Grim Adventures beyond the seventy-something episodes it got during its seven-year run, I’d simply pick up a comic it’s featured in.
Wait a minute! What am I saying?! We’re already getting an Evil Con Carne reboot, and it’s a Latin American miniseries going by the name Villainous!
Wow! Alan Ituriel really went all out in making Evil vastly different from Maxwell’s original series! As you can see, Hector (now known as Black Hat) finally got a dark new body, looking like a combination of Nergal from Billy & Mandy and Snidely Whiplash from Dudley Do-Right. Boskov (now known as 5.0.5.) not only dyed his fur blue, but he also got surgery to make himself cuter. Oh, and he’s got a flower growing on top of his head for some reason. As for Dr. Ghastly…I don’t even know. Apparently, she wasn’t satisfied with being a woman anymore, so she changed into a scrawny, somewhat cowardly dude named Dr. Flug. Also, what’s with the paper bag over his head? He looks like a knock-off of Bucky McBadbat from The Fairly OddParents (worst baseball player in all of Dimmsdale)! But perhaps the most egregious thing about this incarnation is that General Skarr has been replaced by a psycho named Demencia, who looks like Frankie from Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends if she went all barbaric because she couldn’t put up with the imaginary friends’ BS anymore. Now, SHE’S the one with a crush on Hector–I mean Black Hat. Why Dr. Ghast–I mean Flug lost romantic interest in him, I’ll never know. Overall, despite the drastic changes made, this reboot certainly seems to live up to its predecessor more than those dang 2016 Powerpuffs!
Of course, I was joking. Villainous isn’t really a reboot of Evil Con Carne, but if you’re familiar with the latter, then it’s hard to look past how derivative the former looks, ESPECIALLY WITH THAT DAMN BEAR!!! To me, 5.0.5. is the one thing that makes Villainous more of a copycat towards Evil than anything else! Though, if it wasn’t for how I often forget about League of Super Evil, I’d instantly call it a wannabe of that show as well. And I know I’m not the only one who thinks this way. So, I found about Villainous when DeviantCringe uploaded a video discussing it. This was during the point where I was beginning to grow fond of Hector and the gang; thus, I instantly thought about Evil while watching the clips. But in all honestly, it’s because of my new admiration for ECC why I feel intrigued with this new series. Villainous does look really promising, and I hope it does turn into a half-hour series soon. If it could happen to Mighty Magiswords (which I still haven’t seen yet, but I am aware of Vambre being another sexy role by Grey Griffin), then Villainous deserves this treatment as well, ’cause everyone’s loving it just as much. However, I’d probably prefer Hector, Boskov, Skarr, and Dr. Ghastly more.
Like the main trio of Billy & Mandy, these guys are so lovable that it was slightly difficult to choose one over another as my #1 favorite character. Yes, I know I said Skarr’s my favorite, but still…
*sigh* So, that FINALLY concludes my lengthy journal entry on how Evil Con Carne went from a show that I often glanced upon for being “meh”, to one of my all-time favorite Cartoon Network shows (somewhere in the top 15 to be exact). Now, all I’m gonna do is give out some “thank you’s”.
*cue the same piano music Jimmy Fallon uses for his “thank you” notes*
Thank you, General Skarr, for almost giving me stitches with your gut-bustingly funny scenes of slapstick, and inability to detect the differences between a woman and a bomb DISGUISED as a woman!
“Uuuuuuuhhhhh…..”
Thank you, Major Dr. Ghastly, for letting your good looks seduce me into giving this show a new chance. You truly are a devilishly sweet gal!
“Why, uh, (blushes) you’re welcome, D.J.. Now will you stop staring at me all the time?”
AH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!
No.
Thank you, Boskov, for being such an adorable ol’ bear, akin to the likes of Fozzie and Winnie the Pooh. However, you really need to drop a few pounds.
“Rawwr rawwr rawr raw raw raw rawwr rawwr rawwr!”
Uh, I’ll take that as an “Okay!”
Thank you, Hector, for…uh…having such a funny accent!
“WHAT?!? You’re not supposed to laugh at me, OR my “funny” accent! You’re supposed to quiver with fear, as I, Hector Con Carne, attempt to conquer your heinie, and the ENTIRE WORLD! And if you dare propose any sort of opposition towards my goals in front of my…uh…glass, I will sure as he–“
Yeah, yeah, yeah! Geez, lighten up, dude.
And last, but certainly not least, thank you, Maxwell Atoms, for creating Evil Con Carne while awaiting the Billy & Mandy pilot’s results in the “Big Pick” contest. It turned out to be quite an underrated gem.
“These puppets have been staring into my soul…and now they want to stare into yours.”
Um…okay?
Well, gotta get back to planning my 25th anniversary wishes to Cartoon Network!
I hope you fellow Canadians had a great time wishing our bold, beautiful, unapologetic neighbor of the U.S. a happy 150th birthday! Last year on WordPress, I celebrated Canada Day by honoring the nation’s legendary animation studio, Nelvana, one of the biggest companies behind my childhood (and perhaps yours as well). This year, with one of my longtime favorite TV spots, Teletoon, turning 20 in three months, I made Canada Day an excuse to do a little something for the channel as sort of an early 20th birthday wish.
Made in FireAlpaca. Characters from left to right: Pigger (Braceface), Melville (Planet Sketch), Ethel Sprocket (Ricky Sprocket: Showbiz Boy), Newton (Ned’s Newt), and Principal Kidswatter (Wayside).
You know, Teletoon has given me so many original series that I have nostalgic memories of that I briefly had difficulty with figuring out how to execute my fan art. Specifically, I kinda had a hard time choosing which shows to include, and which shows to exclude. Eventually, I took the easy route by including a few of the Teletoon cartoons that I still admire to this day, rather than the ones I formerly liked (such as Spliced), ones I’d only be kind towards because of said nostalgia (such as Quads!), or ones that I haven’t seen in years and I’m not too sure if they’re still good (such as Skatoony). However, the next time I do a post on Teletoon for the big day, I’ll probably just come out with a massive collage, similar to the one I did for Nelvana’s 45th anniversary featuring shows from each of those four categories.
Until then, happy 150th birthday to my proud country, and happy early 20th anniversary to one of my childhood-defining places on TV!
D.J. Berry 
