You Don't Mess with the Zohan raises the physical comedy bar and makes animators rethink what animation can do that live-action vfx can't. © 2008 Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. All rights reserved.

Movies like Zohan, Superman Returns and Iron Man use the richness and subtlety of great actors, and supplement their actions with great effects, compositing and CG actor replacements.

But because live-action filmmakers are now so good at making humorous and physical actions so big, they have raised the bar for us in animation. No longer can we be content to just animate funny worlds, we have to be bigger than ever in our actions and our jokes.

In some ways, we don't really need to tread new ground. We actually need to look back 40-60 years and study the best animation had to offer us. Few animations now have the physical humor of the toons of yesteryear, with the exception of cartoons like SpongeBob.

The classic Bugs Bunny, Coyote and Road Runner, Pink Panther, and Tom & Jerry cartoons, and anything by Tex Avery and Chuck Jones, showcase cartoony action that only works in cartoons. And it's not just the big action, it's the timing of the gags, it's the humor of the writing, it's the strength of the characters, it's the humorous way the characters move even when walking.

Richard Williams' masterful animation text The Animator's Survival Kit does a great job of showing how even a simple walk can be funny when it's animated and not just a replication of reality. His best walk cycle examples do not really resemble reality. The knees move all over the place and bend in impossible directions. That's the point. They are animated!

We need to do better. We need to think as animators. We need to think bigger. We need to think funnier. Adam Sandler is not giving us a choice.

(My interview with Ryan Tudhope of The Orphanage for this article covers a number of the effects from Zohan and how they pulled them off. There was far too much great information to leave it unused, so I decided to share it with you. I've posted the entire audio of the interview online. You can listen to it stream on the web or download an MP3 file for your iPod. Enjoy.)

Mark Simon is an award-winning animation producer/director and speaker. (He also worked with Adam Sandler doing storyboards and illustrations on The Waterboy.) Mark has recently released two new editions of his popular Facial Expressions photo reference books for artists, Babies to Teens and the E-Book Companion, Volume 3. He can be reached at marksimonbooks@yahoo.com.