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Growing Pains
(continued from page 2)
Case Study #4: King of The Hill (1997)
Few people who had been following the adventures of Beavis and
Butthead would have guessed that Mike Judge would produce the best
animated sitcom ever to hit TV, but that's exactly what happened.
King of the Hill,even more than The
Simpsons,brought appealing adult comedy to prime time. Where
Homer Simpson might survive radiation poisoning or gastric calamities
unknown to modern medicine, Hank Hill would never find himself in
such situations. He is part of a real family, living among quirky
but imaginable neighbors, and his dog has nothing significant to say.
The humor derives from slightly exaggerated family situations
and interpersonal relationships recognizable to all. The weakest episodes
are invariably those with celebrity "guest stars" since
they tend to ruin the illusion that we are watching reality through
a slightly warped lens. Good scripts, consistent characterizations
and a fine vocal cast make King of the Hilla model for adult
animated comedy. Filmed in live-action, its charm would dissipate
completely.
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I Married A Strange Person
another example of America's lack of support for feature length
adult animation.
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Case Study #5: I Married a Strange Person (1997)
Bill
Plympton might be animation's most successful solo act, but it
has been a hard road getting anyone outside of the medium to recognize
this. This 1996 opus, animated almost completely by Plympton, tells
the tale of Grant Boyer, an accountant who is zapped by a satellite
dish and gains the power to turn his thoughts into reality. Since
no one alive is a perfect saint, some of Grant's thoughts lead to
revenge, sex and power. This film is the true inheritor of Fleischer's
legacy, with its mix of surreal images, dark adult themes and sexuality.
The only problem was...nobody saw it. Whether the failure lay in marketing,
distribution or other factors, the reviewers generally raved as Plympton's
movie melted into obscurity. Had this been a live-action feature,
would the same thing have happened?
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Spicy City
failed to spice up ratings. © 1997 HBO.
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Case Study #6: Prime Time Crashes
As this was being written, God the Devil and Bobwas being
dropped by NBC. Clerkshas been cancelled by ABC after only
two episodes. Dilbert
died an undeserved death. The
PJ shas yet to air again on a regular schedule. Mission
Hill, despite a recent award at the Cartoons On The Bay Festival,
will be lucky to keep breathing. MTV Animation may be going the way
of the dodo, despite the cult success of Daria.And we can all
see where such efforts as Spawn and Spicy Citygot HBO
Animation after all their hype regarding "animation growing up."
Family Guyand Home Movieshave seen too many setbacks
and struggles, although Home Moviesis finding a new home on
Cartoon
Network and Family
Guyseems to be somehow holding on. Several other series in
development are now on hold, and the much-vaunted prime time adult
animation boom is beginning to lose momentum. Some people in the industry
blame the product, but it is equally likely that this culture still
has difficulty accepting animation as adult entertainment.
What will it take to bring animation to adult audiences? A good answer
might start with a solid expository script. Animation, primarily a
visual medium, is far too cluttered these days with dialogue (especially
the "hip," self-referential sort) and potentially great
series have been hamstrung by over-written scripts. Perhaps today's
writers feel that the dialogue has to be as lively as the animated
characters in order to work, but in truth, animation works best with
lessdialogue and lessadherence to typical storytelling
formulas. While it is generally a mistake to animate anything that
could be filmed live, most films today can contain up to 40% of their
shots enhanced by CGI.
The best bet for a great animated adult feature just might be an action-adventure
flick that would have contained minimal dialogue and wowser SPX if
filmed live in the first place.
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With recent deals to bring
deceased stars back to life, virtual humans like Dotcomix's
Virtual Bill could lead the way for adult themes in animation.
© Protozoa, Inc.
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A second answer might be improvements in CGI. Max Headroom is ancient
history; Lara Croft, Cyberlucy, and more recently Ananova are today's
prototypes for the increasingly lifelike humans we will see animated
in the immediate future. Experiments with more realistic human figures
continue at every animation studio and software company in the world;
"R" rated scenes using animated characters will soon be
startlingly realistic. Coupled with solid dramatic scripts, it might
be possible that audience identification with enhanced CGI characters
leads to a breakthrough in adult entertainment that more cartoonish
characters could not easily achieve. We may all see the day when a
major star consisting of nothing but pixels graces the cover of People.
Finally, and perhaps cynically, a $200 million animated hit featuring
adult themes and situations will be needed in order to change cultural
attitudes, reverse a hundred year-old trend and persuade studios to
make major investments (including promotion) in more of the same.
Disney could have done it at any time during the 1990s, but opted
for Broadway-style productions or hero(ine)-comes-of-age pics. With
their "family" image on the line, The Mouse is likely to
continue to sit tight, and the breakthrough film is destined to come
from another source.
Any takers? I certainly hope so.
Martin "Dr. Toon" Goodman is a longtime student
and fan of animation. He lives in Anderson, Indiana.
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