I’m preparing a few posts that are taking longer than expected.
In the meantime – to fill the gap - here’s the hanging song from the Ren and Stimpy cartoon 'Out West' , unedited for those fans out there that have not yet seen it in this form. I animation directed this cartoon and it was animated by an amazing group of animators at my studio Carbunkle Cartoons.
Note that Stimpy is out of sync as he says ‘hoedown’. For some reason there were 2 versions of the song - using the broadcast version threw Stimpy's animation way out of sync. I've included a piece of the pencil test that has the track we used for animation. (it's slightly out of sync too but closer than the broadcast version) Why it was changed I don’t know. Hey Bob Camp - if you’re reading this, can you shed some insight on why that happened.
Contrary to some opinions circulating the internet, animating Ren and Stimpy was not just the act of doing inbetweens. Any of you who have tried this style know that it (generally speaking) takes a lot of skill, is time consuming, requires more drawing than regular limited animation, and involves a lot of problem solving.
37 comments:
Hi, Bob Jacques.
I love every Ren and Stimpy episode done by your studio. It's honestly amazing where some of the stars at Carbunkle have gone on to do.
Maybe you could tell us what's in store Carbunkle's future?
You lie so much. All of the soul is in the layouts by Kricfalusi. Anyone could have done what you did. Just like Chuck Jones' 'animators'.
I heard that computers do all the animation these days so I have left a pencil next to my hard drive along with some milk and cookies in case my computer gets hungry while it is animating a scene.
BTW, those are completely different takes of Stimpy saying "Come on everybody, let's have a hoedown!" Billy held the 'own' a little longer in the track you animated to it seems.
Cool, one of my favorite R&S cartoons. Thanks for sharing that pencil test.
You're so beautiful when you're angry -- you know that?
I always noticed that! I thought to myself, "why did his mouth keep moving?" Now I know I'm not crazy.
I loved this episode so much just because of the work you did Bob. That Abner and Ewalt stuff kills me everytime. That part were they both threw the nooses around their necks was cut from the DVD collection.
"Contrary to some opinions circulating the internet, animating Ren and Stimpy was not just the act of doing inbetweens."
Who would say something that stupid ? >:( Please tell me so that I may eat their parents.
I think I have insufficient context to determine if Thad's first comment is sarcastic or not...
Hey Ted,
'Just like Chuck Jones' 'animators'' sums up the tone of Thad's comment.
I'm still lost. Who knows what lurks in the mind of Thad? (Note: I am not played by Orson Welles, so I don't know)
It was Thad's bit of sarcasm.It's ludicrous to assume that all Chuck Jones' animators did was IB his layout poses. If you search on the internet you can find out who made that claim.
I belive that Chuck did want his animators to copy his drawings but they were first and foremost animators, it's insane to think ALL they did was copy though. Oh I know who said it alright but he thinks that Bob Clampett created Bugs ! Oops ! I may have given a hint. :P
Oh well, I might as well just say I hope John is still paying all the money he owes you Bob. I heard he blew the budget of APC in like two episodes.
Hi Bob! You are awesome. I still have the Baby Huey tape you so graciously emailed me for free.
I'm guessing John was the one who said carbunkle merely inbetweened R&S layout poses..? How fucking unappreciative can you get. But I'm also not surprised, assuming it was him who said it.
Hey Rick,
To John's credit, we finally got some money from him last summer. It wasn't the full amount but something is better than nothing.
Just checking, Thad. It's sometimes hard to keep track of exactly who hates who on the internet at any given time.
Bob,
Good. I hope he pays you back every penny.
I like cartoons.
I like cartoons too! Many that I enjoy would probably not be worth my while to watch were it not for some of the varied yet particularly extraordinary talent that go into making them.
Hey Bob,
Honestly I don't remember. That cartoon was one of the first digitally inked and painted. The studio that did it had lots of under paid kids working around the clock and it was kind of a mess. I believe that all of the animation drawings got stolen by somebody that worked there.
If I had to remember every little detail about each of those cartoons I'd have to shoot myself.
I like cartoons too. So, do you think Wimpy's hamburger tab is $100,000 by now?
Bob C.:
That's terrible ! :( You get way too much shit about Ren and Stimpy. The Spumco/Wild Cartoon Kingdom propaganda made you like a traitor.
Bob, your animation skills are really tops! I wish you were out in LA so I could soak up some of your talent.
Oh my God!
Blast from the past.
Correct me if I'm wrong Bob (Jaques) but that crazy line 23 R7 9 11 wasn't that the show Code for Out West.
I'm not sure now it was so long ago.
It stood out because in my head because I remember we had to rubber stamp our scenes with the Show's Code.
(EVERY DRAWING) but now thinking about it, I guess it sure beats writing it out in pencil.
!!!
Quote: "I like cartoons too. So, do you think Wimpy's hamburger tab is $100,000 by now?"
Excellent forum topic, Thad! I am so stealing that one!
Bob, apparently I copy all of my opinions from you and others! Fancy that!
"Thad said...
Bob, apparently I copy all of my opinions from you and others! Fancy that!"
Really - that's interesting. I didn't think I had that power of persuasion over others. Another false statement committed to the internet. Sorry to hear it Thad.
I am sorry to inform you Bob but doing all the timing and direction for Ren and Stimpy only adds up to 10% of the work overall. This is according to John's math, which is of course, infallible.
"I am sorry to inform you Bob but doing all the timing and direction for Ren and Stimpy only adds up to 10% of the work overall. This is according to John's math, which is of course, infallible."
I'm sorry to hear that too. I'm also sorry to hear that John has diminished my and Carbunkle's contribution to the show.
you can get sued for lies like that.
I don't think I've ever seen this episode before. That was a hoot!
I like the comments here, if only because I like to read about the "drama" in animation (I'm serious)
What's Carbunkle doing lately, BTW? I noticed that the studio recieved credit in "Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack" (for sheet timing), but that was for only one episode.
Hey Bob, You're an animation master no doubt. John likes to take credit for a lot of things without acknowledging others. He even admitted to not liking to do "inbetweens" because they were "boring" as if it was something BENEATH him. But we all know that every single drawing counts in animation and if it's off it turns a solid scene into a wonky one (check out the bjork one john animated "straight ahead" ) I just don't think he's an animator and shouldn't try doing it unless he wants to sit down to take the time to figure things out the right way instead of passing it off as some self righteous "straight ahead-make-every-drawing-funny -scene"
I for one appreciate the massive amounts of skill and control it takes to do very tight drawings and subtle inbetweens...and all the hard work you and your crew at Carbunkle did to make the animation smooth, on point and just a sheer pleasure to watch.. It turned what could have been another pose to pose/pop to pose limited cartoon into a show with awesome, stellar animation.
Also, after re-watching a couple of the classics i realized how congested some of the layouts were (probably to exaggerate an awkward moment) but from an animation standpoint it must have been a complete pain in the ass to make things work around layouts like those. Again. I appreciate the funny drawings done by the spumco crew, but the cartoons would have been very bland and lifeless if you guys were not involved.
Hopefully people will come to ignore comments that undermine animators. Maybe once they realize that it's a dying artform, especially in this continent anyway, they might learn to appreciate more instead of being so consumed with preproduction or static funny drawings.
Hey David,
Thanks for the compliments and comments. Your observations are right on the money.
As I have said in the past - animating for R&S was a problem solving process - trying to get all the layouts to work together to look seamless and make the animation 'sing' was a challenge. It took extra work to mask all the volume changes that were often between layouts - and that meant making key drawings to hide those volume changes. To say that it's just inbetweening and that inbetweens are unimportant is ludicrous. I'm glad that you and others have the eye to appreciate the work we put into the series.
If you watch Eddie Fitzgerald's 'Tales of Worm Paranoia' you can see the effect of not masking the volume changes. In some of the scenes that were animated overseas the characters melt from pose to pose and the volume changes are noticeable. IMO it made that animation look cheap by drawing attention to those changes. Had we taken the easy way out and 'just inbetweened' the layouts our animation for R&S would have been a bunch of shapes melting from one pose to another.
I don't know exacty how you guys made this, but it is beautiful to watch. For TV animation, it's stellar and the song is absolutely hilarious. I'm probably going to be singing that song for the rest of the day.
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