10 Things You Never Realized About Popular Cartoons

you can trace the history of modern animation Back to the 1830s and the Fenner kistoscope which created the illusion of movement with images on a spinning cardboard disc in the prison there aren't even any statistics about how many animated cartoons have been created because it's an all but impossible task to figure it out everyone from major Studios like Walt Disney and Warner Brothers make them but people at home on their commuters can produce them as well they're everywhere and no matter how popular some of them are there are still some remarkable behind the scenes things that you can learn that get even more controversial the deeper you dig number 10. Popeye muttered because he was animated prior to being voiced watch some old Popeye cartoons from the 1930s and you'll notice a Curious Thing the dialogue often seems to not be part of the show the characters mouths aren't moving and the words are just mumbled this was no accident rather it was a way to compensate for how the show was animated Popeye was drawn and animated before it was sent to have voices recorded that meant voice actors had to fit the dialogue into what they were given whether it worked or not so Popeye and Pluto end up muttering under their breath all the time because the cartoon was never animated with the intention of them speaking at all in those moments voice actor Jack Mercer just ad-libbed the clothes-libbed mutterings for fun 9. Hannibal Mera cartoons wore collars to make them easier to animate animation is not an easy thing to do and in the past it was much harder the hand-drawn cartoon has to be assembled from literally thousands and thousands of images each one just slightly different from the one before it in the sequence imagine drawing Mickey Mouse walking up a flight of stairs a thousand times in a row with his legs moving just a tiny little bit higher in each image to save time and effort animators learn to cut Corners one of these was very clear in early Hanna-Barbera cartoons in which it seemed every single character had a collar and necktie on when Yogi Bear wore a tie it meant his body could remain static and only his head needed to be animated this was a product of the reduced budgets cartoon makers had to deal with when working on television a cartoon can be made using as little as 2 000 drawings instead of the usual 14 000 as a result number eight four-fingered cartoons saved millions of dollars every so often on The Simpsons a character talks to God and you may have noticed that God has five fingers while everyone else in the universe has four and you may have also noticed for years that most cartoon characters have four fingers instead of five though it's not an issue today thanks to computers in the days of hand-drawn animation making a fifth finger was hard work it also threw off the geometry of figures that were basically based on a series of circles extra fingers made a character like Mickey Mouse look weird and made him harder to draw plus since many of the early characters were not actually human they didn't really need to have five fingers and animating a fifth finger actually costs more money because they needed to spend more time and effort making it move while Disney was said to have pegged the savings of using four fingers in The millions of dollars range 7. Thundercats hired a psychologist to review every script if you ever thought that 80s cartoons were just Mindless entertainment or excuses to sell action figures think again if nothing else the ThunderCats were there to teach kids morality and they even had a psychologist on board to ensure that it happened Dr Robert coysis was hired to review all scripts and offer feedback based on areas related to violence and morality this was done in 1985 a time when violence and overt marketing to children in cartoons was a major concern in the media cartoons were frequently being placed under the microscope as being too violent or devoid of any value for the children who watched them so cartoon producers tried to set themselves up as being of value before a critical backlash could arise 6. Pepe Le Pew was Italian in France in 2021 Pepe Le Pew was scrubbed from Looney Tunes roster after nearly 70 years turns out a cartoon whose Soul gimmick is relentlessly pursuing a female who desperately doesn't want to be near him and then forcing himself on her when he catches her is not really appropriate but even before that some people did wonder how a cartoon that seems to mercilessly mock the French lasted for so long what did the French even think turns out few French people weren't aware that there was an issue in France Pepe Le Pew wasn't French at all he was Italian actor Francois tavare did the French dub of Pepe Le Patois which means pole cap for French audiences with a thick exaggerated Italian accent thus allowing everyone to laugh at stereotypes of a different culture and language this wasn't to prevent offending the French mind you how could it be if they heard a character with a French accent it wouldn't be offensive at all it'd be normal and the joke would be ruined so Pepe needed a new accent in France or the Antarctic was lost so because he was a Seducer they chose Italian which also carries that sexy stereotype 5. Casey Kasam quit Scooby-Doo in protest over a Burger King commercial the original voice of America's top 40 Casey Kasem was also the original voice of Scooby-Doo's Shaggy he started playing Shaggy in the 1960s and was even doing voices into the 2010s just before his death but there was a period of time in which qasem actually quit the show in protest between 1995 and 2002 Kasem refused to do Shaggy's voice after the characters were set to be used in a commercial for Burger King Kassem Vega and staunch proponent of that lifestyle was reportedly upset that Hanna-Barbera the studio behind the cartoon wasn't willing to make Shaggy a vegan as well in fan is one of Shaggy's gimmicks for years been that he had a voracious appetite and odied almost anything kazem not only refused the commercial he quit the show entirely for seven years it was only when producers relented and agreed to make Shaggy a vegetarian that he returned number four cartoons like GI Joe added PSAs to appease critics and appear educational if he were a child of the 1980s then you're likely aware of the phrase knowing is half the battle made famous by G.I Joe this was how every 30 second and PSA that was tacked onto an episode ended so why waste 30 seconds of precious cartoon air time on a PSA well strategy GI Joe like Transformers and He-Man was essentially a 30 minute action figure commercial it was designed to sell toys and use the thrill of blowing your enemies to Smithereens to do so the makers of the show knew that could be an issue in ways we addressed with the ThunderCats so to cut critics off at the pass they made it educational the little PSA tacked on to give the show value this was taking things a step further than just having a doctor on staff now the value of the show was explicit the PSAs were overseen by a doctor from Harvard School of Education and human development and were vetted by the national Child Safety Council you can make a good case that this was in relation to the general tenor of TV critics at the time the same culture that led to 1990s children's television act which required TV stations to ensure a percentage of children's programming was in fact educational this very law was arguably exploited shortly thereafter when channels applying for Broad cast license renewals listed GI Joe as educational programming 3. Costco and Disney's Ratatouille wine broke advertising rules cross-promoting movies is nothing new every Big Summer release is pretty much guaranteed to have a fast food tie-in with some restaurant chain they even sold bagged salad branded with Star Wars characters for the final three parts of the film series so when Disney was looking to promote the movie Ratatouille back in 2007 it was an outlandish of them to try and team up with Costco the problem with the partnership in this case was what the two companies decided to do they produced Ratatouille branded wine the movie was about a rat Chef so it wasn't crazy but it was in violation of the wine Institute advertising standards that had existed since 1949. despite having 500 cases of Chardonnay on hand to be sold as cartoon rat wine the whole scheme was a violation of wine advertising rules their code banned any advertising that might be construed as appealing to children and it's hard to get more appealing to Children than slapping a cartoon rat from a box office smash animated movie on the label the plan had to be scrabbed despite fact that the winery was French and not beholden to those particular rules which only apply in California 2. Clone High was canceled because of protests in India in the early 2000s Clone High debuted first in Canada and then later on MTV the adult cartoon depicted a high school in which students are all clones of major historical figures so far so law however it was canceled not long after massive and very serious protests were mounted in India that saw 100 people including members of the Indian government go on hunger strikes MTV apologized immediately and told the show's creators that it was done they even scrubbed all mention of the show from their website just to be safe but what could cause such an uproar over a cartoon especially in a country where the show didn't even air well that would be Gandhi Gandhi was a character on the show and instead of being representative of the man as he was in real life the creators opted to make him a party animal obsessed with getting drunk and having sex this did not go over well in the place where he's revered as a national hero as you might imagine 1. Betty Boop's look and sound was so Ireland from one singer who stole it from another if you know anything about classic cartoons then you're definitely familiar with the character of Betty Boop created in the 1930s she was designed to look like a flapper and spoke with a distinctive high-pitched voice the character is generally regarded as one of the earliest animated sex symbols and endures to this day nearly a century later while many people don't know however is that the producers behind Boop were sued by actress Helen Kane for stealing her sound and look Kane famously sang a song called I want to be loved by you in 1928 later made much more famous by Betty Boop Boop's Creator Max Fleischer even admitted to modeling the character in part on Kane Kane had adopted that unique vocal style almost a sort of baby talk approach that was still suggestive at the same time in 1932 Kane sued the studio for stealing her look and sound and thus far the case seems pretty open and shut but you haven't heard of baby Esther either Esther Jones was a singer before Helen Kane who went by the stage name baby Esther there's evidence that Kane had seen Jones perform in the late 1920s 20s before her own rise to fame she sang at the Cotton Club in Harlem and had managed to create a Persona that mixed those childish Boop and dupe sounds into a seductive musical performance video footage of old baby Esther Acts were used to prove Kane was not the originator as she claimed and was essentially suing over an act that she herself had stolen Kane lost her lawsuit sadly baby Esther had vanished by that time or was presumed dead so she never got to become the real face of Betty Boop oh

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Length: 10min 10sec (610 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 21 2022