Why’d they make him ugly?

So they turned George into Spongebob?

Ugh. Steph not like. George not broke, no need to fix George.

Aside from the “let’s make the designs look like Spongebob” aspect, the backgrounds are too busy, the direction is hideous– even though the character is in the dead center of the shot–you visually lose track of him because the background is as busy as a moire pattern.

The “reimagining” (gah, I hate that word) doesn’t work either. The original premise was the “dashing hero who is incompetent, but good hearted” ala his Mountie predecessor. If he’s a incompetent dweeb who actually LOOKS like an incompetent dweeb, where’s the funny?

Despite what he said, this still has the “Flash” style. Uniform line weight, heavy pose to pose with very little in-betweens, solid color fills, really obvious animation layers (head moving separately from shoulders in that special 2D puppet way)…

The manic-ness of this really bothers me, but I personally don’t like “jumpy” animation (that’s 95% of all cartoons put out there now days). The voice acting isn’t so great either.

I’ll ask same thing I ask with any project like this: They could have called it anything, so why did they name it after an existing property? If they called it, say, “Wild Zeke” or “The Wacky Misadventures of Tarzan the Cartoon Man”, people wouldn’t get pissed off one way or the other, right? Why the constant need to tread over pre-existing art?

Great to get a peak at their process though, and the BGs look great!

What the heck?

George is a SURFER DUDE?

I probably wouldn’t watch a whole episode of this. There is a lot not to like about it and it’s been mentioned in some of the above posts. But I thought the animation in that short clip was really good.

i still don’t see where all of this “saved time” is from working in Flash. with the effort expended to piece together all of those layers, an animator could traditionally animate the scene and composite it in After Effects.
maybe Flash saves time in theory. the theory that the show can re-use images that are saved in a digital library, which drastically cuts the quality of the animation in every respect. besides the disturbingly flawless vector graphics that scream out to the viewers eye that they are watching a computer rendered action, are any of these animators taking notice of the line quality?!?… or more specifically how jarring it was for the lines to be three times as think during that close up of George’s eyes? how much time did they save by re-using that drawing of his head – or more to the point, how much quality did they sacrifice? i’d say a lot.
this Flash animation boom is breaking my heart. its inferior plain and simple.

Nice job and all, but I wonder why they messed with George’s whole character and design so much. Why license the name and concept and change everything else? Especially since the original would probably have translated to flash without many tears.

Best of luck with this project, though.

I just wanted to add that we do our stuff in Flash too and it does not have to look “Flashy” We dont use the “UPA inspired” hard outlines style either. Now I’m not a big fan of Flash cause the drawing tools still suck big time, but we do work a lot faster with it and I think we can pull of a pretty descent movie using it.

You can see a little test animation we did for our up coming short on our movie site (http://www.paulandthedragon.com) and the character animation was done in Flash with backgrounds handdrawn and then painted in Photoshop.

I’d have to hand it to the John K. people who did Beany & Cecil in the 80s! They, at least, stuck true to its original style (& voices!) Is ANY thing sacred anymore!?

I agree with Daniel & Nic!

from Sean:
They could have called it anything, so why did they name it after an existing property? If they called it, say, “Wild Zekeâ€?…

Sometimes making money on TV can actually be a hard thing to do, even if Flash is a time saver. (Regarding budget, Flash helps, but the real time saver is making accurate and correct decisions BEFORE you draw. Note in this video they mention how much easier it is to make corrections. 5th and 6th round of corrections blow any budget despite the technology used. If your vision is exploratory, so will be your budget.) Anyway, to kick start their audience, they used familiar material. You say “Wild Zeke” and people go “Huh? Who?” You say “George of the Jungle” and people watch.

Whether or not they CONTINUE to watch depends on the actual quality of the show. This really only backfires for big fans of the material borrowed. If I created the NEW Led Zeppelin, no matter how good, no matter how great, even with a genetically cloned younger Jimmy Page, I’d bet most Zep fans would hate it…. That is of course after they bought a copy… which is the producer’s goal in the first place.

Wow, feel the Flash hate!

Sad. Very sad.
I’m preparing my ears now for the themesong. *reaches for gobs of cotton*

> this Flash animation boom is breaking my heart. its inferior plain and simple.

I often mistakenly want to call it ‘cut ‘n paste’ since that’s all it is to me if they went that direction. You just draw everything needed in advanced and just pose them in their places to what is called in the story. It takes away the challenge of creating something new in the layouts or getting the most out of a drawing if done by hand on paper. And yeah, those uniformal outlines does get a little obvious whenever they do have a close-up of said character without feeling like they have to draw an even bigger size of said character in that case.

And yeah, as one guy put it, this show is aimed at those children who have never seen the original cartoon at all. Still wouldn’t it seem more a reason to show them the Jay Ward original instead? Oh well.

Message to Murray- You strike me as either, someone who worked on this, explaining your defense of this abomination of animation, ormay be a studio exec that thought “re-imagining” George was a great idea.

‘just want to point out this cartoon is for children who were not alive when the original show was even shown in umpteenth rerun on TV.( NOT adult age animation aficionados) An elvis type probably didn’t test well with the kiddies, Who are familar with brendan fraser version, if at all. Being a tarzan parody, The tarzan they would know would be disney’s.The original George of the jungle was a crude looking, barely inbetweened saturday morning jay ward cartoon, not the “classicâ€? people here make it out to be. The voices made that show, and the jungle backgrounds look pretty busy to me.’

ABOMINIMATION, is a perfect title for this genre of taking worthwhile, historic, well developed, written and animated shows and thinking they can IMPROVE the original, all the while destroying everything that made it “classic” in the first place. No one I can find in animation circles feels as you do, that George was animated badly, Bill Hurtz was a true genius, and I can tell you the following because I own storyboards from the episode- Big Top Flop, these are crisp well executed drawings with clear direction, as funny as the terrific scripting. The three cartoons in the original, George, Super Chicken, Tom Slick– are usually hailed as Ward’s best animated work on a series, arguably his ads are brilliantly produced, to a higher standard, because he made about 10 times more money than the same amount of animation for a series.

well well well. lookit all the comments. I agree with many of them, good and bad. As a cartoon afficionado myself, seeing the show being made from the ground up, I too was wondering “why are they fixing an un-broken product?” there were designs done that were much closer to the original, which i thought looked great… But we have grown up with very different influences on TV than the kids today. They are influenced by Pokemon, Yu-gi-oh, the NEW ninja turtles, and various other cartoons which i find very un-appealing. BUT kids seem to love it. They are brand new to George having only been introduced to it in live action form (which i thought was wrong… NO cartoon translates to live action… just take a look at the new Underdog movie). It was a network decision to “Update” the show, they spend umpteen dollars market researching what will be successful. They would never make a show that they don’t think will be successfull with kids TODAY. 20 years from now those same kids will see a new new george re-done and say “that george is wrong…why did they change it?” never knowing that their george did the same to us.
On the animation side…(truth be told i was animation director for the first 2 episodes only…i had to move on to co-direct season 2 of Pucca. i have to mention James Wootton, Sean McCarron, and Denny Lu as the new animation directors…doing a bang up job) It takes 3 animation directors because it’s a tough show to animate, being as classical as we can muster. we’re trying for the best quality we can on a TV flash budget. I assure you we are all lovers of classic cartoons and are working our fingers to the bone to make it something to be remembered… wether or not we succeeded is up to the KIDS to decide. …i’m sure Hanna Barbara’s limited animation invention hurt a lot of animators of the day too. :)

Most kids today indeed know only the Disney Tarzan design, which is absolutely why this series chose to go with a skinny looking protagonist. Had Disney’s Glen Keane not redesigned Tarzan as a lithe being for their feature, there is little doubt that a Flash production done as a wannabe Spongebob clone would have had the guts to even consider going in that direction. And the main difference between any Jay Ward show and this thing is that Jay Ward’s writing was always FUNNY. This example just has ‘tude and the wrong voice for Ape. The joke is that ape doesn’t merely speak, but that he’s a friggin’ mental genius, cultured out of the park in stark comparison to the dense hero. The kids watching the original George in the late 1960′s didn’t know who the hell Ronald Colman was but the vocal impression of his aristocratic voice worked like gangbusters for the big gorilla. It was an original idea at the time. Why bland it to poi forty years later, in the name of global branding? And where does that putz TV host get off thinking using FLASH is a NEW idea in animation? He’s about eight years late to the party. And he’s fat. Sorry to come off negative but corporate garbage by any other spin is still excrement and it adds to the pile of crap. And by keeping animation ‘on these shores’ you mean Canada, then you’re correct. Sending Flash shows to Vancouver does not save United States cartoon jobs. But it is cheaper.

Exactly the point, Cadychan. It takes one hell of a lot of work to make even a bad cartoon. I know. I’ve worked on plenty. The point is to aim higher. Jay Ward’s studio never had high budgets but their pictures were bites rather than licks.

Looked pretty decent to me. Would have been a cooler interview if the host didn’t keep cutting into them while they were talking, though.

The episode Murray linked to of the classic “George of the Jungle” holds up, despite the expertly delivered, deliberately square puns. Jay Ward’s stuff was never visually brilliant but the writing was first class. This very episode also has a subtext about the stupidity of selling out to big moneyed interests. When’s the last time a contemporary, ‘cutting edge’ corporate-backed piece of cartoon crap dared seriously broach that subject?

YEAH! Feel the love! I love listening to all the old, angry artists who pine for the “good old days”. It’s like hearing my great-grandfather shake his walking stick at traffic zooming by complaining that he can’t take his horse and cart out for a Sunday stroll because of all these “damned punk motorcars”.

Guys, seriously. Like it or not, “Steamboat Willieâ€? doesn’t really keep the kids of today glued to the TV. They like different stuff now. They’ve grown up with anime and video games and the stylized Flash of the Internet, not with Mad Magazine & Drew Barrymore movies like we were. What’s “cool” has changed. Just because things don’t look like “they used to” doesn’t mean it’s bad – I mean, half of you probably wore Acid Wash at one point. Do you want THAT to come back again? Was that “the good old days”? Shit, I don’t. I’m still burning the photos.

So why’d we change George? Good question. Well, back to what the kids like and watch nowadays (and that’s what we’re making here, a show for kids!). Both our networks told us to “young George down” and make him more kid-relatable. We read stuff about why a great shows like Johnny Bravo failed to get the eyeballs it deserved – because nine year olds don’t link the “V” shape of Johnny to a “strong” character, for example. So we made George young and energetic, like a kid who’s got his “off/on” switch permanently stuck in the “on” position. We leaned him out so he’s more relatable. He’s energetic, says what he thinks, and lives for fun. We made “Ape” more of a buddy character and added a couple of bunch of extra characters to round out the cast. George feels kid like, relatable, and is a guy you both root for and laugh at rather than some big dumb brick that you just roll your eyes at.

Our scripts are solid, with some great writing. Seems a little early to be bagging on the writing when the show hasn’t even LAUNCHED yet! Have a little faith! We had some really great writers & editors – most from AMERICA , even!

Some of you guys talk about the “flash tweening”. Watch the show! Most of our keys are hand drawn, and every single animator works with a tablet, sketching out the scene by hand. Our entire design department was done on paper and with pencils. Characters never even SAW a computer until they was approved and then it was just traced in Flash. The BG’s look great, drawn on paper and colored in Photoshop. I’m really proud of the show and think it looks great, and the initial feedback has been excellent. YES, it’s a TV show, and we do it on a TV budget and schedule. But even with those inevitable constraints, we managed to make something that we’re all quite proud of. But ultimately the kids will decide.

Oh, and the bit about “Ward rolling over in his grave�? You’ll be happy to know that Tiffany Ward, J’s daughter, loves the show and has been a consultant from the start, and is also one of the exec producers.

Some of you guys need to remember this: Cartoons are for the kids of TODAY. Not the kids that WE used to be. Stop being the two old grumps from the Muppet Show who hate everything – doesn’t that routine just get tired?

ANYHOW! If you want to see more “George�, I’ll have an episode or two of it on my PSP and I’ll be kicking around the Platform Festival in Portland on Saturday & Sunday. If you see me, come say hello!

THAT, or come kick me in the nuts and tell me I don’t know shit about decent animation and then go grumbling back to your cave to work on your next show bible so it can be rejected as “outdated and not kid relatable� five minutes after it hits the desk of Peter or Heather.

Love,
Kevin Gamble,
Producer, “George of the Jungle�.

http://www.crypticent.com
http://www.studiobproductions.com

I love seeing the way new young Turk artists talk about the new cheap, easy, ugly technology, and carry on about the way older artists just “don’t get it”. Go back to animating your Punch the Monkey banner ads, you mutt.

for the record, I don’t hate flash. I just think people aren’t trying hard enough to rid their work of the flash look. cartoons don’t have to look like flash. but its takes a lot of effort. otherwise it looks like everything else on tv.

and whats this about the “its for kids” excuse? that is the worst excuse for just about everything. don’t kids deserve better? they wont know there’s more impressive animation styles out there unless people show them.
cartoons that appeal to kids can be just as appealing to adults when done right. don’t downplay kids intelligence. I loved Johny bravo just fine as a kid. I don’t Want to relate to every character. I just want to be entertained. and Johny bravo was hilarious to me then and still is.
are kids that watch this show really going to care about this show when they get older? I’m guessing no.

For your information, actually, yes, Mr. Ward’s name is the first credit. We may not make cartoons to everyone’s specified tastes, but we’re not cruel. And hey, Tom? Why don’t you help us out and bring hand-drawn classical back to North America, and make sure every one of us gets a job? Problem solved. I don’t mean to be rude, but yikes….this is an all-out war for what – about 90 seconds of a show that no one has ever seen?!

I think Kevin does deserve a kick in the nuts. Using kid’s tastes today as a scapegoat for bad designs is atrocious. Regardless of video games or anime or the “Cartoon Network” style, it is still possible to create appealing well designed characters. Poor art direction is poor art direction….it’s that simple.

Also ….Jay Ward’s daughter’s approval?? Does that mean anything? Artistic taste isn’t genetic. Of course she’s going to give you the thumbs up. She stands to make a profit from her father’s hard work. If she had any regard for her father’s legacy, she should never have been involved.

One last thing….your knowledge of flash animation was demonstrated very clearly in the earlier video. Please leave the flash talk to the professionals, like Jayson.

1) Why are middle aged men and angry virgins arguing over what kids like?

2) Flash doesn’t suck. The animators suck if it looks bad. Flash is just a tool. Some of the animators are also tools.

3) Why don’t you let the show actually air before making comments about it being funny or not.

4) Everyone who said that the animation sucks really should post a link to their demo reel so that it can be dissected as well.

5) Soup is good food.

> for the record, I don’t hate flash. I just think people aren’t trying hard enough to rid their work of the flash look. cartoons don’t have to look like flash. but its takes a lot of effort. otherwise it looks like everything else on tv.

This is pretty much what I want to see happen one day. I’d want to watch something that was so good, the technique used to make it like Flash would not be the first thing that came to mind, as I thought this was the best hand-drawn thing I’ve ever saw. If I was told later on how it was made, I would be stunned since I would’ve associated Flash with what I knew before, and thought that there no was limit to what could be done with the technology as long as it was handled effectively.

As someone pointed out earlier, I had to go over and check out Augenblick’s work a bit, never realizing they worked on Wonder Showzen at all, and it’s pretty much sums up what I stated above how I want it to be like. Doing the keys and ‘tweens should be as important as the tool used for the outcome. Some of their work looks more like it could’ve came from any 2D program outside of Flash, and it doesn’t have that “flash” look we often associate in these productions.

And yeah, having to use the “it’s for kids” mentality has been done to death before (let alone the mentioning of focus groups and other studies which gave us the shows we see today). Rather people were making cartoons that entertained themselves as much as the target audience and not be something they’re doing just because they’re getting paid.

Glad to see both sides on this issue presented in these comments (the flash naysayers and those who worked on this show and others that see the potential for Flash to shine). That’s what makes coming back here great personally. :-)

You guys are bordering on the most stereotypical of internet rage. I mean you’re teetering on the edge of hysteria. Like all cartoons, I’m going to keep an open mind until I watch the show and resolve never to watch again — but notice I do that AFTER I watch!! There were things I liked and things I didn’t like in the footage, but it IS just a small sample. On TechTV of all places.

Did someone seriously say El Tigre looked ugly? Seriously?? Are you really being serious? Seriously serious?

Kevin, i don’t mean to carp on your show – i’m just carping on the idiotic reasoning behind the majority of todays programming, and you seemed like you were parroting in in your post

i remember talking to an animator at Disney and he had a model sheet of extraneous characters next to him and it was like 35 different kids. i said “thats a hell of a lot of extra characters,” and he said “yeah, a lot of the show takes place in a school and in the hallways all of these kids are supposed to be walking back and forth.” Then he stopped and kind of looked pensive and said, “You know, if i was a kid and i spent my whole day at school, the last thing i would want to watch on tv when i got home is a KID’S EXPERIENCES AT SCHOOL.” & he’s right.

yet, the executives and focus groups of today’s networks have the moronic rationale that a child won;t watch a show unless a child is the star of it and acts like a child. thats wrong. thats the opinion of focus groups and child “programmers”, its certainly not what kids want to see. there is a long long irrefutable history of successful cartoons that don’t cater to this “relatable” factor for kids. in fact, the one unsurpassed success story of television cartoons today is the ONLY cartoon where the star isn’t a child: SpongeBob Squarepants.

in light of that how can executives still be towing that tired old line of ‘catering’ to children. children aren’t stupid – they have the same sensibilities and sense of humor as you and me. they are only shorter.
the minute you start talking down to a kid, that kid will start ignoring you and the same hold true for entertainment, if you try to fashion in to a kids mind, you are shooting well below the bar.

At what point in time did George of the Jungle get such a rabid fan base that it became untouchable? Is there an official fan club? Do you guys hold meetings? Can I join?

So you want the how to look just like it did 30 years ago? Why? Were Jay Ward cartoons know for their visual mastery or something? Are they classic designs akin to that of Mickey Mouse or something? Are we still flying the musclehead in the Macy’s Day Pirade?

Guess what? Kids HATE old cartoons, with scant few exceptions. You show a kid something old, they will say: “Why watch that? IT’S OLD!”
That’s how people are wired.

Clearly “re-imagining” isn’t a word many have read before. This isn’t even re-imagined. He’s like, 5 years younger. Radical thinking indeed! Almost like kids relate to someone closer to their age! It’s not like he’s in space or has an epic story fighting the molten men or something.

So yeah, the idea of marketing a kids show to kids has been settled on as a bad idea.

I LOVE the internet right now.

I hear what you’re saying in that last post DanO. I ALWAYS flipped the channels when I saw a show with kids at school. I could NOT watch them for a second. I often rag on “Kids at school” cartoons myself. I just don’t see how George here is guilty of that; or pandering, or being pumped out by the focus group 4000 machine. From what I’ve seen, the show is fantastic. Maybe you should all wait till you see an episode. From what I gather though, most of you prefer to whine about cartoons on the internet rather than make or watch them.

Cheers to the George crew for showing up with real names, credentials, and coherent thoughts. I can’t wait to see some episodes.

Kevin, I visited your studio web site and in the ‘in dvelopment ‘ section, there’s a show called ‘super villain’.

Why does the main character look awfully familiar?? so similar to Squidward from Spongebob? with a brain bottle on the head? sure that’s what “today’s kids” want to watch!! what happened to being original and creative! ??

after all, this is supposed to be art . not the art of money making . and here’s the link for you guys, look in the ” in development” section
http://www.studiobproductions.com/

Flash did nothing wrong here. It’s cool they’re animating it that way. My problem is that I know what George of the Jungle looks like, and this character doesn’t look a thing like him. Doesn’t sound like him either. He looks like the generic badly-drawn characters on CN these days. People keep comparing this new “style” of cartoon to UPA…well, it’s NOT UPA. It’s just ugly, and drawn as simply as possible to save money. At least UPA’s drawings were pleasant to look at.

I tip my hat to you, Kevin, for valiantly defending your show against the swell of Nerd Rage. I think your arguments are falling on deaf ears, though.

Anyone can say, “Yeah, my kids DEFINITELY prefer watching Bosko and Mr. Magoo rather than these new, colourful shows like Fairly OddParents”.
Are these people reflected in the ratings? Hell, no!

Obviously not all cartoons are for kids; but people shouldn’t seethe with rage when a show doesn’t bleed-though into their demographic.

Some cartoons are just for kids.
Let. It. Go.

“Some cartoons are just for kids.”

To me, thats the battle cry of mediocrity – and the rationale that has brought us to this grim nadir of quality in animated programming.

“And if some 30-something art nerd doesn’t like what we do, well, I don’t really give a rats ass. My team and I make it for the kids, and they’ll decide what sucks and what doesn’t.

Love,
Kevin Gamble,
Producer, George of the Jungle.”

OK, where to begin. Four kids – ages 7-17 (3 boys, 1 girl)- were shown your version and then the classic episode Big Top Flop. Only the 17 year old boy knew the Brendan Frasier version, vaguely. They unanimously laughed throughout one of the cartoons, and told me they, by far, liked the newer George. Then they were told that the one they just saw, and laughed through, was the older, original, Jay Ward version. They gave audible gasps, telling me “no way”, that it had to be the newer one because of its look and story. Hands down they prefered the TIMELESS Jay Ward/Bill Hurtz version – the 12 year-old-girl told me the 1st one they saw seemed like it was from “way back” in the eighties.

These kids all live in a Nielsen monitored home, 35,000 households they represent by ratio, so, are these people reflected in the ratings? Hell, YES. It’s not about the flash – it’s all about the George, a 40 year old cartoon that looks fresher now, more than it did then. Look, I’ve had to direct Jay’s characters myself, and I just did as good a commercial as I thought possible, that could sit next to one of his, and enjoyed as the same characters, just a different adventure, utilizing puns and visual gags, in a pacing akin to Jay’s. We’ll never know how well a more exact replica of classic GotJ would’ve done, we just have this -and to add insult to injury, we have you telling us
we are all old (I guess regardless of age). Do you even realize you debate mute points with guys in this thread who have produced the fantastic Emmy Nominated show, “The Boondocks” (The MLK episode is pure TV HISTORY!), a guy who story boarded Ren and Stimpy, Ripping Friends, Harvey Birdman – including the Dabba Don episode – as well as a large amount of Nicktoons– as well as a few others I saw on my scrolldown. You sure took a lot of time and effort to excruciatingly berate our opinions, considering your own words “I don’t give a ratsass if a 30 something art nerd doesnt like it- I make it for the kids- they’ll decide what sucks…” OK, how about 35,000 housefuls of kids for starters?

Defend your work- just don’t demean us in the process.

Wow. You have all taken this much too far. And by too far, you are insulting each other on an immature and personal basis.

There is absolutely no constructive criticism here.

We are putting our profession to shame. Right now, reading all these childish remarks, I am embarrassed to be in the same industry as you people.

We all come across now as utterly childish, uneducated, obsessive, manic and mean spirited, cartoon making baffoons. We all reak of ego and are overdosing on it.

Kevin and Jayson, there is no need to defend here anymore. You are great guys doing great things.

I am so disappointed that I read all of the posts above, over such a small, subjective and unimportant 30 second clip. It is just a damn cartoon.

Actually, Bill Field, if you could have my name legally changed to “Moot Point” I’d greatly appreciate it. :)

Wow. I agree with Isabella. This is shameful to the animation industry and it tears my heart out to see what disrespectful miserable people there are amongst today’s animators. All this hatred must fuel a great creative environment.

Designerwhite, I agree with you.

I work in this industry as an animator and I can’t believe how unnecessarily harsh and downright disrespectful some industry people speak about each others work.

There is no shame to people venting here. Imagine the violence in the streets that would take place otherwise.

Jay Ward’s product was pretty smart stuff often masquerading as standard TV animation fare. It was a trait that conveyed a sly subversion that Hanna Barbera would never have ventured into. I think people tend to unfairly downplay the original George of the Jungle’s style as well. There was a playfulness to it that was light and unpredictable.

A re-do of George has to invite immediate comparison and criticism, of course. What annoys me most is the what is supposed to pass as animation “for little kids”. All kinds of little kids absorbed the original George of the Jungle and Bullwinkle, and Tom Slick, etc. The same people remember and love those shows from their childhood. But any show that essentially plays down to kids (without Ward’s redemptive smarts) is just lowering the bar for the sake of keeping with a misguided projection of a demographic and is angling for a show that will be soon forgotten.

Maybe watching a full episode would make me a convert but all my senses read this as very routine and anemic, although there is certainly some formidable raw talent buried somewhere behind it all.

Look, you can run for the Exits if you like, but this discussion is passionate, neccessary, and real. Kevin really does give a “ratsass” and so do I. I may disagree with Kevin mightily, but I’ll tell you this, he’s someone I’d sit down and have a beer with, and debate this and all manner of problems and possible solutions for the industry– I bet we’re not THAT different in the end. It’s mostly about respecting the attitude, style, and humor of Jay Ward. I’m far too close to this in terms of my love and respect for his work, it doesn’t take much for me to think somebody’s pissing on his grave if they attempt to rework any of his shows, I’ll try to be more thick skinned about this.

We are not hateful as a bunch, animators- we, empassioned and loving is more on point. I wouldn’t classify myself as a 30 something “art nerd” nor a Disney producer, I’m a cartoonist/director- so, maybe I’m a bit of both those archetypes, I just know, if we don’t shout this stuff out here, in a jury of our peers, it will build up like a powder keg- and hurt forward thinking with props to the past for our industry as a whole. Kevin, you have cahones, to jump into the pit of fire, and your’e 34, experienced enough to know fires always burn. So, to all the non-confrontational “sorry state of animation-don’t be haters” alarmists this is healthy discussion, folks, it ‘aint pretty- it’s real—because…. it’s cartoons. VIVA JAY WARD!

Hey Bill, did you perchance work on that Fractured Fairy Tale thing that was tacked onto the front of the live action version of Dudley Do-Right?

oh, you are getting paid money for a job?

-well that shuts down the discussion of the quality of animation on tv right there. i didn’t realize the bottom line was that clear.

I just want to see DanO’s website… is that really so wrong of me? Here, I’ll get you started… http://………

Chances are good that you’re plenty talented, but who’s to know… you could be busy drawing eyelashes on Land Before Time 23: Bigfoot in Little China

If this is how animation industry “professionals” conduct themselves, it’s no wonder ” the state of animation today” is a poor one.

Hi, Steve.

0. I’m not an animation pro, so I should probably stand in the sidelines. I’m just an animation buff who’s kids watch a lot of cartoons.

1. Best of luck to all the GOTJ guys, you deserve it. I meant to include that in my original post, but it got clipped off the end. I didn’t realize how much you guys were getting slammed.

2. Although it’s a shame to see the GOTJ folk caught in the crossfire here, it’s nice to see people in the industry passionate about what they do – on both sides.

OK, to answer your question:

* Complaint? What complaint? I was just making some observations.

* Although I thought the clip was derivative, my kids (aged 4 through 11, prime target audience) would enjoy it. (Keep in mind my 5 year old daughter considers the phrase “I pooted” to be the apex of comedy).

* I referenced Emperor/Spongebob/Gym Partner/Odd Parents not because I thought the gags originated from there, but because that’s what my kids have seen – many, many times. (I know, because they control the television, so I’ve seen them many, many times).

So even *they* will recognize that it’s derivative.

But – unlike most adults here – they probably consider that to be a good thing. For one thing, it’s a self-referential sort of humor, which they like. And it uses a comedy shorthand that they’ve come to understand.

* I assume your “peeing on Jay Ward’s memory” comment refers to a different post, since I happened to have though that the new GOTJ has better production values than the original.

All right, I’d better get out of the way and let the professionals have at it.

I’m sorry, ignore the last comment. Gut impulse that I should have deliberated, and I apologize.

How long has Leo Laporte been back on TV? When G4 bought TechTV and booted most of the “older” staff, I deleted it from my DirecTV favorites.

New George looks not so cool. The animation is okay, but he doesn’t look like George, and the voice is wrong, and there’s nothing funny in the preview clip. It’s like…a typical TV cartoon.

Sorry if I repeated anything said in the above posts, but I ain’t gonna read all that.

There is no such thing as “outdated” design or humor. Kids relate to Bugs Bunny and Charlie Chaplin as much as they do to great current stuff. A friend of mine went to a screening of Buster Keaton at the Silent Movie Theater on Fairfax a couple of weeks ago and there was a nine year old kid a couple of rows in front of him making a complete spectacle of himself laughing his guts out at a movie made before his grandmother was born. Great movies and great cartoons are timeless.

When you take on a cartoon character that has been done before, you need to be true to the essence of what made that character funny. That doesn’t mean you should slavishly imitate- There’s no point making more of the “same ol same ol”. Rather, you should try to do even MORE along the same lines as the spirit of the original.

George of the Jungle was created as a high budget TV series where the Ward artists could put more care into background design and animation than they were able to in their other shows. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t plenty of room to make it even better. Far from it.

That said, it’s important to give respect to the artists who created the original. You’re going to be hard pressed to top voice actors like June Foray, Bill Scott, Paul Frees, and Daws Butler; and designers and animators like Bob Kurtz, Alan Zaslove and Rod Scribner. Give it a go and work like a dog, because you’ve got big shoes to fill.

It’s cool to throw out the fundamental designs and start from the basic concept if you are sure that what you’re creating is stronger than the original. It isn’t good to throw everything out and replace it with something half as good. I worked on a show that did that back when I was first starting out. I did good work on the show and I am proud of my part in it, but I wouldn’t want to watch the show myself or subject poor unsuspecting kids to it. I learned from the experience, and I used what I learned on a better project the next time.

It’s really hard for me to make heads or tails over this.

For the Offense: If there’s anything I learned from this or that John K.-ripoff Ecozone thing that was a Hot Topic a few months ago, it’s the the current so-called state of the industry (Artists being trampled ny the Execs and Focus Groups) is really no surprise based on the back-stabbing and sycophant grooming that goes on so damned much in the internet animation community since animation artists have demonstrated to be their own biggest impediment to the creation of “cartoony cartoons” (The Statler and Waldorf comparision is fitting, although a one to The Comic Book Guy would be even more so)

However, The Defense has woefully chosen to play the most condescending card in the bicycle deck (The “for kids thing” and beating a dead horse by doing it every sentence to boot). Sure, aiming for kids is a given in this venue (TV animation for the kids-skewing networks), but the most successful TV cartoons in recent memory (not just Spongebob, but The Powerpuff Girls, Billy and Mandy, Kim Possible, Avatar, Foster’s, and Teen Titans) did more than just get the kiddie ratings and sell the merchandise. I’m sure those shows’ creators had kids in mind, but didn’t have put EVERYTHING they put in their shows in the context of “for the kiddies! for the kiddies! for the kiddies!”. That’s just a caricature of the worst type of thought inthese productions, and it very seldom results in anything of quality.

I’ll be one of the first sets tuned to this show’s priemiere.

This is not George of the Jungle, this has nothing to do with George of the Jungle. Making the Tarzan spoof character less athletic-looking does not make him “more relate-able,” it destroys the context of it being a Tarzan spoof, so that now it’s just nothing. I also agree with earlier comments about the backgrounds competing with the characters too much, which is interesting since these guys claimed they were going for a “painterly” approach to the BGs.

wow , this is some real hate! thing is people, if the designs were more truthful to the original, i honestly believe that you would still write and complain. Josh is a terrific illustrator, and to hear all these haters going on to bash his work like a bunch of children is absolutely pathetic. i can admit, i was a little sceptical when i first heard about this show being redone, but then i got to see finished episodes, and despite what you all say, i can see this show getting picked up for one more season. the show doesnt look flashy, it actually has a real organic feel to it.

Many of us are doing something about it. Part of that is also calling them like we see them.
If the show is funny, yay! It would be nice if it was funny, well thought out and easy on the eyes too. From what I’ve seen, that ship has sailed.

HA HA HA HA HA HA
Holy crap, this is funny.
I originally had a six paragraph rant about airplane hangers full of South Koreans but, well whatever.
I told my kids about George and they are pumped.
I smell podcast segment.

Wow, “douche bag”. That’s nice.Name calling over discussion.
You seem like a real sweeeetheart.

Who’s calling people names?! Serious discussion zone here, I do say! I merely placed the option of douche-baggery on the table as a readily available tool for critical members of the panel to use as they please. I would never resort to such childish name calling. On that topic, George is indubitably a fantastically designed show, which I look forward to with great fervency. I only regret that I have but one monocle with which to observe my television.

“So George talks like Cosmo from Fairly Oddparents ”

Have you ever WATCHED Fairly Oddparents, or do you just hate it on the principle that it’s new and not classical style animation, so it must be awful? Cosmo’s got a high pitched voice (which George doesn’t), and I’ve yet to hear him talk in the third person.

And for the record, old Hanna Barbera style cartoons? FUG.

I can’t say I find modern animation all that aesthetically pleasing, but Fairly Oddparents makes me laugh, as do Spongebob, the Adventures of Billy and Mandy, and Foster’s. And for the record? Vector, if done right, can look really pretty and cool. It’s not about the tool or the method, it’s about the way it’s used. It’s like people who complain about CGI being inherently “cheap”, easy, and ugly. These people have obviously never sat in front of Lightwave or Maya.

OMG! Im back again! Someone just kick me in the nuts! This is going 2 be 1 of the WORST shows ever!

I’m a 47-year-old magazine cartoonist. I’m currently drawing up a new cartoon strip (talk about a dying market) in Adobe Illustrator. It was a tough choice; I’m VERY old school. Hard to ditch my pens and ink.

I’ve chosen to use a VECTOR program for a variety of reasons, a lot of those reasons were mentioned during the video.

I’ve come darn close to getting the strip to look like it was done with the old dip pens, and Illustrator let’s me edit, save poses, etc.

I am well aware of one thing, if the strip sucks, no one will care how I did the damn strip. I am also WELL aware that STORY and HUMOR will carry crappy art everytime.

The vector animation in the clip above looked pretty damn good. If the story and gags are there, no kid is going to care how it was made.

I am new to this site, having just stumbled upon it. After reading the entire discussion, I have some comments. Keep in mind that I am only slightly more educated than a layperson when it comes to animation. I am purely an enthusiast with a quick wit and a sharp tongue. This is going to be long, because I am responding to the entire discussion.

1. Where does it say that you have to be better at animation than the person whose work you are criticizing? I see this point brought up by a certain poster repeatedly. Surely you do not have to be a classical composer to discuss the works of Mozart or Beethoven. Surely you do not expect your viewers to study animation before they can determine if they like a show or not?

2. This is very important: people (kids, adults) watching your shows DO NOT CARE about your budgets or deadlines or YOUR jobs being outsourced to other countries. If other countries can produce better animation on the cheap, what does the viewer care? In the end, it’s about the art of animation, not the job of paying bills. The people watching the animation don’t care about the poor, starving animator and they especially do not want to be reminded of the poor, starving animator *while watching the show*.

What the animated picture is supposed to do is transport you to another world, which is why it’s not live-action in the first place. But when I watched the “new adventures of spiderman” show when I was a kid (the one that ran till ’98) I was constantly annoyed by the very choppy animation, which seemed to get worse the further the show progressed. It annoyed me so much, in fact, that I stopped watching it.
The same goes for the old Hanna-Barbera cartoons that they used to air on Cartoon Network here in the Netherlands. Limited animation is just not as much fun to look at. Even when I was a little kid, I changed the channel whenever Scooby Doo, the Flintstones, the Jetsons or one of the other Clone Shows was on. If I want to look at people just standing there spouting lines and seeing the same five animations loop over and over I’ll just… oh wait, I don’t want to watch that at all.

These days it’s even worse. Almost EVERY cartoon looks the same. I figured out they were using Flash pretty quickly when I got a TV after four years of going without.

How did I figure that out? Because I used to visit Newgrounds a lot, six or seven years ago, and I recognized the lame attempts at 3D, the obvious use of vectors, the pose-to-pose animation with no actual drawing. Especially the face-turning is stomach-churning: if I saw someone’s entire face sliding across their head in real life, I would be horrified. It’s not even an approximation of how it should look in a cartoon: it just looks weird.

In some shows they even use actual fully rendered 3D models to save on animation time. Don’t they notice how out of place it looks to have choppily animated characters right next to a highly detailed CGI spaceship? (Team Galaxy, I’m looking at YOU specifically, but there are many others as well.)

It seems that the only options are:
* over-simplified vector-based characters;
* choppily animated anime-lookalikes;
* rendered/ray-traced 3D-animated characters/objects.
Sometimes, all three occur in the same show! Talk about coherent!

It’s all about high school, superheroes, hidden identities, etc. etc. But seriously, I know you Americans like your comics, but why does EVERY show have to be about “super” “heroes” and high school? And WHY does every storyline have to be the same? I can predict what the storyline is going to be every time, usually just from watching the title splash. And I know I’m not alone. Just from the first 20 seconds, you can figure out “oh, this is the flashback episode” “oh, this is the one where they switch bodies” “oh, this is the one where the bad guy mind controls the good guy” “oh, this is the one where they get turned into animals”.
Wacky (and predictable) hijinks ensue!

Every show looks the same, and even worse, since it’s all being dubbed over in Dutch these days, they all SOUND the same. It’s like they only use 6 voice actors for every dubbed cartoon on the air here in the past five years. For example, when I see an old skinny guy in a suit, whether he’s the spymaster or the butler, I KNOW which voice he’s going to have, because they ALWAYS use the same guy.
I know this really doesn’t apply to US animation, but it does apply to BUDGETS and TV network executives. I will absolutely not watch dubbed animation which has been done on the cheap.

3. Just because you need to network like everybody else doesn’t mean you shouldn’t critique other people’s work. This is something that I encounter more and more in American online professional communities; there is rampant brown-nosing, because god forbid that you might actually offend someone with your criticism and miss a future employment opportunity. But by doing this, you become just another animation drone.
I love how people can be extremely critical of some things, but when it comes to a project they worked on it’s all good – and not just in this specific thread. (Bee Movie, I’m looking at you). I know it’s crap, you know it’s crap, don’t pretend it’s not please. I know you’re doing it to pay the bills, you know you’re doing it, let’s not pretend you’re doing it for the kids. If they were *your* kids, I’m sure you’d want to do better than mediocre then, but they’re not, and you’re not.

I do feel a lot of bitterness here, and it is logical: you want to draw engaging characters and animate them vividly so they come alive on the screen. Then the network heads come in with their Focus Groups and whatnot, and you end up making obnoxiously loud and visually busy, cheap-ass, derivative assembly-line films just to pay the bills. But you love animation! And you love the skill and effort that goes into making an animated film!
Why do you insist on churning out cruddy cartoons then, to pay the bills? The mind boggles.

This is not about Flash, it’s about MONEY. I think one of the worst things to do when you love animation is to become a professional animator in the employment of a large entertainment company: you’re absolutely guaranteed to have to compromise your ideals about animation. How can you churn out half-assed crud when you are so passionate about the art of animation? How do you live with yourself?

Also, and this is very important for the non-brownnosers: if you state your criticism in a constructive manner, without resorting to hyperbole (hyperbile?), it will be a lot more effective. If you equal Flash to the destruction of the animation industry, and then you bash someone for using Flash, you are guaranteed to get flamed back because that makes it PERSONAL: you just implied that the other person is one of those who are destroying the animation industry.

As for the new George of the Jungle animation, it looks crappy and it looks just like every other cartoon that’s on the television now. It also sounds the same and it even *smells* the same: it smells of crap.

Foster’s looks different and doesn’t follow an episodic format (heresy!) which actually made me keep watching it; the character designs are fresh and the animation style is coherent and appropriate. I can still see the Flash working behind it, but it’s not as distracting as in other shows, and at least it is coherent in its visual style.

So, in closing, this has been a very informative look at how the US/Canadian animation community actually ‘works’ and it has confirmed what I gleaned from watching TV. I’m not very impressed.

DISCLAIMER: you may have noticed that I have not mentioned anyone specifically, but actually I did. This is because I am a giant hypocrite and I did not actually want to give any constructive criticism on the whole animation issue. You all know damn well what can (and must) be done to make a better cartoon.

My best regards,
-Will

Why was there a need to even “re-imagine” George of the Jungle? Why not just make a new show with a dumb Tarzan-like character? Since it’s been said that no “kids” watching TV today have any idea about the original, why even bother calling it “George of the Jungle” and spending the cash licensing the rights? Seems like a waste of money that could be better spent on other aspects of the show. Is it because of some perceived popularity of the movies?

On similar note, in my opinion, “The Mighty B” is appealing to young and old. All this crap about catering to kids? I agree, it’s just an excuse. And a lame one at that…

Yeah, I’m not an animator but I do know a thing or two about cartoons and animation.