Word: cartoonable
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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AMIDST the plastic flora and fauna of Disneyland, a small and inconspicuous pavilion called The Art of Animation offers interesting lessons in cartoon esthetics. The literal nature of Disney's imagination extended past content into form, and the realistic movement in his animation enabled him to apply classical film technique to the product of his studio. The Disneyland display, a series of museum pieces and classic film technique to the product of his studio. The Disneyland display, a series of museum pieces and classic frame blow-ups, led to a projected sequence from one of the full-length cartoons--Sleeping...
Yellow Submarine, a good cartoon not to be confused either with The Road Runner or Joyce's Ulysses, offers nothing in the way of stylistic innovation. Although advance publicity had promised something more inventive, it doesn't much matter. Working against tough obstacles--among them a foreknowledge that the songs would be 11/2-years-old before the movie's opening--director George Dunning, designer Heinz Edelmann, and a gaggle of writers have turned out an opulent, occasionally mind-bending piece of literate whimsy which must be largely reckoned a success...
...same time, a compromise had to be reached since the stark backgrounds and limited movement of UPA or Hanna-Barbera (Yogi Bear) lack power and potential for complete realization of its creator's imaginative ideas. A strange animal resulted: stylistic form is almost non-existent, the movement of the cartoon figures is executed competently but no better, editing is largely unoriginal, and Edelmann's drawings--the frame content--consequently become everything...
HERE YOU have to give Edelmann points: the subtle coloring works consistently well, and most of the malevolents (Blue Meanies and denizens of the Sea of Monsters) are top-notch cartoon creations. An evil-grinning feline called a Butterfly Stomper provides a hysterical 30 seconds of irrelevant wickedness; a flying glove proves a wonderfully Kafkasque weapon, and an anteater-cum-dinosaur happily devours everything in sight (including the frame background) by drawing it into his vacuum-cleaner snout. "So long, sucker," yells a Beatle as they escape. Nonetheless, the eclecticism of Edelmann's drawings disturbs as much as it captivates...
Sharing one of Disney's weaker traits, the Beatle cartoon shows a depressing proclivity toward the literal. The scriptwriters' labored commentary is too often illustrated by the artist-animator, rarely complemented; most irritating, some of the Beatles' best songs are taken completely at face value rather than interpreted. Thus, Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds is accompanied by diamond-studded women standing on stars, Eleanor Rigby juxtaposed with silkscreened photographs of lonely people. Paradoxically, Yellow Submarine's best moments come during the literal Lucy In The Sky number, when Edelmann treats his audience to contour line drawings filled with rapidly...