These cartoons were made within a year of each other.
One of them is more fun, crazy and imaginative.
http://www.animationarchive.org/2005/11/filmography-swing-you-sinners.html
you decide!
Hey! If you wanna hear all about the early days of cartoons from Friz Freleng, and Hanna and Barbera, go to this interview I did with them in 1992. You won't believe what these guys have to say about everything past and present! If you think I'm crabby...
http://www.animationarchive.org/2006/04/biography-john-k-interviews-bill-joe.html#comments
Steve Worth has done an amazing job of illustrating and editing the interviews. If you love classic cartoons, you don't wanna miss this!
PLEASE! Everybody post a comment and let Steve know what a great job he's doing with the animation archive. There's already more info there than in all the animation books ever written-and he's only got started!
Hey! If you wanna hear all about the early days of cartoons from Friz Freleng, and Hanna and Barbera, go to this interview I did with them in 1992. You won't believe what these guys have to say about everything past and present! If you think I'm crabby...
http://www.animationarchive.org/2006/04/biography-john-k-interviews-bill-joe.html#comments
Steve Worth has done an amazing job of illustrating and editing the interviews. If you love classic cartoons, you don't wanna miss this!
PLEASE! Everybody post a comment and let Steve know what a great job he's doing with the animation archive. There's already more info there than in all the animation books ever written-and he's only got started!
79 comments:
Link don't work, Johnny Boy.
>>Link don't work, Johnny Boy.
I replaced it. Try again!
He's right, the animation archive link is out, AND THAT IS WHY WE HAVE GOOGLE.
http://www.animationarchive.org/2005/11/filmography-swing-you-sinners.html
anyway, given your stance on Disney and the fact that Fleischer totally rocks, the answer is obvious.
coolski! I also liked the interview with Friz and Hanna-Barbara in the last post.
Which Disney cartoon was it? I can't view embedded youtube files, but I can see them on youtube.com
Skeleton Dance is still fun to watch, but that's my first time watching Swing You Sinners! - and it's a very creative piece for 1930. Here is just another example of the Fleischers innovation in animation's earlier days.
Swing You Sinners is the better cartoon by far!! It's crazy, imaginitive, has better music, funnier drawings, and the characters move at a faster/cartoonier pace. I can watch cartoons like that all day!
But I was bored out of my skull watching that Disney crap.
sWING U sINNeRs is waaaayyy more crazy and wild !!!
I noticed that the Disney one repeated gags and animation again and again. That bugs the crap out of me. (Look! The owl looks all crazy in the wind! Look! He's lookin all crazy again! Hey look!...ad nauseum)
"Swing you Sinners" doesn't repeat anything and its gags and animation seem a lot more creative. (the switching clothes/various parts with the chicken, for instance, and the crazy acid-trip parts at the end.) I like! :)
the skeleton dance had some surreal aspects and a cool look, but it looked forced. I t looked like they were going out of their way to make it surreal, while on the other hand, swing you sinners is just naturally surreal, as well as most things the fleischers made in the late 20s and early 30s
Ok, Swing you sinners is better, but Skeleton Dance is kind of nice. Disney did a lot of crap, but I wouldn't say this one is an example. By the way, someone should put Swing you Sinners on youtube too, the quality sucks but it's easy to access anywhere and doesn't require saving files.
Yes, deffinately the fleischer's had the most funnest cartoons than disney. Felischer's had more energy than disney. There were some funny stuff in the skeleton dance like the skeletons holding hands all prissy-like. I thought it was weird at first, but then realized it was funny to just see these scary skeletons being prissy. I wish there were parts in that cartoon that could've gotten quicker. Hey, John Does quick and fast-pace make a cartoon? or is it possible for a cartoon to be slow yet good too?
well, of course there's some good slow-paced cartoons, but I just wanted to see what you thought?
let me rephrase that last question: Does quick and fast-pace make a cartoon fun?
John,
I heard rummors that you and Spumco is going to make some animation software ?
I would love to buy it if it ever comes out.
Will you be able to scan hand drawn drawings ?
_Eric
I get the feeling that Ub Iwerks was a really creative guy who was severely stiffled by Disney. Skeleton Dance takes a long time to get going but it has some great stuff with the skeletons being rearranged when it finally does. Swing You Sinners though is a blast from start to finish, even though the animation is technically less competent than Disney. If you compare something of Disney's from 1931 to Swing You Sinners though Disney gets knocked out of the water in the creativity department. By that point they'd reigned in the animation a lot.
The trouble with "Swing you Sinners" ?
Untill this marvellous copy was made available trough the web, the usually available copies were horrible looking prints. the backgrounds could not be seen and the quality of the soundtrack couldn't be appreciated in his entirety.
Now that this marvellous print can be seen I discovered how great this cartoon is and...yes, I love it more than "The Skeleton Dance".
And "The Skeleton Dance" has always been one of my favorite cartoon since I was a child!
By the way, take a look at "The Skeleton Dance" 's remake:
http://classiccartoons.blogspot.com/2006/04/skeleton-frolic.html
Gabriel
The material I post on the Animation Archive site may still be protected by copyright. We can legally post it in the context of our reporrs of the progress of the Archive because we are a non-profit 501(c)(3) educational arts group. But we can't authorize anyone else to distribute the material off of our site without putting both them and us at legal risk.
So leave it on the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive site and enjoy it there. If you would like to help us increase our bandwidth, donate to the Archive or link to us... if our traffic reaches a certain level, we will be able to get paid ads to cover the cost of the increased bandwidth.
Thanks
Steve
Omigosh, that is awesome. Is this some kind of late April Fool's prank? Tell me this a Spumco production! This better than anything Fleischer EVER made! This cartoon is so fresh and outstanding and lively the only thing I can compare it to is the I Miss You video you and Steven did many years ago. Is this the cartoon that changed Bob Clampett's life?
did anyone else have trouble trying to view "swing you sinners?"
I wish i could have watched it and compared the two.
I think people are being a little harsh on Skeleton Dance. dont be afraid to have your own opinions guys, i dont think john will mind
Traffic affects how Swing You Sinners loads. During the day on weekdays, traffic is highest. If you bookmark the page and come back at night or on the weekend, you'll be able to stream it.
The video files at the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive are larger than the ones at YouTube, so they may take longer to load. We use the most recent Quicktime codec to allow us to stream the videos at 15 frames per second... much closer to the actual frame rate of the cartoon.
Thanks
Stephen Worth
ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive
http://www.animationarchive.org
"Swing you Sinners" is definitely better...it's actually kind of disturbing at times... but "The Skeleton Dance" is amusingly fun as well. I just like "spooky" old cartoons.
Is there any Disney shorts that you actually like? Or do you just like certain parts of some?
Skeleton Dance probably appealed to the stuffy WHITE audiences of the 1930's because it's a safe novelty piece that just showcases music and animation together (probably the first sound cartoon some people experienced. The effect is all "wow, some stuff is moving to music").
I love the way there is no resolution at the end of the Fleischer cartoon! You expect the character to wake up and have learned a lesson but instead he just gets swallowed up by big skeleton head. Ha Ha! Great stuff!
>>Is there any Disney shorts that you actually like? Or do you just like certain parts of some?
There are some that I like parts of. None of them are entertaining on a human level. But I like the odd design or animation bit or colors.
I don't know any cartoon that works as a whole. They sure as hell don't make you laugh.
I'm thinking of doing a post soon just on Sissy Symphonies. It' beyond me that grown men would make such things! Who the hell did they make them for? They must have tortured the audience. Except for the pansy demographic.
I like Toby Tortoise Returns for the cartoony animation and I like the 3 Little Wolves because it doesn't look like typical generic Disney. The Grim Natwick scenes are great!
Hey, I just made a new blog called the Ren and Stimpy blog and I was worndering that if u can be one of my team members. Go to www.therenandstimpyblog.blogspot.com. It would be really sweet if u can help me with my new blog.
Disney made some good shorts (not many) but Der Fuhrer's Face with Donald Duck was outright hysterical.
Hey John - Just discovered your blog and think its great!
I just started blogging and any tips from your 'animated' mind would be great. It would be even nicer if you could add me to your links!
John,
I remember that you were doing a tribute to the rubber hose animation when you wrote Stimpy's Cartoon Show but Games messed it up.
I noticing that Nickelodeon is just begging for something like Ren & Stimpy these days. They got rid of most of the good shows, but there are only very little good shows left.
_Eric
Hey John, my friends and I are touring the animation mecca in LA and we plan on volunteering at AFISA. Hope to meet some cool cartoonists and animators like yourself when we go there.
Also remember that Skeleton Dance was hampered by having Ub Iwerks on board. While he was a phenominal draftsman, his idea of filling in the lull of a story was "Let's have them do a dance." His imagination could barely think of anything else.
Hell yeah, Swing You Sinners hands down is the better film by far. It makes my Hansel und Gretel film look like Dora the Explora. ;)
Awesome awesome posts lately! Keep it up, budday! =)
Good point David Germain. For that reason, it's actually kind of funny. The ideas in
Skeleton Dance could have easily arrisen from a first grader's brain storming session:
"we can have have the skeleton's....dance. And like, some black cats and stuff...maybe a grave..."
has anyone seen a Halloween cartoon that was from the 70s called "Witches Night Out" where Gilda Radner plays this old. washed up witch who turns 3 kids into ghosts, and goblins to show them what halloween is all about?
It's not like any other cartoon i've ever seen. All the chicks had big jugs and no bra. It was for kids, but it was full of odd sexual innuendos. anyone?
Wow that's interesting, David. I wonder who came up with the actual interesting stuff in Skeleton Dance.
I was never a big fan of Iwerks. The Disney studio really came into its own later on, if you ask me.
In any case, for all the Disney-bashing that's done here, I have never seen the Fleischers' studio do anything good beyond schtick-after-schtick, funny mumbling, worming around and relying heavily on the musical numbers. All right, there's the occasional Superman, but that wasn't much either. Two years after Disney came out with the Snow White movie, the Fleischers came out with their feature length Gulliver's Travels and it was HORRIBLE!
My point is, it's not fair to put Disney up against Fleischers because both have their separate strengths, and both do an equally lousy job filling each other's shoes.
I have never seen the Fleischers' studio do anything good beyond schtick-after-schtick, funny mumbling, worming around and relying heavily on the musical numbers.
What the heck does that mean? Are you just trying to sound like you know what you're talking about? Because that comment is as close to meaningless as I've ever heard.
If you want to defend Disney, come up with some supporting arguments.
See ya
Steve
Ub Iwerks was a great animator in his day. You can't blame the stories and gags on him, because that wasn't his job. Everyone always says that Walt was the one who paid close attention to supervising the stories. The style of gags and stories at Disney didn't change when Iwerks left to form his own studio. But for a short period of time, the quality of the animation sure took a nosedive. That should tell you who was responsible for what.
See ya
Steve
Disney Sucks! I like Pinnocio and a few other films, but your right...the Fleischers work at the time was FAR superior and entertaining. Those Skeleton animations look like they were animated by retarded people. Your right, what grown man would come up with an animation like that???
>>>I remember that you were doing a tribute to the rubber hose animation when you wrote Stimpy's Cartoon Show but Games messed it up.
I didn't know that but I thought Stimpy's final cartoon was hilarious in how bad it was.
Hello,
Just wanted to invite you posting to our find article search directory. Your excellent writings are highly appreciated. Thank you.
Skeleton dance looked like there was a mirror placed in the middle and everything worked around it. Very symmetrical. Fleischer's animation on the other hand was very organic, but that was also it's problem, half the time things just looked liked blob's, true rubber hose!
Disney seemed to keep his rubber hose formulaic, making sure the only bends came in the "proper" places, like between bones and such, while Fleischer bent anything and everything.
Perhaps keeping an order like disney did is good in serious cartoons, but not in sill and wacky.
To sum it up, Disney made me say "oh, how novel"
Fleischer made me say,
"WHAT THE F***!"
kevin,
One episode of Dexter's Laboratory was actually produced from the ideas of a six-year-old. It was called Dexter and Computress Get Mandark! and it was based on an audio tape that a six-year-old fan sent in, wherein he ad-libs a Dexter story, that forms the audio track of the cartoon.
It was also the funniest Dexter episode ever, and it was certainly funnier than that Disney skeleton cartoon.
You might wanna take a look at this link. http://ebaumsworld.com/disney-animation-reuse.html
I think it goes well in line with what you're discussing.
Thats the only good thing Neil Bauman has ever posted, but he probably stole it and never gave proper credit....
>> What the heck does that mean? Are you just trying to sound like you know what you're talking about?
Well...to officially know what I'm talking about, all I need to be is a simple audience member who either enjoys what he's watching or doesn't. I'm totally open to an argument to the contrary.
To explain what I was saying, the Fleischers guys couldn't match the cosy charm, the calm and dynamic pacing, the detailed creations of fantasy worlds from Disney at their best, in my opinion. But Fleischers didn't want to, they didn't have to, and they were comfortable sticking to the zippy, rubbery shorts. Which is fine, but I get tired of inanimate objects suddenly coming to life for no reason, the incessant and contextless clowning, and I feel like I've now seen every possible way for an object or person to run for cover when something scary is coming.
Ultimately, I can't believe I have to echo most of the others here and say "Disney Sucks" just to keep a flame war at bay, especially in a blog frequented by industry professionals. Even John will defend the Disney studio for what they're good at and acknowledge the limits of Fleischers' studio. There are a lot of firey comments in this blog, and I see no reason why they should be limited to one side.
Bitwiz,
That sounds really interesting. Is that available on DVD? i would like to check it out.
On this Disney vs. Fleischer issue…
And I don’t have the detailed expert knowledge that a lot of you guys do, just a couple of gut feelings about these things…
It appears to me that John is putting across a very particular point about the fun and the life in the Fleischer cartoons as opposed to the Disney. And it’s a point that’s consistent with his vision for cartoons and the other stuff he’s been articulating on this blog. It’s his or any artist’s prerogative to make definite unambiguous decisions like that, it’s how you get stuff done.
People who dismiss John for expressing the opinions he has are being silly sausages. To my eyes, he’s framing them in a very persuasive context of surrounding stuff, rather than just shouting them in a negative way or without justification. Every time something’s been criticised it’s only because there’s been a crucial point to make about something that we ought to love and cherish. And we’ve all got discerning brains (you’d hope) and the freedom to stay and learn or leave.
I think perhaps the issue gets confused if you try to make it an argument about the overall ‘objective’ better-ness of Disney or Fleischer's cartoons. That’s maybe not useful, particularly considering all the monstrous iconic Disney associations that confuse the matter further.
What I take from this is the idea that the Disney influence has been disproportionately favoured in the short history of the cartoon form, and that there could be a whole alternate… universe if you go right back to the essence of what was great about those Fleischer cartoons and build upon that kind of hip loose creativity. There is no logical reason to be restricted by ‘Disney rules’. You can have weird spontaneous trippy visual humour that isn’t primitive. This isn’t about having a fetish for the primitive, I think that’s obvious.
The sad thing is I think that the public got with the visual evidence of Disney’s conservative mindset even at that early stage because most people are basically conservative, and are uncomfortable with having their familiarity glands challenged. Raw creative energy, constant novelty and invention are kind of scary to a lot of people. But I don’t think it’s hopeless… if you package your creative radicalism with just the right coating of cuteness and subliminally seduce their eyeballs… they can learn to love stuff they don’t understand. Every product of genius or just of creative integrity has to shift paradigms, or at least shunt them gently.
It’s like with popular art forms like cartoons, the seductive qualities and the marketing has to be part of the substance of the thing… but within that, there’s space for a lot of freedom…. This is all getting a bit abstract. But there are my thoughts.
wow, she's pretty much nailed it!,
dear john,
i'm guessing that maybe you stopped watching disney cartoons when you got bored and never made it to some of the funny ones...
have you seen "Puss Cafe"? i can't believe anyone could watch that cartoon without laughing...
it's on the "oliver and company" dvd extra features... yeah i know.. but it's worth netflixing just to see that cartoon.
thanks for the swing you sinners link.. it's awesome and is loaded with great stuff... but i think that everything didn't work, wheras the skeleton dance kept it super simple and perfected instead of taking any risks.
>> Disney makes disney cartoons, fleishers made fleishertoons and walter lantz made walter lantz cartoons, and warner,and so on and so on. They all had distinctness's that were worth noting and learning form , they still do!
Exactly.
>> >> Disney makes disney cartoons, fleishers made fleishertoons and walter lantz made walter lantz cartoons, and warner,and so on and so on. They all had distinctness's that were worth noting and learning form , they still do!
Exactly.<<
and poo is every bit as good as pussy
poop and pussy are both necessary parts of life... ? or do you mean for eatin?
Naw, he means they deserve equal time in his cartoons.
Heheheheh. :p
I don't like the disney cartoons either , but alot of people like em enough to disagree with you here, So my thinking is maybe they see something I'm not able to, and in turn you obviously see things they don't!
I don't care what the hell anybody says, the best cartoons are yet to be made... one of my favorite all time cartoons is Ren Seeks Help and thats NOT an OLD cartoon! Crummy cartoons only makegreat cartoons better by comparisson.
if it wasn't for the crummy disney stuff , we wouldn't have all the great parody to come out of it, I love those smigel cartoons, crude as they are at least we have them .
Fleischer wins by a landslide! Just count the number of characters and layouts and distortions... and check out the animated bg action! Woo hoo!!!
Noticed your 92 interview on the archive, as well. Will read it soon...
Well I just don't understand how there's even a comparison here...that Disney cartoon is clearly garbage! It looks like really bad puppeteering! And what about those gags Disney uses(if you can even call them that)!? John's absolutely right, what kind of a grown man would come up with crap like that to animate?
I will give it this though, they are both clearly very weird cartoons...but one's weird in a creative and hugely entertaining way, and the other is weird in a completely different, "I think I want to rip my own eyes out and stick them in a blender" kind of way. lol
Fleischers rules!
The Fleischer cartoon is not only better, but it is a half century ahead of it's time! There is not only some great acting in there, but some very unique designs as well. Thank you for sharing.
Oh, and I've always hated "Skeleton Dance".
But I was bored out of my skull watching that Disney crap.
That's because you have no brain, jerk.
>>That's because you have no brain, jerk.
now now...
"But I was bored out of my skull watching that Disney crap."
"That's because you have no brain, jerk."
lol these Disney fans are easliy offended. Did we smite the god?
>>if it wasn't for the crummy disney stuff , we wouldn't have all the great parody to come out of it, I love those smigel cartoons, crude as they are at least we have them .
Not to mention Texas Avery's demolishment of Diznee's conventions!
The beginning to Screwball Squirrel comes to mind.
I'm thinking of doing a post soon just on Sissy Symphonies. It' beyond me that grown men would make such things! Who the hell did they make them for? They must have tortured the audience. Except for the pansy demographic.
That's nice. How eloquent of you. Two of the most knowledgeable people about animation I know are gay/bi. This gay-bashing type of humor makes me sick.
>>That's nice. How eloquent of you. Two of the most knowledgeable people about animation I know are gay/bi. This gay-bashing type of humor makes me sick.
Ewwww. That's just wrong.
Not that there's anything right with that.
Sorry John it's just that I'm fan of the classic Disney cartoons and because of the news regarding Song Of the South, I'm not in the mood for cracks of Disney.
By the way I do admit while I like the Skeleton Dance, I do agree that Swing Your Sinners is the better of the two (Funny how we didn't notice how great this cartoon was back in 1994).
Ewwww. That's just wrong.
Not that there's anything right with that.
What the fuck does that even mean anyway?
>>What the fuck does that even mean anyway?
I means I don't like fags. I'm old fashioned in that regard.
>>Sorry John it's just that I'm fan of the classic Disney cartoons and because of the news regarding Song Of the South, I'm not in the mood for cracks of Disney.
What's the news? Did they destroy it or something? Like they have done to many of their classic features?
I'm gonna post something I really like about Disney soon, Nic, so keep cool till then if you can!
>>That's nice. How eloquent of you. Two of the most knowledgeable people about animation I know are gay/bi. This gay-bashing type of humor makes me sick.
It's not gay bashing. It's just an observation stated in an ironic way, since Disney was such a homophobe. Yet his cartoons are aimed at gays.
>>What's the news? Did they destroy it or something? Like they have done to many of their classic features?
I'm gonna post something I really like about Disney soon, Nic, so keep cool till then if you can!
Bob Iger, their presidente said they won't release it. Fortunately, they can't destroy it's existence (Hard as they try.)
>>
It's not gay bashing. It's just an observation stated in an ironic way, since Disney was such a homophobe. Yet his cartoons are aimed at gays
He was a homophobe? I like him already! But his films leave something to be desired, like pure comedy or pure drama. It's always a mix.
I like both cartoons, but Sinners is the better. Skeleton Dance is like Steamboat Willie, Trees & Flowers, and Three Little Pigs, in that it was historically very important, but it was NOT one of Disney's VERY BEST. But it was at the right place at the right time.
"Sinners" IS one of Fleischer's VERY BEST, more creative and outrageous, and the jazz score gives it hipster/hepcat value. But Fleischer didn't build on his foundation or take the next step, which is why we don't take the kids to Fleischerland for vacations.
Here's irony: "Sinner's" was designed and really "directed" by Ted Sears & Grim Natwick, and drawn by a bunch of rookie animators that included Al Eugster and Shamus Culhane. Six years later, these four gentlemen would be working on Snow White,...for Disney.
Hey Fellow, you have a great blog here! I have a web
site & blog about games center.
Yours is top-notch!
If you have a moment, please visit my site
games center
I wish you all the best!
Hi Blogger, I found your blog quite informative.
I just came across your blog and wanted to
drop you a note telling you how impressed I was with it.
I give you my best wishes for your future endeavors.
If you have a moment, please visit my acid trip art site.
Have a great week!
I'll give my honest thoughts on both shorts:
Swing You Sinners is overall the better cartoon. No contest. It's nightmarish premise, swingin' soundtrack, crazy animation and funny gags make it a sight to behold!
The Skeleton Dance is very generic in comparison, but it's certainly not a bad cartoon. It's best thought of as an "atmospheric short", where the setting takes center stage--and The Skeleton Dance excels in establishing it's spooky setting with it's visuals and music. The tight synchronization of the animation and music also gives it a restrained but structured feeling that at least makes the cartoon feel good, even if you find it boring--its structure is a sharp contrast from the freewheeling nature of Swing You Sinners.
As you said, Disney's abilities best lay not in the actual story content (which is pretty generic) but in the presentation of his ideas--most importantly how well he could establish the mood of his cartoons. Shorts like The Old Mill are prominent examples of this.
Most of Disney's shorts in general just aren't very good outside of their execution. I just recently tried to sit through the first disc of Mickey Mouse in Black & White Vol. 1, and aside from the earliest batch of cartoons, it was one of the most tedious, boring experiences i've had watching short subjects. I could only finish 17 of the 20 cartoons before i stopped.
By the way John, which scenes did Grim Natwick animate in "Three Little Wolves"?
Post a Comment