More Juggling

I'm back with a little more on cartoon juggling.

These next two clips I'm going to show come from two different studios in two different time periods. These two might not constitute as "real" juggling, but I think they count eitherway.

This first clip comes from Popeye's debut cartoon: "Popeye the Sailor" from 1933 by the Fleischer Studio. Does anybody know who animated it?

I especially like juggling when it's timed to a beat (musical or not) & as everybody knows, everything in Popeye cartoons is timed to a beat. Even when the characters are just standing around they bounce to the music.

Back to juggling... in most cases, the juggling act is the gag itself, like the Donald Duck clip I posted before. In this case, the juggling is an add-on to make the "Hit the Nerd" gag funnier. They could've had Popeye hit the "nerd" millions of other ways, but what better way is there to help introduce Popeye to animation than to show what his muscles can do. Although his arms may be huge & bulky tumor-like lumps, he can still pull off a little style & grace with them. Such dexterity!

Besides, this is a Fleischer cartoon, everything has got to be funny & rubbery!

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This next clip comes from Disney's Sword in the Stone, exactly 30 years after Popeye's animated debut. In this scene, Merlin (transformed into a squirrel for this particular sequence) fiddles around with an acorn.

Even though he's only playing around with one acorn, he's still juggling it up in the air, off his feet, etc. This scene is probably influenced by the Harlem Globetrotters.

Unlike the Popeye scene, there's a lot of things going on here:

First off, this is Disney animation, so everything has to be more realistic (even though there's a blue talking squirrel juggling acorns). While the balls in Popeye felt like weightless ping-pong balls, this acorn has weight. There are no cartoon physics here, there's mass, momentum & inertia in action going on.

This was animated by Frank Thomas, who by 1963 had over 30 years of animation experience. He knows a thing or two about realistic motion, after animating lifeless marionettes, dogs, cats, deer, humans & hundreds of other characters. Besides, Thomas was a perfectionist, so everything he animated had to be perfect before he let it go to final color.

Like the Popeye clip, this juggling is timed to music, but unlike Popeye's juggling, there's a lot of nuances in the action. While Popeye's timing just went "boink! bink! boink! bink!...", this juggling is timed to a unique melody with unique lyrics. Certain actions are done in relation to the music & words of the song. For example, when Merlin say's "explanation", he flutters & spins the acorn to the sound of the word. In "discaboomeration", he catches the acorn on the accented "boom" & rolls it down his arm as the "-eration" rolls out of his mouth.

& like the Donald Duck clip, Merlin is interuppted by an outside force, this time by a homely, love-crazed girl squirrel. Merlin is surprised, embarassed & by the end of the song, know's how this is gonna turn out (just look at that expression on his face in those last few frames!)

Just watching this animation as a normal everday viewer would think that was cute or fun. But when an animator like me watches it, I wonder "How in God's name did he pull that off?!" Frank put a lot of thought into this little scene, & boy did he make it soar!

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& I know what you're thinking... you think I have no idea what I'm talking about, do you. Well, half the time I don't. Still, I put a lot of thought into animation like this. Besides, I'm only a novice when it comes to doing animation myself, so I don't the experience like some people do. Plus, I have a hard time putting them into readable, understandable words & sentences. I'm dyslexic in that way. There are definitely people out there who can do this better than I can.

Now I need your help! If any of you know of any animated juggling scenes that I haven't mentioned yet, let me know & post those too! Thanks!

Juggling in Animation

Earlier this week, I posted a clip of Donald Duck juggling from the cartoon "Mickey's Circus". To me, juggling scenes in animation always catch my eye. I guess it's because of several things:

-A) The intricacy & complexity of the juggling itself

-B) What the character is juggling (balls, pins, household objects, knives, etc...) & how many objects is he/she juggling at once.

-C) The amount of control that a character has (very skilled? very clumsy? Is it their first time?)

-D) The character's attitude while juggling (cocky? cautious? scared?)

Scroll down to the Donald post & watch the clip again, now having these four elements in mind. What did you notice? What did you learn?

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Let's start off with A: At first, Donald is doing a normal juggling act, juggling only with his hands. As it goes on, he really gets into it & starts bouncing & rolling them off his feet & head without missing a beat. He even balances all the balls on his rear & butts them back up in the air!
A normal person could never do these things. It's impossible. But in a cartoon, anything is possible, so to us it's pure magic. I'd LOVE to do something like that, but I can't because my actions are limited, but Donald's movement is limitless.

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Now on to B: Donald is only juggling with rubber balls, so chances are these probably wouldn't do much harm if he screwed up. Plus, he's juggling SEVEN rubber balls! It's an odd number, but to a superstitious person, luck would probably be on his side.

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Now C: Donald's juggling is effortless. He's probably had plenty of practice & has done it millions of times before. He's so good at it, he doesn't even drop a beat of sweat. He could probably do this all day if he wanted to.

Donald has complete control over what he's juggling. He knows what's coming next because it's probably all routine to him. He only loses that control when an outside force comes in & disrupts him.

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Finally, D: Since Donald has experience with juggling, he's a lot more confidant than someone whose just starting out. He's so confidant in himself that he hardly pays any attention to what he's doing & becomes somewhat cocky. He's having a good time, not only because he's juggling, but because someone is watching him juggling! He smiles & ogles the audiece watching, almost shouting "Look at me! Look at me! Aren't I swell? Aren't I a talented, skillful, suave, handsome, irresistable little duck?"

At the end of his act, he smiles & opens his arms to the audiece, absorbing their applause & cheering, until he's knocked over by larger balls thrown by his seals off-screen, finally losing control & dropping the balls. He's angry, embarrased & has a face full of dirt. "There goes the whole act!"

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I probably didn't have to go through all that evaluation, but it's true! It may look like just some cartoon character juggling, but behind all that there's that "Why? factor" that might explain why a character is doing what he/she is doing.

I'll talk more about juggling in animation later on, probably sometime in the next two weeks. & don't worry, I'll include video for you to watch!

Thanks again to Kevin Langely for helping me out again!

Oh, & by the way, if anyone can identify who animated Donald in that scene, drop by & let me know. That would be great! Thanks!

*Update 2/22/08* Hans Perk has the draft for this cartoon, but it's missing the first three pages! Still, he told me the other animators on the film, so it's either one of these three people: Frank Thomas, Al Eugster & Shamus Culhane. If there are any IDer's out there who can tell which one did it, I'd really appreciate it, thanks!

Donald Juggling from "Mickey's Circus" (1936)

Here is a short clip of Donald juggling some rubber balls from Mickey's Circus (1936). You can check out the full cartoon HERE.

The cartoon itself has some of the best animation I've ever seen in a Disney short, but the animation of Donald here really stands out the most for me, I'm completely hooked on it! The animation is timed right to the beat & Donald's effortless performance blows me away! This is the kind of animation I'd like to do someday. Does anybody know who animated this scene?

*Update 2/22/08* Hans Perk has the draft for this cartoon, but it's missing the first three pages! Still, he told me the other animators on the film, so it's either one of these three people: Frank Thomas, Al Eugster & Shamus Culhane. If there are any IDer's out there who can tell which one did it, I'd really appreciate it, thanks!

I heard somewhere that this was first cartoon Milt Kahl worked on as a full-fledged animator, but I'm not sure if it's entirely true (I think he animated Mickey announcing Donald at the beginning of the cartoon, though). Can anybody verify this for me?

I captured this clip using a program I have called SnagIt!, which I usually use for framing/capturing pictures of webpages or snippets of a picture for reference. I didn't know that it captured video too, so I'm a pretty happy camper right now. I've been trying to get a decent video capture/converter program all week to no avail. It may not be the best program to use for this sort of thing, but I'll have to manage for now. Maybe I can do more of these animation clip posts in the future (that is, if you want to). Expect to see some of my SVA animation up in the next few days.

Oh, & I'd like to thank Kevin Langley for helping me out this past week. Make sure to check out his blog "Cartoons, Model Sheets & Stuff" to see some really great cartoons with a lot of informative insight behind them. There's a direct link to his blog on the right side of the page too! Thanks again, Kev!