2007 Review: 8 Writing Cartoons

As the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive completes its second year in operation, it's time to review the accomplishments of the past year. Here's a countdown of the ten most important subjects we've covered in 2007. See if your list matches mine. (View the complete list.) Click on the link to see more on this topic.



NUMBER 8: WRITING CARTOONS

One of the best things to happen to animation in the past few years is the growth of blogging among animation professionals. Topics that used to be discussed only in obscure trade journals or at private symposiums are now discussed publicly on the internet, where participants from all over the world can benefit from the exchange of information.

One of the principle catalysts for discussion on the net is John Kricfalusi's blog, All Kinds of Stuff. A series of John's posts on writing for animation created a wave of comment across the "blogosphere". A prominent cartoon scriptwriter vehemently disagreed with John's opinion that cartoons should be written by cartoonists, not scriptwriters. But when he was asked to name his favorite golden age cartoon writer, the scriptwriter was unable to come up with a single name... This isn't particularly surprising because THERE WERE NO CARTOON SCRIPTWRITERS prior to 1960.

Many people working in animation today have very little idea of how cartoons were made in the first half century of the medium. But Walt Disney was happy to tell you how he wrote his cartoons...


And it was the same at every other golden age animation studio...


Here's the Terry-Toons writers at work...


And a "script" for an MGM Tom & Jerry cartoon...


And a page from the "script" to Max Fleischer's Mr. Bug Goes To Town...


And this fragment of a storyboard from Warner Bros by my pick as the greatest cartoon writer of all time, Warren Foster. Check out the link below for a complete storyboard by Foster from the pilot episode of The Yogi Bear Show.


Story: The Greatest Cartoon Writer Of All Time March 27th, 2007

We've posted other great examples of visual storytelling this year as well...

• Alvin Show Pilot Board September 21st, 2007


• Clair Weeks' "Banyan Deer" Storyboard August 12th, 2007


• Ren & Stimpy "Big House Blues" Sequence 03 January 11th, 2007

After the first of the year, I'll have some more storyboards to post.

Go To Number 7 on the list of Top Ten Subjects of 2007

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
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