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Cinematic Robot Supplement -- Cartoons
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Jack Bohn
Dec 12, 2022, 12:28:44 PM12/12/22
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If necessary, I had been psyching myself up to write a wrapup report on my October series of Movie Robot posts, but writing that many posts in a month had already taken a lot out of me.
It has come to my attention that the Cartoon Research site has a series of posts by Charles Gardner on cartoon robots. By coincidence, the series was interrupted during October, but has resumed:
https://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/we-robots-part-4-clanking-catastrophe/
A link to Part 4, down in the comments, a helpful person has put links to the earlier posts from a few months ago. Hopefully you can navigate your way from here to current posts. Next in his history should be '60s TV cartoons, but he has said in earlier posts that he is not up on the adventure cartoons of the era.
A few interesting observations:
The first artificial lifeforms animated were not artificial humans, but artificial animals, and not anthropomorphic animals, but polo ponies and barnyard cows.
I have commented on a certain lack of distinction between artificial life being based on biology or mechanics, notably using Frankenstein as an early type. This site notes Frankenstein's creation, although borrowing from Universal's image, is often visually reworked into mechanical terms. (Later, in the '50s and '60s, it is noted that aliens have a similar intersection of biology and machine, not just antenna, but meters on their bodies. The question is left open on whether they are living or mechanical; I doubt at the time the answer that they were bionically enhanced had even been concieved.)
It is pointed out that the "hatrack" or tinkertoy or rod-headed robot in the automatic house Daffy is trying to sell Elmer (in "Design for Leaving" (1954)) had appeared before, in Houses of the Future in "Dog-Gone Modern" (1939), and "House Hunting Mice" (1948), inspected by characters who didn't go on to superstar status, a pair of nonspeaking puppies and a pair of mice; it then had a cameo in "Hare Lift" (1952) as a robot pilot activated to evaluate an airplane's situation and take the correct action. This reminds me of one artist's comment on various listings of props reappearing in Pixar films as being at the least Easter Eggs, or at most clues that all the films form a secret apocalyptic history: the artist said that once you have designed something, you try to reuse it whenever possible. I will guess this reuse had a benefit the creators in the '30s thru '50s wouldn't have anticipated; all these cartoons, seen only days or weeks apart on TV in the '60s or '70s blur in little kids' minds, the gags actually used are supplemented by ones recalled from earlier cartoons to make more jokes in memory.
--
-Jack
It has come to my attention that the Cartoon Research site has a series of posts by Charles Gardner on cartoon robots. By coincidence, the series was interrupted during October, but has resumed:
https://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/we-robots-part-4-clanking-catastrophe/
A link to Part 4, down in the comments, a helpful person has put links to the earlier posts from a few months ago. Hopefully you can navigate your way from here to current posts. Next in his history should be '60s TV cartoons, but he has said in earlier posts that he is not up on the adventure cartoons of the era.
A few interesting observations:
The first artificial lifeforms animated were not artificial humans, but artificial animals, and not anthropomorphic animals, but polo ponies and barnyard cows.
I have commented on a certain lack of distinction between artificial life being based on biology or mechanics, notably using Frankenstein as an early type. This site notes Frankenstein's creation, although borrowing from Universal's image, is often visually reworked into mechanical terms. (Later, in the '50s and '60s, it is noted that aliens have a similar intersection of biology and machine, not just antenna, but meters on their bodies. The question is left open on whether they are living or mechanical; I doubt at the time the answer that they were bionically enhanced had even been concieved.)
It is pointed out that the "hatrack" or tinkertoy or rod-headed robot in the automatic house Daffy is trying to sell Elmer (in "Design for Leaving" (1954)) had appeared before, in Houses of the Future in "Dog-Gone Modern" (1939), and "House Hunting Mice" (1948), inspected by characters who didn't go on to superstar status, a pair of nonspeaking puppies and a pair of mice; it then had a cameo in "Hare Lift" (1952) as a robot pilot activated to evaluate an airplane's situation and take the correct action. This reminds me of one artist's comment on various listings of props reappearing in Pixar films as being at the least Easter Eggs, or at most clues that all the films form a secret apocalyptic history: the artist said that once you have designed something, you try to reuse it whenever possible. I will guess this reuse had a benefit the creators in the '30s thru '50s wouldn't have anticipated; all these cartoons, seen only days or weeks apart on TV in the '60s or '70s blur in little kids' minds, the gags actually used are supplemented by ones recalled from earlier cartoons to make more jokes in memory.
--
-Jack
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