Where these pantomime 'toons will go?

One of the rarest instances when Europpean cartoons appear at much superior than in the American ones, came to the way they had "studied" the ones that didn't needed of dialogues, by be pantomime. The likes of Zig & Sharko or Grizzly and the Lemmings went both with a strong and united fanbase who demanding more, claiming like the true Renaissance of the animated shorts era... sorta.

One have to travel worldwide for decades and keep noticing that this is the original MGM's Tom & Jerry that were overplayed anywhere, by be the only theatrical animated property to still made veritable money today. Even more so than the Looney Tunes, which its longtime status depends of the way Warner Bros. used to promoted on licening these characters, like in the 1990s.

But they have all a big problem though. These newer 'toons are more "written" than "animated" like says someone whom his blog has discarded as fast that it had started. By written, I mean, they are more dependant to what the script says than any natural evolution or events on the narrative. It don't looked like a cartoon at all, if a real one have to be about how much we've could betraying the predictability of the audience by something that came fresh. Spongbob is easily the latest figure to had understood the basics, and why the yellow sponge keep to lasted as longer.

Take another Xilam's creation, Oggy and the Cockroaches, which stayed to awareness for over a quarter-century already. Here, that would be otherwise the real-life "Itchy & Scratchy" from The Simpsons by be more sadistic and violent in nature than funny. It was a fault of the industry at that time, if unlike in the Road Runner and Coyote series, the physical gags and aftermaths appear both at more painful than entertaining, at this point you can't be sympathetic to none of them, even not to the luckless blue Oggy cat. The cartoon was a hit in France and elsewhere, but were cannibalized in the America by the days of Fox Kids and others, claiming it at too "violent" for young viewers.

I already says elsewhere that some kids cartoons have more mean-spirited characters and are look more cynical than anything seen for an adult audience for Prime-Time. You want your children to be raise to these?

What makes several pantomime cartoons at fun and timeless have to do that the people who had make these actually were in the job when the Silent Films era goes to a predictable end. They've studied Chaplin, Keaton and their likes. They didn't just put a string of random gags and called it a short! The longevity of the theatrical cartoons rest to one thing: Blackout gags. You already have these while watching Oggy, Zig or those Lemming critters.

Unfortunately, most today's iPad childrens would find these no-dialogues stuffs at boring, as this is often the case with most pseudo-Indie shorts that share the same pattern. These pantomime-haters don't comprehend that in today's industry, creating tons of dialogues in the writing is a difficult task that went beyond sophistication and warmth. You can't just pull a string of blackout gags in your thing if that era have passed away since the theatrical animated short business were discarded. 

Even if Disney has followed that trend back in the 1940s, the studio were strict to this in order to keep the high-bar of the medium even if Walt used to be called by Post-War like a "hack". This is there why the studio always provide some of the more iconic characters and stories in the industry while others companies have surrendered for just please the web platforms.

This is there I gaining back my respect and admiration for the Depatie-Freleng series of shorts. You know, The Pink Panther, The Inspector, Ant and the Aardvark and their likes? Those were made by veterans who were at the very top of their game, but that they were also contracted to producing a number of shorts by series in order to be sells to TV. They also producing tons of mediocre TV shows and some remarkable adaptations like their Dr. Seuss TV specials. How such a cartoon factory with rather minimalistic background could reach a much superior status over the one that have preceeded them: UPA?

When UPA winning three Academy Awards back in the 1950s, Depatie-Freleng has the unique ability to reach their sole Oscar to its first own short, The Pink Phink (1964). No hard to justify why the Academy has embraced the sophisticated characterization of the Panther character and the little man's anxiety that were likely a Friz Freleng caricature or something on a battle of colors.

Even if we could hate these modern-day pantomime cartoons to be highly written, they help us to reviving the structure of pantomime contents in life, without to just overrun the same old cartoons from the Golden Age that used before to played for death.