Caricature Cartoons

 

I'm a huge fan of celebrity caricature stuff, especially in cartoons. 

Back in the 30s-40s, there was a concept where famous people at the time would get a cameo in a animated short.

Some of them worked perfectly. They have really appealing and easy to draw character designs and makes for some expressive animated scenes that make the short more interesting.

Some of them completely fall into the uncanny valley. The CooCoo Nut Grove for example is what I consider to be disrespectful and ugly. 

I believe you couldn't get into trouble if you designed a famous person back in the day. But I have a theory, maybe Friz Freleng thought that was the case. But it ends up looking horrifying.

When I first experienced watching these type of cartoons I wanted to fully discover the classics, and I'm glad I did because just like with Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry, these felt life-changing to me.

Not only was I completely absorbed by these cartoons, some of these they portrayed them perfectly. For example, I love Fred Astaire's animation in Mother Goose Goes Hollywood. 

I remember watching Hollywood Steps Out numerous of times, it was definitely really good to look at, and it stepped into a new age of experiencing classics. 

I also remember watching Bacall To Arms loads of times. It's a hilarious cartoon even though it reuses animation. Still, the designs are appropriate. I can tell that's Humphrey Bogart, the rotoscoping is also really memorable and slick.

A few months later, I decided to not get into too much of the cartoons, and really get into watching classic hollywood. Three Stooges, Laurel and Hardy, etc.

Now do I have the audacity to actually draw and design some of these people myself?

Of course. They're timeless, and I'm at a point where I'm good at drawing more professionally and keeping a close look at any outline errors.

A gallery of Classic Hollywood talents 

People still have jobs where they can draw people in caricature styles, but I don't think it ever came as close as the old cartoons. 

Not to help they are animated more better instead of Adobe Flash nonsense. 

If you watched more modern shows that have a hollywood actor appear in a cameo, your missing out. The Autograph Hound (1939), and Mother Goose In Swingtime (1939) are both the best options. There's more of a movement to them. They may not be funny, but they're appropriate.

Have you seen these animated versions of real people move this gracefully? 

I'll be going through talking about The Ritz Brothers in Disney's Autograph Hound next post.