Did this animation style have a name? - And was it the calarts of the 90's and 00's?

[cybertoaster]

Anyone knows?

 

[Breadbassket]

UPA Revival.

 

[McMitch]

It’s called “Flash was cheaper than animation cells.”

 

[Vect]

It's called 'UPA revival', which is a modernized version of the United Productions of America cartoons from the 1950's.

Literally everything on Cartoon Network was like that for a while.

 

[Lord of the Large Pants]

Frutiger Aero.

 

[Dagoth AMOGUS]

Not really? It seems to be the artist’s own style.

 

[Grub]

I always hated that art style even when I was a kid. I almost didn't watch clone high because of the art. But one day it came on after Undergrads or Mission Hill and it was pretty funny but I still can't stand the way it looks.

 

[cybertoaster]

Literally everything on Cartoon Network was like that for a while.

For over a decade too.

I always hated that art style even when I was a kid

Yeah it gave the same mass produced slop vibes as calarts does now.

 

[From The Uncanny Valley]

Canadatoon?

 

[skykiii]

I just called it "garbage."

But if I had to give it a proper name, since it seemed to start with Genndy Tartotokv... fuck I can't spell it, the guy behind Dexter's Lab.... I guess you could call it Genndy-Vision.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

I love the artstyle, very expressive and diverse. You know everything about a character just from looking at him/her. It's a good middle ground between realistic proportions and caricatures.

Sadly American animation died a violent death and got replaced by literal blobs with no edges.

 

[Kari Kamiya]

Honestly miss this look, they weren't afraid to have *gasp* angles in their character designs. Sometimes the bolded outlines didn't look right, but it helped them pop off the screen when used correctly.

 

[big pauper]

It’s called “Flash was cheaper than animation cells.”

digital animation can do things cheaply and things you couldn't do with cells so people went crazy with it

 

[Tate McRae]

I loved this era, as well as all the Hanna-Barbera cartoons you'd still get on Cartoon Network at the time.

 

[McMitch]

digital animation can do things cheaply and things you couldn't do with cells so people went crazy with it
https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZjJNRrmOmno

Flash is a subset of digital animation, which Samurai Jack did not use. And that’s an unfair comparison, because part of the motivation behind SJ was to push what a western tv cartoon could do.

As an aside: the marketing of Samurai Jack’s artstyle was what prompted me to start considering animation itself when I was a kid.

 

[Froggy Fresh Sextape]

Yeah it gave the same mass produced slop vibes as calarts does now.

Funnily enough McCracken and Tartakovsky were both CalArts students.

 

[big pauper]

Flash is a subset of digital animation, which Samurai Jack did not use. And that’s an unfair comparison, because part of the motivation behind SJ was to push what a western tv cartoon could do.

As an aside: the marketing of Samurai Jack’s artstyle was what prompted me to start considering animation itself when I was a kid.

Samurai Jack was most assuredly digitally animated you can just look at any frame of it and see the compositing. If you're trying to make some argument about Thing Bad just say 2d stretch rigging sucks because that was what flash heralded in - Johnny test

 

[skykiii]

Samurai Jack was most assuredly digitally animated you can just look at any frame of it and see the compositing. If you're trying to make some argument about Thing Bad just say 2d stretch rigging sucks because that was what flash heralded in - Johnny test

I'm pretty sure dude was saying Samurai Jack didn't use Flash, not that it wasn't animated digitally.

 

[cybertoaster]

Honestly miss this look, they weren't afraid to have *gasp* angles in their character designs. Sometimes the bolded outlines didn't look right, but it helped them pop off the screen when used correctly.

The writing was better but the style problem is the same, mass-produced, don't let the nostalgia make it seem better than it was.

Funnily enough McCracken and Tartakovsky were both CalArts students.

See what I mean?

 

[Kari Kamiya]

digital animation can do things cheaply and things you couldn't do with cells so people went crazy with it
https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZjJNRrmOmno

I'm so thankful that one of the Powerpuff Girls VHS tapes had this as a preview of Samurai Jack. It just looked so cool, but having had no cable, couldn't watch it. Boo.

I just have to sit my lazy butt down to watch it.