The Garbage Dump: 100+ pages of well-aged compost

[Gloomy Rube]

I shared this cartoon on tumblr and it somehow got over 800 likes and reblogs. I'm guessing the subject matter (it's about humor in violence and how some people don't like it), plus the improvised "Home Movies"-ish dialogue, resonates with a lot of people on the site.



I had this digitized from my 16mm print.

I always wondered what it was that people liked about those old tom and jerry cartoons or roadrunner or whatever. I mean, sometimes there were funny jokes, like the one where the coyote has this huge long contraption that the camera keeps panning up for like, 10 seconds, and then when he tries to roll a bomb down it it explodes before even touching it, thus the joke is in the setup having a lack of fulfillment... or something like that.

But yeah, mostly it's just things getting hurt and I never got that as funny, even as a kid. I preferred the main looney tunes show more, since while it still had the slapstick I didn't really like that much, it usually couched it in more funny situations, like the whole square dance scene in that one episode. I dunno, I just don't find violence for violence's sake funny?

[Quanta]

I feel that it's the absurdity of the situations the characters find themselves in rather than the violence. Like, the above short's violence isn't funny by itself, but it is setup for the joke at the end, and so it becomes funny in hindsight because the joke itself is such an absurd moment.

I think Tom & Jerry is much the same. I mean, Tom is a housecat: he has food, a place to sleep, most certainly a litterbox somewhere, so why does he need to go to such lengths to catch a single mouse, especially when his repeated failures often end with him getting nothing out of it, oftentimes getting hurt, and quite possibly putting his living situation in jeopardy? It's completely ridiculous.

[Madeline]

Situational humor is the bedrock of the good Wile E. Coyote shorts, the ones made by Chuck Jones. The road runner is pretty incidental to whatever’s going on, and the comedy is all about the coyote overreaching himself with increasingly ridiculous plans, then being humiliated when they backfire and he gets his comeuppance. The humor isn’t in the physical violence, it’s in how he sabotages himself and realizes it, over and over again. The slapstick is basically just there to emphasize how the coyote feels. And he’s always whole again before the next gag or the next short. But there’s always a subjective element to anything, so not everybody will find it funny, and that’s perfectly okay.

If anyone wants to see really bad mindless violence in cartoons, just look up Herman and Katnip, which make Tom & Jerry look positively bloodless by comparison There’s a reason why they were the inspiration for Itchy and Scratchy. I don’t find Herman & Katnip funny at all, they just make me cringe

[Perrydotto]

agreed with everything Quanta and Madeline said

I love good slapstick a lot because it's about a ridiculous situation escalating in very well choreographed, written ways

[Mr. Big]

Agreed with Quanta and Madeline. To the surprise of no one, I'm huge on good slapstick.

Also agreed re: "Herman and Katnip". Here's a particularly gruesome ending:



The Simpsons crew can use this gag in Itchy and Scratchy, and it wouldn't be out of place.

[Quanta]

I feel like what they were trying to go for there was a series of escalating violent gags, but there's not really any sort of setup; it's just "the cat has a pot dropped on him; now he's on fire; now he shot himself; now he thinks he's blind and starts running into things. Hah hah, why aren't you laughing?"

[Auxiliatrix]

I feel like what they were trying to go for there was a series of escalating violent gags, but there's not really any sort of setup; it's just "the cat has a pot dropped on him; now he's on fire; now he shot himself; now he thinks he's blind and starts running into things. Hah hah, why aren't you laughing?"

Agreed. There's just not really a joke.

If you ever dig into some of the obscure animated shows of the past, say, 40-50 years, there's an awful lot of rip-offs of other shows, as well as rather questionable material.

[Mr. Big]

Ever watch a particularly violent cartoon and wonder if the person who wrote it is really messed up, especially if it's a recurring thing in their other work? I won't lie, I had one or two moments where I asked this question to myself.

It was officially confirmed recently with the "Ren and Stimpy" creator

[Factory Factory]

[Madeline]

[Perrydotto]

Ancient Egypt and post-WW2 Germany for me, when I was like 10

a bit later came in the Vikings and shit

[Highbrow Dash]

Dinosaurs.

And then ancient Greece & its mythology.

[West Filly]

The Plantaganet Dynasty

[Octavia]

And then ancient Greece & its mythology.

This for me.

My dad had a big book called "classic myths to read aloud" that he'd read to us before bed most nights

[Mr. Big]

Pre-Meiji Restoration Japan, especially the Edo period.

[Gloomy Rube]

Three Kingdoms period! Entirely because I played Destiny of an Emperor as a kid.

[Mr. Big]

So this week I learned that the word "pill" can also mean someone who is obnoxious or otherwise unpleasant.

And I think that's just plain great. We should always use the word "pill" when talking about people like that.

[Gloomy Rube]

... We do? I guess here in Rural West Coast or something that's more common, because I hear people call other people pills a lot around here.

[Mr. Big]

Not so much on the Eastern and Central side.

My dad told me it used to be common when he was a kid in the 1950s, but he rarely heard it since then.

[minty]

There was a pleasant Christmas Herman and Katnip episode that ended with the mice killing katnip and using his dead body as a Christmas tree, which sounds like something an edgy 13-year-old would write.

And people thought the 50's were wholesome...

[The Ghost of Ember]

I was super into medieval europe from like 9-11

[Mr. Big]

There was a pleasant Christmas Herman and Katnip episode that ended with the mice killing katnip and using his dead body as a Christmas tree, which sounds like something an edgy 13-year-old would write.

And people thought the 50's were wholesome...

The same studio also made "Baby Huey", and one cartoon had a fox going after Huey and other baby ducks. It ended with the gun that the fox was using accidentally going off on himself, which killed him, covered in holes.

The corpse then fell into the player piano that was under him, which gets caught on the roller, playing a song as his corpse gets spun, probably breaking his bones into small pieces as this happens.

What the fuck, Famous Studios writers

[Octavia]

A guy dropped 200 identical wallets in 20 cities, some highly-populated and others small towns, and tested to see how many of them were returned. I was pleasantly surprised by the results!

[The Ghost of Ember]

I'll be honest, DC did a lot better than I expected.

[minty]

I once found a wallet that basically had the owner's full life of ID's in it. But no phone number. No amount of online searching could find the owner so it was given to the police station.

[stuff]

that was a cool vid.

I actually did lose my wallet in Disneyland in 2012. When I went to lost and found after a brief search, they already had it.

[Octavia]

I'll be honest, DC did a lot better than I expected.

I was very proud of Chicago.

Detroit and NYC, though

[Mr. Big]

Some of you might remember the Scootaloo "Boxen" video. He finished his second year film at the animation school, and it's gorgeous



I love those two characters

Anyone spotted the "geddup" noise?

[Quanta]

[Perrydotto]

[Pocket]

I went poking through Wikimedia Commons for pictures of particularly cute Trabants and, well... I can't deny that this one qualifies, even if it's not remotely what I had in mind.





♪ "We're going riding on the autobahn of love..." ♫

[Gloomy Rube]

Little pink cars are so cute, I saw a Pink Fiat a couple days ago and I wanted it

Edit: Big pink cars are good too

[Mr. Big]

Pink cars, you say?

[Octavia]

Friendly reminder that it's Mother's Day, so call your moms.

Or take her out to brunch like I am.

[Mechanical Ape]

I’m getting my car detailed so I can take her for a drive. She loves my car and I want it to be clean for her.

[Gloomy Rube]

Mama said knock you out was actually inspired by LL Cool J's grandma who told him to knock them out.

[Auxiliatrix]

This is beautiful. I'm going to remember this forever.

[Mr. Big]

So this news happened.

Somehow I never knew that DHX Media owns a stake of "Peanuts". So...MLP/Peanuts crossover when?

[Aria Genisi]

[Cthulhu Inc]

Three Kingdoms period! Entirely because I played Destiny of an Emperor as a kid.