TIL Thread: Today I learned...

[Madeline]

Also today I learned that there is a free community version of Visual Studio 2017. I don’t know anything about coding, but I had no idea Microsoft did that

[Mr. Big]

Speaking of animation history, TIL (well, this week, but whatevs) that a forgotten Saturday Morning cartoon from 1973 nearly killed the DePatie-Freleng studio.

Specifically, "Bailey's Comets". This was a "Wacky Races" ripoff created by Joe Ruby and Ken Spears, who actually helped develop "Races" for Hanna-Barbera. Most importantly, they created "Scooby Doo", which was a huge hit at the time, so Ruby and Spears capitalized on that to sell whatever ideas they came up with, as networks were willing to buy anything that had their names attached.



This lead to DePatie-Freleng snatching them up from Hanna-Barbera. They created and sold three shows for them, but it was "Bailey's Comets" that was a production nightmare.

For starters, there were something like 5 dozen characters. The show was about a rollerskating competition between 15 teams, each with about 6 members. Because they were rollerskating, dozens of characters had to constantly move, which with a Saturday Morning budget and production schedule, was very difficult to achieve. "Wacky Races" was able to keep the animation costs down by having everybody inside a car, thus only requiring them to animate the wheels.

Even creating the stock animation of each team skating to reuse in every episode was a nightmare on its own. In the end, the show not only went overbudget (they had to hire a night crew to paint the cels, mostly people moonlighting from Filmation and Hanna-Barbera), it was something of a flop in ratings, resulting in CBS moving the show to Sunday morning schedule after a few months.

This was the last show Ruby and Spears did for DFE, and the failure/budgeting problems is probably why. They briefly returned to Hanna-Barbera, where they created "Jabberjaw" and "Dynomutt" before they decided to form their own company Ruby-Spears. As for DFE, they ended up skipping a year from producing a TV series, focusing the 1974 season on making theatrical shorts and TV specials.

TL;DR: A studio nearly had a breakdown because they had to animate too many characters.

[Mr. Big]

TIL that Dave Sim, of "Cerebus" fame, requires anyone who wants to talk to him (especially journalists interviewing him) to sign a pledge that says he's not a misogynist.

Sim also started his own religion.

The more I read about Sim, the more he weirds me out

[Perrydotto]

Dave Sim is a massive creep and talking to him seems inadvisable anyway

[Perrydotto]

Sim's beliefs are based on the premise that conflicts in scripture are the result of an ongoing argument between the true male God and Yoowhoo, a false female God

Despite the description of his views and his reputation as a misogynist, Sim maintains that he is not one.

[Madeline]

Speaking of animation history, TIL (well, this week, but whatevs) that a forgotten Saturday Morning cartoon from 1973 nearly killed the DePatie-Freleng studio.

Specifically, "Bailey's Comets". This was a "Wacky Races" ripoff created by Joe Ruby and Ken Spears, who actually helped develop "Races" for Hanna-Barbera. Most importantly, they created "Scooby Doo", which was a huge hit at the time, so Ruby and Spears capitalized on that to sell whatever ideas they came up with, as networks were willing to buy anything that had their names attached.



This lead to DePatie-Freleng snatching them up from Hanna-Barbera. They created and sold three shows for them, but it was "Bailey's Comets" that was a production nightmare.

For starters, there were something like 5 dozen characters. The show was about a rollerskating competition between 15 teams, each with about 6 members. Because they were rollerskating, dozens of characters had to constantly move, which with a Saturday Morning budget and production schedule, was very difficult to achieve. "Wacky Races" was able to keep the animation costs down by having everybody inside a car, thus only requiring them to animate the wheels.

Even creating the stock animation of each team skating to reuse in every episode was a nightmare on its own. In the end, the show not only went overbudget (they had to hire a night crew to paint the cels, mostly people moonlighting from Filmation and Hanna-Barbera), it was something of a flop in ratings, resulting in CBS moving the show to Sunday morning schedule after a few months.

This was the last show Ruby and Spears did for DFE, and the failure/budgeting problems is probably why. They briefly returned to Hanna-Barbera, where they created "Jabberjaw" and "Dynomutt" before they decided to form their own company Ruby-Spears. As for DFE, they ended up skipping a year from producing a TV series, focusing the 1974 season on making theatrical shorts and TV specials.

TL;DR: A studio nearly had a breakdown because they had to animate too many characters.

It’s interesting to me that the projects that caused so many problems for animation studios tend to be these obscure things, as opposed to relatively higher-profile live action stuff like Cleopatra or Solo.

Also I was reading Cerebus at the time Sim finally made his beliefs public. It was quite a shock, to say the least. Especially because I hero-worshipped the dude for his stance on creators’ rights in comics, being a successful self-publisher for like 15 years, pushing comics forward as something that could be taken seriously, etc. Then that issue came out. 186, I’m pretty sure. The one where he lays out his insane “male light/female void” bullshit in plain text for the world to see. As in, “literally insane because I believe the man would benefit from many years’ worth of intense therapy.”

Yeah, that should have been a lesson to me to never have heroes because they’ll all turn out to be shit. Too bad I was so desperate for role models that it took another 20 years to get it through my thick skull.

I had to confront the fact that I’d spent hundreds of dollars on back issues, reprint books, and merch on this dude who had just lost the plot in a spectacular fashion. I’m ashamed to say that I struggled hard with admitting that he was a misogynist crank to myself. To show just how dumb and gullible I can be, I even gave him the benefit of the doubt and figured “well, some women probably are like that.” Well, big deal, because cis men can also be leeches, as well as trans women, trans men, and people from every creed and ethnicity on Earth. It’s because anybody can turn out to be a bad person, and it’s insane to tie that to gender or anything other than somebody behaving like a bad person. You know, like Dave Sim publishing bizarre misogynist manifestos, then denying he is a misogynist. That kind of bad person.

I’m certainly not proud of how I handled that, because I should have just rejected it and him from first glance. Instead, I tried to separate the art from the artist and kept reading the stupid shit book for two more years, as it kept getting worse and worse and descended into comical levels of self-parody. Look how hard men have it! They’re all going to congregate in a bar and be put upon by mean women! All they want to do is just drink and forget their problems! Also, here’s some turgid, overwrought prose from a mentally ill Canadian man with weird and bad beliefs, where he compares himself to Fitzgerald and Hemingway, and also helpfully provides public domain samples of their work, to forcibly remind readers that as a writer of prose, Dave Sim is to F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway as a 3-year-old with a blunted brown crayon is to Vincent Van Gogh.

And yes, Hemingway was the poster child for repressed homosexuality manifesting as homophobia and toxic masculinity, and even he gave his female characters agency and a semblance of an inner life. Fitzgerald... yeah, call me when Sim can write something like the last paragraph of The Great Gatsby (spoiler alert: it’s not happening).

Sorry about all that. It’s one of those things where I’ve had bitter feelings bottled up for decades but never talked about it to anyone. But the emotional investment I made into that overrated piece of shit comic was a huge mistake and I’m ashamed of it. At least I was a teenager at the time, so I guess I have the excuse of being easily impressed by anything that looked “deep,” no matter how nonsensical and bad it was in reality.

[Perrydotto]

Don't apologize! I really like hearing your thoughts

Having heroes is good, thinking they are infallible or can never disappoint you is when the problem starts, methinks. Seperating the art from the artist is also not always wrong - I think it's a very personal choice that I generally cannot really fault anyone for. Sometimes stuff that really sucks or is made by someone who really sucks can still mean a lot to us. It gets more complicated when the art is visibly affected by what the artist is like, which Cerebus did more over time. At any given point, it's the fan's personal choice where the line is drawn. There are definitely people and works which I'd urge others not to support, but that's again based on my personal feelings and values. What I call trash might still have helped someone else through a very tough time, and neither of us would very well be "wrong" or something. Art is measured by more than just objective skill, a lot more. Critics and opinion pieces can offer very valuable perspectives, but what I personally feel and think about the work is still the most important part. That's why the individual has to decide, ultimately. And the individual's feelings can be complicated too.

I'd say beating yourself up for this sorta thing is not healthy or justified, and having heroes is not a bad thing. Never believing that people can be good and can inspire goodness seems like a very sad alternative to me, at least. It's more about not expecting one person to be perfect, and about being kind to yourself when someone turns out to be a shithead - The fault is on the shithead for doing shitty things, after all, not on you for awarding someone your trust.

[Mr. Big]

What Perry said. ^

TIL that Geocities was still around in Japan, although that will change in March, when it finally shuts down.

[Adiwan]

Today (yesterday to be exact) I learned that floor-level showers are the worst.
I was at a 4-star hotel due to a job-related journey and I needed a shower at the end of the day.
Because it was floor level shower and no door for the shower I accidentally flooded the whole bathroom floor. As a plus the floor was slightly slippery before it got wet. You could imagine how dangerous it got after the flooding.

As a side note: The bathroom was divided by a giant glass window to the bedroom. It was super awkward to poop with an undisturbed view to the bedroom. Even though I could block the view with a curtain it felt wrong.

A picture to illustrate my point

[Mr. Big]

Who the hell thought it was a good idea to make a bathroom door out of GLASS??? Curtain or no curtain...

[stonecutter]

TIL that Dave Sim, of "Cerebus" fame, requires anyone who wants to talk to him (especially journalists interviewing him) to sign a pledge that says he's not a misogynist.

Sim also started his own religion.

The more I read about Sim, the more he weirds me out

I had every book of the collected volumes, but never read the last two. I quit reading when I realized the writing was never going to get even a hundredths as interesting or entertaining as the first four or five volumes (when he was still married and didn't hate women so much to make a religion out of it).

[Pocket]

Today (yesterday to be exact) I learned that floor-level showers are the worst.
I was at a 4-star hotel due to a job-related journey and I needed a shower at the end of the day.
Because it was floor level shower and no door for the shower I accidentally flooded the whole bathroom floor. As a plus the floor was slightly slippery before it got wet. You could imagine how dangerous it got after the flooding.

As a side note: The bathroom was divided by a giant glass window to the bedroom. It was super awkward to poop with an undisturbed view to the bedroom. Even though I could block the view with a curtain it felt wrong.

A picture to illustrate my point

Where is the shower in that picture? I see something that looks like a showerhead below one of the lights, but it's just in the middle of the room with no rod or curtain or anything. Is that what "floor level shower" means, just "the whole room is the shower; good luck not spraying water all over literally everything"?

[Cthulhu Inc]

It's over on the far side. The showerhead is sticking out of the right side; it's quite a bit further away than the two lights 'above' it.

[Princess Flufflebutt]

This is the dumbest fucking thing

[Adiwan]

The shower is right next to the sink, which is also only separated by a glass panel.

[Madeline]

Don't apologize! I really like hearing your thoughts

Having heroes is good, thinking they are infallible or can never disappoint you is when the problem starts, methinks. Seperating the art from the artist is also not always wrong - I think it's a very personal choice that I generally cannot really fault anyone for. Sometimes stuff that really sucks or is made by someone who really sucks can still mean a lot to us. It gets more complicated when the art is visibly affected by what the artist is like, which Cerebus did more over time. At any given point, it's the fan's personal choice where the line is drawn. There are definitely people and works which I'd urge others not to support, but that's again based on my personal feelings and values. What I call trash might still have helped someone else through a very tough time, and neither of us would very well be "wrong" or something. Art is measured by more than just objective skill, a lot more. Critics and opinion pieces can offer very valuable perspectives, but what I personally feel and think about the work is still the most important part. That's why the individual has to decide, ultimately. And the individual's feelings can be complicated too.

I'd say beating yourself up for this sorta thing is not healthy or justified, and having heroes is not a bad thing. Never believing that people can be good and can inspire goodness seems like a very sad alternative to me, at least. It's more about not expecting one person to be perfect, and about being kind to yourself when someone turns out to be a shithead - The fault is on the shithead for doing shitty things, after all, not on you for awarding someone your trust.

It just seems that all my artistic heroes growing up turned out to be awful people. It made me doubt whether or not I should even try to create anything. But that isn’t healthy, either. I know I have complicated feelings about a lot of the things I grew up loving, either because of the creators, or because of subtext that I didn’t realize was there when I was young. Side note: I recently reread Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home and that revolves around a similar theme, except the terrible person she couldn’t help but love was her father. If anyone wants to read a challenging graphic novel, that one is a way better choice than Cerebus (although there is a lot of explicit content in Fun Home, so people who wish to avoid that kind of content should pass on it).

[Madeline]

The shower is right next to the sink, which is also only separated by a glass panel.

I can think of so many things wrong with the layout of this room, from “designed by a voyeur” to “help I slipped on some soap and now I’m bleeding”

[Mr. Big]

Like, I'm just amazed at how badly-designed that bathroom is. Yeesh

[Smoke]

It seems that none of you have experienced the joy that is a standard Bulgarian bathroom: No curtain in a lot of cases, floor-level with a floor drain, and in situations where there is little room it's combined with the toilet in a small bit of space, to the point where you can pretty much shower while taking a crap.

Thankfully the house we're buying has three good bathrooms with plenty of room and proper shower doors.

[Auxiliatrix]

TIL a bunch of interesting math and angle-related information. The math we're taught in schools is very much focused on two-dimensions, which is why I find three-dimensional shapes a lot more interesting, especially since they directly contradict the typical definitions of shapes on a two-dimensional plane.

[Octavia]

I can think of so many things wrong with the layout of this room, from “designed by a voyeur” to “help I slipped on some soap and now I’m bleeding”

Vegas is the only place I've been to with hotel rooms like that. We got a complimentary upgrade once and when we walked in, there were mirrors on the ceiling and a hot tub in the middle of the room.

[diribigal]

TIL a bunch of interesting math and angle-related information.

Oh cool, another person with some interest in math! I teach math/do math research.

Fun fact: since you can only move in two sorts of directions (e.g. up/down and left/right) on that trumpet shape, to a mathematician you're still doing 2D geometry, just with nonstandard rules like "angles of a triangle add up to less than 180 degrees". These nonstandard rules make it "hyperbolic geometry" instead of normal Euclidean geometry.

[SlateSlabrock]

Vegas is the only place I've been to with hotel rooms like that. We got a complimentary upgrade once and when we walked in, there were mirrors on the ceiling and a hot tub in the middle of the room.

Working as designed.

Also holy moly the past few pages have some high-effort TIL.

[Mr. Big]

It’s interesting to me that the projects that caused so many problems for animation studios tend to be these obscure things, as opposed to relatively higher-profile live action stuff like Cleopatra or Solo.

There were a few notable production problems in animation, like "The Thief and the Cobbler", but yeah, it tends to be obscure stuff that really had trouble getting made.

I should note that the other two shows Ruby/Spears did for DePatie-Freleng were "The Barkleys" and "The Houndcats". "The Barkleys" was an "All in the Family" ripoff with dogs. The main dad in the show was even named Arnie Barkley, if the connection to Archie Bunker wasn't subtle enough. "The Houndcats" was a mix of "Mission: Impossible" and "Bearcats!", complete with exploding messages where the gang gets their mission from the chief.

Basically, Ruby and Spears' motif was to take whatever was popular and make a cartoon out of it. I guess they learned a lot from working at Hanna-Barbera Somebody at DFE, while watching the rough cut of the first "Barkleys" episode, asked who wrote it, leading to animator Art Leonardi exclaiming "it wasn't written, it was accumulated!"

H-B themselves did their own "All in the Family" ripoff with "Wait 'Till Your Father Gets Home", although unlike "The Barkleys" (which aired during Saturday Mornings on NBC), "Father" was done for adults, airing on evenings in most stations through syndication.

[W.T. Fits]

H-B themselves did their own "All in the Family" ripoff with "Wait 'Till Your Father Gets Home", although unlike "The Barkleys" (which aired during Saturday Mornings on NBC), "Father" was done for adults, airing on evenings in most stations through syndication.

I remember they used to show "Wait Till Your Father Gets Home" on Cartoon Network a long-ass time ago. Back in the 90's, according to the Cartoon Network Wiki.

[Mr. Big]

The only real thing that stood out about "Father" is that the next door neighbor was an even bigger paranoid nutcase than Dale Gribble.

[Madeline]

I remember “Father,” if only because Tom Bosley voiced the dad, iirc. Even as a kid I was thinking “wow, that’s some typecasting” H-B had so many weird and crummy shows in the ‘70s and I probably saw all of them on “The USA Express” or whatever it was called 10 years past their expiration date. Like “Jabberjaw,” “The Roman Holidays,” “The Hairbear Bunch,” “Wheelie and the Chopper Bunch,” and “Galaxy Goof-Ups,” which answers the question “what does it look like when you combine Star Wars, disco, Huckleberry Hound, and Yogi Bear?” A question no one had ever asked, but look it up and you too will know the answer.

when I was 4, I loved “Galaxy Goof-Ups”

[Octavia]

I remember they used to show "Wait Till Your Father Gets Home" on Cartoon Network a long-ass time ago. Back in the 90's, according to the Cartoon Network Wiki.

The thing I remember most about that show was the awful theme song.

[Mr. Big]

The thing I remember most about that show was the awful theme song.

Wait 'Till Your Father Gets...
Until Your Father Gets...
Wait 'Till Your Father Gets Home

[W.T. Fits]

The thing I remember most about that show was the awful theme song.

Same.

Wait 'Till Your Father Gets...
Until Your Father Gets...
Wait 'Till Your Father Gets Home

God dammit, I'd just finally gotten it out of my head after having posted in here!

[Mr. Big]

I remember “Father,” if only because Tom Bosley voiced the dad, iirc. Even as a kid I was thinking “wow, that’s some typecasting” H-B had so many weird and crummy shows in the ‘70s and I probably saw all of them on “The USA Express” or whatever it was called 10 years past their expiration date. Like “Jabberjaw,” “The Roman Holidays,” “The Hairbear Bunch,” “Wheelie and the Chopper Bunch,” and “Galaxy Goof-Ups,” which answers the question “what does it look like when you combine Star Wars, disco, Huckleberry Hound, and Yogi Bear?” A question no one had ever asked, but look it up and you too will know the answer.

when I was 4, I loved “Galaxy Goof-Ups”

Speaking of voice actors, I recall that the zookeeper's sidekick in "Hairbear Bunch" was voiced by Joe E. Ross, who was a star on the old prime-time sitcom "Car 54, Where Are You?". He popped up a few times in Hanna-Barbera shows during this time (he was the Police Sargent in "Hong Kong Phooey", and he even reprised his Car 54 role in "Wait Till Your Father Gets Home" for one episode).

Joe E. Ross was apparently a really gross person in real life, literally. He was am unkempt, messy slob who loved to tell dirty jokes at the wrong time because he was bad at reading the audience, which made it hard for him to get acting jobs. Both Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera were fans of "Car 54", which helped him get voice acting jobs whenever they had something available.

[Madeline]

Speaking of voice actors, I recall that the zookeeper's sidekick in "Hairbear Bunch" was voiced by Joe E. Ross, who was a star on the old prime-time sitcom "Car 54, Where Are You?". He popped up a few times in Hanna-Barbera shows during this time (he was the Police Sargent in "Hong Kong Phooey", and he even reprised his Car 54 role in "Wait Till Your Father Gets Home" for one episode).

Joe E. Ross was apparently a really gross person in real life, literally. He was am unkempt, messy slob who loved to tell dirty jokes at the wrong time because he was bad at reading the audience, which made it hard for him to get acting jobs. Both Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera were fans of "Car 54", which helped him get voice acting jobs whenever they had something available.

I grew up watching “Car 54” on Nick at Nite, so at least now I know why I heard that voice everywhere in HB cartoons.

[Mr. Big]

I grew up watching “Car 54” on Nick at Nite, so at least now I know why I heard that voice everywhere in HB cartoons.

Generally, if you're watching a HB cartoon and you hear a character say "Ooh! Ooh!", then he was probably voiced by Ross

[Mr. Big]

Thinking back, there were quite a few has-been actors who took up voice acting on Saturday Morning shows because it was the only work they could get. Joe Besser, who was briefly part of the "Three Stooges", did a bunch of voices on 1970s cartoons, including the aforementioned "Houndcats" for DFE, plus "Laff-A-Lympics" and "Yogi's Space Race" for HB.

Besser actually wrote in his autobiography that he enjoyed doing voices because it didn't involve physical acting; you just showed up every week at the recording booth, read your lines for about an hour or so, and collect your check. He also spoke fondly of Friz Freleng and Bill & Joe. Considering that the slapstick work required for 3 Stooges took their toll on the actors' physical well-being, I don't blame Besser for feeling that way.

Then again, the idea of former live-action stars having to do voices in animation full-time to make ends meet is still true today (Paul Reubens kinda made a comeback doing voices in animation). Some actually do really good job at it, and they embrace it, so it's not a bad thing necessarily.

[Madeline]

Dana Delaney as Lois Lane comes to mind as someone who came out of live action, but still nailed her VA role to the extent where she’s my favorite incarnation of the character. You can find several more examples on any show Andrea Romano has ever voice directed and/or cast. She’s one of the best at making that kind of stunt casting actually work.

Mark Hamill is another good example. Being the Joker was a big up for him in a period where people mainly remembered him as “that kid who played Luke Skywalker,” if they remembered him at all.

[Perrydotto]

[Cthulhu Inc]

TIL a bunch of interesting math and angle-related information. The math we're taught in schools is very much focused on two-dimensions, which is why I find three-dimensional shapes a lot more interesting, especially since they directly contradict the typical definitions of shapes on a two-dimensional plane.

Life in Hyperbolic land

[Mr. Big]

TIL that, for the Japanese dub of "Doug", Doug Funnie was voiced by Masako Nozawa.

Yes, the original voice for Goku in "Dragon Ball"

[Juju&Lulu]

TIL Doug has a Japanese dub

[Octavia]

TIL Doug has a Japanese dub

I need to hear the Japanese versions of "Killer Tofu" and "Bangin' on a Trash Can"