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BY KAKEN MAZAKE.With P. NSIDERS JOKE THAT CANADIANS ARE THE GYPSY KINGS OF THE ANIMATION WORLD. THERE IS PROBABLY A CANUCK IN EVERY MAJOR INTERNATIONAL STUDIO — RUNNING MGM'S ANIMATION UNIT, DESIGNING CHARACTERS WITHIN DISNEY'S DOORS, INNOVATING AT INDUSTRIAL LIGHT AND MAGIC (ILM), BREAKING NEW GROUND AS FEATURE DIRECTORS, AND REDEFINING TOONS LEFT, I ON THE TUBE. AT INTERNATIONAL FESTIVALS AND FILM TOURNEES, CANADIAN ARTISTS STAND OUT. PHS: GRA TO SUSPICIOUS FOREIGNERS, IT MUST SEEM AS IF CANADIANS ARE INVOLVED IN AN INTERNATIONAL PHOTO CARTOON CONSPIRACY. THE GLUM' IIICOMEKS, LIKE ITS riki-DECES- DEStITE THE ADOLESCENT lki_fEKENCES, LIKE THE tOrULAlk SKETCH COMEDY SHOWS, REN AND STIMtY, IS NOT VACUOUS. SOR THEY ACKNOWLEDGE THE INGKAINED STUtIDITY Of THE TU51_ BY MAKING SMART COMEDY OUT Of NOKTH AMERICA'S Oumt5IN6--00Whi , „ , Getting to the bottom of this remarkable the NFB to form an animation unit, was mator at ILM. Perched above the 49th diaspora requires a probe of our nation's blind to passports. He recruited the best parallel, Canadians have learned how to collective pysche. Heritage and geogra- and the brig est around the world, infiltrate and blend into the corporate phy play a part. Animators jokingly refer including Bri in's Gerald Potterton, environmen ts. to the cold expanse of our great White Denmark's Ka Pindal, the Netherland's A temple of American culture, the North and the artistic impulse to person- Paul Driessen d Zlatko Grgic of Yugo- Disney Studios are strangely overrun by ally imprint the empty spaces. The mul- slavia. Now, nadians have a unique Canucks like Duncan Marjoribanks, Nik ticultural landscape is another factor. vantage point en viewing other coun- Ranieri and Joe Haidar who headed Canadian animators are notorious cross- tries, particularly their southern neigh- south for the work and the weather. Just breeders, and they trace their roots to bours. "Canadians know Americans bet- how were they able to slip into this capi- Sheridan College (in Oakville) and the ter than they know themselves, because talistic monolith? It was a quiet revolu- National Film Board. From the word go, they observe them all day through the tion at Disney. "We are the guys upstairs Norman McLaren, a Scotsman hired by airwaves," says Steve Williams, chief ani- who aren't invited to the party down- left, JOHN KRICFALUSI's Ren and Stimpy; below, DANNY ANTONUCCI's The Grunt Brothers NIK RANIER1's Lumiere (Beauty and the Beast), above, and Jafar (Aladdin), right stairs, so we sneak in through the heat ments Antonucci and Kricfalusi offer up tive experience of growing up in a tv cul- ducts. And because we look like them have little moral fibre. They serve as eye ture, while at the same time parodying and talk like them, we get away with it," candy to disenfranchised youth impa- it. says Haidar. It was a different story at tient with shows that are supposed to be The slick and frenetic pace has cap- ILM. The raptor roar heard around the "good for you." Instead, Kricfalusi and tured the schizophrenic mood of today's world in Jurassic Park was the brainchild Antonucci push the envelope at the spe- youth. Ren and Stimpy, in particular, of Canadians Steve Williams and Eric cialty channels with burping, farting, mirrors the dialectical dilemma of teens Armstrong. This team took ILM, and petrified body fluids, and other nasties. — torn between fascination with the pop the world, by storm. Feature filmmaking The Grunt Brothers series is based on culture icons who take an anti-societal will never be the same thanks to their an MTV spot designed by Antonucci. stance, and cynicism towards the experimentation. The insert features six cancerous charac- inevitable commercialism their heroes voi The Canadian ironic sensibility is also ters, each grunting painfully as eyes fall into. The Grunt brothers don't quite creeping into American programming. bulge and veins pop. The scene cuts to reach the pathological proportions of After languishing for years in the an MTV logo plopping into a toilet John Kricfalusi's chihuahua, Ren. By Saturday morning slots, commericial bowl. Scatalogical humour reigns on comparison, Antonucci's characters are animation has found a primetime niche cable. Antonucci has developed his more sedate. The hypertension manifest- on the cable webs, and Canadians are grunting trio into a gelatinous brethren, ed in straining muscles, engorged arteries adroitly surfing this new wave of inter- persecuted throughout the centuries for and veins, and dilated eyes leads to an est. Riding the crest is The Grunt their odd rituals. implosion in the brothers Grunt, rather Brothers, a creation of Vancouver's Despite the adolescent references The than the explosion of rage and frustra- Danny Antonucci, and the latest addi- Grunt Brothers, like its predecessor Ren tion that typifies the character of Ren. tion to MTV's line-up, which includes and Stimpy, is not vacuous. Like the Whereas the havoc wreaked by the Beavis and Butt - Head. Antonucci is a popular sketch comedy shows, they Grunts is almost accidental, Kricfalusi successor to John Kricfalusi, a Canadian acknowledge the ingrained stupidity of purposefully unleashes his characters on expatriate who helped resuscitate the the tube by making smart comedy out of the world. medium with his characters, Ren and North America's dumbing-down. The Antonucci and Kricfalusi both attend- Stimpy. Like Kricfalusi, Antonucci has shows are self-aware; they give a know- ed Sheridan College at the same time no intention of catering to the action ing wink-wink to the audience, with and share an affinity for bursting capil- heroes or Care Bears pablum that is ironic insertions of music video clips and laries. But the similarities end there. spoon-fed to kids. The dietary supple- mock bumpers. They reaffirm the collec- Antonucci is a disciple of Mary New- 6 TAKE ONE I WAS VIE ANTI-DISNEY STYLE. IN MY SCHOOL DAYS; I DIDN'T LIKE. THE LOOK IN ANIMA TION OF THE ROUNDED, STKLAM-LIND CHARACTERS. Wilk I WOULD fOK AWHILE, I KE.ALIZI-D IT WAS A !UAW SOUND INDUSTRIAL DLSIO mA1400ANKS THAT WORKED" DUNCAN land, a former graduate from Los and dear to adolescents' hearts. Yet, it's the Orient. He believes animators must Angeles who settled in Vancouver in the character design that makes this car- train by studying the work of the mas- 1973 to set up his company, Interna- toon so interesting. Lupo is no typical, ters, Bob Clampett and Tex Avery in tional Rocketship. Newland, whose first bulbous-nosed, bug-eyed character. particular. film Bambi Meets Godzilla achieved cult Lupo is fashioned after Max Fleischer When Nickelodeon's president Gerry status, says his ambition has always been cartoons and has the rubber-hosed Laybourne announced the cable network to make personal films. Over the years, limbs, zipper mouth, and beady eyes was looking for animator-driven car- his commercial production has under- favoured by West Coast animators toons, Kricfalusi and his new crew at 1 written the hard costs of his shorts, as Newland and Al Sens. Spumco were ready. Kricfalusi took his well as other freelancers in his orbit. "I'd In contrast, Kricfalusi says he wasn't portfolio crammed with ideas and visited rather spend two months making a com- influenced by the Canadian independent Nickelodeon executive Vanessa Coffey mercial to make a profit than spend 10 scene or the NFB, and learned nothing in Los Angeles. "She was staying at the minutes talking to any banker," says at Sheridan College in the one and a half Universal Sheridan. It was the middle of Newland. "Explaining what I do in years he spent there. "I was supposed to summer and the air conditioner was bro- order to get money for it is hell on go to Sheridan, but I didn't spend much ken. I pitched the stuff to Vanessa and I earth." In the last couple of years, time there. I was a lousy student. It was sweated all over her. Sweat was flying in International Rocketship has become a combination of things: I was lazy, I buckets off my hair. She was shocked, known more for its shorts than its com- had a bad attitude, and they didn't teach but she loved it." Coffey sent Kricfalusi mercials, thanks to exposure through the me anything. It was more a course about to meet with New York honchos. In her festival circuit. Now commercial clients propaganda — joining the Disney reli- words: "I can't sweat like you." The are requesting "the look" or "the edge" gion — than it was about learning the Nickelodeon round table, spurred by of the shorts, says Newland. basic skills of animation." Kricfalusi has Laybourne's parting shot after the pitch MTV is a case in point. The station made it his personal crusade to rail session — "Buy something from this hired Antonucci to do some station against the demise of quality animation. man" — commissioned Kricfalusi's identification inserts based on his Lupo He wants to eliminate hack writers and Spumco to do a pilot based on his char- the Butcher character. Lupo, a stereotyp- go back to the good old days when acters Ren and Stimpy. MO. ical Canadian/Italian butcher who hacks shorts were written and rendered by ani- With a single series, Kricfalusi grabbed away at a chicken only to have the dissed mators, not by committee. He wants to the chance to reverse what he saw as 30 bird turn on him. It's good-old-blood- repatriate the inking and painting, which years of decline in the field and provide a and-guts, a one-gag cartoon that's near for years has been done factory-style in little subversive humour for the bored WINTER 1995 7 masses.