There’s no comparison to a hand-drawn robot chicken. I say that with the authority of a mom who has watched Sonic the Hedgehog cartoons with my young sons and when I was young myself. And the difference between computer-generated stuff and traditional animation is disheartening.
I guess I’m officially one of the olds, yelling at the slick new thing to get off my lawn. But seriously, if you look at these artistic creations side by side, you can’t deny how lifeless the digital product feels. Every edge is smoothed, every shape and expression uniform. Somehow even the hi-def colors read flat.
Then you have The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog. It doesn’t come anywhere close to representing the golden age of animation, between the 1920s and 1960s, but it pops with charm. Even more than the characters, what I notice are the backdrops – otherworldly fever dreams I would frame. The quality of the landscapes is such that these fantastical places seem real. Drawn from memory. And quality doesn’t just mean the artist’s imagination and ability; it’s about specificity. That’s what I find most lacking in today’s cartoons. So many of them are interchangeable in terms of visual style, and the perfectness grates.
That doesn’t make sense. My brain should love not having to work so hard in processing images. But think about how you feel listening to elevator music. We want variation and depth and emotion, which fully illustrated animation can bring in the simplest lines of ink.
This International Animation Day, revisit a favorite cartoon or animated film that showcases human skill. Maybe it’s a Disney classic (The Sword in the Stone is a masterpiece), or a Miyazaki wonder, or the “Let’s all go to the lobby” jingle that lives forever in the American consciousness.
Whatever it is, get your kids to watch.
