Cartoon Cuties: The Static-Mation Shorts
- TV Series
- 2020–
Cartoon Cuties details the lives of pulchritudinous cartoon characters living alongside regular human beings in the rural community of Creek Bend, a California small town bordered by a major... Read allCartoon Cuties details the lives of pulchritudinous cartoon characters living alongside regular human beings in the rural community of Creek Bend, a California small town bordered by a major motion picture studio. The slide-show cartoon shorts are a spin-off of the comic book ser... Read allCartoon Cuties details the lives of pulchritudinous cartoon characters living alongside regular human beings in the rural community of Creek Bend, a California small town bordered by a major motion picture studio. The slide-show cartoon shorts are a spin-off of the comic book series of the same name (published by InDELLible Comics). The series is the creation of carto... Read all
Photos
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThe Cartoon Cuties franchise involves cartoon characters living alongside regular human beings. Within the universe presented, there are cartoons created by cartoonists that differ from flesh and blood cartoons known as Annies. "Annie" has two connotations, reading as either a variation of Animation or Animal. They differ a bit from 'Toons and similar characters featured previously, as Annies are, despite their appearance, fully human. According to text stories written for the franchise, Annies were born to human parents shortly after the Civil War. After this first wave, however, almost all annies have been born only to other annies. They differ slightly from the traditional cartoon aesthetic, known as "fuzzy face" which requires special makeup and body suits to make the cartoon actors more resemble the woodland creatures they play on screen. A major hook of the franchise is that fictional movie studio C.B. International Pictures broke from tradition by presenting female annies as glamor starlets beginning in World War 2.
The series takes place in 1959.
The episode "House Pest" differs from the other episodes, having been drawn a couple of years earlier than the other cartoons. The original concept of "Static-Mation" was to use camera sweeps, zooms, and pans to create a rudimentary form of animating the static drawings. This proved beyond the abilities of those involved, so the first short sat dormant until the new slide-show version of Static-Mation proved workable. If you look at Crissy's design in this earlier short, you'll see it really doesn't match her appearance in the other cartoons.
Static-Mation involves the use of multiple drawings shown in slide-show format. Although removed from actual animation, the technique does mirror a similar process employed by early television cartoons created by sliding drawn panels in front of a television camera.
The Static-Mation shorts are drawn to resemble 1950's television cartoons in their general aesthetic, particularly those early works associated with Hanna-Barbera's television productions.
Though most of the characters used in the shorts were developed for the comic book, a few were developed specifically for the cartoons. Carole Corday is the most obvious example, created at first only for the end plate alerting viewers to the books being sold on Amazon. She was utilized as the counter worker confronted by Candy Sweeth in "The Science of Love" before being pushed into a headline position for two more shorts. Carole's design changes slightly over the course of the shorts in which she appears.
A lot of characters created for the comic book, such as Candy Sweeth and the Baxter sisters, appeared in the Static-Mation shorts before their comic book introductions. Some characters, like Ruby Foray and Della DuPont, were developed specifically for the shorts.
The character of Ruby Foray is named in honor of legendary voice actress June Foray. Her first name was inspired by prolific television animation producers Ruby-Spears Enterprises.
Carole Corday is named in honor of two actresses, Carole Landis and Mara Corday. Her husband Robby is named in honor of a character from Space Patrol.
Minerva Mallen is named in honor of Animaniacs character Minerva Mink, and even boasts a vaguely similar design. Indirectly, Minerva Mink was a major influence on the Cartoon Cuties series, and Minerva Mallen was given a similar name in recognition of this. In addition, Crissy Carrots was given a similar color scheme in further acknowledgement of Minerva Mink's influence.
There are subtle clues that, despite their tails and ears and such, the Annies are fully human. They have all five digits on their hands, where as the traditional cartoon character has only four. Similarly, their feet show none of the typical cartoon proportions.
"During my formative years, there were several glamorous cartoon characters. They seldom stuck around very long, but they tended to make an impression. Within the same ten years or so you had Jessica Rabbit, Hello Nurse, Minerva Mink, Goldie Pheasant, Lola Bunny, and several others. There were enough of them that the idea of using cartoon characters as glamor figures may have seemed more natural to me than it otherwise might have. I never dreamed I'd be drawing cheesecake rabbits." -Rock Baker
Daisy Poise was the first of Rock Baker's "femanimals." She was created for a parody of The Wizard Of Oz which ran in a cheesecake strip entitled "Betsy The Bookwriter." To stand in for The Cowardly Lion was developed The Milksop Mouse, Daisy Poise. Daisy proved so much fun to draw that she inspired another such character in the shape of Crissy Carrots. Daisy's design was re-tooled and the character brought in to Crissy's universe.
Rock Baker was commissioned to create the character of Simone Grace early in his professional career. Simone, named in honor of The Cat People actress Simone Simon, was considered for numerous projects which never got off the ground. Needing to expand the roster of Cartoon Cuties, Simone became the local weather girl who has dreams of stardom.
If you look closely, you can see that single girls have pink nail-polish, while married women always wear red nails. Red is a color for passion, unleashed by married life.
"Another Reason..." was to be titled "Another Reason I Love You" but there wasn't sufficient space to feature the full title.
It was not until after "Another Reason..." had been posted on YouTube that Rock Baker realized that he completely forgot to draw Ed Carter's tail.
"What A Small World!" features a character named Eva Olivia, an Annie once a stage sensation during the 1920's. To give the character a comfortably familiar appearance, Eva's look was based on the grown up version of Chipette Brittany Miller from the Alvin And The Chipmunks episode "Big Dreams" and given a red dress similar to one worn a few times by Birttany Miller in other episodes of the Chipmunk series. To acknowledge this, Beverly Baxter's autograph book has a page containing the signatures of all three Chipettes. Eva's autograph book contains a page signed by the Chimpunks and Dave Seville. Moreover, Eva's last name is Olivia, the name of the girl who first acted as guardian for the Chipettes.
Beverly Baxter's hesitance to enter the spooky house in "What A Small World!" echoes a moment featured in one of the prose stories, "Cuties At Sea."
The pacing of the cartoons took considerable experimentation. "Picnic Pretty" plays with 8 seconds of screentime for each panel. This was considered too slow, and the speed was increased for the next few cartoons. These ran at such a fast clip that much of the detail was lost on the causal viewer. Finally, a rate of 6 seconds per planel was adopted.
"The Legend of Lover's Bridge" represents an actual bit of Creek Bend folklore, as Della DuPont relates the story to her daughter. The character of Della DuPont was created specifically for this short, which shows no connection to any other character. The events of the short are supposed to've happened in 1957, told in flashback from 1959.
The small bikinis worn by the characters have a bit of background one might not immediately pick up. When the first issue of Cartoon Cuties was being drawn, it was without plans for the subject to be a period piece. When the setting was pinned down to the late 1950's, this left the need to explain the 80's style bathing suits already drawn. Within context of the stories, the smaller model of bathing suit was created to fulfill an order when the local tailor came up short on material. The smaller bikini was a hit, however, as the hot, humid climate of Creek Bend resulted in several more suits being ordered by the women in and around town. The Creek Bend Bikini was quickly adopted as the official swimwear of the community for it's comfort and practicality. This was 1954!
Creek Bend is in California, although it's hot, humid environment reflects the summers of the Ozarks, birthplace of writer Rock Baker. The California setting was mandated by the movie studio scenario.
None of the female annies have fur. Many of the male characters, being more akin to traditional cartoon characters in design, do.
The episode "A Walk In The Park" has no music track.
Crissy's husband, Roger Ralphwit, was drawn in the first issue of the comic book to be a skinny, almost nondescript, comedy figure. In development of the franchise, Roger quickly grew into a commanding alpha-male presence revealed to be a former career Army man who first saw action in the Normandy invasion. Shortly after, he became the contact for a German double agent and was moved into Army Intelligence. He served there after the War, as an active spy. When the Korean War broke out, Roger requested transfer back to combat duty. He reached the rank of full bird Colonel before his last hitch was up. Homesick for Creek Bend, he retired from the Army and came home a few years before meeting Crissy and falling in love with her.
The Static-Mation shorts take place between issues 2 and 3 of the comic book, with one notable exception. "House Pest" takes place just prior to the first issue, as it was originally drawn with the intention of being shown before the release of the book. As such, it features a slightly different look from the other shorts. Color work on "House Pest" was done by Jim Ludwig, aside from the more recent title block which was colored by Rock Baker. As originally planned, the short even had an extra panel showing Crissy walking from her bedroom to the kitchen, but this panel went missing between the original planned production and the eventual YouTube release.
Originally planned for a run of 24 episodes, then 32, the final tally of narrative shorts is 30 episodes. Created for YouTube viewing, the collected shorts are planned for a DVD release.
User reviews
Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Official site
- Language
- Production company
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
- Color