Sara introduced me to a great cartoon on Cartoon Network called Chowder. It is a bit like Sid and Marty Croft re-imagined with a bit of kid-friendly Adult Swim anarchy and maybe a little Food Network thrown in.
I have linked to a highlights YouTube video below, but it fails to show two of my favorite things: the occasional use of claymation, and Schnitzel, a character who expresses himself by varying the tone of a single nonsense word, "Radda." You can see those things, and get introduced to what it is basically about, in this Cartoon Network commercial:
This YouTube video, 5 minutes of highlights, captures quite a bit of what makes it great.
The colors for one thing -- the show has surely one of the best color palates since Courage the Cowardly Dog. And though you cannot see as much of this as I would like in the clip, notice how Chowder's outfit has a pattern on it that stays stationary, like part of of the background, when he moves -- as if his shirt was an empty space moving over a pattern behind it. It is hard to appreciate in clips, but it is kind of mesmerizing on TV.
I've seen the pepper spray part in commercials, and laugh my ass off every time.
ReplyDeleteI would say it's less like sid and marty croft, and more in line with cartoons of the 70's, particularly of this one illustrative cartooning style I remember from reading my sister's old Cricket Magazines. I will go now to to try and find examples of what I mean for what the visuals remind me of.
ReplyDeleteBut, the humor of this show. The timing. It's just wonderful. A really really really great show. Can you tell I'm writing this after having my brain smushed in by stupid stupid MFA classes tonight.
Radda, radda radda radda. RADDA!
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