Animating the real world

Prime-time cartoons come down to earth

by Robert David Sullivan

The basic building block of a cartoon is a cel. It's a sheet of plastic covered with paintings of characters that can come to life -- at least when combined with thousands of other cels. The term sounds the same as a cage in prison, an ironic coincidence when we consider the most popular cartoon characters of the past century. Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse, to name two, were never bound by walls or even the rules of physics. When they were made for the movie screen, cartoons were full of comic fury and confusion, with characters moving so fast that they appeared as a blur (Popeye, when he was hopped up on spinach) or a cloud of dust (the Tasmanian Devil in Warner Bros. shorts).

Warner Bros. cartoons work just as well on TV, but animated series made directly for the tube tend to feature characters with much slower rates of metabolism. Bugs Bunny bore a strong resemblance to Groucho Marx -- same motormouth wit, same darting eyes -- but he also had Harpo Marx's ability to produce any object he desired from behind his back. Most memorable TV cartoon characters are closer to the lumbering ineffectiveness of Oliver Hardy (Fred Flintstone, Homer Simpson) or the stammering uneasiness of Bob Newhart (Charlie Brown, Dr. Katz). In their cases, the cel/cell pairing is only too apt: they're surrounded by various instruments of torture, and unlike Bugs, they lack the ability to tunnel their way out.

The peculiar qualities of prime-time animation -- as opposed to the half-hour commercials for action figures that turn up on daytime TV -- can be seen clearly on Space Ghost: Coast to Coast (Fridays at 11 p.m. and Sundays at midnight, on the Cartoon Network). Space Ghost started out in the '60s as a typical Saturday-morning superhero who could defy gravity, turn invisible at will . . . in short, a master of his own destiny. In his current incarnation, he's the lunkheaded host of a TV talk show who gets no respect from his crew or his guests (live humans who appear on video monitors). Space Ghost takes a very long time to comprehend things -- like the fact that he's being sued by two young sidekicks from his '60s series for violation of child-labor laws -- and I find the frequent "reaction shots" of his blank face oddly comforting, even Zen-like. There are plenty of live anchormen and talk-show hosts who come close to Space Ghost's total breakdown in synaptic functions, but only a cartoon series can get away with lingering on this nothingness. Call it a triumph of suspended animation, one rivaled only by couch potatoes Beavis and Butt-head (weeknights at 7 p.m. on MTV).

Plenty of other TV cartoon stars, though quicker on the uptake, spend much of their time reacting to the insanity around them with "this can't be happening" expressions on their faces. There's the title character on Daria (Wednesdays at 10 p.m. and weekdays at 3 p.m. on MTV), a perceptive and sarcastic teenager who stoically puts up with the jocks, blonde bimbos, and other morons at her high school. There's Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist (Mondays at 10 p.m. and weekdays at 1:30 p.m. on Comedy Central), an impossibly tolerant father and a straight man for a parade of stand-up comics in the guise of therapy patients. And Bob and Margaret (Mondays at 10:30 p.m. on Comedy Central), a late-30s married couple in London who are totally flummoxed by the most mundane aspects of life. For instance, they regard children of all ages and temperaments with a mixture of wonder and fear that suggests the sighting of a winged unicorn.

If we go to the movies to dream about escaping our boring lives and joining the characters on screen, we often turn on the tube to feel superior to the pathetic losers on sit-coms and the tortured souls on dramas. TV cartoons often combine the two genres, as on The Simpsons (Sundays at 8 p.m. on Fox), where Homer Simpson's stupidity and bad luck continually battle for control over each episode's fanciful storyline -- but everything turns out okay in the end. Warner Bros. characters tap into the cinematic imperative to keep moving, even if there's no destination in sight (Exhibit A: the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote). Their turtle-like TV counterparts have a grin-and-bear-it attitude toward life -- just like most of us viewers.

Adult-oriented animation has been common on TV only since 1990, when The Simpsons hit it big, and the genre seemed to lose steam a few years ago, after a string of disappointing shows (The Critic, Family Dog, and Duckman, among others). More recently, a trio of niche hits -- King of the Hill, South Park, and Rugrats (which has actually aired since 1991) -- made cartoons cool again. The three low-end broadcast networks (Fox, UPN, and WB) are preparing to roll out seven new prime-time cartoons this year, beginning with this month's premiere of The PJs.

There are sound economic reasons for this trend. The smaller networks have done poorly with sit-coms, and rather than add to the 43 Seinfeld wanna-bes on last fall's schedule, they're desperate enough to try something new. Producers also have an incentive to get into grown-up cartoons, since these have the potential to do well in endless reruns. (The Simpsons is a hit five or even 10 times a week, and the Cartoon Network will need to increase its video library on a regular basis.)

Cartoons also have several artistic advantages over network sit-coms. They aren't saddled with laugh tracks, for a start, and they aren't required to be full of attractive people. Just think what Homer Simpson and his frequently bared butt would look like in real life. As for Beavis and Butt-head, John Waters and Federico Fellini combined couldn't find actors grotesque enough to bring that pair to life. And despite a lingering misconception that they're made for kids, cartoons can be a lot more daring in their treatment of politics and religion. No American series has come close to The Simpsons in its satire of church-sponsored hypocrisy (chiefly through the holier-than-thou Flanders Family, including a wife who went to Bible camp to "learn how to judge people") or amorality in the corporate world (including brilliant send-ups of a Disneyland-type amusement park and a Microsoft-type company run by a villain straight out of James Bond flicks).

Another paradox is that animation has a static quality no weekly TV series can duplicate. Characters never age, and tormentors are never vanquished. Dr. Katz's patients are never cured, and his layabout son, Ben, never gets a job. (Usually seen wearing mismatched socks and eating junk food, Ben Katz is irresistibly cute as a cartoon but would surely be obnoxious as a real person.) Daria will never graduate from high school and never be free of her shallow classmates. They're part of a tradition best illustrated by the recurring Peanuts bit where Lucy promises Charlie Brown that she'll hold the football in place for him to kick -- but she always pulls it away just as he approaches, so that he lands on his ass.

This comic fatalism seems to pervade several of the new offerings. Dilbert (Mondays at 8 p.m. on UPN, premiering January 25) is, of course, based on the popular comic strip about white-collar drones trapped in Cubicle Hell. Family Guy (premiering January 31, after the Super Bowl, on Fox) is about a schlub terrorized by his infant son. The PJs (Tuesdays at 8:30 p.m. on Fox), a "claymation" effort, has perhaps the bleakest setting yet: a poor black neighborhood seen through the eyes of an illiterate building superintendent (voiced by co-creator Eddie Murphy). A couple of civil-rights groups have already complained about the series, particularly its depiction of alcohol use. The pilot episode, which aired last Sunday, is an uneven mixture of sit-com and fantasy (a child falls off the roof but is sucked to safety by a backed-up toilet -- don't ask). The housing-project setting also seems eerily quiet, perhaps because there are no characters between the ages of 10 and 40. Still, Murphy's character has a Fred Sanford-like charm that could wear well over time.

On a slightly cheerier note, UPN's Home Movies (premiere date to be announced), from the same folks who created Dr. Katz, is about a geeky third-grade filmmaker living with his single mom (voiced by Paula Poundstone). Probably the most eagerly awaited new cartoon series, Matt Groening's Futurama, is reported to have fallen behind schedule and may not show up on Fox until the fall.

With so many new series vying for attention, there's bound to be a serious shake-out in Toon Town before the fall schedules are announced. Blessed with consistently strong ratings, The Simpsons seems certain to return -- a shame, actually, because its quality has dipped in the past two years and its writers would be probably be put to better use on Futurama (which seems to take place in a 23rd-century version of Springfield). The funny but repetitive South Park (Wednesdays at 10 p.m.) is also a lock to return on Comedy Central, and I hope it will subsidize the addictive Dr. Katz on the same network.

Unfortunately, the best animated series for adults, King of the Hill, may be the most endangered, thanks to its ill-advised move to Tuesday. King may be the riskiest cartoon on right now. It doesn't chase after younger viewers with gross-out humor, and its political leanings aren't as obvious as the anti-corporate Simpsons. It's also the only cartoon I'm aware of that has a continuing storyline and evolving characters. I love the fact that beauty-school student Luanne still hasn't grown back her big hair since she was caught in a propane explosion in last year's season finale. Then there was last fall's episode in which wonderfully naïve Peggy finally figured out her best friend's relationship with "healer" John Red Corn.

King of the Hill gets plenty of laughs from its Bible Belt, NRA-loving locale, but it's never mean-spirited, and there are plenty of well-aimed shots against liberals as well. When the show really works, it reminds us that a cartoon, much like a black-and-white film, can make a virtue of simplicity. Take one recent episode in which 12-year-old Bobby is dumped by his vegetarian girlfriend. Afterward, he spots her at a restaurant and seizes an opportunity to get a little revenge: he orders the "bet you can't eat it" 75-ounce steak, which he consumes, blood dribbling down his cheek, while being cheered on by a crowd of diners. If such a scene were in a live-action movie, we'd be so distracted by the cultural baggage -- the décor of the restaurant, and the way the characters dress and talk, all painstakingly chosen for accuracy -- that it would be hard to get past the idea that we're watching a satire of redneck Texas. But the simple drawings on King of the Hill serve to convey a more universal theme: the dumb things we do for love are surpassed only by the ridiculous things we do for spite.

A little heavier than "What's up, Doc?", but we're grown-up enough to take it. Dan Tobin can be reached at dtobin[a]phx.com.