4 ms·

This sort of stuff was all too wide spread when I were a lad. I can't describe the disappointment of rushing home from school to find the Looney Tunes slot on

by Lio 4y ago

This sort of stuff was all too wide spread when I were a lad. I can't describe the disappointment of rushing home from school to find the Looney Tunes slot on BBC 2 be replaced by a "cultural exchange" cartoon from Eastern Europe. No offence to anyone from Eastern Europe but having Bugs Bunny replaced by geometric shapes fighting via the medium of Free Jazz is ...well it's culture shock on a level that no 7 year old should be put through.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
tzs 4y ago
> I can't describe the disappointment of rushing home from school to find the Looney Tunes slot on BBC 2 be replaced by a "cultural exchange" cartoon from Eastern Europe. Interesting. The Simpsons had a bit about cartoons being replaced by weird Eastern European cartoons [1]. I didn't know that actually happened in real life. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2_dhUv_CrI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2_dhUv_CrI
- RichardCA 4y ago
  The Itchy & Scratchy joke about Worker & Parasite was a referecene to the idea that all animation that came out of Soviet Russia or Eastern Europe during the Cold War era had to feature a heavy handed metaphor about something, usually some sort of oblique reference to class struggle. But that doesn't mean they lacked nuance or good story telling. They used to show stuff like this on PBS back in the 70's. Even as a kid I got the message. https://youtu.be/cy3Xsd9GLBA https://youtu.be/cy3Xsd9GLBA
  - jareklupinski 4y ago
    I thought they were just making fun of the East's worse animation standards, just replacing itchy and scratchy with 'wolf and rabbit' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyNOF2VZMO8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyNOF2VZMO8
    - RichardCA 4y ago
      If you study the history of animation, you will be exposed to the work of Zagreb Studios. So if you're an animator it comes across as an inside joke, but to anyone else it's just a super-obscure reference. https://youtu.be/zb0PA-TaS4g https://youtu.be/zb0PA-TaS4g
      - RichardCA 4y ago
        For me personally, I spent most of the 70's bored to death in school, but I got to come home and watch shows like "International Animation Festival" on Channel 13 (PBS if you grew up in the NYC area). They also had the first run of Monty Python's Flying Circus in the US, which was one of the few things me and my dad enjoyed together. But the bulk the animation shown on PBS came from the NFB - The National Film Board of Canada, which provided the retro aestheics that were later adopted by Boards of Canada. https://youtu.be/upsZZ2s3xv8 https://youtu.be/upsZZ2s3xv8
motohagiography 4y ago
Seconded! If there were a feeling I could summon about the turn of the 70s and 80s as a child, it was the uncomfortable cringe of being forced to watch things like these Moog dancers and other bizarre "arts" content. Perhaps it was my upbringing, but if you asked me to describe the late 1970s in Toronto, it would be that adults of that era just seemed creepy and irresponsible. 1970s TV was a bunch of turtleneck and beret wearing, moustached, communist acid heads working for public broadcasters trying to subvert American dominance. The "film strips" I watched as a child in classrooms from Canada's National Film Board were dementedly surreal. The electronic band Boards of Canada were apparently directly inspired by them. I have been tempted to pitch a netflix series set in a public broadcaster making decisions about film funding and distributing those things to elementary schools, and how absolutely insane these people must have been. Chainsmoking theorists and Quebecois nationalists with government expense accounts trying to create a post-national global society through conceptual art during the hangover from the Montreal Expo. Americans in the 1970s had rock music. Canada had something else. You have no idea how weird this place was. A kind of greater soviet Wisconsin run by small town French pseudointellectuals. That whole era was just gross.
- selimthegrim 4y ago
  You got SCTV out of it so it wasn’t all bad.
ArekDymalski 4y ago
I'm from EE and i don't feel offended but geniunely interested in "geometric shapes fighting via the medium of Free Jazz", as i can't recall any from my childhood. Buty have to admit that some of eastern block cartoons' were less attractive in terms of animation technique and storylines wjen compared to Looney Tunes or Hanna Barbera stuff. And some were indeed truly psychedelic like the one about a mole being instructed by parrot to sniff poppy flower and fly :D https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9wcvV9d2cs&t=594s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9wcvV9d2cs&t=594s

by Lio 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

tzs 4y ago

> I can't describe the disappointment of rushing home from school to find the Looney Tunes slot on BBC 2 be replaced by a "cultural exchange" cartoon from Eastern Europe. Interesting. The Simpsons had a bit about cartoons being replaced by weird Eastern European cartoons [1]. I didn't know that actually happened in real life. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2_dhUv_CrI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2_dhUv_CrI

RichardCA 4y ago
The Itchy & Scratchy joke about Worker & Parasite was a referecene to the idea that all animation that came out of Soviet Russia or Eastern Europe during the Cold War era had to feature a heavy handed metaphor about something, usually some sort of oblique reference to class struggle. But that doesn't mean they lacked nuance or good story telling. They used to show stuff like this on PBS back in the 70's. Even as a kid I got the message. https://youtu.be/cy3Xsd9GLBA https://youtu.be/cy3Xsd9GLBA
- jareklupinski 4y ago
  I thought they were just making fun of the East's worse animation standards, just replacing itchy and scratchy with 'wolf and rabbit' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyNOF2VZMO8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyNOF2VZMO8
  - RichardCA 4y ago
    If you study the history of animation, you will be exposed to the work of Zagreb Studios. So if you're an animator it comes across as an inside joke, but to anyone else it's just a super-obscure reference. https://youtu.be/zb0PA-TaS4g https://youtu.be/zb0PA-TaS4g
    - RichardCA 4y ago
      For me personally, I spent most of the 70's bored to death in school, but I got to come home and watch shows like "International Animation Festival" on Channel 13 (PBS if you grew up in the NYC area). They also had the first run of Monty Python's Flying Circus in the US, which was one of the few things me and my dad enjoyed together. But the bulk the animation shown on PBS came from the NFB - The National Film Board of Canada, which provided the retro aestheics that were later adopted by Boards of Canada. https://youtu.be/upsZZ2s3xv8 https://youtu.be/upsZZ2s3xv8

motohagiography 4y ago

Seconded! If there were a feeling I could summon about the turn of the 70s and 80s as a child, it was the uncomfortable cringe of being forced to watch things like these Moog dancers and other bizarre "arts" content. Perhaps it was my upbringing, but if you asked me to describe the late 1970s in Toronto, it would be that adults of that era just seemed creepy and irresponsible. 1970s TV was a bunch of turtleneck and beret wearing, moustached, communist acid heads working for public broadcasters trying to subvert American dominance. The "film strips" I watched as a child in classrooms from Canada's National Film Board were dementedly surreal. The electronic band Boards of Canada were apparently directly inspired by them. I have been tempted to pitch a netflix series set in a public broadcaster making decisions about film funding and distributing those things to elementary schools, and how absolutely insane these people must have been. Chainsmoking theorists and Quebecois nationalists with government expense accounts trying to create a post-national global society through conceptual art during the hangover from the Montreal Expo. Americans in the 1970s had rock music. Canada had something else. You have no idea how weird this place was. A kind of greater soviet Wisconsin run by small town French pseudointellectuals. That whole era was just gross.

selimthegrim 4y ago
You got SCTV out of it so it wasn’t all bad.

ArekDymalski 4y ago

I'm from EE and i don't feel offended but geniunely interested in "geometric shapes fighting via the medium of Free Jazz", as i can't recall any from my childhood. Buty have to admit that some of eastern block cartoons' were less attractive in terms of animation technique and storylines wjen compared to Looney Tunes or Hanna Barbera stuff. And some were indeed truly psychedelic like the one about a mole being instructed by parrot to sniff poppy flower and fly :D https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9wcvV9d2cs&t=594s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9wcvV9d2cs&t=594s