Like so many of us, I grew up on Disney cartoons. You know: Goofy, Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse. I never would have expected that Disney itself would feel the need to mutilate these artworks to make them more commercial -- as if they weren't already fantastically appealing to kids.
That's exactly what the Disney Channel has done with a series called BLAM!, which I just found out about on Metafilter. The show follows the same formula for every segment: (1) take a classic Disney cartoon; (2) heavily edit it down to focus on the most violent, fast-paced gags; (3) have a narrator explain what's happening, with frequent plays on the show's title (example: "the United States of A-BLAM!-ica!"); (4) after each gag, provide a slow-motion replay with further explanations.
At every moment, the narrator violates the well-known rule of comedy that to explain a joke is to kill the joke. A Metafilter commenter calls it "slapstick for the hard of thinking."
Almost all the Metafilter comments mercilessly denounce the show. (A lone dissenter claims to like it unironically.) The show is being panned across the internet.
Here's one of the episodes -- and I warn you that it's a sad commentary on how our culture has been cheapened to a point you might not have thought possible:
One of the worst things about this particular segment is that it isn't providing narration where there was none. The original cartoon already had a perfectly dignified and subtle "straight man" narrator, but BLAM! replaces him with the opposite.
You can see more episodes -- if you can stand them -- at the top of the Metafilter post.
To show how far BLAM! deviates from the original work of art, here it is: "The Art of Skiing," 1941:
Sunday, August 29, 2010
BLAM! Disney debases its classic cartoons for the lowest common denominator.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
12 comments:
"The government should ban showing cartoons on TV so something like this never happens again.
Better these cartoons never be seen again than this happen to them. Better nothing like them ever be made again. Disney should be forced to shut down Pixar. Seeing a movie like The Incredibles edited for people with different tastes than myself, even if I don't watch it, just knowing it exists, would be too painful. Only the way I enjoyed the movie is a valid way of feeling. It really hurts my self-esteem when people say otherwise.
Of course I'm taking this WAY better than my friend, who wants to slash the face of whoever came up with this with razor blades. LOL!
I'm so glad you're on our side, JAC, which is good, instead of the evil corporation's. It's just so hard to find anything nuanced and intelligent today. We have to stop companies like Disney from doing this!"
"We have to be aesthetic relativists or else we'll be on a slippery slope to rampant government censorship!"
I fail to see how a critical assessment of a piece of entertainment, a statement that one doesn't like it and doesn't plan to patronize it and that the idea was a bad one, amounts to a call for censorship. "People should never dislike or object to anything because that infringes on the doer's right to do it."
Word verification: "whooseto." Who's to say?
Disney owns these cartoons and makes money off of them. If they can take the same product and show it to several different audiences, some discerning, some not, then the product becomes more valuable and they are liable to make MORE of that sort of product.
But, if they try something new with their product and people bitch about it:
Destroying One Childhood At A Time
...I never would have expected that Disney itself would feel the need to mutilate these artworks...
they'll keep it on the shelf, decide it's too much trouble, and be less likely to make more of it.
And if you think my mention of censorship to be irrational, consider your own small part in discouraging Disney from ever again making the type of cartoons you claim to love.
Jason: You don't understand the difference between consumer taste and censorship?
Are you saying that if not enough people like the BLAM cartoons, Disney will stop making movies like The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast? I doubt if that's how Walt became wealthy.
I was briefly a consultant for Disney Interactive, and my guess is that some ambitious kid, whom the senior executives mistook for someone with an ear to the future, got a budget for this as an experiment, and if viewers don't like it, both the project and the young twerp will be axed, with no collateral damage. (My consultancy was on exactly that kind of project.)
Did you know it's a rule at Disney Corp. that at every meeting, the name Walt must be mentioned?
Richard: You don't understand the difference between consumer taste and censorship?
In America we love censorship if it's in the name of taste. And I can tell the difference between expressing a personal preference and the type of rhetoric meant to shame a company from ever expressing itself in a certain way again. It's mob justice for moral crimes. I'm not stepping on that bandwagon!
Are you saying that if not enough people like the BLAM cartoons, Disney will stop making movies like The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast?
LOL! But don't forget Pixar.
I doubt if that's how Walt became wealthy.
He leveraged his fame from being in movie houses to sell toys, and later vacations. I think he was ALL about selling the same thing over and over again in different ways.
I was briefly a consultant for Disney Interactive, and my guess is that some ambitious kid, whom the senior executives mistook for someone with an ear to the future, got a budget for this as an experiment, and if viewers don't like it, both the project and the young twerp will be axed, with no collateral damage. (My consultancy was on exactly that kind of project.)
The way the critics of BLAM! are talking is all about creating collateral damage for the company. My thoughts were with that "twerp" I hope they're back on their feet, what they tried was worth a go.
I can tell the difference between expressing a personal preference and the type of rhetoric meant to shame a company from ever expressing itself in a certain way again. It's mob justice for moral crimes. I'm not stepping on that bandwagon!
You're right that I am moralizing in this post. But maybe I draw less of a bright line than you do between (1) moralizing about a product and (2) expressing a garden-variety distaste for a product. I think companies have some kind of moral obligation in just about everything they do, so it doesn't strike me as out-of-the-ordinary if an opinion about a product is expressed in moralistic terms.
For instance, I have often gone to the grocery store and noticed that some vegetables in the produce section have turned brown or moldy. My reaction to seeing this is not just, "That's not what I like or choose to buy, but if someone else likes it, that's up to them." No, I have a reaction of disgust, and I think, "They ought to get rid of this product." It's not that I think mold is unhealthy and that there needs to be government regulation preventing the store from selling this produce. It has more to do with the fact that I care about vegetables; I know the difference between a good vegetable and a bad vegetable; so I'm repulsed when I see a store selling the latter in place of the former. Aren't my reactions a normal, productive part of the free market? If enough people feel the way I do, the company will feel pressured to sell better products, which will tend to benefit society all-around.
"Aren't my reactions a normal, productive part of the free market? If enough people feel the way I do, the company will feel pressured to sell better products, which will tend to benefit society all-around."
I think that observation of John's sums it up. So let's turn it around and see if it still works if the political sides are reversed. Do citizens, i.e. consumers, have a right to picket a bookstore they think is selling an unwholesome book, such as "Lady Chatterley's Lover" or "Lolita". Yes, of course, they have every right. And if they persuade a bookstore not to stock the book, that's the way it is. It's not censorship. (The question of whether the law should allow the book to be published at all is different, and of course Disney has every right to produce the BLAM cartoons.)
Or suppose there was a segment of society that hated excellence in art and tried to kill it by influencing business decisions and public taste. Would they have a right? Yes, of course. In fact such an institution exists in our society and has tremendous power: it's called Hollywood. If people care enough about art, it won't die, and if they don't care, it will, and all the players have a right to pursue their interests.
Jason, if you oppose that, you're a commie!
BTW, I'm not saying all this because I love the "classic" Disney cartoons. I can't stand them.
JAC: You're right that I am moralizing in this post.
You're moralizing your own opinions. What can anyone say to that other than to mock you?
Just change your name to Mrs. Grundy while you're at it.
I'm not sure what I should be moralizing, if not my opinions.
JAC: I'm not sure...
That sentence started out so well!
I must have hit "publish" too late!
Post a Comment