From Rugrats to The Simpsons, at some point in our lives we’ve devoted time to watching cartoons. Whether you have been depriving your inner child of animation for who-knows-how long or are an active Disney/Nickelodeon/comic strip-phile like I am, this is an inside look into something you may not know about animation. Enjoy this free issue of the Toon Times.
As an enthusiast of animation, I have been known to spend inordinate amounts of time re-watching films and television shows from my childhood. Hours and hours of my teenage life have been spent with Hey Arnold!, Hercules and the Charlie Brown cartoons, among others. But every once in a while, I’m surprised to find that something I loved as a child is not worth watching anymore.
But that’s when new facets of that movie or show that I loved become clear, as the expectations of childhood fade away.
Take My Hand, Gay Purr-ee
When I was a toddler, I dressed up as Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz at least once a week. If I wasn’t decked out in the full-on white and blue plaid dress and white stockings, I still sported my red sequin flats with every outfit. And from that young obsession was borne a true love for the work of Judy Garland.
In 1962, the Dorothy that I grew up wishing to be lent her voice to a now little-known animated film called Gay Purr-ee about a country feline trying to make her way in Paris who gets tangled up with a bunch of alley cats.
In my young life, I owned a VHS of this movie and watched it hundreds of times. I was fascinated by the oodles of odd colors and contorted characters and entranced by it in a way I could never begin to explain.
Returning back to this film of my childhood was a much different experience as an almost-adult. The story was dull and drawn out. How long can it take for a cat to realize the seedy underground life of the Parisian cats isn’t right for her?
While I no longer appreciated the story that the mini-me adored, I still loved this movie. But why would I? Surely a discerning viewer in her late teens is past the stage of wantonly following her childhood instincts for good film.
Perhaps the best explanation is through an opposite experience — revisiting a film that is virtually impossible to tire of.
A Great Movie in St. Petersburg
Since Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Disney has created numerous royal personas. But scraping past the Disney monopolization of fairy tale retellings, one princess carved her place with the help of 20th Century Fox, rivaling those other fictional royals. Except she was not fictional.
Based on the mystery behind Russia’s doomed Czar Nicholas II, Anastasia is an animated film to rival all others. The movie has historical relevance (though obviously it has been altered and rewritten in practically every way possible) and a really wonderful story thrown in.
But beyond those integral aspects, Anastasia has three things. One: a great cast of voice actors. Two: beautiful music. And three: creative artistry and setting.
Once Upon a Good Actor
Many of my least admired animated films have suffered at the hands of terrible voices. In Snow White, the voice of the dark-haired heroine is practically insufferable. It has such a tone that I would not be surprised if it interfered with professional sonar equipment or wounded small animals unsuspectingly flying by a 3-year-old’s bedroom window.
However, Anastasia and Gay Purr-ee have something Snow White doesn’t: a typically live action cast with voice acting sensibilities.
Gay Purr-ee featured the voices of Judy Garland and Robert Goulet as main characters Mewsette and Jaune-Tom. The villain, Meowrice, was performed by Paul Frees, whose vocal talents were used in many Disney productions and perhaps just as notably in many stop-motion Christmas animated films like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town that air in the 25 Days of Christmas on ABC Family each year.
And in a modern sense, the Anastasia cast was at a level of notoriety and skill that equipped them all the better to perform in an animated movie. From Meg Ryan to John Cusack to Kelsey Grammer, the actors had expression and comedy down and really brought the characters alive.
There is no question the same is true of the Gay Purr-ee cast. Despite a story that was dull at times, the film was brought out of its occasional funk by the voices.
Love Sings Wherever You Go
The incorporation of music in animated films may not have started with Gay Purr-ee, but it certainly made a convergence with Broadway/live action musical theater and the new form of entertainment.
Older films like Sleeping Beauty incorporated classical music into their scores. Composers for movies like Cinderella and Pinocchio made catchy, beautiful and timeless melodies. Gay Purr-ee took a different approach, taking contemporary music (that might have been heard in the theater at the time) and transferring it to the screen.
This style would carry on into the 1980s and 1990s at Disney and eventually to the Anastasia film with 20th Century Fox, whose music had tinges of modern, yet still melodic, pop.
The innovation of the music added a facet to the films that my viewings as a toddler dressed in my Dorothy costume could scarcely understand. I may have hummed and sang these songs in the car rides home from preschool, but was that really a product of true appreciation or just catchiness?
Paris Holds the Key to Your Heart
What the young me failed to realize while watching these movies, aside from the voices and songs behind the animation, was the animation itself.
It existed as a whole, a big picture of fun images thrown together to make a story that made perfect sense. But looking back on these same movies years later brings about a new understanding of the intricacies of the artistry as well as the setting it creates.
Paris is illustrated in Gay Purr-ee through images imitating artists such as Van Gogh, Modigliani and Chagall with backdrops symbolizing the works of the artists framing the scenery along the Seine. It is no wonder that after years of watching this movie, at 7-years-old I would be extensively prepared for a grand voyage to Paris and eager to take an introductory French course in fourth grade. I really did catch the travel bug from this movie.
Anastasia is creative, incorporating less of the influence of other artists and instead creating a motif of St. Petersburg through architecture, landscapes and swooping shots overlooking an animated Russia. For years I begged my family to travel to Russia, much to their confusion.
Journey to the Past
There is a lot to love about animated film, but upon recent discovery, not everything is lovable. Yet, in retreating back to these films and re-watching and reviewing, it’s obvious that a new discovery can be made.
Dressing up as a character is one stage of appreciation for a film. It’s the lightest and most general love based on the very standard of the movie being aesthetically appealing and moderately entertaining.
But upon entering a stage of wider film knowledge, animation takes on a completely new persona. It’s not just entertainment but art and theater and music all wrapped into one.
The little costume-wearing girl might have loved her cartoons just like the rest of the kids her age, but her older costume-reminiscing self sees the new and everlasting value of animation. It’s in the whole package.