BSA 206 W12: Craig McCracken, Lauren Faust and Lisa Hanawalt

Craig McCracken

McCracken is the creator of The Powerpuff Girls: a Cartoon Network show which I feel like most people in class would have grown up with in some capacity or another,   I surely did. I used to watch Cartoon Network at my grandparents house in South Africa as they had a satellite dish to pick up those channels, these are very good memories and we absolutely loved these channels.



Powerpuff Girls was a show that we didn't watch all that much, we saw a couple of episodes and was very familiar with it, especially it's unique sound design and intro which I remember clearly even now. The show seemed to us to be more targeted towards girls and as two boys didn't find it as appealing as some other shows - things like Courage the Cowardly Dog, Scooby-Doo reruns and Samurai Jack were much more appealing for two young boys.



On the subject of Samurai Jack: Gendy Tartakovsy is the show runner and creator of that series and he had a hand in the creation of Powerpuff Girls - his handiwork seems very evident in the style of the show.

This is something I thought was strange about our lesson this week, we looked at someone like Lisa Hanawalt (who was the artist behind Bojack Horseman, and then went on to make her own show), Gendy seems very similar to her so it feels like we missed something by not looking at him.



Tartakovsky has by my estimation been more successful than McCracken, and it seems obvious to me that McCracken's work benefits from having Gendy on.

I found his follow up Foster's Home For Imaginary Children - which didn't have Gendy on, to somehow feel cheaper. What Tartakovsky does so well is style, he has a knack for visual storytelling and an understanding of the cinematic language that means he doesn't always have to use as many frames as other animations to deliver his narrative. The episode of Foster's that we watched in class had a scene of the main characters being chased around a couch and the looping was not only painfully obvious but it far overstayed its welcome.



The show itself seems like a cool concept, a house where imaginary friends go after they are no longer needed. I have never seen it before and it seems interesting, but not something I'd be inclined to check out at this point in my life.

Lauren Faust

This is actually Craig McCracken's Wife, she made her own thing with My Little Pony and a DC Super Best Friends show, we had a look at both of these in class and while they seem very saccarin, they also have a pretty good tone and sense of humour.



The Pony stuff has become very big in recent years, with even middle aged men seeming to have been merged into the fan base. This is curious but watching the opening I imagine it is because of the fantasy elements, the show isn't just about horses on a farm, rather they inhabit their own magical world with its own lore. This fantasy stuff can be a really powerful escape and a sense of backstory and texture to a world like it usually gets people very invested.

I very much admire Faust for being able to do such a good job with the properties she's been given to work on, especially My Little Pony (which I think are just toys normally?) taking it from an obscure thing for little girls to a pop culture phenomenon.

Lisa Hanawalt

 

She is the aforementioned Artist behind Bojack Horseman, her work often features anthropomorphic animals, we watched some of Bojack and an episode of her show following it: Tuca and Bertie.



What I found interesting between the two shows she is most well known for is that one had someone else as writer and creator, and it's clear that the two shows approach much different topics and themes. It's hard to say which I enjoyed watching more, because both had very good parts, but I think Tuca and Bertie was a bit funnier. It was very quick and could possibly be seen as exhausting but it derives more humor from its premise and takes certain animals about the anthropomorphic characters even further - like now there are plant people.

Some people in class thought it quite shocking but it was pretty tame i think, the best bit is when the guy has to eat his grandmother because he's baked her into a cake. it's shocking and unique and so sudden, I loved it, just wish it went on for longer.