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Netflix announces The Cuphead Show original series

JustP_Gaming said:
You guys really need to turn off this automatic negative reaction to every freaking thing. Its seriously not healthy. no joke.
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Welcome to life
 
GreyHorace said:
They won't include the racist imagery and dark comedy that informs the Golden Age cartoons that Cuphead was inspired by. They'll probably do sensitivity screenings to locate and remove the offensive content.
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What are you talking about? Yes, there was a lot of racist imagery in 1930's animation, but none of that appeared in the Cuphead video game. There wasn't offensive content to begin with, so none of it needs to be removed.
 
This could be cool if they retain the awesome art style (and it looks like they have).

Regardless of whether this is good or not it is nice to see Netflix interested in gaming related content. Hopefully the Diablo show is decent as well.
 
I'm not ready to say this will be a disaster. I'm intrigued though, applying a wait and see approach.
 
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mcjmetroid said:
This sounds... expensive to make.
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Not even in the slightest. You'd be surprised how powerful After Effects is for something like this - and same with 3D rendering programs (even free ones like Blender would allow you do make a 2D animation like this easily)

It's all about nailing the assets, and they should be mostly done
 
mckmas8808 said:
My GOD! This looks so so good. Why is the animation so good? Is it all hand-created? What makes it better than modern animation?
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Back in the day they used to draw one unique picture per frame (24 unique cells per second, as many as the film allows). That's called "frame by frame" animation. Because back then they used animation to impress your eyes and your brain, not just to tell a story. They pushed to make animations as lively as possible. Because that was the point of animating something in the first place. To impress with the art and the ability to bring drawn, weird looking characters, to life.

Nowadays this is pretty much extinct, in TV shows at least. Because later on, the animation industry decided to be cheap and lower the frame rate by using many duplicate frames. They also cheapened it further by animating only certain parts of the pictures (the mouth, some body parts) while trying to keep as much still imagery as possible on screen. Basically, today's TV cartoons use as less frames and animations as possible. Plus a simple "clean" art style with less shading and detail to be even easier (and even cheaper). But wait, there's more. There's also a lot of skeletal animation or "puppetry" so instead of, say, drawing frames for a walking animation, you just move the already existing legs of the characters. This makes things even easier but doesn't look nearly as good as hand drawn frames.

See nowadays, watching an animated film isn't about the animation anymore. You don't see shorts like old school Tom & Jerry or Looney Tunes where there wasn't much dialog or a deep story. Now, it's just about the story and characters, who cares how they look or move. And to produce as much of it as possible ofc.

Cuphead shits on all that and uses traditional frame-by-frame animation like the old days, there is no fake skeletal animation, everything is re-drawn and not just parts of the characters (except from the backgrounds) that's why you get this nice, subtle, movement in every part of the picture, even when a character stays still, you still see some subtle movement on his whole body.

If you want to see more examples of this fine animation see Who Framed Roger Rabbit. All the animation in this film is frame by frame (otherwise it would look out of place compared to the live actors). There's also an animated film called The Thief and the Cobbler by the same animator. Akira also uses this techique (and it's one of the best looking and most expensive animated films). And of course, many older 30's to 60's cartoons. There are also a bunch of short but nice looking frame by frame animations on Youtube, by several artists. Not sure about classic animated Disney films, some of them seem to use this technique or at least in parts.

There is no way this TV show will replicate what the game did by some automated, cheap, way. They will either have to produce something more expensive or it will look like a shitty modern cartoon with all of the focus being the story and the characters. Somehow it's not very hard to think where to place your bets on.


DansDans said:
Not even in the slightest. You'd be surprised how powerful After Effects is for something like this - and same with 3D rendering programs (even free ones like Blender would allow you do make a 2D animation like this easily)

It's all about nailing the assets, and they should be mostly done
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Highly doubtful.


Pallas said:
X0r9tYj.gif
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Because they won't be able to replicate the thing that brought the Cuphead game into existence in the first place.
 
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nkarafo said:
Back in the day they used to draw one unique picture per frame (24 unique cells, as many as the film allows). That's called "frame by frame" animation. Because back then they used animation to impress your eyes and your brain, not just to tell a story. They pushed to make animations as lively as possible. Because that was the point of animating something in the first place. To impress with the art and the ability to bring drawn, weird looking characters, to life.

Nowadays this is pretty much extinct, in TV shows at least. Because later on, the animation industry decided to be cheap and lower the frame rate by using many duplicate frames. They also cheapened it further by animating only certain parts of the pictures (the mouth, some body parts) while trying to keep as many still imagery as possible on screen. Basically, today's TV cartoons use as less frames and animations as possible. Plus a simple "clean" art style with less shading and detail to be even easier (and even cheaper). But wait, there's more. There's also a lot of skeletal animation or "puppetry" so instead of drawing frames by hand, you just move the already existing legs of the characters. This makes things even easier but doesn't look nearly as good as hand drawn frames.

See nowadays, watching an animated film isn't about the animation anymore. You don't see shorts like old school Tom & Jerry or Looney Tunes where there wasn't much dialog or a deep story. Now, it's just about the story and characters, who cares how they look or move. And to produce as much of it as possible ofc.

Cuphead shits on all that and uses traditional frame-by-frame animation like the old days, there is no fake skeletal animation, everything is re-drawn and not just parts of the characters (except from the backgrounds) that's why you get this nice, subtle, movement in every part of the picture, even when a character stays still, you still see some subtle movement on his whole body.

If you want to see more examples of this fine animation see Who Framed Roger Rabbit. All the animation in this film is frame by frame (otherwise it would look out of place compared to the live actors). There's also an animated film called The Thief and the Cobbler by the same animator. Akira also uses this techique (and it's one of the best looking and most expensive animated films). And of course, many older 30's to 60's cartoons. There are also a bunch of short but nice looking frame by frame animations on Youtube, by several artists. Not sure about classic animated Disney films, some of them seem to use this technique or at least in parts.

There is no way this TV show will replicate what the game did by some automated, cheap, way. They will either have to produce something more expensive or it will look like a shitty modern cartoon with all of the focus being the story and the characters. Somehow it's not very hard to think where to place your bets on.
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BRUH! Thanks for the amazing explanation. Looking at it this way, NO WAY Netflix is paying the money to create a 24 individual frame per second cartoon that ALSO has an interesting story with good voice acting.
 
Some more info about frame-by-frame animation in this video about Richard Williams (the best animator of all time IMO)

 
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nkarafo said:
Some more info about frame-by-frame animation in this video about Richard Williams (the best animator of all time IMO)

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Man and most of that animation didn't have voice acting, yet it says so much. Since Netflix is losing Friends and The Office, maybe they should spend the actual money to create real '30s animation for this show. They need this Cuphead show TO WORK!
 
Mista said:
Cuphead-Show_07-09-19.jpg


Netflix, in partnership with King Features Syndicate and game developer Studio MDHR, has announced The Cuphead Show, a Netflix original series inspired by classic animation styles of the 1930s.

The animated comedy will expand upon the characters and world of the Cuphead video game, which stars Cuphead and his brother Mugman who make a deal with the devil in a gambling match.

C.J. Kettler will executive produce for King Features Syndicate, while Cuphead creators Chad and Jared Moldenhaur will executive produce for Studio MDHR. Netflix Animation will produce the series, which will be executive produced by Emmy and Annie award winner Dave Wasson. Cosmo Segurson will serve as co-executive producer.
www.hollywoodreporter.com

Netflix to Adapt ‘Cuphead’ Into Animated Comedy Series

Netflix and King Features Syndicate, a part of Hearst Entertainment and Syndication, are bringing the massively popular indie platforming game 'Cuphead' to the streaming platform with the new animated series 'The Cuphead Show!'
www.hollywoodreporter.com www.hollywoodreporter.com
gematsu.com

Netflix announces The Cuphead Show! original series

Netflix, in partnership with King Features Syndicate and game developer Studio MDHR, has announced The Cuphead Show!, a Netflix original series inspired by classic animation styles of the 1930s.
gematsu.com gematsu.com
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These people couldn't match the quality on a single image and people are ripping on posters for being pessimistic about the quality of the animation? :messenger_grinning_smiling: You would think that a series based off a game that's biggest draw is high quality retro animation would try to capture that, but I wouldn't put any money on it.
 
nkarafo said:
Back in the day they used to draw one unique picture per frame (24 unique cells per second, as many as the film allows). That's called "frame by frame" animation. Because back then they used animation to impress your eyes and your brain, not just to tell a story. They pushed to make animations as lively as possible. Because that was the point of animating something in the first place. To impress with the art and the ability to bring drawn, weird looking characters, to life.

Nowadays this is pretty much extinct, in TV shows at least. Because later on, the animation industry decided to be cheap and lower the frame rate by using many duplicate frames. They also cheapened it further by animating only certain parts of the pictures (the mouth, some body parts) while trying to keep as much still imagery as possible on screen. Basically, today's TV cartoons use as less frames and animations as possible. Plus a simple "clean" art style with less shading and detail to be even easier (and even cheaper). But wait, there's more. There's also a lot of skeletal animation or "puppetry" so instead of, say, drawing frames for a walking animation, you just move the already existing legs of the characters. This makes things even easier but doesn't look nearly as good as hand drawn frames.

See nowadays, watching an animated film isn't about the animation anymore. You don't see shorts like old school Tom & Jerry or Looney Tunes where there wasn't much dialog or a deep story. Now, it's just about the story and characters, who cares how they look or move. And to produce as much of it as possible ofc.

Cuphead shits on all that and uses traditional frame-by-frame animation like the old days, there is no fake skeletal animation, everything is re-drawn and not just parts of the characters (except from the backgrounds) that's why you get this nice, subtle, movement in every part of the picture, even when a character stays still, you still see some subtle movement on his whole body.

If you want to see more examples of this fine animation see Who Framed Roger Rabbit. All the animation in this film is frame by frame (otherwise it would look out of place compared to the live actors). There's also an animated film called The Thief and the Cobbler by the same animator. Akira also uses this techique (and it's one of the best looking and most expensive animated films). And of course, many older 30's to 60's cartoons. There are also a bunch of short but nice looking frame by frame animations on Youtube, by several artists. Not sure about classic animated Disney films, some of them seem to use this technique or at least in parts.

There is no way this TV show will replicate what the game did by some automated, cheap, way. They will either have to produce something more expensive or it will look like a shitty modern cartoon with all of the focus being the story and the characters. Somehow it's not very hard to think where to place your bets on.
Click to expand...

Good post dude. Another thing that sets the OG Cuphead animation apart from what you can see (and infer) from the still is construction. Look at the tracking and how details wrap around forms in Cuphead. That's evidence of them taking the old-school techniques very seriously when it came to construction. Breaking each design down into basic shapes and mapping their depth. Upcoming titles like Battletoads do have somewhat fluid frame by frame animation. But the designs are haphazardly constructed which leads to an amateurish, flat, flash animated look (among other elements).

pbanimation06-big.jpg

pbanimation08-791273.jpg

pbanimation09-720297.jpg
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Not that there isn't a place for stylistically flat, angular design. Just not for the look they're trying to pull off.

You know it might have been fun, in a nerdy animation buff way, that if they were going for a cheaper style to save money -- that they used the authentic simple/cheap UPA-ish look of the era. It had been done with Disney character before and the results weren't half bad.

WWjx2kR.jpg

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Not a serious suggestion but it'd be a funny nod to cheaper animation that still authentically evokes that era.
 
here's hoping they stick to the style of the game. also they got to keep the old jazz musical. basically they need to try as close as possible to hit the style of the old Betty Boop cartoons.


 
Boss Mog said:
Didn't Netflix get the memo that Cuphead is "racist"?
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this is typical wide brush painting, people who think anything in the 30s is tainted by racism. true, it is there, and there is bad stuff, but there is bad stuff NOW, even today, and you can say "This is bad" and leave it at that, and still admire the animation, or just skip those specific cartoons. interestingly, the Cuphead game presents a bevvy of character designs, backgrounds, and story, without a single controversial character amongst them. it helps that these are cups and mugs and inanimate things but i trust in the creators who have already shown themselves more than capable of producing a lot of great high quality content while avoiding toxic tropes of the "past".

there are a lot of qualities to analog animation you don't get in digital. CGI has a lot of requirements whereas 2D animation is quite limitless. CGI has physics models and hair simulations, yes, but the animators will be missing out on the possibilities of true expressive art by relying on calculated particle effects & hard/soft body simulations. it ties things down, it limits the flexibility of all form.

old cartoons were so fluid not just by the amount of frames of unique drawings involved in each animation, but due to the fluidity of the characters themselves. the models were not solidified, 3D standards. they could, and often did, stretch, and squash, and elongate, and even do surreal things like turn into trains or animals or whatever the scene required. with animation a form can instantly transform from one frame to the next. this allows for a kind of magical storytelling that is missing from the modern, 3D, computer-produced animation, which is much more puppet-like. traditional animation has a painting-like quality to it. the Cuphead game really captures that magical quality of old animation, so hopefully it's in the show as well.
 
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#Phonepunk# said:
here's hoping they stick to the style of the game. also they got to keep the old jazz musical. basically they need to try as close as possible to hit the style of the old Betty Boop cartoons.


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I think it's also more than just the technic used that gives off the 30s animation look and feel. There's also a rhythm in the movement and a graphical styling that was so great in Cuphead. Like even if they used the same technics for the TV show, you'd still need the art style and 30s style movement to the animation to be there.

It's really bouncy and exaggerated. It wasn't meant to look natural.
 
mckmas8808 said:
It's really bouncy and exaggerated. It wasn't meant to look natural.
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This too. And if you watch enough of these old cartoons you will realize that they are basically short musicals. A bunch of characters bouncing around in sync with the music. Cuphead nailed that IMO. They are also pretty short like 5 to 10 mins long. Tom and Jerry and Looney Tunes also followed that format in some part. It was a good format to focus on the animation and the short duration probably helped production costs from exploding.

Now cartoon TV shows are about 20+ minutes of narratives, stories, tons of "complex" characters that need to be characterized or at least that's what they are aiming for. Bunch of characters talking and a few "action" scenes here and there. There is very little there to push animations, most of it is just moving mouths, facial expressions and some walking to move characters from one scene to another. And it's not like they are going to animate all of the subtle body movements like in Akira or something. There is also a very small amount of slapstick humor anymore, no more Road Runner antics that pushed comedy through animations alone. Most of the humor now comes from the dialog (which isn't bad, everything have their place). And of course, production costs are as low as ever.

Now that doesn't mean there aren't good shows out there, i myself am a huge fan of the ugly looking, dialog heavy South Park (which is basically stop motion shapes) and Rick & Morty (which even has many opportunities to push imaginative animations due to it's "anything can happen" nature). But these are original shows. And as far as Cuphead goes i just don't see how it can become a modern show without stripping away everything that made Cuphead what it was originally.
 
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nkarafo said:
This too. And if you watch enough of these old cartoons you will realize that they are basically short musicals. A bunch of characters bouncing around in sync with the music. Cuphead nailed that IMO. They are also pretty short like 5 to 10 mins long. Tom and Jerry and Looney Tunes also followed that format in some part. It was a good format to focus on the animation and the short duration probably helped production costs from exploding.

Now cartoon TV shows are about 20+ minutes of narratives, stories, tons of "complex" characters that need to be characterized or at least that's what they are aiming for. Bunch of characters talking and a few "action" scenes here and there. There is very little there to push animations, most of it is just moving mouths, facial expressions and some walking to move characters from one scene to another. And it's not like they are going to animate all of the subtle body movements like in Akira or something. There is also a very small amount of slapstick humor anymore, no more Road Runner antics that pushed comedy through animations alone. Most of the humor now comes from the dialog (which isn't bad, everything have their place). And of course, production costs are as low as ever.

Now that doesn't mean there aren't good shows out there, i myself am a huge fan of the ugly looking, dialog heavy South Park (which is basically stop motion shapes) and Rick & Morty (which even has many opportunities to push imaginative animations due to it's "anything can happen" nature). But these are original shows. And as far as Cuphead goes i just don't see how it can become a modern show without stripping away everything that made Cuphead what it was originally.
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I think Netflix has to be bold and do what they've been doing this whole time. Don't constrain the creatives to any amount of time per episode. Don't force them to make 25 episodes for the season. Netflix just showed that they allow their creatives to excercise freedom by allowing Black Mirror's latest season to only be 3 episodes.

If Netflix allows Cuphead episodes to be 8-15 minute shorts (i.e. "Love, Death, Robots"), then it can be amazing! Their Love Death Robots season was amazing on multiple fronts. That show had a collection of pure artistic freedom screaming from it.
 
I am honestly very excited by this. I haven't played the game because I have heard it is quite difficult, and it sounds a bit outside of what I'd enjoy. But I love the art style, and now I will be able to see it through a different medium.
 
These quotes are huge....

we're keen to stay as far away from computer-assisted puppeteer animation as possible and are proud to be working with a creative team that really believes in the value of hand animation.
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We feel like it's something that kids will love, but will keep parents and those who have played Cuphead engaged with the inspiration it takes from the cartoon classics of the 1930s and humor that plays on multiple levels.
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Holy shit, that's how you ruin a franchise. This looks terrible and does not capture the original spirit at all.
 
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