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Vox: Why cartoon characters wear gloves
- Thread starter lightskintwin
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Vulcano's assistant
Banned
Scarfs/ascots/turtlenecks are also very useful at saving time. Anything that splits body parts helps.
Bjoern the Smexy
Member
Really good. Always wondered that.
For people who don't wanna watch the video:
Really nice, very informative, pretty cool.
For people who don't wanna watch the video:
Many antropomorphic cartoon characters in the early days of animation were drawn completely black (like Felix the Cat, Mickey Mouse, etc.). You couldn't see black hands (or feet) on a black body (or any kind of black background) very well. So at one point they added gloves, which was also a reference to old Vaudeville shows. When Vaudeville shows started to dissapear, gloves on cartoon characters stayed because people basically expected them on cartoon characters.
That's why characters like Goofy, Mickey Mouse or Bugs Bunny look...honestly kinda weird whitout their gloves on.
Also gloves saved time animating.
Then at the end it asks the question: Why does Daffy Duck wear this collar-thing around his neck?
That's why characters like Goofy, Mickey Mouse or Bugs Bunny look...honestly kinda weird whitout their gloves on.
Also gloves saved time animating.
Then at the end it asks the question: Why does Daffy Duck wear this collar-thing around his neck?
Really nice, very informative, pretty cool.
microtransaction
Neo Member
Ties and bows like Fred Flintstone and Yoghi bear like to use. Good stuff.
He's a workin' stiff. Just a loud mouthed clerk from an office. Assistant TO the general manager.
Can't look at the video now but some say the idea came from the ...actual white gloves animators used to don't smudge the ink when rubbing the hand for support
lightskintwin
Banned
You failed to mention the whole Blackface minstrel shows being the key inspiration.
Sectorseven
Member
Can't look at the video now but some say the idea came from the ...actual white gloves animators used to don't smudge the ink when rubbing the hand for support
Is that the same lady 50 years later?
Stead Fast
Banned
If she is, she's ambidextrous and a good artist.
Saw the video earlier, I always had an inkling about animations link to Minstrels, but haf no clue it was a practical choice too, until that clip with Pete was played where his hand disappeared as it crossed his body.
meltingparappa
Member
Thankfully ink costs nothing, even back then.
Jeez, John Canemaker sounds so old in the video, but hopefully it's just the call quality.
I always thought that bird characters tended to not have gloves as a stylistic choice, because their arms are meant to be extensions of their wings, and fingers sometimes very very vaguely representative of feathers. Putting a glove on the end would taper that wing concept down to a single point. Also, none of it matters, since it's a cartoon.
For Daddy's collar though, I always thought it was just an abstraction of the marking on a mallard.
Something to make his design stand out from when he was just a black and white abstraction.
Duane Cunningham
Member
This one is actually a bit different. All the 30's/40's stuff like Looney Toons, Tom & Jerry, and Disney's theatrical shorts had a huge Hollywood budget. So they had big armies of animators who would redraw every frame, which is why everything looked so fluid and kinetic:
But later, once TV came along, the budgets got way smaller and more output on a shorter time frame was needed. Joe Hanna and William Barbera were among the first to really figure out some good tricks to solve the problem. If you notice every single character here has something around their neck:
Designing them this way made it easy to animate shots where the only the head needs to be animated and they could just draw the body once. It's also why most of them have a "muzzle" of some kind... so the mouth could just move in some cases without drawing the rest of the head. It's also why all those characters have that signature Hanna Barbera walk where the body stays stiff and the arms don't move, only the legs.
Or sometimes they'd draw the head once and animate the body in limited ways.
Interesting stuff.
Wait, I thought the point of those was so that they could mix and match body and head? So if, for instance, you need Fred walking and talking you can have the stock walking body anim and lip-synched facial anims separately?
But that's not what the gloves are for. They weren't animating hands separately from bodies. Even when a character is doing something hand-intensive like playing a piano they're still being very animated with their arms and whatnot.
What did he mean by this?
Member
Bugs Bunny has gloves on?
Pinko Marx
Banned
The connection between minstrel shows and early cartoons blows my mind but is so obvious in hindsight.
lucebuce12
Member
What's mario's excuse though
You've never seen a plumber wear gloves?
Probably designed with Western characters like Mickey Mouse in mind. Sonic wears them too, but his look was influenced by Mickey and Felix the Cat.What's mario's excuse though
What's mario's excuse though
Mario from bottom to top was because of animating shortcuts for Donkey Kong IIRC.
Mustache, hat, overalls, all of it.
MisterGrey3000
Member
What's mario's excuse though
I imagine both Bugs Bunny and Mario were designed with gloves simply because cartoon characters have gloves so they've gotta have gloves too.
I mean, the first ever bugs bunny short didn't even have 'em in gloves:
...despite it being black and white. You'd think it would be there for clarity's sake as usual, but nope.
Edit: Actually my bad. Early Mario was given gloves for the sake of bringing clarity to the rough 8-bit animation.
DiipuSurotu
Banned
So basically Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny are Black?
Messofanego
Banned
This one is actually a bit different. All the 30's/40's stuff like Looney Toons, Tom & Jerry, and Disney's theatrical shorts had a huge Hollywood budget. So they had big armies of animators who would redraw every frame, which is why everything looked so fluid and kinetic:
But later, once TV came along, the budgets got way smaller and more output on a shorter time frame was needed. Joe Hanna and William Barbera were among the first to really figure out some good tricks to solve the problem. If you notice every single character here has something around their neck:
Designing them this way made it easy to animate shots where the only the head needs to be animated and they could just draw the body once. It's also why most of them have a "muzzle" of some kind... so the mouth could just move in some cases without drawing the rest of the head. It's also why all those characters have that signature Hanna Barbera walk where the body stays stiff and the arms don't move, only the legs.
Or sometimes they'd draw the head once and animate the body in limited ways.
Interesting stuff.
Mind blown, thanks!
Sectorseven
Member
My toilet demands white glove service.
microtransaction
Neo Member
Nice! Those are some very cool pics & info, thanks, man!
adamsappel
Member
That's not Bugs Bunny, it's a separate character that predates Bugs' official debut by two years. Many traits from from this rabbit character were later transferred to Bugs, but at the same time there's traits that are uncharacteristic of Bugs. Also the rabbit doesn't have Bugs' voice, it's more in line with Woody Woodpecker.I imagine both Bugs Bunny and Mario were designed with gloves simply because cartoon characters have gloves so they've gotta have gloves too.
I mean, the first ever bugs bunny short didn't even have 'em in gloves:
...despite it being black and white. You'd think it would be there for clarity's sake as usual, but nope.
Edit: Actually my bad. Early Mario was given gloves for the sake of bringing clarity to the rough 8-bit animation.
Mickey yeah probably, but in Bugs' case I think by the time of his creation it had already become a cartoon cliche of sorts to wear gloves, so he was made to wear gloves. Bugs first appeared in 1940, 12 years after Mickey's official debut and 11 years after Mickey first wore gloves.
Khalifa Jayy
Banned
I would like to subscribe to Cartoon Facts, please.
Gentleman Jack
Member
What's mario's excuse though
Same reason, he's wearing gloves from Super Mario World onwards. Even his NES sprites take care to delineate where his hands are at all time so his run cycle reads properly to the eye.
So yeah, Sonic, Mario and Crash Bandicoot all have their hands contrast with the rest of their bodies for exactly the same reason animators put gloves on their cartoon characters.
lightskintwin
Banned
Nah, Mickey's origin is a literal blackface minstrel depicted as a mouse. So technically he's white wearing blackface makeup and mouse ears and acting "black".
Clean white gloves. Thats really telling of how much plumbing Mario actually does.
MisterGrey3000
Member
I understand that the character is not technically "Bugs Bunny", but he's basically Bug's Australopithecus. It has been stated that the character eventually became bugs bunny multiple times.
Ultimately the point of my post was that Bugs didn't really need gloves at that point in animation history from a design perspective, but he most likely has them because it was a common and increasingly iconic trope.
lightskintwin
Banned
Same reason, he's wearing gloves from Super Mario World onwards. Even his NES sprites take care to delineate where his hands are at all time so his run cycle reads properly to the eye.
So yeah, Sonic, Mario and Crash Bandicoot all have their hands contrast with the rest of their bodies for exactly the same reason animators put gloves on their cartoon characters.
While his sprite in Super Mario 3 wasn't wearing gloves, the box art depicts him wearing them. Same with the box art to Super Mario 2.
Eh, I don't remember that being the case back in my history classes, but my memory on it could be iffy. I do recall some things being held back to save on ink early on though.
MisterGrey3000
Member
A lot of the blackface stuff in the Golden Age Looney Tunes shorts just sneaks up on you man.
There is never any rhyme or reason for it, and half the time it's triggered by the most random things.
All of this serve to make the racism even more uncomfortable considering how well-animated, timeless, and clever they are before they suddenly become the Jazz Singer.
:/
Imperial Bishop
Banned
Didn't they poke fun at the white gloves in A Goofy Movie?
Rapscallion
Member
The clip is within the first minute of the video.
Imperial Bishop
Banned
I didn't watch the video since I was at work, but I see it now that I watched the full thing.
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