Jack Alexander Gray's Animation Journal: [INSPIRATION] Contemporary Rubber-hose Animation

I talked alot about classic examples of rubber-hose animation, from 1910s to the 1940s in a previous post. However, one of the things I have been interested in now is a contemporary take on the style, during the 1940s rubber-hose animation began to be replaced by a more realism style of animation, Walt Disney began to create more and more realistic styles of animation which followed the rules of live action. The trend began to spread and because of the popularity and success of Walt Disney's work, animation producers at the time began to follow suit. Fleischer Studios continued to use it until the 1940s before turning to a more contemporary style, and soon enough, rubber-hose animation became obselite.

Now-a-days, the style has a sort of cult following. It is often recreated and mimiced, including all the video distortions, the 4:3 aspect ratio and the black and white colours. It can also be parodied in a way, take for example Fernando Miller's short animated video; Flea & Fly in "City Troubles" (2013), the style of animation is 100% rubber-hose and it recreates it perfectly, however, towards the end they break the fourth wall in a way that wasn't possible by Felix the Cat in the 1920s, at 5 minutes and 18 seconds into the video the characters jump out of the 4:3 aspect ratio and wander around the darkness, revealing that the video is actually filmed in a 16:9 aspect ratio. Below is the full video:

This is a very clever way of using rubber-hose animation, and although it is a very nice homage to the style, the story of Flea & Fly adresses a dark topic which is lightened by the animation style. The film's underlining implication is that of the real life problems of street children in modern Brazil, the film focuses on two children who smoke, drink alcohol, steal, bathe in public and urinate in the street, the film ends with these children being killed in the street.

This is loosely based of a true event which occoured in 1993 in Brazil in which 8 street children where killed by police officers outside the Candelaria Church, the same location in where the two children in this animation are killed in the street by the plice officers. One thing that is clever is that the story is lightened by the animation style, this sort of plot is very similar to plots that were around in the 1920s, such as Katzenjammer Kids, so while it has an underlined message about how children live in Rio, it is lightened by the styling of rubber-hose animation.

Another animation which is true to the rubber-hose style is Ghost of Stephen Foster a music video for the band Squirrel Nut Zippers, see below;

The animation was heavily inspired by the Fleischer Brothers style of animation, and focused specifically on their animation style of rubber-hose. this can be seen by the character designs and the animated objects. Fleischer Studios were among the few that not only gave life to their characters, but also gave life to objects as well, many objects would dance in time to the music, which makes it the perfect inspiration for a music video paying homage to rubber-hose animation.

Many modern shows have parodied rubber-hose animation, taking it to extreme lengths or just stereotyping the style. Below are a few examples of cartoons who have parodied rubber-hose animation:

Fairly Odd Parents - The Good Old Days