The World of UPA (Part 1 of 3)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 พ.ย. 2018
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This is the story of the rebels who made animation grow up.
(Part 1 of 3)
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Sources/Further Reading:
When Magoo Flew: The Rise and Fall of Animation Studio UPA by Adam Abraham - amzn.to/2TNyMOr
Animation Learns a New Language by John Hubley and Zachary Schwartz - bit.ly/2Kzi2WC
American Experience: Walt Disney (2015) - imdb.to/2FJwYTp
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So cool! My Great Uncle who just passed away at 102 was an animator for UPA: Willy Pyle (he is in the credits at min 10:28) I just sent this video to my family! Thank you for this!
I'm sorry about your uncle :(
Im so happy that your great uncle was a part of this big story. Thanks for sharing!
Well, your uncle is now the most ambitious one in history. And this is great!
I was friends with Willy for the last 7 years of his life. We would meet at his apartment on the upper west side and talk art and animation. He was so much fun and had so many stories from his days at Disney, UPA, and beyond. He animated Gerald McBoing Boing at the microphone wearing a cowboy hat. He was a Disney striker before that. I miss him but I'm glad I got to know him.
Mary Lynn Pyle Sorry to hear about your loss. Your uncle lived for a century. Thanks for the legacy he left us for many years to come.
The Jazz of Animation
That's pretty much it.
Ya' like jazz?
Hanna Barbera before Hanna Barbera
wouldn't that just be animation in the 1920s and 1930s ( and with Jazz music )?
Fuck ok didn't have to get all poetic like that
I think it can't be understated how much the Depression played in UPA's creation. Reading interviews with several animators from that era, you get the picture a large number of people got into animation not because they really wanted to, but because Disney was one of the only places for a young artist to get hired to actually do art. And once they came out the other side, they had all these sharp animation skills and more opportunities to be the artists they always wanted to be.
“ he wanted his animation to do what live-action couldn’t “
This
What?
@@thesensur6214 " HE WANTED HIS ANIMATION TO DO WHAT LIVE-ACTION COULDN'T "
THIS
Harrison Lane what is the “this” supposed to add?
A progressive thought at that time in history, but really a bit of a fallacy
says in this video that this guy said it then says in another video that richard williams said it,..maybe they both said it, great line too.
I am so happy this video is here now. I saw animation of UPA during my entire childhood without knowing at the time the rich history behind it.
Same! This is such a great video.
It's worth mentioning that they won several Oscars, including 1956 when they had every nomination. Their style affected every other studio, including Disney. And they would not have survived if not for Hubley's creation of Mr Magoo.
One other big influence on the UPA style of animation was the 1942 Warner Bros. cartoon The Dover Boys at Pimento University, created by Chuck Jones. It had some of the earliest use of minimalist design to create expressive human characters. It's really sort've the prototype for what would become UPA style.
Haha, this is something I just learned reading up a bit, one year after The Dover Boys, and while working for Columbia animation, John Hubley made a carbon copy of the former cartoon with a short called Rocky Road to Ruin: th-cam.com/video/qoG0f3Yl2mg/w-d-xo.html
They even casted the same voice actor for the narrator, John McLeish, and that guy also wrote the short. It too is cited as being a pivotal part of the development of the UPA style, despite being mostly forgotten and overshadowed by the cartoon it rather heavily copied.
Also, while as a whole the Fox and Crow shorts were relatively pedestrian, the first entry into the series, The Fox and the Grapes, was cited by Chuck Jones himself as one of his key inspirations for his famous Roadrunner cartoons for Warner Bros. The fox's repeated attempts to retrieve the grapes nailed to the trunk of a tree are similar to Wile E. Coyote's constant attempts to catch the roadrunner, in terms of the setup.
@@AlbertHamik2 Similarly, there was a film called "Willoughby's Magic Hat" which also is often sighted.
th-cam.com/video/uAgstSe7bNg/w-d-xo.html
th-cam.com/video/izeNkFlcBmg/w-d-xo.html
Man I had no idea how old The Dover boys was, I thought it came out at least a decade or two later.
Oh Chuck Jones loved UPA style heck a not so well none series of Looney Tunes cartoons Chuck did was the Ralph Philips series .About a little kid who constantly was day dreaming .A very UPA influenced style and story .I think that Chuck would have left Warners if given the opportunity he would have gone to UPA
I always loved UPA artistically, but never knew the business side. This is great.
My great grandfather was the voice for the jaywalker, thank you for sharing
Excellent! I'm so glad you made this! UPA can be criminally under valued, despite their huge change to the world of western animation. Really looking forward to the next 2 parts!
Any-Mation almost as good as YOUR video essays on animation. Almost. Your channel deserves at least as many subscribers as Royal Ocean and are the 2 best animation/film resources on youtube imo.
The modern artists (animators) that I actually like and would talk about vs the ones I hear about over and OVER again in my art classes.
Never heard of this company before, but this video is great. So cool to learn about something new ♥️
this comment is so generic
@@alamdaali8776Yup....
Woah a metal upa! Those are rare!
Justin Y. I hadn't seen you all day man, I was worried
Yeah you haven't been commenting in a while
fuck off
C A S E I N P O I N T , T H I S O N E ‘ S A D U D
How come I see you everywhere?
Love that you're covering UPA! I teach Animation History, and it's one of my favorite classes- to show the students how we take for granted how animation looks these days and how UPA was so different and revolutionary at the time. Hoping you fold in the modern art influences of picasso, mondrian, & kandinsky as well as throw Mr Magoo some love in the coming videos!
"Invaded by diet Looney Tunes" needs to become a widespread expression
Finally, someone called Columbia "Diet Looney Tunes"! Glad I'm not the only one who of them that way. It doesn't help that Columbia was pumped by the same guy who got Oswald in Universal.
Walter Lantz?
@@kooarchived Charles Mintz.
@@jvgreendarmok Oh.
2:09 This might be the most creative demonstration sign I've ever seen
It’s so rare to hear about UPA especially this in-depth. I’m excited for this series.
The graphic is tight!
Finally got around to watching the UPA trilogy and I have to say it has been one of my absolute favorite docu-series I've watched in recent times.
Thanks for this! There's a lot of discussion and reverence in the animation community for the "UPA style" [which is a whole other discussion as to what people think that is!] but definitely not enough discussion about the efforts of unionization and the attempt to create a studio that encapsulated the ethics and cooperation the union members wanted to bring about! So much to learn from today by looking at the history of the formation of UPA. There has been a resurgence of discussion of this history lately and I love it!!! Thank you!
You've got to do a video series on Fleischer Studios in the future. Especially since they played a big role during the early days of animation. At one point, they we're big rivals with Disney before the Looney Tunes existed.
I love The Fleischers for their Popeye cartoons. ^^
Those guy are the true legends! Nothing from back then ever looked so good.
Walt Disney made revolutionary art. The imagery in fantasia and Bambi has since not been rivalled. He had his own style and direction. That did not mean he was inferior to the UPA.
Also, Walt famously hated using piled gags, and instead tried to tell complex stories. He was not the only storyteller in the studio, and hated how stale mainsteam animation was. That's why he wanted to change everything through the making of Snow White. Also, in White, they needed to attempt realism so that they could transcend it in their later golden Age films. These films used cinematography and movement impossible in live action. Moreover, Fantasia has a lot of abstract imagery in its opening suite, Night on bald mountain suite, and Nutcracker suite, which pushed colouring, cinematography, film, emotion, art and broke the rules of perspective effortlessly. Mickey mouse was a tiny part of Disney, which allowed them to increase in popularity so that he could make his films. The silly symphonies were a training ground so that the animators could be prepared for making films. The reason snow White used so much realistic movement was because everyone were telling Disney that an audience can't emotionally connect to drawings. The Huntsman scene took months to get right and for the audience to really feel for Snow White. It's revolutionary what they did. Furthermore, they improved in their later films. Can you do the stories, imagery and direction of Phinocchio, Fantasia or Bambi in live action or CGI? I doubt it.
You cannot say Disney was all rabbits and talking mice. You're using specific examples to represent the visionary who was responsible for fantasia, Bambi, phinocchio, and the first blockbuster. He pushed the boundaries of storytelling, cinematography and film. His creativity is mind bending. Alfred Hitchcock and Citizen Kane were inspired by Disney. The amount of nuance and philosophy in Bambi is almost unmatched.
Going by your logic, I can say that the UPA was nothing but cute taking cats, crows and foxes, as well as gags based on newspapers and bears.
I am glad this group of artists could reach their potential in the UPA. The Disney films had over 100 people working on them. It's actually scary how much talent is wasted in animation. In films like Spirited Away, you only see Miyazaki's vision - a tiny fraction of the people who worked on the film. Anyway, I always thought the UPA were Soviet animators. They had a similar style to a lot of Soviet animation and I only saw their dialogue-less cartoons. I can't wait to learn more about them! There's a lot of underrated animation visionaries in the world, such as Uri Norstein(regarded by many professors as the greatest animation Director of all time), the Fleisher brothers, Windsor McCay, etc. I'm glad that more people will learn about UPA through such a great TH-cam channel.
"In films like Spirited Away, you only see Miyazaki's vision - a tiny fraction of the people who worked on the film"
Gonna have to disagree with this implied negative aspect of Miyazaki's one-man vision. We all get into art to express what we're feeling _individually._ Collaboration is the cornerstone of animation and nearly an infallible pillar, but a negative aspect is making work that may not be what you want to express. With more people and different minds all interacting with your ideas, the accuracy to what you were gunning for falters more and more and sure, some people can enhance your idea and make it better. But, that's not all the time; sometimes people just don't have a resonance with what you're trying to express. Maybe you don't fully know, and you want to figure it out on an individual level to develop new ideas that you know will add to it in a way no one could.
Collaboration is needed to get all the elements together, but playing as a strong director isn't something that's negative.
This is fantastic! I grew up loving “Gerald McBoing-Boing” and “Tom Terrific” (and His wonder-dog Mighty Manfred) but had no idea where they came from and why they were so charming in their quirky way! Can’t wait for the next two episodes and a way to view and share them all once again!
Tom Terrific came from UPA? I always thought that cartoon was TerryToons. I know Gene Deitch (who created Tom Terrific... And Sidney the Elephant, Clint Clobber, Samson Scrap, and Nudnik amongst others) got his start at UPA (where he was an apprentice, directed Pump Troubles, and was a producer for the short-lived Gerald McBoing Boing TV Series), but Tom Terrific didn't come to be until Gene moved on to TerryToons (Unless it was an idea he had on the back burner when he left UPA)
The editing on this is gorgeous
I never heard of this company, but I'm amaized! It looks like jazz sounds, and that's fresh even after 60 years of it's inception.
Everytime you show that old photo of the Roosevelt, I get a little shiver as I'm currently typing this from the third/top floor of the building on edge of frame left. Thank you so much for telling the UPA's tale!
Wonderful history and tribute to a relatively unknown, but important studio! Also influential: After a few years, Disney itself, of all creators, thanks partly to the intelligence and talent of Ward Kimball, began adopting the UPA style in its own cartoons! Thank you for making this series of videos!
UPA cartoons were all over the tv in my childhood in the 1970’s and early 80’s.
Thanks for bringing their history to life. Great work.
How was absolutely none of this in my history of animation class?! I have never heard of any of these names! I'm in love with this particular art style; Blue Rhapsody remains my favorite Fantasia film to date. Thank you so so much for creating this video!
In love with that style, I'm now studying to be an artist, the biggest influence being that era art and the Renaissance art
I'm five years late, but just want to applaud this work. I am currently making an animation for a college project and was trying to put my finger on what I thought were just general mid century animation tendencies, both because it looks cool and I know will let me do more quickly (I have a week lol). To find out that A. the abstract end of that tendency (what I want) was codified by a specific studio and B. this resource spells out just what they were going for, helps me out immensely. For an extra dose of mild irony, I'm doing all this in Zagreb, with it's even more radically abstract animation tradition.
I imagine what would be Brotherhood of Man be like (or any UPA film) if it was newly introduced back then as if I saw it for the first time? It would be fascinating.
Without the UPA influence, there wouldnt be any animated series like Samurai Jack or Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends to name two.
I hope someone could restore these films in high quality.
Finally UPA is being talked about thank u!!!
When i was really young i wanted to know how people make animations, i was like "no way they draw every frame"
“Glorious wartime experiments.” That’s a new one
UPA animation has traditionally underrated artstyle and very simplistic tone. It's sad that nowadays animation is nothing compared to UPA's.
There is a big and well growing animation Industry with lots of talented artists. I guess the problem is, that nobody is going to see an animation film in a cinema anymore, that doesn't look like the 3D Stuff Disney and Pixar are producing. I mean I swear, there are sooooo fucking many great animators out there who are just waiting for a way to finance there own films, that nobody is interested in. :D
cheers
wait..WHAAAAAH! i call this bologna!, like , have you sen the work of McCracken? he REKTS of UPA. or steven universe backgrounds? those are literally UPA inspired! animation nowadays in the western world still been influenced by this wonderful collective of animators. and to be honest, even (indirectly) on internet you see animation with slight tints of it. we just needs an artist popular enough with a really good idea whop push a "revitalizes" the upa art-style and experimentation. i betting adult swin (on internet itself) will be the ones who create a revolution UPA-like in the forthcoming future, the real question is: how long before this happens?
@@theALTF4 Yes. I saw McCracken's work. But Wonder Over Yonder is too close for the UPA looks. I kinda like his work so much.
artstyle? sure i wish we had more diversity. Animation? pretty sure we've had tons of shows animated in higher frames, its all about resourcefulness on a low budget, tho nowadays thats flash and tweening
Samurai Jack, Secret of Kells, Song of the Sea.... Minimalist animation isn't dead
R.I.P. defense limited.You were a challenging train!
I love underated animation, and I must say, this documentary if off to a promising start
God, yes... I audibly gasped when I realised I had to wait for part 2.
Wonderful video! My favorite UPA film is Rooty Toot Toot! I learned of Rooty Toot Toot in Leonard Maltin's book Of Mice and Magic. I can't wait for part two! 🤗🤗🤗😃😃😃👏👏👏👏🎨🎭🎞📽🎥🎬📺📹
OMG the production quality was absolutely of the charts on this one man!! Incredible video such a joy to watch!
This stuff helped to insure that I would grow up loving animated film.
During the WWII segment, they showed caricatures of Nazis but not of Imperial Japanese. It was my grandfather who served in the Pacific who pointed out to me how unhesitatingly media shows caricature of Germans but then all of a sudden hesitates to launch in equal measure against the Japanese, even falsely calling it racist, and I’ve never been able to not notice it since.
This is dope! Thanks for all your hard work, research, and editing on this terrific piece of art!
This 3 part series about UPA is some of my favorite videos on youtube
You should have won an award for this series.
Educational yet entertaining. I especially liked the description of how the new animators wanted to do more abstract work because, I assume, it allowed them the creative latitude they wanted and needed as artists. Excellent!
im so glad you're doing a multi part piece on UPA, their work has been such an inspiration on my work
I love your style and focus man!!!! Always excited to see you've posted a new video
I love the editing on this channel! Looking forward to the complete story of UPA!
Felicidades! Un grandisimo trabajo...
Love learning about the creators of so much content I loved as I was growing up.
where was this video when I had a research paper about UPA and Disney??? :'
What an amazing job, congratulations on a wonderful documentary!
I love the history of animation. Loved the video, looking forward to part 2!
Great video my guy! Great use of clips, and editing as always. And of course so informative and well written. Keep it up man
This was an awesome tribute! Thank you!
I think Yuasa shares some traits with this sort of animation
Tatami Galaxy especially has a bunch of stylistic similarities in terms of layouts, at style and colour. Though most of his other stuff is a different kind of animated expressionism from what I'm seeing in this video.
That was great, can't wait to delve into their art in the next installment, I'm currently teaching myself animation
This Documentary about UPA is Awesome! Can’t wait for more.
Pushing the boundaries, almost always proves beneficial. UPA did great work
This was a fascinating documentary. I can’t wait for the next part!
Why do i feel that Disney creates their rival
they do
DreamWorks too!
So "unique" and popping out to learn more about our revolutionary artists/animators. And well-done analysis of how UPA broke out of the Disney and Warner Brothers trademarks🎯✏🖌🟦🟩🎥🌅 Stay safe and keep it up!
Cool vid, though I wish you expand on UPA legacy, such as the art of Genndy Taratavosky, Craig McCracken and even Brad Bird
Part 3 of the series will touch on UPA's legacy (including each of the filmmakers you mentioned)
Man, so much detail went into this, I love it, especially as an aspiring animator.
Please cover the works by Don Hertzfeldt since you love great non Disney animation
Now I see where the defunct United Paramount Network (UP... N; merged with the WB network to form the CW) might have got their inspiration for their 1st logo. Same color scheme, basically the same font, only two of the shapes, a square and a triangle, were noticeably different.
I came here after binging on KaiserBeamz's "Merrie History of Looney Tunes" and learning of Chuck Jones' admiration of, and eventual involvement, with UPA.
Truly a memorable, influential studio and art style.
And of course, Mr. Magoo.
amazing video. informative and impeccably edited. well done.
I cannot express how brilliant this video is!!!!!
Dude what a great production!
better then many netflix documentaries
Or HBO ones
I can’t believe I just found this channel
It’s amazing
the layout of this marvelous
Wonderful video, looking forward to part 2.
I absolutely love this, so informative and so well executed!
This is a great video! So much info and entertaning. I remember watching these as a kid but never knew who made them.
You've done it again, good man. Always a pleasure when I get your notification !
Great video. A tour de force, actually. So glad I found this channel!
how does this only have 151k views it’s amazingly put together
Beautifully crafted video!
Amazing video!
Brilliant stuff!
Good job. Only thing I'd need to point out is that your photo of The Roosevelt Hotel was from the 1950s. The Cinemascope painted wall billboard gives this away.
I’m pumped.
Wonderful video essay!
Great film! Thanks a lot!
I've never heard of UPA, but I can instantly see their influence. Thanks for spreading the word!
This is great. Thanks for this!
Good Video, but I wanted to mention that the the Fleischer cartoons weather it be Superman or Betty Boop were out side the Disney/Looney Tunes mold you talk about.
Wow! The beginning of cheap shortcuts in animation that ultimately led to everything being outsourced to Korea and computers. Imagine union members supporting a mode of operation that virtually guaranteed their future unemployability. I hope that at least the union bosses made out.
this video was a masterpiece of graphic design
This guys are great editors.
I am not familiar on UPA, this one really got me interested. Looking forward for Part 2.
Fantastic video.
this is so good
Nickelodeon had the UPA package for quite time (airing as a series called Cartoon Kablooey or Weinerville) but they didn't have the right to those until the early 90's, like 1993, at the earliest.
Love your documentaries! Would love to see something about Terrytoons! :D They've gotten very "design-y" in the 60s as well. Not much material is around about the studio which is famous for being the most low-budget one of them all so i think there's a market gap there haha :D