The Travelling Sullivanbury's

So, Is Sullivan's Travels really the touchstone of good animation writing?

When I saw it for the first time at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco it was in the 1980's.

It was considered an epic to some and a schmaltzy reminiscince to others. Both seemed to be in the theatre when I saw it. As opposed to the Rockabillies and Rita Hayworth Fan Club when I saw Gilda accidentilly one night. Well, the people I went with knew where they were going, I was just going to the Sausage Factory and then a Movie. The Castro was definitely more of a sausage factory of the two...but I digress.

Throughout the film we are treated to people who might just be saints, might just be jerks except for the love of the main character, and some who might just be evil. We even have an Evil Hobo, who gets his comeuppance nearly at the same moment of his great sin. Evil Hobos, I didn't see another one of those until the unfortunately Hobo'ed-up Christopher Lloyd in Dennis the Menace.

Then after a concussion and a toss into a freight car leaves our hero in the deep south/somewhere where there are lots of swamps with chain gangs in them.
(The deep south must be not that far from LA) In the new place we are greeted by "reality" AKA "trouble" which is what the hero was seeking in the first place and if you were not following the play by play properly you'ld see God laughing and not know why. For Mr. S. is none other than the biblical Job.

He had already decided he didn't want any more trouble but he hadn't learned his lessons. Then a Disney Cartoon causes people of all races creeds and colors to forget their troubles for a few minutes and a clever confession of his own murder, and justice works its miracles, and our hero is presumably back to making the next Golddiggers of 193x. Just so the little people can have something to make their lives better.

Hmmmm...something tells me that The Golddiggers of 193x don't make it often out to Black Churches in the Bayou. But, you never know. So why does a dog cartoon make all races, creeds and colors get along?

Sitting in the dark with people laughing and crying has an effect like church. The dogs reactions are both universal and surprising. You do not have to think to react in a situation like that.
Everyone else is immediately reacting around you. The person with the most open personality rules the roost there. Unless they happen to be the kind of person who enjoys pain...then someone will call for a butterfly net....because there is no way to greater offend someone than to not follow along the song sheet that the god of cinema has laid out for you.

Pluto....and flypaper. Magic Flypaper....that declares a wrestling match with Pluto.
Makes it apparent that he isn't as smart as he thinks he is. ---Come-uppance.
Makes him fight against and do all sorts of contortions that rival Charlie Chaplin ---Strange against the Mundane.

The Flypaper at time seems to be mocking him with different positions. ---The fly in the ointment.
And anytime an animal does something cute that resembles a human activity, it gets bonus points.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WxCMBk8qps
see what it all means 5:57 onwards.

Mickey, could've avoided this by training his dog in the first place, but he is so lovable and tries to be cool and is so forgiving. (This of course is long after his near "date rapist" antics of Plane Crazy from years before.) So Mickey, at the time could appeal to people who like dogs, people who hate dogs, people who train dogs, people who don't train their dogs, people who know and make fun of people who don't train their dogs.

Pluto has always been appealing because face it he is a dog, but the kind of dog we wish we had....if only trained a little better.

Sullivan's Travels used one of the most loved Disney Shorts to sell their idea of the universality of human feeling. They could have chosen much worse. A Mouse and a Dog. Nothing to "hate on" there. Nothing to get caught up with. Sullivan went back to Hollywood to make Entertainment.

He went back to keep being rich and not take on the evils of the world but apply a salve to the emotional hurt of the moment. Sometimes that is all one person can do.

In doing so the people who make films may push through to other important issues. Leaving little bombs in the subconscious of the young, and not so young, to go off in explosions of judgment....hopefully better than the previous generations.

There are others who make jingoistic action movies that think they are doing that....
Heck, maybe they are. I don't think so, but maybe I am wrong again.
Won't be the first time....definitely won't be the last.

So I would have to say... No, Sullivan's Travels is not the touchstone of good animation writing.

It is an entertaining movie that somewhat points the way.
To use a well worn piece of Asian wit. It's a finger pointing at the moon.....Not the thing to be attentive to. But the thing pointing to the thing to be attentive to.

One has to write a good movie that cannot be done with visual effects and live action actors.

And as far as the inner hayseed component. Well, we're trying to figure that one out.

Early indications are:
Universal Human Values....Expressed actively, and with the potential for humor, only after the point of view has been established as 'not better than', but instead, In reminiscence of shared experience or with empathy for a universal emotion express in a situation deserving pathos.

Funny Cyphers, People with different faces, who are us.

Just thinking about universality of character and
being appealing while still being a bit of a cypher.

Hmmmmm....Movies...with an emphasis on Comedy and 80's to 90's comedy drama switching.

Oh Dear...... Jim Carrey.


Richard Dreyfus, Gene Wilder, Richard Pryor, Diane Keaton. 1970's
Bill Murray, Tom Hanks, and Eddie Murphy 80's
Jim Carrey and Wil Smith 90's
2000's....hard to call.....
Steve Carrell vs Mike Meyers vs Ben Stiller vs and Bernie Mac and Reese Witherspoon

Off the cuff.....
Perrenials: Dustin Hoffman, Sally Field, Chevy Chase, Robin Williams, Steve Martin, Adam Sandler, Will Ferrell, Cameron Diaz, I am looking to Amy Pohler and Maya Rudolph this next decade.


I would love to see a movie with Allyson Hannigan and Joan Cusack as the two leads in touch with their inner hayseed.


On the not so cypheresque performers....

Does everyone want to be Cary Grant? How about Catherine Hepburn?
Are they likable enough so that you can overlook their Patrician sounds?
In the early 40's were they so bankable because it was fun to make fun of egg heads and drunkards with money slowly running out of it or having it and it not making a bit of difference?

When the 1940's turned into the 1950's We had Victor Mature and Charleston Heston Actors of Biblical Proportions and Plot lines winning lots of cash opposite Ladies w/Tramps and Princesses.
By the 1960's it was a former Scottish Soccer Guy turned Spy who lived Big Thrice and the same Nanny who did twice. Also, some Egyptian Dude played some Russian Dude obsessed with and English Lady not playing an English or Russian Dude. There were also Jungle Books and Dalmations to be seen. The 1970's changed tastes quite drasticly. Lots of flying bullets and horrors of the deep to deal with. Lots of Navel Gazing to be had, and made fun of. Nuclear War was just around the corner in the 1980's.

Animation went out of "style" and got strangely Navel Gazey in the 1970's
Lots of stories about nothing in particular....to string "gags" upon.
Lots of Dynamism and nothing to really care about for the most part.
The corrollary is that by the time you got around to mneeting the characters you are supposed to care about you forgot you were supposed to care about them.

Movies by people like Robert Altman made me care about none of the people in them.
I gues that is why fantasy, adventure and science fiction erupted out of the 1970's and into the 1980's with such force.



Cyphers. Over and about the comedy people who can do drama listed above. How about it?
(I'm not gonna put in hyperlinks so look them up)

Jimmy Stewart: from Macaulay Connor to George Bailey to Buttons the Clown.
John Wayne: especially in pre-1960's westerns and things like The Quiet Man.
Diane Keaton: From The Godfather to Annie Hall to Somethings Gotta Give.

Just lists:
Michael Caine: Gary Cooper: William Holden: Jack Lemmon: Philip Seymour Hoffman:
Kate Winslet: Barbara Stanwick: Vivien Leigh: Bette Davis: Tilda Swinton: Betty Grable:

The Scism / The Gap.

Sid Caesar vs. Hee Haw?
Is the inner hayseed somewhere in between?
Not Laugh-in. Saturday Night Live?

Well, Maybe Laugh in after all.
Artie Johnson and Ruth Buzzy.

Pathos, Glib, and Screwball comedy. ala M.A.S.H.
Stooges, Marx Brothers, The Thin Man.

Not Vaudeville either.
Nor Music Hall, but closer to English Music Hall.