Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2011 December 20

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December 20

animation voice-overs: before or after the animation?

A question has arisen at Talk:Aladdin (1992 Disney film)#Design and Animation about how common it is to record animation dialogue before animating to it (versus dubbing the dialog to rough or completed animation). I am certain that it has been standard for years to record the audio first, but I'm having trouble finding sources that make that clear. I would appreciate assistance. =) Powers ^T 01:14, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

I've been doing a bit of searching, and it is indeed hard to find sources that spell it out for you. At the moment, the only things that come to mind on this subject are comments by Mel Blanc in his autobiography, and comments about recording techniques in The Wizard of Oz. But as far as I know, all voice recording for cartoons is done ahead of time, from a script, and the animators draw the mouth movements to match the pre-recorded voices. It would be very difficult to do it the other way around, especially when voices are "messed with". For example, Daffy's voice was basically a sped-up version of Sylvester's. To record after the fact, they would have had to play the cartoon at slow speed and record Sylvester likewise talking at slow speed. Much easier the other way around. This is the opposite of movie dialogue, where it's typically recorded "live" using boom mikes and the like, although studio overdubbing can also be done. Music is another story. Songs are pre-recorded, and the actors in a film lip-sync, while in cartooning again it's the animators who effectively "lip-sync". For instrumentals and other types of underscoring, as well as sound effects, that stuff is recorded in sync with the otherwise finished cartoon, and then all the tracks are blended for the finished product. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:31, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

OK, here we go. I googled [how voices are added to cartoons] and it found the right wikipedia article: Traditional animation. That has at least some general references in it, and hopefully that will lead to various useful places. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:06, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Some years ago I was chatting to someone who worked for Pixar. She said that she had been the voice of one of the lead characters in a recent film, at least on a temporary basis. Apparently, they used their office staff as "place holders" so they could get much of the lip synchronisation done, until such a time as the actual voice talent was able to come in and record their lines. Astronaut (talk) 15:54, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

name of a kids' cartoon

It was on commercial tv here in Australia, but I think it was made overseas - maybe US? - fairly simple design and illustration - amazingly ridiculous/surreal/absurdist/very funny... There's a boy and his dog - the dog has the voice of a middle aged man, the boy's voiced by a real boy; in the episode I caught, our heroes have helped out a wizard; the ungrateful wizard turns the boy into a human foot; ashamed, he holes up in a cave, with, it happens, other body parts that once were men and women; at the end, to cut a long story short, the body parts join and together defeat the wizard... I'd seen snatches of it before, but only now realise how fantastic the show is, and would love to know what it's called. Have I given enough info to ring bells for anyone?

Thanks Adambrowne666 (talk) 06:22, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Mr Peabody and Sherman from Rocky and Bullwinkle? (Answer via Treehouse of Horror V.) --Shirt58 (talk) 07:29, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Could you guess at the era it was produced?

The characters you describe sound very much like Mr Peabody (a dog) and his boy Sherman, but that episode you describe sounds a little to "out there" for Peabody's Improbable History, which usually dealt with the two characters interfering in some historic event. (A quick search of YouTube finds a lot of clips from that show, so you should be able to confirm/deny.)

APL (talk) 08:09, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

I'd guess Adventure Time - boy and dog; boy turned into a foot[1]. (Googling cartoon boy turned into a foot threw that up as the second result but I've never actually seen it, though maybe I should.) --Colapeninsula (talk) 10:32, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I should have thought of just googling that - anyway, Colapeninsula is spot-on; it could well have been Mr Peabody and Sherman - jeez, their voices are still so clear in my memory - thanks, all; and yes, Cola, I recommend it highly. Adambrowne666 (talk) 11:16, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

This is definitely Adventure Time. The Wizard says he is teaching Finn the Human a lesson. Jake the Dog doesn't want to help (he is happy in the cave). Eventually, Finn the Human gets the body parts to cooperate and defeat the Wizard - who's lesson was simply that some people are jerks. -- kainaw™ 15:08, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Also, it probably would have helped if the question stated that the dog sounded exactly like Bender from Futurama. If you aren't watching the show (only listening), it is impossible to tell if the smartass remarks are coming from a robot or a dog. -- kainaw™ 15:59, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

I have never heard of this show, but I love futurama and Bender is my favorite character, and I can see from our article that the voice of the dog is indeed the same voice actor: John DiMaggio. Not that this really means anything, but from the write up I've read so far, it looks like I might like it too. So i'll be trying to get my hands on this asap. Thanks. Vespine (talk) 05:07, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

newcomer or old timer?

I'm interested in learning more about an R&B singer named Juanita Dailey. Who can provide more information about her, besides being born in Baltimore, Maryland, on December 31, 1969?24.90.204.234 (talk) 07:16, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, the mere fact of her being (just under) 42 years old would surely preclude her from being an "old timer " by R&B standards, wouldn't it? {The poster formerly known as 87.85.230.195} 90.197.66.13 00:39, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

She'll be 42 soon. Do you have more information about her?24.90.204.234 (talk) 08:03, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Strange weapon

What is the name of the weapon the guy in the middle holds?

http://i40.tinypic.com/o8tqx3.png — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.74.50.52 (talk) 14:55, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

That would be the deadly, much feared abacus. Ian.thomson (talk) 14:59, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

if the pen really is mightier than the sword, then does that make the abacus mightier than the nunchuk?--Jayron32 15:02, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

I have some large slide-rules that could be used as a weapon. Should 1950s nerds have been required to register them with the authorities ? StuRat (talk) 21:06, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Maybe. I do recall math-class-mates displaying mock anger by saying, "Stop it, or I'll bludgeon you with my slide rule!" ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:12, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

This looks like a scene from Crouching Tiger. If I am correct in that, the abacus is used to indicate that they are running a gambling organization - so they are bad guys that you don't want to deal with unless you are a kung-fu master. -- kainaw™ 15:05, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Airplane!

I love the movie Airplane! and have watched it probably dozens of times, mostly because it was a cable TV staple in the 1980s. I recently watched it again and was amazed at the end to see the MPAA placard saying "This film has been rated PG". Surely a mistake, I thought, and ran to IMDB, which confirmed it's a PG! Airplane! has a woman snorting cocaine, jokes that are probably pedophilic, simulated oral sex upon an inflatable doll, and of course a fabulous shot in which a topless woman runs on screen, gives us a motion picture screen full of boobies for about three seconds, and then runs off. This film would never be rated PG today. I wonder whether we are more prudish now.

I see our article Motion Picture Association of America film rating system says that the movie Grease got re-rated as PG-13 when it was released more recently. I assume the same (at least) would happen for Airplane!. My questions, finally:

• Have there been any studies (or I'll take a magazine article if I must) that discuss the drifting standards over the years of the MPAA?

• Any other PG movies with boobies like this? Snacko Tardakian (talk) 23:37, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Are you sure the PG rating isn't for a version with the naughty bits edited out ? StuRat (talk) 23:40, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't recall what Airplane's original rating was. But one thing to keep in mind is that by the mid-late 70s, the "disco era", American pop culture was about as "open" as it's ever been. The 80s and beyond kind of brought back the usual puritanism. A lot of things that were OK or tolerated then are not now. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:09, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

The PG-13 rating wasn't introduced until the year 1984. "Airplane!" was released in 1980.

The only choices would have been PG or R, and I don't think it deserved an R. APL (talk) 01:02, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, the drugs, oral sex, and paedophilic jokes seem very bad taste for that rating, but what on earth do Americans see wrong with breasts? HiLo48 (talk) 01:39, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Ask Janet Jackson. Or think about this: Family Guy can have incest, bestiality, pedophilia, racial humor, cocaine use, intense violence and raunchy jokes and air at 5 p.m. on the West Coast, but show a female nipple for a second and all hell breaks loose. Ask the Federal Communications Commission how that works. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 02:04, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

The deal with movie ratings is that there is absolutely no predefined standards. They sit a bunch of random people in a room, they watch the movie, and then they give it a rating. That's it. If the group people who watched the film weren't particularly offended on that day, it got a PG. That's about it. --Jayron32 02:06, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

And I seriously worry about those poor classifying experts. Having watched all those dirty movies, they must become truly horrible people. (Knowing that sarcasm doesn't always work on the web, I can assure readers that my tongue is leaning well towards my cheek.) HiLo48 (talk) 02:17, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

HBO and other cable pay-channels list the ratings, but they also list everything that any discerning parent might object to, which is much better than just a rating. However, movie distributors don't want to do that. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:16, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

And remember, everything we now associate with a "PG-13" rating got a "PG" back then. APL (talk) 05:20, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Another PG-rated film with a boobie flash: Sixteen Candles, where Samantha and her pal discuss Caroline (Jake's girlfriend) while in the girls' locker room showers. I'm wondering if the fact that the nudity in both Airplane! and Sixteen Candles was non-sexual in nature (the former a sight-gag, the latter in a solo shower scene) entered into the discussion. It reminds me of how the MPAA handles the word "fuck" in movies ... one non-sexual usage (such as "What I feel like is Gloria Fucking Swanson!" as uttered by Sally Field in Soapdish) gets you a PG-13. A second usage, or one usage in a sexual context, gets you an R. --McDoobAU93 06:00, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Again, "Sixteen Candles" was released before the PG-13 rating was introduced, if the movie had come out six months later it might have gotten a PG-13, but that wasn't an option at the time. APL (talk) 07:11, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

There are standards set by the MPAA, but they do drift. The drift is documented. There are many documentaries about the changing standard, such as "This Film is Not Yet Rated." Often, when submitting a movie for a rating, it will come back with notes. Sometimes, the movie itself will be edited to poke fun at the rating notes. "Bigger, Longer, and Uncut" was renamed to that title because the MPAA didn't like the constant penis references - so the title of the movie was changed to a penis reference. Another movie, which I simply cannot remember the title of, made reference to the fact that they could only say "Fuck" three times. Any more it would be R-rated. A person responds by saying that isn't many "Fucks". Then, the joke comes in as the first person exclaims "Fuck, now we can't use that for the rest of the movie." -- kainaw™ 13:50, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

MASH was originally rated "X" due to the presence of the "F-word" (maybe it should have been rated "F" instead). Spielberg and Lucas are responsible for the creation of the PG-13 rating, thanks to some over-the-top stuff in one of the Raiders sequels. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:13, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Strangely enough, here in the UK we seem to be going in the opposite direction. Films that once were X or 18 certificate, are often rated 15; and after the moral panic of the 1980s over video nasties led many films being banned altogther, those films are now showing up for the home market, uncut with a normal 18 certificate. Even so, I can't imagine any TV channel in the UK showing Family Guy at a kid friendly 5pm. Astronaut (talk) 15:46, 21 December 2011 (UTC)