Celebs pick cartoon favourites after Oscar boost for Irish animation industry.
KILKENNY’S Cartoon Saloon has received a second Oscar nomination for best feature-length animation, for the haunting, gorgeous Song Of The Sea.
In Dublin, Brown Bag Films has become a major player in children’s entertainment, producing shows such as Doc MacStuffins, Octonauts and Henry Hugglemonster.
Dozens of smaller studios are winning acclaim, with work by turns quirky, innovative and charming. Ireland has become a cartoon powerhouse.
How?
For Brown Bag, success was born from failure. In 1994, the Sullivan Bluth Animation company shuttered its Dublin operations. The closure was at once shocking and predictable.
Founded by ex-Disney executive, Don Bluth, Sullivan Bluth had enjoyed early success with An American Tail, then lurched through a sequence of box office meltdowns (The Land Before Time, All Dogs Go To Heaven, Thumbelina).
Unemployed Sullivan Bluth illustrators, Cathal Gaffney and Darragh O’Connell, opened their own studio in inner-city Dublin with a staff of seven. Brown Bag operated on a shoe-string: it wasn’t until Oscar-nominated short, Give Up Yer Aul Sins, in 2002, that it started to make an impression.
Since then, success has come quickly. Brown Bag has received Emmy nominations for Doc McStuffins, and Peter Rabbit; Octonauts, adapted from the popular children’s novels, is shown in 60 countries.
In 2013, with Henry Hugglemonster, Brown Bag launched its first ‘in house’ franchise, from a book by Dublin-based writer, Niamh Sharkey.
“Kids have a smart, funny sense of humour,” Sharkey told The Irish Examiner recently.
“Three-, four-, five-year-olds, they are really clever. And more savvy than they used to be. If you are in animation, you have to compete with the iPad nowadays. The best way to do that is to make them laugh.”
Cartoon Saloon was founded in 1999, initially as a collective of animators in Kilkenny. Early recognition came via shorts and commercial work.
The big international moment was The Secret of Kells, which was Oscar-nominated in 2009.
Steeped in Irish mythology, Kells was a movie with an agenda: to free indigenous storytelling from the straight-jacket of tourist-board whimsy and reclaim it on behalf of Irish people.
As is often the case, though, the film did not become a hit here until it received acknowledgment from overseas.
“A lot of studios were doing mid-Atlantic projects, trying to cast American voices,” Cartoon Saloon founder, Tomm Moore, said in a recent interview. “We thought we’d go opposite and try to make a virtue of where we were coming from.”
“There was something happening during the Celtic Tiger,” he said.
“Old stories were codified and modified for tourists, and not really seen as a living part of the culture. We wanted to update the folklore for a modern audience; and not with old leprechauns and Lucky Charms.
“Irish people are very outward-looking,” he said. “If they see what they think is a kitschy version of their culture, they cringe and feel very embarrassed.”
With Song of the Sea, Cartoon Saloon double-down on this world view.
Based on the legend of the mermaid-like Selkie, it stars Moone Boy’s David Rawle, Brendan Gleeson, Fionnuala Flanagan and singer Lisa Hannigan (in her first acting role).
The film premiered at Toronto Film Festival, to overwhelmingly ecstatic reviews. For once, Irishness was perceived as a positive, rather than something to be scoffed or condescended.
Just got my tickets for #SongoftheSea by @CartoonSaloon, playing here this weekend. I can't wait! pic.twitter.com/yIL2ZfPjI0
— Station DOOD! (@StationDOOD) January 28, 2015
“You’ll leave the film knowing more than you might have imagined about Irish culture,” said one critic. “But never once feeling subjected to anything ‘very special or good for you’.”
Now, with the movie up for the Oscar for best animated feature, there is every chance that its profile will grow more, ahead of its release in Irish cinemas in March.
In the words of Charlie Bucket - "I got my Golden Ticket", thank you Academy! pic.twitter.com/F6ufsHkgzJ
— PAUL YOUNG (@PaulYoung99) January 20, 2015
That said, it is unlikely anyone at Cartoon Saloon is clearing space on the mantelpieces for an influx of golden gongs.
Song of The Sea is a 20-1 outsider, with studio-backed juggernauts How To Train Your Dragon 2 (Dreamworks) and Big Hero 6 (Disney) deemed most likely to win.
Then again, merely receiving a nomination is an achievement — especially with the greatly fancied Lego Movie missing out.
What is truly encouraging is that Brown Bag and Cartoon Saloon have lately been joined by a number of other start-ups.
Dublin-based Geronimo Productions, for instance, was named ‘European Producer of the Year’ at the influential Cartoon Forum, and this month brought a new series, Nelly and Nora, to RTÉJr, with international rights sold to CBeebies and ZDF, in Germany.
And Jam Media has had an underground hit with the sweet, quirky Badly Drawn Roy, which has been acclaimed in Britain and Australia.
So while Irish animation will have a big moment at the Oscars on Sunday, this is a story with many more chapters.
My Favourite Cartoons
The Disney ones were best. I’m still pretty obsessed with Disney. Especially anything with princesses: Cinderella, Beauty, and the Beast, The Little Mermaid…things like that. I was on a flight the other day: Sleeping Beauty was on and so was Saving Mr Banks, which is all about the making of Mary Poppins. I love that — it gives you a glimpse behind Disney Studios. I’ve been to Disney a few times. My best friend’s niece had a Frozen- themed birthday party. I thoroughly enjoyed the day. I went to see the stage show in Florida. Disney’s West End shows are always amazing — the production values are out-of-the-world. You’ve got The Lion King, and Beauty and the Beast ran for a while. The Little Mermaid had a short run, too. I saw Mary Poppins on Broadway. I just love Disney.
“The Warner Brothers cartoons were the best, and still are. My favourite was Foghorn Leghorn and my favourite Foghorn Leghorn episode was ‘Little Boy Blue’. He has to babysit the bespectacled genius son of Miss Prissy. Miss Prissy is the wealthy southern dame that he wants to court, so that he can avoid having to spend another cold winter. The son is a genius and plays hide and seek with FL. Foghorn hides in a feedbox and the kid goes digging elsewhere and finds him using maths. I found out afterwords it’s a parody of quantum mathematics.”
I’m a huge fan of Family Guy. I love him. It is in the tradition of The Simpsons and is very smartly observed. As a kid, a lot of my generation will remember Bolek and Lolek. They were Eastern European cartoons, who resembled match-stick men. They were really cheap. They were probably some form of childhood indoctrination from Eastern Europe.
That was a time when you’d watch the test-card on television. There was nothing going on, really. Nonetheless, I used to despise Bolek and Lolek. I couldn’t handle them at all. They were desperately, desperately miserable and drab. Ireland was drab — this was even worse. They were the saddest cartoons I had ever seen in my life. The Hanna-Barbera stuff really stands up. Tweety Bird and all of that. It was extremely clever — and the soundtracks were fantastic. They had swing, a lot of jazz and what have you. Watched today they are still very rich — the colours are rich, the characters are colourful.
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