{"id":338867,"date":"2025-12-11T06:28:13","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T06:28:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/animation\/sugar-isnt-sweet-the-time-space-continuum\/"},"modified":"2025-12-11T06:28:13","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T06:28:13","slug":"sugar-isnt-sweet-the-time-space-continuum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=338867","title":{"rendered":"Sugar Isn\u2019t Sweet\/The Time-Space Continuum |"},"content":{"rendered":"


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For this final installment in our brief study of the valleys and pitfalls into which animators can venture without proper care and attention, I\u2019ll first spotlight a recurring problem, sort of a subset of the cycle errors discussed last week. that nearly every studio who attempted it ran aground upon during the 1930\u2019s. Then, our primary focus \u2013 when some scene just feels out of place, because it doesn\u2019t match the details of another, doesn\u2019t match the plotline as already established, or seems to change the whole motivations of a character \u2013 what both live-action and animation producers would refer to as the \u201ccontinuity error\u201d.<\/p>\n

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A near sub-genre of cartoons appeared during the early to mid-1930\u2019s, possibly deriving from some animator\u2019s sweet tooth. It was becoming a convention of animation, probably inspired by Disney\u2019s Silly Symphonies<\/em>, to venture beyond the realm of anthropomorphic animals and the wilds of the woodland, into new \u201cworlds\u201d where inanimate objects sprung to lives of their own, and cavorted in entire settings or communities populated by and devoted to the needs of their kind. Disney and Harman-Ising specialized in varieties of novelty and specialty shops which would come to life at midnight or when their proprietors locked up for the night. Wax museums made the rounds, spinning off from the success of Warner Brothers\u2019 Mystery of the Wax Museum<\/em>. Burt Gillett would take us to a community of clocks (Van Beuren\u2019s Grandfather\u2019s Clock<\/em>), while Ub Iwerks would give us a colorful view of Balloon Land<\/em>, and Leon Schlesinger and Friz Freleng would predict the world of Cars with Streamlined Greta Green<\/em>. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Somewhere in this flurry of mini-re-creations of the Book of Genesis, someone envisioned a brand-new domain \u2013 the kingdom of candy. The idea seemed to spread like wildfire, with most of the major studios getting into the act within a short few years of one another. However, the then-popularity of a particular type of candy, usually relegated these days to only the Christmas season, but then the kind of thing one might find year-round in any corner confectionary store where regional or hand-made treats were displayed, caused the animation industry no end of trouble. The peppermint stick, or what we conventionally refer to today as the \u201ccandy cane\u201d. This goodie was always traditionally identified by a unique design \u2013 a spiral stripe, most often in red, layered continuously around the cylindrical column of the confection (sometimes as a straight stick, sometimes curved into a hook to allow for hanging of the treat upon a Christmas tree limb). While the stripe wasn\u2019t a necessary component to the item\u2019s flavor (and usually washed-off entirely after a few licks), it was the only way a film-viewing audience would be able to discern that they were looking at something sweet and a bit tangy, rather than at the bare white of a blind-man\u2019s cane. Thus, the task befell animators to duplicate this striped trademark in order to convey their fantastic visions. This led to quite a lot of what the industry would call \u201cpencil mileage\u201d in creating the arduous number of drawings necessary for a fully animated film \u2013 and also to an awful lot of problems in the ink and paint division.<\/p>\n

\"\"As one looks at a cane from almost any direction, the pattern of a peppermint stripe will appear as a series of small, slightly curved segments across the width of the cane, generally of even dimensions between red stripe and bare white surfaces. So how do you instruct a painter which stripe is red, and which is white? There are so many along the expanse of each cane, anyone drawing indicators on the pencil drawing would probably feel overworked were arrows and letters necessary to insert for every stripe upon every drawing. Similarly, few animators or inbetweeners would be likely to relish the thought of having to hand-shade with pencil every stripe that was supposed to be colored red. Most likely (though unfortunately I\u2019ve never seen any surviving pencil drawings which would verify this), common sense would dictate that, at most, an indicator arrow might be provided on a pencil sketch identifying a single one of the stripes along a cane\u2019s expanse as being red \u2013 then leave it to the good sense of the painter to assume that every other stripe along the cane should be red also. Where a cane was supposed to remain relatively motionless throughout a shot, the temptation might be to get even lazier, and merely indicate where a red stripe was on the first of the drawings in a sequence, then trust the painter to use the same instruction as guide for coloring all the rest. This, however, is possibly where communications started to break down. Painting an entire run of cels, even for the fastest in the business, had to take several hours, and in many instances, days. Attention of a worker might be easily distracted with the passage of such time, and one can easily imagine painters passing the time by engaging in conversation with a fellow worker across the desks, or breaking for a pit-stop or a bite to eat \u2013 and in the process, forgetting whether the reference stripe in a drawing sequence was red or white. A completed cel, painted with the stripes in reverse pattern, would in isolation from others look like it was completed just as well as a properly-painted one, and might easily go unnoticed until the final photography revealed its jarring failure to match the others. Sometimes, an attention-lapse would get worse, and there are instances where an errant cel will accidentally include two stripes in succession painted the same color, with the rest from there on alternating in color, but in the wrong places. Were such problems rare? Not on your life, and it seemed as if the smaller the studio, the more of a guarantee you had that it would show up. It became nearly the badge of marketing a product fast and on the cheap to include some peppermint stripe in at least one film that would flicker from one pattern of stripes to another for a few frames or more.<\/p>\n

\"\"One of the first to face this problem \u2013 in black and white \u2013 was Van Beuren\u2019s Silvery Moon<\/strong> (1\/13\/33). This little curio inaugurates the strange concept that the moon is not really made of green cheese, but of cake, candy, and ice cream! Oddly, the film does relatively okay with the striping of routine sticks, and with well-detailed backgrounds adding peppermint-striped instruments to a musical number modified from old animation reused from Toy Time<\/em> (1931). Where it falters is with a few fancier shots within a lunar palace. First, at approximately 2:40, we are introduced to two palace guards, whose bodies would suggest they were mechanical robots except for being candy-striped, as they are entirely built of peppermint sticks. Their stripes are all over the map, with black changing to white and back again throughout the shot (affecting the entire body of the guard on the left, while the one on the right seems more restricted at first to irregularities in his arms and legs, then switches to torso-stripe problems as he exits). We then meet the lunar king. He is also made of peppermint, but with an unusual \u201ctwist\u201d, The stripes from his ankles to his head rotate slowly around his expanse like the moving stripe of a rotating barber pole. The animators at first get this idea across amazingly well, with no blunders, at approximately 2:57. But then, the king moves, standing to welcome his visitors, and waving his arms to direct them to the chamber of candy-striped instruments. As he does so, parts of his torso, and his arms and legs, make the traditional surprise exchanges in coloration, again spoiling the shot. Knowing the small budgets and the limited artistic training of the staff at Van Beuren at the time, this cartoon was probably already pushing the limits of what the small outfit could afford or had the talent to create, and so, as might be expected, any reshoots were probably out of the question.<\/p>\n