At the movies

Noel let me horn in on his daddy-daughter time this afternoon. Usually he takes Cady Gray to the movies and I spend time with Archer. But because I was excited about seeing The Princess And The Frog, he let me switch places with him.

It was a thrill. When you're young and just starting to imagine having a family, you think about taking your imaginary kids to the kinds of movies you saw as a kid. And for me, of course, that's traditional Disney animation. The return of cel animation is like the ability to step back in time and give your children an experience that you had, that for a scary moment you thought never would return.

And I think those who are critiquing the movie for not being an instant classic are missing the forest for the trees. Quite aside from the cultural significance of a Disney heroine and setting in the African-American community -- a belated rectifying of the Uncle Remus legacy -- this is a tremendously enjoyable and often technically astounding piece of work. I think some of the broad, slapstick humor is off-putting, but that's maybe two sequences out of the whole. Some of the most remarkable effects animation in history more than compensates -- the brief song of the fireflies is glorious, and nearly all the musical sequences have animation that pops right out of the frame. I don't know what people who complain about the music are talking about -- it's fantastic; loving, complex, but infectious invocations of distinctly American genres, with some inspired lyrics. Not the most hummable tunes, but really wonderful in context.

The story might be among the weaker of the fairy-tale adaptations, but the writers make something out of almost nothing by giving the hero and heroine a classic ant and grasshopper dynamic. It turns out to be a meditation on what it means to achieve your dreams -- what success consists of -- a theme I frequently bring up with students.

I hope I get to take Cady Gray to many more hand-drawn animated films in the future. Perhaps Noel will let me have that segment of the kid-movie market to experience with my daughter. We both enjoyed our first outing in the series, and hereby petition John Lasseter for a long and fruitful run of the new golden age of the cel.

Yamming what you yam

Noel watched check discs of the new Popeye cartoons DVD set last weekend, and while the cartoons aren't by and large my cup of tea, the DVD package Warner Brothers has put together is enough to make a fan -- or at least an intrigued student -- out of any viewer. These are the Fleischer Popeyes, the first 60 cartoons made, and they differ radically from the muscle-bound sailor's later incarnations for Hanna-Barbara and A.A.P.

In some ways, they're less sophisticated. One of the many scholars, fans, and collectors who provide commentary tracks on selected episodes mentions the rather Neanderthal personality Popeye exhibited in the first few years. He solves all problems with his fist, and the one thing guaranteed to make him blow his top is a challenge to his masculinity.

He also exhibits some weird recurring gags; one of the oddest and most intermittently disturbing is his tendency to blast a large object into smaller versions of the same object with a punch. At one point he whomps an Indian chief and turns him into Gandhi!

But even if the cartoons haven't aged well -- or maybe it's that the times have past them by -- the thoroughness with which Warner Home Video has packaged them with context-setting material makes them one of the must-have animation items for any enthusiast. The documentaries take the history of Popeye all the way through its modern incarnations, and don't pull any punches about the mistakes made as the property bounced from studio to studio. And unlike many DVD with extensive featurettes, the commentary tracks do not simply repeat the information provided elsewhere on the disc. There's an interesting variety of voices featured on the commentaries, from bemused British academic to "Oh, man, did you see that?!" cackling fanboys. Jerry Beck, animation historian and advocate extraordinaire, provides a track.

There's so much to be learned from these cartoon styles from another era, and even though they might not provide instantly-pleasurable entertainment for those with modern tastes, it's fascinating to step into the shoes of a 1930s audience and erase three-quarters of a century of animation, film, and humor development. And making that journey in the company of such knowledgeable and congenial companions as the contributors to this magnificent set -- that's a pleasure in itself.