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TV/Streaming A Spirited Venture: Created by Chad and Jared Moldenhauer and exec produced by Dave Wasson, the show features the voices of Wayne Brady, Tru Valentino, Frank Todaro, Joe Hanna, Luke Mellington-Drake and Grey Griffin.
through decades of translation through film. But if you actually go back and look at the original artwork, the color choices were actually pretty vibrant.” The biggest challenge was to recreate the watercolor style of the old shorts in digitized backgrounds (some 100 per episode) while focusing on the colorization — a tricky job since much of the reference material from the old Fleischer Studio was in black and white. “We had to come up with color palettes that worked within that space,” she says. “One of the key things I looked at for the [Devil’s] underworld in particular was the Popeye Sinbad, which was one of the only color cartoons the Fleischers did.” The Cuphead Show! employed another technique pioneered by the old studio: the use of live-action backgrounds under the animation. “I think we are the first show in a long time to revive the stereoscopic process,” Fernandez states. “Our opening shot of the cottage of Cuphead is a stereoscopic shot which was completely built in miniature form on a soundstage and has 2D animation tracked on top. It was one of the most exciting parts about the show.” Los Angeles-based Screen Novelties handled the stereoscopic process and also contributed some stop-motion animation to the show.
‘Whenever I could, instead of just looking at footage, I would go through the Disney Archives or other similar types of archives that people were keeping online of original artwork of the era.’ — Art director Andrea Fernandez
GHOULISH DELIGHTS
The art director believes the closest replication of the old style appears in a short titled Ghosts Ain’t Real, an homage to early Silly Symphonies like The Skeleton Dance. “We had this fascination with making a really spooky classic, and it feels to me the most on-the-nose for the era, which was hard to pull off with modern tools,” says Fernandez. Given that the show is available on Netflix, the standard half-hour packaging format of network or cable shows was ignored. Even maintaining consistent episode length was not an issue. “We were originally using the old theatrical shorts as a model for structure,” says Wasson, “but we found it was hard to stay within a seven-minute format. These stories wanted to be a little longer, so it caps off at something like 10 1/2 or 11 minutes, though each episode is a little different in running time.” Some of the initial 48 episodes, which will premiere over three separate drops, are
presented as two- and even three-parters. Officially, The Cuphead Show! is targeted toward the six to 12 audience, though Wasson says the production team is striving for a more universal appeal. Early toonhead reaction to the show came via an accidental online leak of four episode animatics in mid-2020, which drew millions of views in just a few short hours, but resulted in positive response. As Wasson puts it, “Following in the footsteps of the Mickey Mouse shorts or SpongeBob, we wanted to create a cartoon that appealed to everyone. The kids will love all the great action and slapstick, but it’s also a personality comedy, so you can laugh at all of the characters’ human qualities — their vanity, arrogance and cockiness.” Not to mention their often violent brotherly love. ◆ The Cuphead Show! premieres on Netflix February 18.
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march 22
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