City Voices

LANDGREN WORCESTER'S NEW PLAN FOR FIXING POTHOLES!

FIRST PERSON

The Librar y of Disposable Art –Cel Animation

David Macpherson

Special to Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK

When I picked up my cel animation from Framed in Tatnuck, I gave my name and the woman said, “Oh you had the animated dragon.”

For some ridiculous reason, I took offense at this. “No. That’s not a dragon. That’s Godzooki.” The woman, a trained framing professional, looked at me like I was a crazy person.

I was worse than a crazy person, I was collector of nostalgia. There is nothing more annoying. If you get something wrong about my collection, I will have to correct the snootiest way possible.

Let’s stop here for a moment. There is a lot to unpack in the first hundred words of this column.

What is cel animation? That’s a piece of the process animators used to make cartoons. For every second of cartoon goodness on Saturday morning, they had to paint the characters in progressively different poses at least fifteen times. For really good animation, like Disney movies, there would be 24 cels of animation drawn and painted. For TV animation, there would be some-

WORCESTERIA

Of children, mask mandates and figure skating ...

Victor D. Infante

Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK

It’s hard to find anything new to say about the Worcester School Committee’s decision to lift the mask mandate in Worcester schools, so let’s put that aside for a moment, and talk about figure skating. You didn’t have to be a die-hard fan of the Winter Olympics to be drawn into the drama surrounding world record holder Kamila Valieva, the 15-year-old Russian skater embroiled in a doping scandal.

Valieva’s shaky routine Feb. 17 robbed her of a medal, leading to one of the biggest, most emotional meltdowns in Olympics history. The young skater is facing a ban pending an investigation of her failed Dec. 25 drug test, but was allowed to skate in Beijing, according to The Associated Press, by the Court of Arbitration for Sport to avoid “irreparable harm” to her career.

As it turns out, that allowance was not a kindness. Indeed, it’s probably destroyed the girl’s career. The outrage she faced was probably best summed up by Olympic medalist Tara Lipinski, who was providing commentary for the event.

“In my opinion, she should not be skating in this competition,” Lipinski said. “We have to remind ourselves that she is just 15 years old, a minor, and I know more than any what it’s like to compete in an Olympic Games at 15 years old, but a positive test is a positive test. She cannot skate.”

Kamila Valieva reacts after the women’s long program during

the Beijing Olympics. ROBERT DEUTSCH/USA TODAY SPORTS

The controversy has played out over the TV news and the sports pages, but amid all the Sturm und Drang and fingerpointing, one’s forced to take an accounting of just how many decisions failed this young woman: Her coach, the controversial Eteri Tutberidze, who allegedly pushed her to take three heart medications –hypoxen, L-carnitine and trimetazidine, the last of which being the only one officially banned – to increase her endurance and enhance her performance? The Russian Olympic Committee, which has a long history of overlooking such abuses, so much so that Russia was banned from officially competing this year, ironically replaced by a team representing the ROC? How about the the Court of Arbitration for Sport and the International Olympic Committee, which was responsible for the decisions that allowed Russian athletes to compete and allowed Valieva to skate?

There’s plenty of blame to go around, but from the clarity of an armchair thousands of miles away, it seems at least one problem here is that Valieva’s well-being wasn’t prioritized by anyone. Not really. Placating the Russians with the ROC workaround was a signal that doping rules didn’t matter. Valieva being allowed to skate was a slap in the face to Olympians such as U.S. sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson, who was prohibited from competing in the Tokyo Summer Olympics after testing positive for THC.

No, Valieva was practically held up as a sacrifice, and from where she was standing, it must have felt like all the world’s scorn was falling on

HARVEY

An insomniac’s thoughts on the banning of books

Janice Harvey

Special to Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK

I’ve always been an early riser, but 3:11 a.m. is so early, it might as well be considered “late night.” Oh, Insomnia! How I wish there was a cure for you. You’ve cost me plenty over the years, thanks to the invention of the internet. Damn you, Al Gore!

The very worst thing an insomniac can do is to keep electronics within reach of the bed. Before the blasted invention of a World Wide Web, the sleepless resorted to reading a book until the eyelids grew heavy, or counting sheep. I’ve tried it all: Melatonin. Advil PM. The Sounds of the Sea. (That just made me need to go to the bathroom — like putting your hand in a bowl of warm water.) The night before last, I investigated different brands of humidifier cleaner and read all about former supermodel Linda Evangelista’s disfiguring CoolSculpting treatment. Man! She is lumpy! From Chewy.com, I ordered enough cat food, litter and treats to keep Dutch in supplies long past his own expiration date.

Last night’s toss-and-turn session cost me the bundle pack of “bees” for the game “WordScapes,” before I wound up climbing out of bed to dig out my credit card for an “I READ BANNED BOOKS” bumper sticker and a contribution to MoveOn.Org. Any hopes of drifting off were dashed when I started thinking about “To Kill A Mockingbird.”

Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prizewinning novel is one in a stack of books banned in Tennessee and other states, along with

Some of the books a conservative group wants banned from Polk County Public Schools libraries because they possibly

contain pornography. KIMBERLY C. MOORE/THE LEDGER

Art Spiegelman’s “Maus,” the first graphic novel to win the Pulitzer. Other titles banned by school boards over the past few decades include “Of Mice and Men” and “The Color Purple.” Classics all — and without which my lesson plans as an English Language Arts teacher would have been blank over the years.

There was no remedy for my insomnia as I lay in bed recalling the importance of these books as tools for learning about great writing. Every one of these books taught the consequences of man’s inhumanity to man, and every one of them led to wonderful — and respectful — exchanges in the classroom. In the last few years before my retirement, I included in my syllabi units covering the Harlem Renaissance and the literature of war, specifically the writings of both veterans and victims. It doesn’t take much imagination to recognize the racism and anti-Semitism behind bans on books that pull off the hoods.

I didn’t fall back to sleep. Instead, I thumbed through the pages of “Maus” remembering how powerfully its illustrations drove home what was the indescribable treatment of Jews. How much it must have torn at the author to hear his father recount chewing on wood, pretending it was bread while hiding from the Gestapo. I thought about the stunned silence in the classroom when I would show the film “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas,” and how I wept every single time, warning my students that I would certainly cry — just as I did when we read “The Color Purple.” Just as I wept unashamedly every time Tom Robinson was shot to death in “Mockingbird,” I cried over Countee Cullen’s poem, “Incident.”

As I lay in bed, I considered teaching without these tools. How would I have dealt with

BAD ADVICE

The heart wants what the heart wants –Chuck E. Cheese or Patricia Mayonnaise

Shaun Connolly

Special to Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK

DEAR SHAUN: I wrote to you about my crush for Chuck E. Cheese, thank you. Now I must ask, why am I like this?

DEAR YOU: Don’t fret. We all have our ups and our downs. Our wrongs and our rights. Our positives and our negatives. For me, it isn’t a mascot for a pizza arcade off of Route 20, but a cartoon character from a bygone era. Don’t get me wrong, I am happily married with a child. But my “hall pass?” Patricia Mayonnaise from the ‘90s dramedy series “Doug” on Nickelodeon. Patti has it. She was confident, kind, empathetic, caring, a family first person, but also knew how to have a good time. Now I know that Patti isn’t real, much like your beloved mouse is. I know that she is made up of a bunch of cels repeatedly drawn over and over to make her animated. I know she is voiced by the actor Constance Shluman of “Orange is the New Black” fame. But there was something about sitting in my TV room curled up on the couch and watching Patti interact with Doug Funnie, Skeeter Valentine and the bunch. Patti, to me, is the one that got away.

There is an episode of “Doug,” where he throws a party. After the party has a rough start, they decide to liven things up and play Truth or Dare. Patti does two really cool things, first she accepts a dare to kiss a dog and she does so no problem. I mean, isn’t that just so cool and charming? She is 12 years old in the show and she doesn’t even think about the social repercussions of this, or how it may look when she does or what the kids may say. That age is peak self-absorption, self-consciousness and self-awareness. Patti doesn’t necessarily lack them, she just doesn’t let them rule her. I always thought that was so cool. She didn’t do it because she was trying to show off to her friends, she was doing it to turn the tables on the darer, known bully Roger Klotz. He was trying to embarrass her and she wouldn’t let that happen. The other thing that happens in this episode is Doug is dared to take off another person at the party’s hat. She is hiding a bad haircut, which if you ever experienced that as a middle schooler, you know how mortifying it can be. Doug is all set to do it, to show everyone he is cool and play along with the game. But he decides that he can’t, it would be mean and he wouldn’t want to hurt this person’s feelings. So he doesn’t. Patti then turns to him and says that “it was the most grown-up thing anyone has done all night.” She then tells him it was sweet to do that and then kisses him on the cheek. I melted, I longed for that kiss on the cheek, those meaningful words, the acknowledgement of a job well done. Patti was my it girl.

So, Chuck E. Cheese lover, why are you like this? Who’s to say? The heart wants what the heart wants. Maybe you’re into bad beer at expensive prices, rubbery cheese pizza, loud ar-

Animation

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thing like 14 to 18 cels.

The cels are sheets of clear celluloid. The animation team would paint an image on each one. They would then put the cel on a pre-painted background and shoot it on one frame of film. They would then take that off the background and put the next frame on and repeat the whole process. It took thousands of drawings to create a half-hour episode of “The Smurfs” or “The Care Bears” (the classics). This process has been superseded by computer animation processes. There is no need for cel animation. But that does not mean the cels of past cartoons are gone for good.

The reams and reams of cels were thrown out or left to rot in warehouses. They are now bought by weird guys who want to remember their childhood. They want a piece of their childhood. I know of one animation collector who amasses all the cels from the “X-Men” cartoon from the ‘90s. He can look at a cel and tell you what episode it was drawn for. I guess it pays to be a savant if you want to collect obscure elements of antiquated animation methodology.

For the most part, because there were so many cels created, they don’t have a huge monetary value. You want some Bugs Bunny cels? That will cost you. You in the market for Strawberry Shortcake animation, you might not break the bank. They are berry affordable.

The other piece of information you will need is, “Who is Godzooky?” When I was a Saturday morning cartoon devotee, in the ‘70s, there was a “Godzilla” cartoon show. Godzilla was a good guy, saving the world from giant monsters. But you can’t just have a giant monster to sell sugar cereal, you need a funny sidekick. Godzooky was born. He was a diminutive relative to Godzilla who was silly and always underfoot. Oh, that Godzooky. He even made it into the theme song. He was legit. I thought he was great, though if he is recalled, it is with derision. He is the Scrappy-Doo of the Kaiju world.

And I have several cel animation of him. I watched these illustrations when I was a kid, but they went by too fast for me to notice. The cels show a great deal of work. They were never meant to be loved for themselves. They were always part of a whole, of a cartoon. But this is how you can get close to the shows you love.

I have a small collection. I have some “Ewoks” cels and a Charlie Brown cel that was part of a Chex cereal commercial. They are fun. They are a reminder that entertainment takes many steps and many hands.

But I think I am being a bad collector. I read that I am not storing them correctly. They are made from celluloid. They can deteriorate. They will start to break down and a strong vinegar odor will come from your disposable art piece. There is a name for this, it is called Vinegar Syndrome. It is deadly to the cel. My cels are smelling fine, for now.

But that’s the thing with disposable art. Do we want these to last forever? Is art meant to be eternal? Is the art that brings nostalgia even worth preserving for the greater world? Or do we all know that soon we too will turn brown and blurry and smell of vinegar? Will all the memories of our childhood ooze into simpler parts? And who will sing the praises of Godzooky then?

Ewoks, Godzooky and other characters appear in cel animation.

SUBMITTED

Bad advice

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cade games and the ringmaster who is behind all of it. Or maybe you love really big rodents near the Grafton/Shrewsbury line. Point is, don’t think about it too much and go after what you love. If that means asking out a sweaty person in a mouse suit, well that just may be the most grown-up thing anyone has done all night.”

Worcester comedian Shaun Connolly provides readers bad advice in his weekly column. Send your questions to woocomedyweek@gmail.com.

Some of the original animatronics from Chuck E. Cheese’s Pizza Time Theater, the Pizza Time Players, perform at Smitty’s Super Service, a private collection that showcases memorabilia and the experience of ShowBiz Pizza and Chuck E. Cheese restaurants in Sandy Hook, Miss.

DOMINIC GWINN/ HATTIESBURG AMERICAN

Books

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the removal of these incredible lessons, works I was lucky enough to share with students? I don’t count sheep, but I’ll forever count my blessings that I live in Massachusetts, where I was able to help children understand that the cruelties and injustices of the past need not be hidden, but should be brought out into the light and exposed.

And speaking of light, the sun’s coming up. I think I’m going to need a nap this afternoon.