https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-C1P43_U9k
The thought of writing a 2,000 word essay on animated documentaries has got me thinking about a particularly obscure British series from the late 1940s directed by David Hand, who was only the same man who directed Bambi (1942), along with many other Disney features and shorts of the Golden Age.
The series was titled Animaland, and it included around five cartoons starring the squirrel character Ginger Nutt, and others done in a ‘mockumentary’ style centred around animals such as lions, platypuses and ostriches.
I’m drawn to the idea of writing my essay looking at the use of animation to satire documentary (nature documentary especially) and our attitudes towards both documentary and nature.
Since I couldn’t embed the video, the link is to one of David Hand’s cartoons featuring a couple of lovestruck platypuses. Coming from the man who directed the inimitable Bambi, it’s easy to see the influence of the latter on these cartoons, the platypus cartoon being a particularly sweet and charming example. Though it doesn’t pretend to be something that’s trying to seriously educate anyone about Australian wildlife, the British narrator at the start instantly brings to mind newsreels and short travelogues and documentaries of the time. It begs the question of whether one day we might ever see an animated nature documentary played straight, not just for entertainment.
For the essay I’ll not only be dissecting David Hand’s adorable cartoons, but Tex Avery’s Cross Country Detours and Aardman’s Creature Comforts are on the list. What do they all have in common? Using animation to satirise the documentary genre and using animals as their caricatures for human stereotypes and behaviour.
In a somewhat late tip of the hat to Tex Avery (who’s birthday was yesterday), here’s a gag from Cross Country Detours (1940).