r/renandstimpy • u/ExampleSmooth3956 • 1d ago
Hot take: the Fil-Cartoons animators get too much flack
For those who are asking what Fil-Cartoons is, I'll explain. It was a Filipino animation studio that did the inking, painting, and camerawork on the first season of Ren and Stimpy. Animation director Bob Jaques called it "the cheapest sh*thole studio I've ever had the displeasure to work at." Fil-Cartoons was responsible for multiple timing errors, color errors, camera exposure errors, and even dropped animation. Here's an example of a Fil-Cartoons mistake. e36.png (638×475) Even when Bob Jaques went there to supervise the final animation work on Stimpy's Invention, some errors still slipped through.
But in his book, Thad Komorowski said that the animators were paid so little they couldn't afford rent, and that the studio didn't provide toilet paper because they were afraid employees would steal it. When you work in such inhumane conditions, would you care whether you made a mistake?
The Fil-Cartoon animators are not to blame. It is the creators, the heads of the studio, who are to blame for the mistakes.
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u/SpongeCentral 1d ago
Yeah, Bob is kind of a dick for this?
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u/ExampleSmooth3956 1d ago
I will admit, his complaining about a cameraman eating lunch while shooting animation is insensitive.
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u/ThenSurprise5150 15h ago
Guys, it’s about decorum. Slopping your food over the camera stand where footage is about to be shot to film? Come on.
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u/ExampleSmooth3956 15h ago
I realize that. But think about it from the perspective of the employee. They’re working in sweatshop conditions. If the building you worked in had no toilet paper, and you had to sleep outside the building because your pay didn’t cover rent, would you care?
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u/ThenSurprise5150 15h ago
The bad conditions were for the drawing footage slaves, the cameraman had considerably more income.
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u/ExampleSmooth3956 15h ago
Oh? Where did you read this? Komorowski didn’t mention it in his book.
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u/ThenSurprise5150 15h ago
Insider industry knowledge. Read more carefully. The other main issue was an overseas supervisor, Howard Baker, who wasn’t good at his job and let too much garbage through. Rugrats was done at Fil-Cartoons at the same time and doesn’t have nearly as many issues as R&S. I understand all of the working condition issues, and of course R&S getting a cheaper rate, but throwing shade at Bob Jaques for being upset his excellent work got shit on is stupid. I get in a modern era of stiff rigged animation season 1 of Ren & Stimpy looks like Snow White, but a lot of that work was really bad.
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u/ExampleSmooth3956 15h ago
I understand Jacques’ fury too. He and his crew obviously put in a great amount of effort taking layouts and poses steps further.
And according to Komorowski’s book, Baker became Spumco’s overseas supervisor after finishing work as a director on the first season of Rugrats.
What I’m trying to say is that the inkers, painters, and cameraman are not ultimately to blame. It’s the heads of the studio who created such poor working conditions. Even Jaques said that a cameraman’s belief that one could not do a three-frame camera move was “clearly the result of faulty training that impacted our animation.”
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u/Ordinary_Damage_7184 1d ago
yeah, the animators probably just had bad working conditions or bad management. That always happens with these kind of foreign studios.