2d ago

‘King Of The Hill’ Revival Boss Says It’s “Impossible” To Recreate Original’s Animation Style Because Tools “Don’t Exist Anymore”

www.msn.com /en-us/news/opinion/king-of-the-hill-revival-boss-says-it-s-impossible-to-recreate-original-s-animation-style-because-tools-don-t-exist-anymore/ar-AA1KpXFE

King of the Hill @adultswim.fan

sasquash @sopuli.xyz

2d ago

www.msn.com /en-us/news/opinion/king-of-the-hill-revival-boss-says-it-s-impossible-to-recreate-original-s-animation-style-because-tools-don-t-exist-anymore/ar-AA1KpXFE

17 comments

but the truth of the matter is, it is impossible to do the show now the way it was done then. The hand-drawn animation, the water colors, those don’t exist anymore. If they exist, they certainly don’t exist at a cost where you can do a TV show.
i.e. no desire to pay artists what the work is worth
- No, it's similar to how film is expensive now; the demand for the product decreased to near non-existence so the few people who still make it have to demand a high cost to be able to keep making it.
  They're still paying artists (presumably unionized too, from what I know of the industry, which isn't much). They're just not paying the cost it would take to get the ancient technology back into manufacturing, and train new artists to use the tech that no one is trained to use anymore. (It's more than just watercolor. I'm sure the paint is special, as well as the material it's painted on, and the tools that help them use it all.)
- Right? Water colors no longer exist? Please.
- This might actually be a materials issue, outside of very few working artists still being trained on it. Animation cels aren’t used in the industry anymore, so it’s become a high priced specialty art item. $1/frame when animation is usually done with 8-12 frames per second adds up fast. That number is a guesstimate based on the bulk supplies I can find online, but even half that price would still be huge just for materials.
  
  That adds up to $1200 per episode
- Could the show make the kind of money it used to? The first seven seasons averaged over 8 million viewers an episode on broadcast television. The first episode of the new Hulu season only earned 4.4 million.
  I don't know if the economics will ever come back for hand animated television.
  
  It probably got way more than that, a lot of us pirated it.
- Also:
  Patterson bluntly admitted to his host that said change was an unfortunate side-effect of the industry’s move towards cost-cutting and digitization.
  So it's possible, they would just make less money if they remained faithful to the show they're fucking rebooting.
This reminds me of a video or discussion I once saw (can't find it now), on why we can't recreate the Saturn V. We still have all the old blueprints for the rocket; NASA took great care to archive those. But the Saturn V was designed for an entirely different era of engineering and manufacturing. Its parts were all designed for an era of manual machining and welding. It was built using many techniques that are now abandoned or incredibly niche and expensive. The plans simply cannot be practically built in an era of CNC machines, laser cutting, automatic welding, 3D printing, etc. Manufacturing methods affect part design. And designs built for one era's techniques may not map well those of a new era. We still have the plans for the Saturn V, but we can't build another one, as the world has simply moved on.
- The economy of scale sure can be a bitch and a half sometimes.
  
  That really is the heart of it. All the skills to make it still exist, in the same way that some artisans still practice making swords by hand. All the skills needed to remake the Saturn V still exist; the knowledge hasn't been lost. Those techniques just are rare enough that they are specialized and very expensive. The Saturn V was built with the most accessible techniques available in its time, and it still cost a fortune. But now? It's cheaper to just design a whole new rocket from scratch, designed and optimized for today's techniques.
That's the same reason we can't go back to the moon. ?????
Edit:
The new animation style is all digital now, but the truth of the matter is, it is impossible to do the show now the way it was done then. The hand-drawn animation, the water colors, those don’t exist anymore. If they exist, they certainly don’t exist at a cost where you can do a TV show.
So to save money, they threw out supplies they already had. These guys are tasked with reviving a show but given none of the tools or budget to do so. And if they fail due to lack of investment from Disney they will still take all the blame.
because you fired all the artists to chase profits and cheap ai

17 comments