Carl Greenblatt - Research

 I have mentioned in my initial research, that I was going to look more in depth at Carl Greenblatt's work, because his cartoons are all very successful and he has created many well-known characters. 

Carl's first job in animation was working as a part of a storyboard crew on "Spongebob Squarepants", but he has been creating comic strips and little characters since he can remember (Navarro, 2016). 

SpongeBob Squarepants

Spongebob Squarepants is generally a very ridiculous show, where many things happen surrealistically and not logically. It is meant to make people laugh and Greenblatt also mentioned in the podcast with Navarro (2016) that he always wanted to make people laugh with his work. Greenblatt says that he used to not be very good at drawing bodies and characters, he liked writing more therefore his very first comics were just floating hands and heads and speech bubbles (Navarro, 2016). I think that is really interesting, that a huge artist and character designer started by being more interested in writing the scripts rather than creating the characters. He started developing as an artist, when he first got into storyboarding. 

I think it is really inspiring that Greenblatt had no degree in animation or did not see himself as a talented person, but really enjoyed doing something, therefore he decided to pursue it. 

He gained a lot of experience when working on SpongeBob and that experience was definitely valuable for him when creating his first show. Greenblatt is a creator of "Chowder" . Chowder is a show where outside of just 2D animation, there are also elements of stop-motion animation and I think this mixture of different media makes this cartoon even more interesting. Greenblatt mentions on the podcast with RebelTaxi (2016) that he has been inspired by Sesame Street, because it is a show where there is stop-motion, 2D animation and live action which makes it interesting. I definitely agree, that mixing different media keeps the viewer interested, because there is a lot of change. 

Kiwi

In the picture above there is Kiwi, a character from Chowder, animated in stop-motion and dubbed by Carl Greenblatt. 

I generally decided to look at characters from Chowder, because I think they have that spark that makes people pay attention to them. Let's start with Chowder - the main character. 

Chowder

Chowder is a purple character, who is still a child. He is a little cook and he cooks a lot. I think his features show his character and that is something I want to be able to achieve when creating my characters. Firstly, what I think is interesting is that his name is Chowder and a chowder is a type of seafood soup, so it is a name of a food and this character is interested in being in the kitchen. I have not thought about naming the characters something that is connected to their personality, but I see it as a good idea. Now when I look at it, I think the name of a character is very important in a character design, because it can really impact how the character is seen. For example some names already carry a meaning in the slang and these are names such as Karen. Karen in a teenage slang means someone who is entitled and sees everything as a threat. Here, Chowder has a name related to food to show his passion for food and I think this is a great idea, for example my character who is an artist I could name by the name of an already existing big artist or some art equipment. I think this is brilliant, because it would only highlight the features I want to be seen. What I also like about Chowder's design is his short arms and legs. In my opinion these are the elements that make Chowder look like a child and not a teen or an adult. I also like that he is very chubby, which makes me think of his sweetness and friendliness. I am very happy I am able to recognize how different appearance features impact how I see the particular character. 

Another character I decided to take a look at is Mung Daal. 

Mung Daal

Mung Daal is another character whose name is based on food. Mung bean is a type of bean and if I look at this character, I could see how the shape of a bean impacted the design. His head and his nose are both in a bean-like shape. Mung Daal is a dish which is curry flavored. This character is a chef and he looks old and wise. I think the features that make him look wise, are the glasses and the mustache. I think the fact that he is really thin also has an impact on the fact that I see him as an experienced and good chef. I think it is interesting to think about, that I would never say that Chowder looks like a good chef because he is so chubby, but Mung is the fact that he is skinny, makes me think he is a good chef. I think it is the thought that chef in general do not eat that much and chowder looks as if he was constantly eating. Mung is not a father of Chowder but he is his guide and I think if I saw the two of them side by side I would be able to see that one of them is the student of the other one. 

I decided to look at one more character, and that character is Shnitzel. 

Shnitzel

For what I remember, when I was little and watching Chowder, Shnitzel was my favorite character. He speaks his own language, but his emotions are very clear and it is often showed how he finds Chowder weird. Chowder is generally a very bizzare character and the fact that Shnitzel sees it, makes Shnitzel relatable for viewers. He is definitely more serious and less approachable. What I can see about his design that strikes to me, is the fact that he is build on rectangular shapes. This ties really well with what I have learned in my research on Ricky Nierva and his method of designing characters by using simple geometry. In that blog post I looked deeper at characters from Pixar's 'Up' and Shnitzel really reminds me of Carl from Up. They are both built in a similar way, don't speak much and are generally unapproachable. I can see now that squares really make a character appear in this way. Shnitzel is also a name of a food item. A shnitzel is a fried in fat meat. I really like that the names are all related to food, on a show about food. 

I think this research gave me a lot of ideas about how different appearance element impact the way the viewer interpret the particular character. I think the mind of Greenblatt is incredible to create a show like Chowder, which is a funny and a little bit ridiculous show. I am definitely going to use the idea of naming the characters to highlight their personality because I think this is a fantastic idea and I have not thought about that before. 

Reference List:

Navarro, H. (2016) Episode 7: C.H. Greenblatt | Nick Animation Podcast [Podcast]. 24 June. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czs3p8hK0e8 (Accessed: 19/02/2021). 

RebelTaxi (2016) 60-Pizza Party Podcast-Ft: C.H. GREENBLATT Creator of CHOWDER & HARVEY BEAKS, Gumball Cancelled [Podcast]. 13 September. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fY9xhUFpf7k (Accessed: 19/02/2021).