Appeal

Appeal is a hard principle to define, because appeal is based on the characters personal appeal so arguably its entirely subjective on the viewer, as its personal opinion what is visually pleasing and not. Although this explains the wide variety of different styles of animation and character types we are provided with, if we all liked  the same things, say timid animal characters shot in stop motion, there would be little demand for abstract animation, hand drawn, action scenes etc, making all animation rather one directional.

However with the diverse opinion in what is 'appealing' the industry is encouraged to develop new ideas and specialise in styles to create a familiarity with their audience.

For example, traditional Disney went for an aesthetically pleasing look with their Princesses and creatures such as Bambi and Thumper.

Aimed primarily at children this 1940s classic is a product of its time, from the release of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves several years beforehand, the animation forefront had only began to pick up.

What amazed the audiences at the time was the reality of creating this fluid animated feature and these passive cute characters where more sociallbly suitable to the more censored society of the 1940s.

Taking a look at  modern day Disney Pixar characters such as Carl an Russell

With the development in animation, audiences are less intrigued by simply the process of animation, this encouraged Disney to rethink their appeal. For their characters to rely on their aesthetic appeal was simply not enough anymore, hence why films such as The Aristocats and Oliver and Co where not as successful as expected. Disney needed to create personal appeal through familiarity, Pixar achieved this through cultural allusions, things in our culture that we can relate to. My example is Carl and Russell from Up!
Russell is a boy scout and pixar really plays on this theme from his outfit to his actions ( helping the elderly, demanding to build a fire) we empathise with this character and appeal greatly to his realisticness as we picture this character in our own lives. Carl (the protagonist) is grumpy and imperfect with prominent attitude throughout, this is in stark contrast to the early Princess characters of the 30s-50s who remained passive and polite throughout their films.

Moving away from Disney (because frankly I think we spend too much time there!)

Warner Brothers apply a entirely different approach to appeal, avoiding realistic characters, they manipulate animations ability to distort reality to their advantage.They envoke the 'cartoon' feel playing on exaggeration and repitition to create humour.

"What's up Doc?"

With short animations like Looney Tunes, the audience build a relationship with these characters over time, repittion of says like "What's up Doc?" makes the animation, more rememorable and easy to mimic. With the taunting of the Hunter adds a flare of cheek to their characters giving Warner Brothers a more rebellious edge on their Disney competitors.

I hope this makes relevant sense!

Nibbs X