I'm okay with Bart Simpson having only four fingers, I'm okay with a cartoon bird having only three toes. Especially since it shouldn't cause people to hurt their birds the way feeding carrots to rabbits will. Bugs is quite the trend setter; in addition to the carrot thing (This was a reference to a then-popular live-action movie where a human character munched on a carrot during dialog, which has fallen into obscurity since. Fun fact: Munching on carrots is perfectly healthy for humans), Bugs also made "nimrod" mean idiot. Nimrod is a biblical figure, a great hunter. Bugs sarcastically called Elmer Fudd "Nimrod" in much the same way you'd say "Nice job, Einstein." The allusion was lost on many.
I never knew that about Nimrod, thanks for the info. It's actually a pretty cool name(and figure), so it'd be great to see it make a cultural comeback someday.
The chameleon in Tangled changes color based on his emotion. He can change his color super fast though, which is wrong... But it's still a step in the right direction.
TierZoo mentions that pretty well "Why, when you have access to one of the best camouflage skills in the game do you waste it on just spamming emotes?"
Huh? I hadn't thought about the one about rabbits (not) eating carrots. Probably because it's such a common misconception. While the other ones are a bit annoying, the first one could, and probably has, caused tons of problems and suffering. I could see this turn into a series.
I have absolutely no problem with animals that talk, or have exaggerated cartoonish features. But I still think it is important to stick to biological accuracy because it is more educational.
But these cartoons aren't intended to be educational. It's like saying that comedy shows with slapstick should be realistic because humans can't survive having an anvil fall on their head. Besides, doesn't getting pet care advice from CARTOONS sound stupid? I think the simple answer here is that these cartoons are fictitious. Just separate the fact from the fiction. It's not quite on the same level as misrepresenting other races, genders, etc.
How is it not on the same level as misrepresenting human races? At least with those, you'd have to be a real idiot to believe the misrepresentations, since most people have the opportunity to interact with other humans, but not necessarily with animals (until they get one, at which point it's too late and the animal is doomed). The only thing I can agree on is that they're not supposed to be educational. But just like with race, they are blatant misrepresentations which MOST (unlike with racial misrepresentations) people actually believe. There's a reason people get upset over movies that present all black people, and that's because it actually affects how these people are treated. So as long as these inaccurate portrayals continue to affect how people treat their pets, we SHOULD continue to be upset about them. Maybe the solution would be to add a disclaimer to all these cartoons/other media stating that "this is a work of fiction and if you keep your goldfish in a bowl, you will cut its life expectancy short by 15 years, if you keep your hamster in a crittertrail cage, it will be too busy being depressed to love you, if you keep your parrot in a cage with nothing more than a single perch, it will become depressed and commit self harm, etc..." In an ideal world you would be right, and people wouldn't get their information from cartoons. Sadly, we don't live in an ideal world.
I'm not saying it's right but knowing why they gave Bugs Bunny a carrot. could you imagine him with a cigar. because that's exactly what it's supposed to symbolize the cigar of Groucho Marx. Watch bugs as he eats his carrot he flicks his finger and little bits of carrot from the falloff of it just like the ashes of a cigar. I don't like the fact that a cartoon is causing problems for animals so I am glad that you cleared that up but half the fun of cartoons is seeing anthropomorphic animals and sometimes inanimate objects doing things that are well Looney Tunes. I think some animal traits can enhance the cartoon experience take Patrick's star Patrick has no brain and they have used that to tremendous comedic effect.
Even things intended to be cute or sweet: look at papa bear with his cub (nope, just nope), or mama ostrich on her nest (no excuse, these birds are sexually dimorphic that’s daddy!), or even oh cute squirrel (that’s a chipmunk you cretin!!)
As an owner of mice and rats... their favorite food is peanut butter and cheerios. Which is why its recommended for mouse traps instead of regular things like cheese.
>Insert Animal< acts like a dog is my least favorite cartoon animal faux pas. The horse from Tangled is a BIG example of this - he doesn't act like a horse at all! And it's not just cartoons that do this, low-budget or poorly-written live actions will do this too. I can't watch any Hallmark movie that has a dog or a horse in it as a main part of the plot simply because I know I will be eye-rolling the whole time at how they depict the animal and its behavior, or people's responses to it. TV shows have done the same thing, like how a show set in the Everglades held up a real live baby macaw and tried to tell me that it was some rare native animal they were trying to save. I even recognized the breed! CGI is a thing, or stick to reality if you want to do a little bit of research.
baby parrots and macaws are also featherless, also canarys dont normally say "i taut i saw a puddy kat" and normally a shotgun doesnt explode with a cartoon character sticks a finger in the barrel, after all it is a cartoon and wiley coyote would get squashed with his antics with the road runner.... kinda what makes them funny.
Two cartoon animal things that bother me are cats drinking milk or cream, and birds being housed in tiny cages with few things to rest on (take Tweety Bird and his little swing for example).
I mean, being mammals, I would assume that cats would be fine drinking milk? It may not be their favorite drink, but surely it wouldn't harm them, right?
Kittens yeah, but animals aren't supposed to drink milk after weaning. Adult cats are carnivores - feeding them milk doesn't at all fulfil their dietary requirements. I think even giving it to them as a one-off thing can give them pretty nasty indigestion.
It would be fine if they're young, and it's their mother's milk. But cow's milk as they get older is pretty bad for them. They love drinking it, but it's not necessarily good for their body!
Fish (especially goldfish) being kept in round glass bowles with nothing but a little gravel at the bottom. It just makes me so sad cus most people really do think that you can house fish that way. To anyone who wants fish: they need filtration,heat (usually), water conditioning depending o where in the world you live and a bunch of more stuff that just cant fit within a bowl, not to mention that some fishes eyes get seriously damaged from the curving of the glass.
I worked at a Petsmart. I can't count the number of people that wanted goldfish (or other fish) to put in teensy bowls that I had to turn away. DEFINITELY didn't help that we sold bowls advertised as housing goldfish. Friggin' Petsmart.
This with every other animal people wanted to house permanently in cages not much larger than the animal themselves. Misinformed people are bad custodians.
Kyle Zager I agree, pet shops in general are just a disservice to all the different pet communities, wether small mammals,reptiles or fish to name a few.
Wingedshadowwolf yess,the same goes for hamsters, people keep them in crittertrails and say "well it hasn't died yet" im like ??? w h a t is wrong with you
In my mind I think the worst portrayed animal in movies, cartoon, books, is the horse. People have this romantic idea that a horse has the same characteristics as a well trained loyal dog. They're herbivores and herd animals which is entirely different from a carnivorous pack animal. Their brains are just not wired to be your pet dog. Also, all the westerns show the riders hanging on the reins/bit until the horses' head is way up in the air where they cannot see the ground in front of them and they are rolling their eyes and gaping their mouths trying to get out from under the pain of the bit. The also spur the heck out of them for fast and exciting action on the screen. Way to absolutely ruin a good horse! They also love those scenes where the brave cowboy takes a horse straight down a steep hill to show what a great rider they are....like I said - way to ruin a good horse.
My rats will eat cheese and seem to enjoy it (although I rarely give it to them), but then, they seem to enjoy eating nearly everything. I've also seen them attempt to eat rubber, and I've had to stop them from trying to eat a book at least once. They really seem to like oatmeal and kale best, though. And sometimes leaves I track in on my shoes.
@@rivkagurevitz9019 I actually rescued and adopted the mice in my case, and they were wonderful to have. They've since crossed the rainbow bridge, so I don't have them now.
I think at least the first 2 are aesthetic choices. For Bug Bunny, seems like smoking a cigar was popular around that time (correct me if I'm wrong). Now, smoking was allowed in cartoons for a while (as was drinking), so it's not like the carrot was a substitute for a cigar, but it is a comical replacement for one. For the bird feet, I think it was a design choice. Most people think of bird feet as 2 or 3 in front, 1 in back, because that's what we see often in snow, on ducks, and small backyard birds. 2 and 2 I think would be weird to most people, even if it's correct for his species. I'm sure there's some preliminary drawings and character sketches where he has all his toes. Here's another big one: Cats love milk/cream. It's been in cartoons since before I was born, and I still hear people talking about it today - even self-proclaimed cat lovers. After being weaned from their mother, cats can't properly digest milk. It will get them digestive issues - not something you want to deal with.
Another possible reason for the incorrect bird feet in Rio is simply because it would have been too expensive/time consuming to animate all 4 toes. But who knows, I actually never even noticed until Jessi pointed it out. Here are some other ones that annoy me (not just misconceptions but also concepts people use wrong) : -Birds can move around their remiges (wing feathers) like if they were fingers. -Snakes have no skeleton. -You have to pee on a jellyfish sting to relieve the pain. -The roadrunner is the fastest animal (I was taught that in school, believe it or not) -Penguins inhabit the arctic and polar bears live in Antarctica -SHARKS. People think that sharks are mindless killing machines whose only purpose is to wreak terror upon humans. -Squirrels eat only nuts/acorns -Using the word "rodent" as an insult because people think it's synonymous with rat -Using "poison" and "venom" interchangeably -Parrots can perfectly imitate a sentence or whatever immediately after hearing it and that they always squawk before "saying" it (it's actually kinda funny, but incorrect nevertheless) -Anything that gives birth to live young is a mammal (a few mammals lay eggs and some snakes and shark give birth to live young) -Humans are not animals (we obviously are, at least in the biological sense) Those are the ones I could think of right now but I'm sure there's lots more.
I see the cat thing as an even bigger issue. Even if someone thinks rabbits eat carrots, if they go to the pet store to get a rabbit, they'll see hay and rabbit kibble being sold next to where the rabbits are, so should realize at that point that their rabbit should probably be eating that. With the cat thing, however, people will actually give their cats milk or cream, it seems like a bigger problem, because people can go a lot longer without having that challenged.
I'm way function over form so the toe thing aggravates me to no end. Some people think they can do better than billions of years of evolution and that's ridiculous.
PixieoftheWood I've been to sad places on the internet where people say they've been feeding their rabbit carrots for weeks. Horrified people like me correct them on proper diet, but the myth is so persistent some people don't know rabbits eat anything other than vegetables.
That was the weirdest thing to see! A friends 4 year old caught that within the first few minutes of the movie! Made for a good laugh when he said "don't they know boy cows don't make milk?"
they did that because most people know cows from their iconic udder, remember, they are trying to reach as wide an audience as possible and make as much money as possible
The snake winking at Harry in Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone has bugged me ever since I found out snakes don't actually have eyelids. Because apparently i'm fine with imagining a world with wizards and magic, but damn it if snakes are allowed to wink. Idk, I kind of tell myself that each movie and book is it's own world and doesn't HAVE to reflect the one we live in. I agree that misrepresentation of animals in books and movies can have really harmful consequences and I wish it didn't happen. We just have to keep correcting these myths and informing people about these animals!
Thank you. :-) It isn't just cartoons: I cringe when I see scenes in novels that portray an entire species as cookie-cutter clones and/or inaccurate cliches. The least of it is treating horses as organic motorbikes that never get tired and need no care and can be left standing in full tack indefinitely. It doesn't take that long these days to do some research on a species and get it right, and if it's fantasy or sci-fi, still not that hard to use a real species as a realistic starting point. (I consider your channel an excellent resource for this, I consider Seraphina one of the models for a fox character, for example.) If you're going to portray an animal in any sort of medium, do it right or don't do it. BTW, I cannot stand The Lion King, for the sheer disregard of actual lion social systems and the hyenas, and typically stay away from animated movies with animals in them because they get frustrating.
Sci-fi often does the same thing with alien species: entire planets are boiled down to having one government, one dominant species (often human-like), one belief system, one culture, and even only one subspecies/race. It seems humans are terrible at understanding the individuality of anything but other humans. (That's debatable, actually: many humans are terrible at understanding the individuality of even other humans :( )
Although I agree with a part of what you're saying, and you're technically right on every account, sometimes you gotta just see cartoons as cartoons. The Lion King is a masterpiece in terms of storytelling and morals. The fact is, the Lion King is not about lion social systems, it's about teaching morals and values to children. They simply used animals to portray some aspects of HUMAN society and social system, not the lion's or hyena's. The reason they use animals to portray these aspects of society is simply because it's more appealing to children. As I recall lions, hyenas, rabbits, macaws or any animal ever used in a cartoon don't speak fluent English either. Cartoons are not meant to represent animal social structures, those are called documentaries.
The Lion King is just a Disney retelling of a masterpiece of emo angst - Hamlet - watered down as usual. The morality and values portrayed are not universally seen as positive. It pushes the already-prevalent idea that even animals exist in nice little monogamous heterosexual married pairs, instead of the glorious range of family systems out there - a lot of kids are living in family systems that are not nuclear. I could go on, but I'm not going to. You can include animals, even anthropomorphic ones, and still capture the amazing diversity of their natures. You can even use that to illustrate human society - T S Eliot's Book of Practical Cats did a great job of that in poetry, but they are emphatically still cats. The original novel of 101 Dalmatians had dogs that act like dogs, despite doing some things that no real dog would do. But I see no point to using any species if it's going to look like, but not act like, that species. If the behaviour is totally inappropriate for the story you're trying to tell, use a different species that comes closer... possibly just homo sapiens.
That's one of the reasons I'm so proud of the Chaos Walking trilogy (or the author). The animals actually have personalities: The dog is more than just a loyal minion who does whatever he's told without training, the horses get scared and try to buck people off during battle, they seek the company of other horses, they act differently depending on who's riding them, and one horse even dies because they run it to death (and it's not presented as "oh no, my fleshy vehicle broke down" but rather as "oh no, I feel so bad for my four-legged friend who will be missed". And this despite the fact that the story is not even about the animals. They're just side characters.
Another stereotype that I despise in cartoons *today* is that pigeons and chickens are always portrayed as being dumb (a recent film with that stereotype was Moana for example) when in fact they have really high cognitive and social abilities and a great memory. Recent studies shown that chicken (chicks in fact) can even do basic algebra so that's definetely not a dumb animal far from it.
Wasn't it implied that Hei Hei was a particularly hair-brained chicken? Don't remember if Moana had others to compare him to, but I seem to remember one guy actually noticing he seemed a bit dense, as if it wasn't just how chickens usually were.
You think it's bad with representations of living animals in pop-culture? It's even worse with EXTINCT animals. Lazy people will claim that we "can't really know how they behaved and what they looked like", when there is actually TONS of research, references and resources available to anyone willing to do a little digging, no pun intended. Some of the worst offenses are: anachronism stew, where species that were separated by millions of years and lived in different places of the world are depicted as living together in the same habitat; blatant anatomical inaccuracies like pterosaurs with bat-like wings, extra toes and digits where there shouldn't be, wrong type of body covering for certain species (scales vs feathers in maniraptors/coelurosaurs), wrong body, limb and walking posture and proportions; portraying all extinct predators as monsters that all they did was scream, roar and kill stuff; showing all prehistoric habitats as a jungle or wasteland with smoking volcanoes in the background; and worst of all, calling ALL extinct prehistoric reptiles "dinosaurs".
I was gonna comment this, but you beat me to it. Might I also add, The Good Dinosaur really upset me... The raptors have feathers, yeah, but it's all wrong... The rexes aren't feathered at all, there were tons of pronated wrists on the theropods, the pterosaurs are all species that shouldn't have teeth, not to mention they didn't add any pycnofibres, the main villain is a Nyctosaurus and thus shouldn't have visible fingers on his wings, and the sauropods are all laughably proportioned what with the dragging tails, elephantine feet and backwards-elbo knees... The styracosaurus also was given the wrong horns. Also that legged snake was given fangs like a viper... And of course like you said with the anachronism stew, these are all species that are separated by millions of years and even continents... That movie just really bummed me out.
Yeah The Good Dinosaur was an ugly bland movie with a boring cliche story predictable af. I'm really mad that this type of production can see the light of day. They only added some ugly "feathers" on the raptors (which they screwed up) to have a good conscience but did EVERYTHING else wrong with the animals. This movie looks like it was made in the 60's...
Simple answer on "why not realistic toes": More toes means more complex, and therefore more expensive to animate and render. One of the reasons why so many human cartoon characters don't have five fingers. Another reason to not have four toes on the birds; people who don't realize some birds have more than one toe facing backwards, will think it looks weird and find it distracting for the film.
+IstasPumaNevada But "pencil mileage" isn't an issue with computer animation. I don't know of any movies with computer animated humans that have four fingers. But yeah, it could be that an extra toe pointing backward on a parrot would be too distracting or would make the character less cute. I'm sure there's a legitimate design reason why the animators made such an omission.
+hamsterama in 3D you need to rig a character i.e. adding a skeleton and controls to move it with, which means extra joints and bones is just more work, and rigging a bird is more complicated than rigging a human. And yes removing a toe can help visually too, no ones gonna notice except some scientist or animal keeper haha
Simple answer: laziness. The reason of people expecting three toes and being put off by how a macaws feet actually look is not an excuse. A movie that's trying to have an impact on such serious events as smuggling endangered wildlife needs to be accurate. Inaccuracy on something as simple as physical characteristics of the animal they're trying to educate about isn't a good look.
What irks me is when cartoons display animals in poor conditions as okay. Elmo keeping his goldfish Dorothy in a fishbowl. Tweety (Sweety) having that tiny cage as his home with no enrichment or sense of security.
Im not going to trying defend this removing of limbs, but from a cartoonist perspective, adding more toes in the front than in the back gives the viewer more of a connection to the character as humans cannot relate to having toes in the back. The design wouldn't feel properly balanced. No matter where you pause the movie, you know where the front of blue's toes are at and where the back is as he is flailing about. Not everything translates well into cartoon/anthro from perfectly and some adjustments are made such as giving them larger eyes for more expression. Another example of this would be in the movie Spirit. Where the horses were captured pretty acuratly but the animaters gave the horses eyebrows and white eyeballs sense the characters could not talk. Or in Guardians of Gahoole, where the art was fairly realistic but gave the barn owls yellow eyes. Without this, the viewers would not feel as immersed into the story because they could not unconsciously make a connection to the character. But it can be done right and missing entire limbs is kind of a big change.
the other one that makes me sad is when a movie gets popular that features an animal heavily in it. There tends to be a huge uptake in demand which isn't very good for the animal (clown fish being taken from reeks since they don't breed in captivity after Finding Nemo, and over-non-ethical breeding of various dog breeds when canine featuring movies as examples) since most people, or in most cases their kids, don't look up what it really takes to take care of the animals or even basic things about them like how long they live. It might be interesting for you to do a video on how hype from movies can hurt, or in some cases where it increases visibility for an endangered species help, the animals.
Interesting video! I'm trying to get into character design for animation, especially for animals, and I think it's always important to remember the impact our seemingly simple drawings have on the real world animals and environments! I know artists generally try to do their research, especially nowadays, so videos like yours help inform us on how to approach portraying these animals properly and safely! Sometimes things like missing toes from a bird is a stylistic choice based more on human psychology or based on what's easier to animate, but I think it's something we absolutely need to think hard on and research just to make sure it doesn't harm the mass perception of the real world animal!
Ruined? That ruined the movie? I'm sorry but that sounds more like a nitpick. Yeah, that's incorrect and I agree that it can take one out of th experience of the film but it shouldn't ruin the movie for you.
Im not even kidding, it was like breaking the forth wall. I was 100% entranced by the film and then the wolves started roaring like lions and it made me very aware that I was watching a movie. I couldnt really get back into it. It was like I was just looking for mistakes after that, I was more a critic than someone just trying to enjoy the film. I was soooo excited for it too.
As an animation student, I think the reason why Blue only has three toes is because the fewer the toes/fingers on a character, the easier it is to animate.
When I volunteered at a rabbit shelter, we asked for vegetable donations from the public. Despite being VERY specific not to donate carrots, we would get tons of donations we had to throw out. Wish those people read up before spending their money.
I could watch a dozen of these videos! My pet (hur hur) hate when it come to cartoon animals is... basically everything about Warner Bros Tasmanian Devil. I get that nobody expects "turning into a tornado" to be a thing a real animal can do, but would it have been THAT hard to just make him black with a white stripe? You know, the only colour devils come in? I'm pretty sure they just heard the name, then designed what they were PRETTY sure it would look like. Also male kangaroos with pouches. Americans really seem to like putting pouches on EVERY marsupial, even though the only species where the guys have pouches is thylacines (and one species of opossum, IIRC). Man, don't even get me STARTED on cartoon thylacines. Ugh.
The turtle popping out of their shells was easy for me as a kid to figure out was bunk but rabbits eating carrots is something I just learned is false? The fact that rabbits can get ill eating carrots has seriously disturbed me. Also bugs eating carrots comes from Clark Gables character in "It Happened One Night" (1934) a fantastic movie if you haven't seen it. It's a comedy that won all five major Academy Awards (Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, and Screenplay).
When a friend of mine from New Zealand first came to North America for college, she saw such a crazy-looking animal that she didn't even know how to describe it. She Googled "leopard mouse," the best way she knew how to describe it, and came up with nothing. She told her friends about this "leopard mouse" that she saw on campus and everyone thought she was nuts. As she was describing it, she spotted the animal in the courtyard. "There! There it is! A leopard mouse!" she screamed, pointing at it. "Wait... you mean a chipmunk!?" one friend said. "THAT'S a chipmunk!?" she asked. "They don't look ANYTHING like they do in cartoons."
This made my Thanksgiving extra good!! I love your videos. I loved seeing how it would look through a bull's eyes! It looked so cool. I would love a whole video like that showing how things look through different animals eyes! :D - Heidi
A lot of people think that parrots can imitate anything you say. I get asked that question a lot. While they can pick up certain words and phrases on occasion, it's actually pretty rare to have a talking parrot with a large vocabulary. And they say what they want. Just because you repeat a word to them every day, doesn't mean they pick it up. They might decide to say a word you have only repeated once or twice. Once they learn a word, they might use that word 80 times a day, which is a lot different from being able to hold a conversation.
I’m fairly certain that the only reason they gave the birds 3 toes was for animation purposes. Easier to animate 3 toes to look like a human hand than it is with 4, even if it would have been accurate. But I love these videos, and that end clip of the lil bun was adorable
Interestingly, I've seen a lot of rabbit care instructions mention that you can feed rabbits root vegetables in small amounts, but is this actually a good thing to do? I mean, rabbits have really strict dietary requirements, is root vegetables even good for them in small amounts or should they be avoided at all costs?
Most root veggies tend to be high in sugar, which is the key issue: too much dietary sugar can lead to serious, even fatal digestive problems. That said, a chunk of the orange part of a carrot, a dried banana chip or two, a chunk of papaya, or a bit of apple are wonderful "once in a while" treats that if given in very small amounts (let's say, 1-2x per week, tops) & are generally okay unless they're having problems already.
I thought you were gonna say that baby Blu is incorrectly portrayed having all his feathers despite having hatched recently, but that one's excusable for aesthetics... the feet tho is so odd?? What could be the point!
I know I'm very late, but a myth that I really dislike which is common in cartoons is that cats should have milk from a cow. Please don't do that, just like many humans cats are lactose intollerant and could dehydrate if they get too much milk.
As for Bugs Bunny eating carrots all the time, that was actually supposed to be a reference to the film "It Happened One Night", where the main character was, for whatever reason, eating a carrot while talking.
Cartoons are not real. Most cartoon characters only have 3 fingers or toes. Any person with just a few working brain cells know a turtles shell is a part of its body. Mice love peanut butter. my mom taught me this when I had wild field mice in my house I used peanut butter in my have a heart trap to catch them. I love your videos. I feel your just complaining about irrelevant things. People are not that dumb.
OKAY CARROTS: So the reason Bugs eats a carrot is because he's mimicking, of all animals, a human. Specifically, he's mimicking Clark Gable from the film "It Happened One Night."
I think the reason they took a toe off of Blue and the other birds is because in Asia, four is an unlucky number. They give human characters five fingers instead of four. Since they were marketing in Asian countries, they had to give him three.
I don't like when they misrepresent cats by letting them drink milk BUT THEY ACTUALLY CAN'T HAVE MILK! because they can't digest it. I always thought when i was small because of that they can drink milk
That thing about turtles slipping out of their shells is a HUGE pet peeve of mine. I mean seriously. Also, every single cartoon chipmunk in existance seems to have a tiny tuft of a tail. Chipmunk tails are about as long as their whole bodies! And this is from someone who IS a cartoonist. Well...kind of, anyway...If I ever get back into drawing. XP
also, talking animals in general. 1) we knew several talking reptilian characters, and in real life, most of those species can't vocalize, since they lack larynx (yep, *snakes*. snakes shouldn't talk, as well as lizards and turtles) [this also applies to fish] 2) *birds talking* avian beaks are solid and obviously won't support human speech (also birds with teeth; discarding hesperornis or ichtyornis, this is for modern birds that are toothless) 3) i don't certainly know if non-human animals one day may achieve human speech capabilities, but i think it's impossible. how will a mollusk or an annelid talk?
Don't cartoons tend to short-change humans on digits as well (well, unless they're made in tetraphobic countries, I guess)? I haven't seen Rio, so I was wondering how many fingers the humans had. One pet peeve of mine in cartoons is what they do with hymenoptera. Cartoons with ants and bees will just about always have a bunch of male workers, one of which is usually the focus character alongside a queen. In real life, the males would be drones and wouldn't do much besides breed, but it seems a society where only ladies do manual work and the guys are pretty much just only there for baby-making doesn't sit too well with human media creators, but still, it kind of bugs me. Speaking of, it kind of gets of my nerves when ants/spiders/butterflies/etc are called "bugs". Though whenever I point out that there aren't any named characters in A Bug's Life that are actually bugs, I get eye-rolls. Also, misplaced octopus mouths. A lot of cartoons put them straight under the octopus's eyes rather than in the middle of their arms. I guess that makes them easier to animate in terms of expression, but then again, anything with a beak is a tad tougher to animate, expression-wise.
I mean, lets be real here, Bugs has WAY more wrong with him than eating carrots. Check out the propaganda film he was in back in the 1940s, THAT will ruin cartoons for you.
Bullfighting, if ever there was a sport that deserves to be on the banned list, that's one of them! I'm not one of the 'animal rights' nuts. I'm not opposed to owning pets, eating meat, hunting or fishing, but bullfighting is basically torturing an animal to death just to amuse people. It's cruel. Whenever I see a video of a matador being gored by the bull I'm not thinking, "poor guy." I'm thinking, "good for the bull."
Jessi, I love watching your videos and learning about your amazing animals, in the unlikely event that you read this comment can you feature Kizmit & Lollipop again sometime soon, I feel like it’s been ages since we’ve seen them and along with the foxes I think they are my favourites! Keep up the great work, love from New Zealand
This came off as really nitpicky. Instead of having the tone of, "Here are a few things about animals they got wrong in cartoons--shame on them!", it should have had the tone of "Here are a few animal myths you've learned from cartoons and how they stack up against the truth". I'm surprised I didn't see one in here talking about how bunnies can't be cops and sloths don't drive cars.
Myth: Bugs eating carrots. That is now iconic to the character that changing it would be the oddity. He's been doing that as his shtick for nearly a century. He's an anthropomorphic depiction of the animal and actually talks to other characters, like his asking Elmer Fudd "What's up, doc?" and he wears gloves, etc... So, the fact that he eats carrots is just one of lots of things that make up his character and shows he's not a real bunny. Rio having only 3 toes: cost to rig/animate goes up as you add digits. It is the same reason that hands on cartoon characters are typically missing a digit. The simpsons, family guy, american dad, etc... are all missing fingers from the hands due to the cost of animating an extra digit. The same is true even for 3D animation. It is another digit that someone has to pay attention to and make sure it is working right. tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FourFingeredHands Bulls and red. You give a slightly wrong impression of their sense of color. They can "see" red, but it activates the same cone that activates green, just not to the same degree as a photon of green light, so it would appear as a shade of green or blue-green. Each color receptor responds to a range of light frequencies and they have overlaps with the largest overlap being between the M and L receptors (green and red). en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cone_cell
One animal that never seems to be represented in cartoons...the ferret...as a ferret owner since 1986, I'm amazed by this. ..they are living cartoons...maybe I'll make one myself...
I wonder if the animators on “Rio” were following the tendency in cartoons to subtract one finger per hand of just about every character?? Cartoon humans usually only have three fingers and a thumb. This is true in “The Simpsons” for all characters but Jesus and God who have the correct amount.
Omg! Thank you sooo much! That Rio movie made me so upset, I asked why too! In some scenes they look even like chicken feet (would that be tridactyl? Spelling) it’s nice to know others feel it too.
Hey lets take some healthy advice from a cartoon too. From the movie Bambi Thumpers father says " Eating greens is a special treat. It makes long ears and great big feet". Some solid advice about a healthy rabbit diet needing to include healthy greens. :)
![[Limbus Company - Teaser] Season5 - Oblivion](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/8anKuEeZLeI/mqdefault.jpg)
I'm okay with Bart Simpson having only four fingers, I'm okay with a cartoon bird having only three toes. Especially since it shouldn't cause people to hurt their birds the way feeding carrots to rabbits will.
Bugs is quite the trend setter; in addition to the carrot thing (This was a reference to a then-popular live-action movie where a human character munched on a carrot during dialog, which has fallen into obscurity since. Fun fact: Munching on carrots is perfectly healthy for humans), Bugs also made "nimrod" mean idiot. Nimrod is a biblical figure, a great hunter. Bugs sarcastically called Elmer Fudd "Nimrod" in much the same way you'd say "Nice job, Einstein." The allusion was lost on many.
I never knew that about Nimrod, thanks for the info. It's actually a pretty cool name(and figure), so it'd be great to see it make a cultural comeback someday.
Myth: chameleons change color upon surroundings to blend in
Often seen in movies and cartoons
It's honestly pretty shocking that in most media that portrays fictional chameleons, they pretty much always use camoflage.
In reality, they mostly change color to show off :)
I was just going to say this one. Geez that one irritates me.
The chameleon in Tangled changes color based on his emotion. He can change his color super fast though, which is wrong... But it's still a step in the right direction.
TierZoo mentions that pretty well
"Why, when you have access to one of the best camouflage skills in the game do you waste it on just spamming emotes?"
Huh? I hadn't thought about the one about rabbits (not) eating carrots. Probably because it's such a common misconception. While the other ones are a bit annoying, the first one could, and probably has, caused tons of problems and suffering.
I could see this turn into a series.
I have absolutely no problem with animals that talk, or have exaggerated cartoonish features. But I still think it is important to stick to biological accuracy because it is more educational.
But these cartoons aren't intended to be educational. It's like saying that comedy shows with slapstick should be realistic because humans can't survive having an anvil fall on their head.
Besides, doesn't getting pet care advice from CARTOONS sound stupid? I think the simple answer here is that these cartoons are fictitious. Just separate the fact from the fiction. It's not quite on the same level as misrepresenting other races, genders, etc.
How is it not on the same level as misrepresenting human races? At least with those, you'd have to be a real idiot to believe the misrepresentations, since most people have the opportunity to interact with other humans, but not necessarily with animals (until they get one, at which point it's too late and the animal is doomed).
The only thing I can agree on is that they're not supposed to be educational. But just like with race, they are blatant misrepresentations which MOST (unlike with racial misrepresentations) people actually believe. There's a reason people get upset over movies that present all black people, and that's because it actually affects how these people are treated. So as long as these inaccurate portrayals continue to affect how people treat their pets, we SHOULD continue to be upset about them.
Maybe the solution would be to add a disclaimer to all these cartoons/other media stating that "this is a work of fiction and if you keep your goldfish in a bowl, you will cut its life expectancy short by 15 years, if you keep your hamster in a crittertrail cage, it will be too busy being depressed to love you, if you keep your parrot in a cage with nothing more than a single perch, it will become depressed and commit self harm, etc..."
In an ideal world you would be right, and people wouldn't get their information from cartoons. Sadly, we don't live in an ideal world.
No, it isn't. It's a freakin cartoon.
I'm not saying it's right but knowing why they gave Bugs Bunny a carrot. could you imagine him with a cigar. because that's exactly what it's supposed to symbolize the cigar of Groucho Marx. Watch bugs as he eats his carrot he flicks his finger and little bits of carrot from the falloff of it just like the ashes of a cigar. I don't like the fact that a cartoon is causing problems for animals so I am glad that you cleared that up but half the fun of cartoons is seeing anthropomorphic animals and sometimes inanimate objects doing things that are well Looney Tunes. I think some animal traits can enhance the cartoon experience take Patrick's star Patrick has no brain and they have used that to tremendous comedic effect.
Actually it's a reference to a specific movie where a guy does actually eat a carrot. The cigar thing is also just a myth.
Even things intended to be cute or sweet: look at papa bear with his cub (nope, just nope), or mama ostrich on her nest (no excuse, these birds are sexually dimorphic that’s daddy!), or even oh cute squirrel (that’s a chipmunk you cretin!!)
I didn’t realize that Blue from Rio only had 3 toes, that’s now scary to look at. Thanks for pointing it out!!
Here's another myth: cats like milk.
In fact, many cats are lactose intolerant
Rio is my favorite movie
As an owner of mice and rats... their favorite food is peanut butter and cheerios. Which is why its recommended for mouse traps instead of regular things like cheese.
"Bullfighting" is not a "sport". Is an art. Ask Picasso, Dalí, Hemingway, Goya, Lorca or Orson Welles, among others.
Please do a video on
Ringneck! What, Where, How
I really Love you Videos 😘
I NOTICED BLU'S FEET BEFORE AND IT ALWAYS BOTHERS ME😂
I always thought Rio was a hyacinth macaw
ive never noticed that about rio
Wow! She didn't even touch on grinding nemo.
I love Rio! Idk why...
Hazel is so cute! How is Cheeks doing?
>Insert Animal< acts like a dog is my least favorite cartoon animal faux pas. The horse from Tangled is a BIG example of this - he doesn't act like a horse at all! And it's not just cartoons that do this, low-budget or poorly-written live actions will do this too. I can't watch any Hallmark movie that has a dog or a horse in it as a main part of the plot simply because I know I will be eye-rolling the whole time at how they depict the animal and its behavior, or people's responses to it. TV shows have done the same thing, like how a show set in the Everglades held up a real live baby macaw and tried to tell me that it was some rare native animal they were trying to save. I even recognized the breed! CGI is a thing, or stick to reality if you want to do a little bit of research.
Is it just me or does she completely remind you guys of Rios owner😂
baby parrots and macaws are also featherless, also canarys dont normally say "i taut i saw a puddy kat" and normally a shotgun doesnt explode with a cartoon character sticks a finger in the barrel, after all it is a cartoon and wiley coyote would get squashed with his antics with the road runner.... kinda what makes them funny.
nice!
Two cartoon animal things that bother me are cats drinking milk or cream, and birds being housed in tiny cages with few things to rest on (take Tweety Bird and his little swing for example).
I mean, being mammals, I would assume that cats would be fine drinking milk? It may not be their favorite drink, but surely it wouldn't harm them, right?
It actually harms most cats, as they are usually lactose intolerant.
Kittens yeah, but animals aren't supposed to drink milk after weaning. Adult cats are carnivores - feeding them milk doesn't at all fulfil their dietary requirements. I think even giving it to them as a one-off thing can give them pretty nasty indigestion.
It does harm most cats. That's the problem.
It would be fine if they're young, and it's their mother's milk. But cow's milk as they get older is pretty bad for them. They love drinking it, but it's not necessarily good for their body!
Fish (especially goldfish) being kept in round glass bowles with nothing but a little gravel at the bottom. It just makes me so sad cus most people really do think that you can house fish that way. To anyone who wants fish: they need filtration,heat (usually), water conditioning depending o where in the world you live and a bunch of more stuff that just cant fit within a bowl, not to mention that some fishes eyes get seriously damaged from the curving of the glass.
I worked at a Petsmart. I can't count the number of people that wanted goldfish (or other fish) to put in teensy bowls that I had to turn away. DEFINITELY didn't help that we sold bowls advertised as housing goldfish. Friggin' Petsmart.
This with every other animal people wanted to house permanently in cages not much larger than the animal themselves. Misinformed people are bad custodians.
I hate seeing beta fish housing. Surviving vs thriving.
Kyle Zager I agree, pet shops in general are just a disservice to all the different pet communities, wether small mammals,reptiles or fish to name a few.
Wingedshadowwolf yess,the same goes for hamsters, people keep them in crittertrails and say "well it hasn't died yet" im like ??? w h a t is wrong with you
In my mind I think the worst portrayed animal in movies, cartoon, books, is the horse. People have this romantic idea that a horse has the same characteristics as a well trained loyal dog. They're herbivores and herd animals which is entirely different from a carnivorous pack animal. Their brains are just not wired to be your pet dog. Also, all the westerns show the riders hanging on the reins/bit until the horses' head is way up in the air where they cannot see the ground in front of them and they are rolling their eyes and gaping their mouths trying to get out from under the pain of the bit. The also spur the heck out of them for fast and exciting action on the screen. Way to absolutely ruin a good horse! They also love those scenes where the brave cowboy takes a horse straight down a steep hill to show what a great rider they are....like I said - way to ruin a good horse.
Omg that must have took u a looooong time to type. I will appreciate u for the effort.
@@SriniAustin you’re right
Oh..and the stupid pony is magical in those pony care games for girls
True, but dogs aren't carnivorous
As a mouse owner, I can attest to the fact that they don't really like cheese. My mice actually prefer spinach and bell peppers.
My rats will eat cheese and seem to enjoy it (although I rarely give it to them), but then, they seem to enjoy eating nearly everything. I've also seen them attempt to eat rubber, and I've had to stop them from trying to eat a book at least once. They really seem to like oatmeal and kale best, though. And sometimes leaves I track in on my shoes.
Why do you own mice?
@@rivkagurevitz9019 I actually rescued and adopted the mice in my case, and they were wonderful to have. They've since crossed the rainbow bridge, so I don't have them now.
My pet mouse has been over the Bridge for decades now, but she loved raisins
I think at least the first 2 are aesthetic choices. For Bug Bunny, seems like smoking a cigar was popular around that time (correct me if I'm wrong). Now, smoking was allowed in cartoons for a while (as was drinking), so it's not like the carrot was a substitute for a cigar, but it is a comical replacement for one.
For the bird feet, I think it was a design choice. Most people think of bird feet as 2 or 3 in front, 1 in back, because that's what we see often in snow, on ducks, and small backyard birds. 2 and 2 I think would be weird to most people, even if it's correct for his species. I'm sure there's some preliminary drawings and character sketches where he has all his toes.
Here's another big one:
Cats love milk/cream.
It's been in cartoons since before I was born, and I still hear people talking about it today - even self-proclaimed cat lovers.
After being weaned from their mother, cats can't properly digest milk. It will get them digestive issues - not something you want to deal with.
Another possible reason for the incorrect bird feet in Rio is simply because it would have been too expensive/time consuming to animate all 4 toes. But who knows, I actually never even noticed until Jessi pointed it out.
Here are some other ones that annoy me (not just misconceptions but also concepts people use wrong) :
-Birds can move around their remiges (wing feathers) like if they were fingers.
-Snakes have no skeleton.
-You have to pee on a jellyfish sting to relieve the pain.
-The roadrunner is the fastest animal (I was taught that in school, believe it or not)
-Penguins inhabit the arctic and polar bears live in Antarctica
-SHARKS. People think that sharks are mindless killing machines whose only purpose is to wreak terror upon humans.
-Squirrels eat only nuts/acorns
-Using the word "rodent" as an insult because people think it's synonymous with rat
-Using "poison" and "venom" interchangeably
-Parrots can perfectly imitate a sentence or whatever immediately after hearing it and that they always squawk before "saying" it (it's actually kinda funny, but incorrect nevertheless)
-Anything that gives birth to live young is a mammal (a few mammals lay eggs and some snakes and shark give birth to live young)
-Humans are not animals (we obviously are, at least in the biological sense)
Those are the ones I could think of right now but I'm sure there's lots more.
I see the cat thing as an even bigger issue. Even if someone thinks rabbits eat carrots, if they go to the pet store to get a rabbit, they'll see hay and rabbit kibble being sold next to where the rabbits are, so should realize at that point that their rabbit should probably be eating that. With the cat thing, however, people will actually give their cats milk or cream, it seems like a bigger problem, because people can go a lot longer without having that challenged.
I'm way function over form so the toe thing aggravates me to no end. Some people think they can do better than billions of years of evolution and that's ridiculous.
PixieoftheWood I've been to sad places on the internet where people say they've been feeding their rabbit carrots for weeks. Horrified people like me correct them on proper diet, but the myth is so persistent some people don't know rabbits eat anything other than vegetables.
@@binky2819 people thinking that Ostriches put they head in the ground
Give them all their toes!!! #toesforeveryone
Their*
Bymie thank you.
That movie Barnyard where the male cows have udders. 🙄
YES!
That was the weirdest thing to see! A friends 4 year old caught that within the first few minutes of the movie! Made for a good laugh when he said "don't they know boy cows don't make milk?"
they did that because most people know cows from their iconic udder, remember, they are trying to reach as wide an audience as possible and make as much money as possible
YES! Haha so annoying.
JJMac WHAT!?!
The snake winking at Harry in Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone has bugged me ever since I found out snakes don't actually have eyelids. Because apparently i'm fine with imagining a world with wizards and magic, but damn it if snakes are allowed to wink. Idk, I kind of tell myself that each movie and book is it's own world and doesn't HAVE to reflect the one we live in. I agree that misrepresentation of animals in books and movies can have really harmful consequences and I wish it didn't happen. We just have to keep correcting these myths and informing people about these animals!
Well, when it comes to magic you can always say "It's a magic _______" thats why, but yeah, I was also upset to discover that snakes don't even blink
What if it was a legless lizard
Snake Discovery says it's a giant legless lizard. I think so too it certainly looks like one.
@@juliusroman8616 No, Basilisks are legless lizards. The snake that winks at Harry is indeed a snake.
Thank you. :-) It isn't just cartoons: I cringe when I see scenes in novels that portray an entire species as cookie-cutter clones and/or inaccurate cliches. The least of it is treating horses as organic motorbikes that never get tired and need no care and can be left standing in full tack indefinitely. It doesn't take that long these days to do some research on a species and get it right, and if it's fantasy or sci-fi, still not that hard to use a real species as a realistic starting point. (I consider your channel an excellent resource for this, I consider Seraphina one of the models for a fox character, for example.) If you're going to portray an animal in any sort of medium, do it right or don't do it.
BTW, I cannot stand The Lion King, for the sheer disregard of actual lion social systems and the hyenas, and typically stay away from animated movies with animals in them because they get frustrating.
Sci-fi often does the same thing with alien species: entire planets are boiled down to having one government, one dominant species (often human-like), one belief system, one culture, and even only one subspecies/race. It seems humans are terrible at understanding the individuality of anything but other humans. (That's debatable, actually: many humans are terrible at understanding the individuality of even other humans :( )
Although I agree with a part of what you're saying, and you're technically right on every account, sometimes you gotta just see cartoons as cartoons. The Lion King is a masterpiece in terms of storytelling and morals. The fact is, the Lion King is not about lion social systems, it's about teaching morals and values to children. They simply used animals to portray some aspects of HUMAN society and social system, not the lion's or hyena's. The reason they use animals to portray these aspects of society is simply because it's more appealing to children. As I recall lions, hyenas, rabbits, macaws or any animal ever used in a cartoon don't speak fluent English either. Cartoons are not meant to represent animal social structures, those are called documentaries.
The Lion King is just a Disney retelling of a masterpiece of emo angst - Hamlet - watered down as usual. The morality and values portrayed are not universally seen as positive. It pushes the already-prevalent idea that even animals exist in nice little monogamous heterosexual married pairs, instead of the glorious range of family systems out there - a lot of kids are living in family systems that are not nuclear. I could go on, but I'm not going to.
You can include animals, even anthropomorphic ones, and still capture the amazing diversity of their natures. You can even use that to illustrate human society - T S Eliot's Book of Practical Cats did a great job of that in poetry, but they are emphatically still cats. The original novel of 101 Dalmatians had dogs that act like dogs, despite doing some things that no real dog would do. But I see no point to using any species if it's going to look like, but not act like, that species. If the behaviour is totally inappropriate for the story you're trying to tell, use a different species that comes closer... possibly just homo sapiens.
That's one of the reasons I'm so proud of the Chaos Walking trilogy (or the author). The animals actually have personalities: The dog is more than just a loyal minion who does whatever he's told without training, the horses get scared and try to buck people off during battle, they seek the company of other horses, they act differently depending on who's riding them, and one horse even dies because they run it to death (and it's not presented as "oh no, my fleshy vehicle broke down" but rather as "oh no, I feel so bad for my four-legged friend who will be missed".
And this despite the fact that the story is not even about the animals. They're just side characters.
Another stereotype that I despise in cartoons *today* is that pigeons and chickens are always portrayed as being dumb (a recent film with that stereotype was Moana for example) when in fact they have really high cognitive and social abilities and a great memory. Recent studies shown that chicken (chicks in fact) can even do basic algebra so that's definetely not a dumb animal far from it.
Wasn't it implied that Hei Hei was a particularly hair-brained chicken? Don't remember if Moana had others to compare him to, but I seem to remember one guy actually noticing he seemed a bit dense, as if it wasn't just how chickens usually were.
You think it's bad with representations of living animals in pop-culture? It's even worse with EXTINCT animals. Lazy people will claim that we "can't really know how they behaved and what they looked like", when there is actually TONS of research, references and resources available to anyone willing to do a little digging, no pun intended. Some of the worst offenses are: anachronism stew, where species that were separated by millions of years and lived in different places of the world are depicted as living together in the same habitat; blatant anatomical inaccuracies like pterosaurs with bat-like wings, extra toes and digits where there shouldn't be, wrong type of body covering for certain species (scales vs feathers in maniraptors/coelurosaurs), wrong body, limb and walking posture and proportions; portraying all extinct predators as monsters that all they did was scream, roar and kill stuff; showing all prehistoric habitats as a jungle or wasteland with smoking volcanoes in the background; and worst of all, calling ALL extinct prehistoric reptiles "dinosaurs".
I couldn't agree more.
I was gonna comment this, but you beat me to it. Might I also add, The Good Dinosaur really upset me... The raptors have feathers, yeah, but it's all wrong... The rexes aren't feathered at all, there were tons of pronated wrists on the theropods, the pterosaurs are all species that shouldn't have teeth, not to mention they didn't add any pycnofibres, the main villain is a Nyctosaurus and thus shouldn't have visible fingers on his wings, and the sauropods are all laughably proportioned what with the dragging tails, elephantine feet and backwards-elbo knees... The styracosaurus also was given the wrong horns. Also that legged snake was given fangs like a viper... And of course like you said with the anachronism stew, these are all species that are separated by millions of years and even continents... That movie just really bummed me out.
Yeah The Good Dinosaur was an ugly bland movie with a boring cliche story predictable af. I'm really mad that this type of production can see the light of day. They only added some ugly "feathers" on the raptors (which they screwed up) to have a good conscience but did EVERYTHING else wrong with the animals. This movie looks like it was made in the 60's...
+
Myth: whale don't push water out of their blowhole, but air. I'm looking at you, Nemo.
The cartoon myth that bothers me most is when they feed Tom from Tom and Jerry a bowl of milk. Cats are lactose intolerant. No milk for kitty please.
Simple answer on "why not realistic toes": More toes means more complex, and therefore more expensive to animate and render. One of the reasons why so many human cartoon characters don't have five fingers.
Another reason to not have four toes on the birds; people who don't realize some birds have more than one toe facing backwards, will think it looks weird and find it distracting for the film.
+IstasPumaNevada But "pencil mileage" isn't an issue with computer animation. I don't know of any movies with computer animated humans that have four fingers. But yeah, it could be that an extra toe pointing backward on a parrot would be too distracting or would make the character less cute. I'm sure there's a legitimate design reason why the animators made such an omission.
+hamsterama in 3D you need to rig a character i.e. adding a skeleton and controls to move it with, which means extra joints and bones is just more work, and rigging a bird is more complicated than rigging a human. And yes removing a toe can help visually too, no ones gonna notice except some scientist or animal keeper haha
+lemons limes Thank you for the info! I did not know that animals can be more complicated than people in computer animation.
well from my experience everyone is taught how to rig a person, rigging an animal is just more work.
Simple answer: laziness.
The reason of people expecting three toes and being put off by how a macaws feet actually look is not an excuse. A movie that's trying to have an impact on such serious events as smuggling endangered wildlife needs to be accurate. Inaccuracy on something as simple as physical characteristics of the animal they're trying to educate about isn't a good look.
What irks me is when cartoons display animals in poor conditions as okay. Elmo keeping his goldfish Dorothy in a fishbowl. Tweety (Sweety) having that tiny cage as his home with no enrichment or sense of security.
Im not going to trying defend this removing of limbs, but from a cartoonist perspective, adding more toes in the front than in the back gives the viewer more of a connection to the character as humans cannot relate to having toes in the back. The design wouldn't feel properly balanced. No matter where you pause the movie, you know where the front of blue's toes are at and where the back is as he is flailing about. Not everything translates well into cartoon/anthro from perfectly and some adjustments are made such as giving them larger eyes for more expression. Another example of this would be in the movie Spirit. Where the horses were captured pretty acuratly but the animaters gave the horses eyebrows and white eyeballs sense the characters could not talk. Or in Guardians of Gahoole, where the art was fairly realistic but gave the barn owls yellow eyes. Without this, the viewers would not feel as immersed into the story because they could not unconsciously make a connection to the character. But it can be done right and missing entire limbs is kind of a big change.
the other one that makes me sad is when a movie gets popular that features an animal heavily in it. There tends to be a huge uptake in demand which isn't very good for the animal (clown fish being taken from reeks since they don't breed in captivity after Finding Nemo, and over-non-ethical breeding of various dog breeds when canine featuring movies as examples) since most people, or in most cases their kids, don't look up what it really takes to take care of the animals or even basic things about them like how long they live. It might be interesting for you to do a video on how hype from movies can hurt, or in some cases where it increases visibility for an endangered species help, the animals.
Great video! Just earlier today I had someone tell me that rabbits eat carrots.
Interesting video! I'm trying to get into character design for animation, especially for animals, and I think it's always important to remember the impact our seemingly simple drawings have on the real world animals and environments! I know artists generally try to do their research, especially nowadays, so videos like yours help inform us on how to approach portraying these animals properly and safely! Sometimes things like missing toes from a bird is a stylistic choice based more on human psychology or based on what's easier to animate, but I think it's something we absolutely need to think hard on and research just to make sure it doesn't harm the mass perception of the real world animal!
Yep
This is a very necessary video. Perhaps someone making cartoons will see it and choose not to make the same mistakes. Thanks for sharing!
That abundance of Katherines graphic made me so happy.
Nobler I know! Hahaha
Just so you know, the reason bugs bunny ate a carrot is because it was supposed to be a replacement for smoking a cigar.
He could have chewed a piece of grass instead. If cowboys can do it, so can he.
The wolves in the new Beauty and the Beast movie ruined it for me instantly. Wolves dont roar like lions!
Ruined? That ruined the movie? I'm sorry but that sounds more like a nitpick. Yeah, that's incorrect and I agree that it can take one out of th experience of the film but it shouldn't ruin the movie for you.
Im not even kidding, it was like breaking the forth wall. I was 100% entranced by the film and then the wolves started roaring like lions and it made me very aware that I was watching a movie. I couldnt really get back into it. It was like I was just looking for mistakes after that, I was more a critic than someone just trying to enjoy the film. I was soooo excited for it too.
@@fatdevil7 I'm sorry about that.
As an animation student, I think the reason why Blue only has three toes is because the fewer the toes/fingers on a character, the easier it is to animate.
Another cartoon animal short-changed in the finger department: Homer Simpson.
When I volunteered at a rabbit shelter, we asked for vegetable donations from the public. Despite being VERY specific not to donate carrots, we would get tons of donations we had to throw out. Wish those people read up before spending their money.
I could watch a dozen of these videos! My pet (hur hur) hate when it come to cartoon animals is... basically everything about Warner Bros Tasmanian Devil. I get that nobody expects "turning into a tornado" to be a thing a real animal can do, but would it have been THAT hard to just make him black with a white stripe? You know, the only colour devils come in? I'm pretty sure they just heard the name, then designed what they were PRETTY sure it would look like.
Also male kangaroos with pouches. Americans really seem to like putting pouches on EVERY marsupial, even though the only species where the guys have pouches is thylacines (and one species of opossum, IIRC). Man, don't even get me STARTED on cartoon thylacines. Ugh.
The turtle popping out of their shells was easy for me as a kid to figure out was bunk but rabbits eating carrots is something I just learned is false? The fact that rabbits can get ill eating carrots has seriously disturbed me. Also bugs eating carrots comes from Clark Gables character in "It Happened One Night" (1934) a fantastic movie if you haven't seen it. It's a comedy that won all five major Academy Awards (Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, and Screenplay).
Toes are probably a similar design decisions like giving humans only 4 fingers. For some reason cartoonists think it animates better.
Real animals are way cuter than cartoon animals any day.
is Hazel named after the rabbit from watership down?
When a friend of mine from New Zealand first came to North America for college, she saw such a crazy-looking animal that she didn't even know how to describe it. She Googled "leopard mouse," the best way she knew how to describe it, and came up with nothing. She told her friends about this "leopard mouse" that she saw on campus and everyone thought she was nuts. As she was describing it, she spotted the animal in the courtyard.
"There! There it is! A leopard mouse!" she screamed, pointing at it.
"Wait... you mean a chipmunk!?" one friend said.
"THAT'S a chipmunk!?" she asked. "They don't look ANYTHING like they do in cartoons."
This made my Thanksgiving extra good!! I love your videos. I loved seeing how it would look through a bull's eyes! It looked so cool. I would love a whole video like that showing how things look through different animals eyes! :D - Heidi
It's easier to animate fewer appendages.
A lot of people think that parrots can imitate anything you say. I get asked that question a lot. While they can pick up certain words and phrases on occasion, it's actually pretty rare to have a talking parrot with a large vocabulary. And they say what they want. Just because you repeat a word to them every day, doesn't mean they pick it up. They might decide to say a word you have only repeated once or twice. Once they learn a word, they might use that word 80 times a day, which is a lot different from being able to hold a conversation.
I’m fairly certain that the only reason they gave the birds 3 toes was for animation purposes. Easier to animate 3 toes to look like a human hand than it is with 4, even if it would have been accurate. But I love these videos, and that end clip of the lil bun was adorable
some people just don't want to care how much media can affect people, especially kids. they don't want to have their childhoods ruined
For a porcupine it cant shoot quills it just like a hedgehog protected by their quills it cant shoot either they both cant do that
Keep up the excellent work..I luv animals too so much can’t wait to my farmland too save sum animals luv what your doing god bless you guys😍
A youtuber namad Loreli thought that bug bunny's carrot should be replaced with a bannana
I think that the worst interpreted animal to ever exist is a wolf, closely followed by a horse.
When I was a kid I thought you could pull a turtle out of its shell.🤣
Nothing “Bugs” me more... I see what you did there!
Don't forget that penguins can't fly planes...
You know the toe thing might be a play on the common cartoon trope of characters only having four fingers
Interestingly, I've seen a lot of rabbit care instructions mention that you can feed rabbits root vegetables in small amounts, but is this actually a good thing to do? I mean, rabbits have really strict dietary requirements, is root vegetables even good for them in small amounts or should they be avoided at all costs?
Most root veggies tend to be high in sugar, which is the key issue: too much dietary sugar can lead to serious, even fatal digestive problems. That said, a chunk of the orange part of a carrot, a dried banana chip or two, a chunk of papaya, or a bit of apple are wonderful "once in a while" treats that if given in very small amounts (let's say, 1-2x per week, tops) & are generally okay unless they're having problems already.
i love your videos and I have a chimchila 😀😀😀
How often do you let hazel out of that cage, it tiny
I love Hazel's nose action! Super adorable :D
John Greens!
Finally someone who understands! Thank you for dispelling myths!!! Animals are so amazing and they deserve accurate representation!
Like the myth that opossums sleep upside down, when they don’t lol
Omg thank you so much for making this video! I'm done explaining these things to people, and now I can just send them this video. 😄
I feed my rabbit a carrot or two occasionally. Is that okay?
Yes!
I thought you were gonna say that baby Blu is incorrectly portrayed having all his feathers despite having hatched recently, but that one's excusable for aesthetics... the feet tho is so odd?? What could be the point!
Hazel: *snoot twitch*
Me: *melts*
I know I'm very late, but a myth that I really dislike which is common in cartoons is that cats should have milk from a cow.
Please don't do that, just like many humans cats are lactose intollerant and could dehydrate if they get too much milk.
When I was in 3rd grade my parents were most displeased to see my school book referring to goats as billies and nannies instead of bucks and does!
Excellent, Jessi!!!
It's very important to demystify all our misconceptions.
As for Bugs Bunny eating carrots all the time, that was actually supposed to be a reference to the film "It Happened One Night", where the main character was, for whatever reason, eating a carrot while talking.
Cartoons are not real. Most cartoon characters only have 3 fingers or toes. Any person with just a few working brain cells know a turtles shell is a part of its body. Mice love peanut butter. my mom taught me this when I had wild field mice in my house I used peanut butter in my have a heart trap to catch them. I love your videos. I feel your just complaining about irrelevant things. People are not that dumb.
OKAY CARROTS: So the reason Bugs eats a carrot is because he's mimicking, of all animals, a human. Specifically, he's mimicking Clark Gable from the film "It Happened One Night."
I think the reason they took a toe off of Blue and the other birds is because in Asia, four is an unlucky number. They give human characters five fingers instead of four. Since they were marketing in Asian countries, they had to give him three.
I don't like when they misrepresent cats by letting them drink milk BUT THEY ACTUALLY CAN'T HAVE MILK! because they can't digest it. I always thought when i was small because of that they can drink milk
That thing about turtles slipping out of their shells is a HUGE pet peeve of mine. I mean seriously.
Also, every single cartoon chipmunk in existance seems to have a tiny tuft of a tail. Chipmunk tails are about as long as their whole bodies!
And this is from someone who IS a cartoonist. Well...kind of, anyway...If I ever get back into drawing. XP
also, talking animals in general.
1) we knew several talking reptilian characters, and in real life, most of those species can't vocalize, since they lack larynx (yep, *snakes*. snakes shouldn't talk, as well as lizards and turtles) [this also applies to fish]
2) *birds talking* avian beaks are solid and obviously won't support human speech (also birds with teeth; discarding hesperornis or ichtyornis, this is for modern birds that are toothless)
3) i don't certainly know if non-human animals one day may achieve human speech capabilities, but i think it's impossible. how will a mollusk or an annelid talk?
Don't cartoons tend to short-change humans on digits as well (well, unless they're made in tetraphobic countries, I guess)? I haven't seen Rio, so I was wondering how many fingers the humans had.
One pet peeve of mine in cartoons is what they do with hymenoptera. Cartoons with ants and bees will just about always have a bunch of male workers, one of which is usually the focus character alongside a queen. In real life, the males would be drones and wouldn't do much besides breed, but it seems a society where only ladies do manual work and the guys are pretty much just only there for baby-making doesn't sit too well with human media creators, but still, it kind of bugs me. Speaking of, it kind of gets of my nerves when ants/spiders/butterflies/etc are called "bugs". Though whenever I point out that there aren't any named characters in A Bug's Life that are actually bugs, I get eye-rolls.
Also, misplaced octopus mouths. A lot of cartoons put them straight under the octopus's eyes rather than in the middle of their arms. I guess that makes them easier to animate in terms of expression, but then again, anything with a beak is a tad tougher to animate, expression-wise.
Something I see on cartoons: Umm the cats drink milk
Real life: they could die cuz it’s bad to digest?......... milk......
I mean, lets be real here, Bugs has WAY more wrong with him than eating carrots. Check out the propaganda film he was in back in the 1940s, THAT will ruin cartoons for you.
Bullfighting, if ever there was a sport that deserves to be on the banned list, that's one of them! I'm not one of the 'animal rights' nuts. I'm not opposed to owning pets, eating meat, hunting or fishing, but bullfighting is basically torturing an animal to death just to amuse people. It's cruel. Whenever I see a video of a matador being gored by the bull I'm not thinking, "poor guy." I'm thinking, "good for the bull."
Jessi, I love watching your videos and learning about your amazing animals, in the unlikely event that you read this comment can you feature Kizmit & Lollipop again sometime soon, I feel like it’s been ages since we’ve seen them and along with the foxes I think they are my favourites! Keep up the great work, love from New Zealand
This came off as really nitpicky. Instead of having the tone of, "Here are a few things about animals they got wrong in cartoons--shame on them!", it should have had the tone of "Here are a few animal myths you've learned from cartoons and how they stack up against the truth". I'm surprised I didn't see one in here talking about how bunnies can't be cops and sloths don't drive cars.
Myth: Bugs eating carrots. That is now iconic to the character that changing it would be the oddity. He's been doing that as his shtick for nearly a century. He's an anthropomorphic depiction of the animal and actually talks to other characters, like his asking Elmer Fudd "What's up, doc?" and he wears gloves, etc... So, the fact that he eats carrots is just one of lots of things that make up his character and shows he's not a real bunny.
Rio having only 3 toes: cost to rig/animate goes up as you add digits. It is the same reason that hands on cartoon characters are typically missing a digit. The simpsons, family guy, american dad, etc... are all missing fingers from the hands due to the cost of animating an extra digit. The same is true even for 3D animation. It is another digit that someone has to pay attention to and make sure it is working right. tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FourFingeredHands
Bulls and red. You give a slightly wrong impression of their sense of color. They can "see" red, but it activates the same cone that activates green, just not to the same degree as a photon of green light, so it would appear as a shade of green or blue-green. Each color receptor responds to a range of light frequencies and they have overlaps with the largest overlap being between the M and L receptors (green and red). en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cone_cell
One animal that never seems to be represented in cartoons...the ferret...as a ferret owner since 1986, I'm amazed by this. ..they are living cartoons...maybe I'll make one myself...
My rabbit doesn't even like carrots much, he goes wild for bananas though! (Only small portions for very occasional treats)
I wonder if the animators on “Rio” were following the tendency in cartoons to subtract one finger per hand of just about every character?? Cartoon humans usually only have three fingers and a thumb. This is true in “The Simpsons” for all characters but Jesus and God who have the correct amount.
Omg! Thank you sooo much! That Rio movie made me so upset, I asked why too! In some scenes they look even like chicken feet (would that be tridactyl? Spelling) it’s nice to know others feel it too.
Hey lets take some healthy advice from a cartoon too. From the movie Bambi Thumpers father says " Eating greens is a special treat. It makes long ears and great big feet". Some solid advice about a healthy rabbit diet needing to include healthy greens. :)