The Continuum of Cartoon Fools: The Tragedy of the Comedic Animated Character
A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the Animation Department in
Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements of the Degree of
Master of Fine Arts Savannah College of Art and Design
By
Gozie Okoro
Savannah, Georgia
December 2014
Christoph Simon, Thesis Chair
Charles daCosta, Thesis Committee Member
James Crossley, Thesis Committee Member
Table of Contents
Thesis Abstract ……………………………………………………………………1
Chapter 1. Introduction ……………………………………………………....…. 2
Chapter 2. Defining the Terms …………………………………………………. 2
2.1 Comedy ……………………………………………………...……………. 3
2.2 Tragedy ………………………………………………………...…………. 3
2.3 Comedy and Tragedy’s History in Animation ………………..….……….. 4
Chapter 3. The Cartoon Fool ………………………………………...…………. 5
3.1 Chuck Jones: The Pioneer ………………………………………….…...… 7
3.1.2 Wile E. Coyote …………………………………………….…….….. 8
3.1.3 Daffy Duck ……………………………………………….….……… 9
3.1.4 Pepe Le Pew …………………………………………….…………. 10
3.2 Contemporary Cartoon Fools ………………………………….………… 11
3.2.2 Dexter ………………………………………………….……...…… 12
3.2.3 Johnny Bravo ………………………………………….…………… 13
3.3 The Eternal Underdogs ………………………………….….……………. 15
3.3.2 Charlie Brown ………………………………………..….………..... 15
3.3.3 Stressed Eric ………………………………………….…………….. 17
Chapter 4. The Visual Component ……………………………….……………. 18
Chapter 5. Conclusion ………………………………………………………… 19
Bibliography …………………………………………………………………… 20
Filmography ………………………………………………………………….... 21
The Continuum of Cartoon Fools:
The Tragedy of the Comedic Animated Character
Gozie Okoro
December 2014
Thesis Abstract
This thesis attempts to examine the elements of tragedy within the comedy of a certain character
type in animation. The thesis begins with providing definitions of comedy and tragedy and
illustrating their respective uses in animation. The thesis then uses the principles outlined in
those respective definitions to explain what the “cartoon fool” character type is. The rest of the
thesis discusses examples of cartoon fools, analyzing how each character follows the outlined
principles of comedy and tragedy, the singular objective each seeks out to accomplish, how their
hubris always brings about their failure, and the idea each one represents.
Keywords: cartoon fool, comedy, tragedy, Aristotle, Chuck Jones, hubris, slapstick,
failure
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Chapter 1. Introduction
Comedy and tragedy are often understood as two dramatic devices that are diametrically
opposed. The former evokes laughter and the latter evokes sorrow, not hard to see why they
viewed as such a contrast to each other, correct? This is only a surface level view of these
dramatic devices, however. While it is useful to know how comedy and tragedy are opposed to
each other, it should also be understood that they often intertwine and exist harmoniously
together in many stories. The animated feature film Toy Story 2 is a comedy containing elements
of tragedy (the song Jessie sings about her life) and The Tale of Princess Kaguya is a tragic story
with elements of comedy (the princess’ defiant attitude during her etiquette training is played for
laughs). These are just two examples of comedy and tragedy intertwining among numerous in
various different media. That whole subject could probably be another thesis topic in itself, but
this thesis chooses to narrow the focus down to a character type in animation that takes
advantage of the various ways comedy and tragedy intermingle with each other. The “cartoon
fool” is a well-known comedic type in animation whose on-the-surface comedic elements
underscore deeply tragic elements. However, before one can understand who the cartoon fool is
and how comedy and tragedy entwine within it, one must have a clear understanding of how both
devices are defined.
Chapter 2. Defining the Terms
Comedy and tragedy were originally defined by the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle
in his seminal analysis of dramatic theory Poetics. He drew stark lines between comedy and
tragedy when he constructed their respective definitions, both of which will be elaborated on
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further along. The developments of both comedy and tragedy since Poetics has blurred some of
the rigid lines Aristotle initially defined them on, but his delineations still serve as a foundation
of comedic and tragic characters today and will be invaluable in understanding how the cartoon
fool is defined.
2.1 Comedy
Aristotle defined comedy as “an imitation of characters of a lower type- however, in the
full sense of the word bad, the ludicrous being merely a subdivision of the ugly. It consists in
some defect or ugliness which is not painful or destructive”. The major requirement that
Aristotle had for the plot in a comedy is that it requires a happy ending. The protagonist in a
comedy is a person that is in worse standings than the audience (whether social standing, moral
standing, or otherwise) who rises to triumph. The comic hero tends to be a plain, everyday
figure and generates sympathy from the audience because he is framed as a spunky underdog
fighting against whatever disadvantage he was bestowed.
2.2 Tragedy
Aristotle defines tragedy as “the imitation of an action that is serious and also, as having
magnitude, complete in itself; in appropriate and pleasurable language; in a dramatic rather than
a narrative form; with incidents to arouse pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish a catharsis of
these emotions”. To further elaborate on this definition, Aristotle dictates that tragedy must deal
with an issue that is of great significance (the most common example being death). According to
Aristotle, a tragedy must adhere to whatever issue of great significant it has chosen to take on
and must be accompanied by a chorus who comments on the action in language that is easy to
understand and in good harmony. A tragedy must contain events that make the audience
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sympathize with the main character in order to build up to the cathartic release of emotion from
them as the character meets his or her downfall. Greek Tragedy developed as a result of the
definitions outlined by Aristotle. Greek Tragedies examine their protagonists from a moral
perspective and find them lacking. The tragic heroes are men of many virtues, typically men of
high power or prestige, whose downfalls are orchestrated from their fatal flaw, hubris. Hubris,
or excessive pride, leads the tragic heroes to form beliefs that are incorrect and take pivotal
actions that seal their doomed fate.
2.3 Comedy and Tragedy’s History in Animation
Aristotle’s definition of comedy has a rich tradition in the history of cinema, spanning all
the way back to the silent films of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. More contemporary
examples of the comic hero can be found in many of the movies starring current-day comedians
like Jim Carrey, Chris Farley, Adam Sandler, or Seth Rogen. The large majority of theatrical
animated movies released in the US follow Aristotle’s definition of comedy. Many of the male
protagonists of Disney movies fall into this comic hero archetype, including Aladdin, Quasimodo
from The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Arthur from The Sword and the Stone, Dumbo, and
numerous others. This tradition in Disney began with Pinocchio and has carried on as recently
as Wreck-It Ralph. The comic hero in animation became even more common as the CGanimated movies came to dominance in the early 2000s, particularly as DreamWorks gained a
greater foothold in the theatrical landscape with successful movies like Shrek and Kung Fu
Panda. Tragedy has been a staple in cinema for as long as comedy has. Some of the most
enduring protagonists in golden age and contemporary cinematic history are tragic heroes, such
as Charles Foster Kane of Citizen Kane, Michael Corleone of The Godfather series, the portrayal
of Jake LaMotta by Robert DeNiro in Raging Bull, Tony Montana of Scarface, or Anakin
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Skywalker of the Star Wars prequels. Surprisingly, the foothold it has in cinema has not
extended past live-action films. Tragedy is not so common in the commercial animation
landscape in the West. This is likely due to the fact that commercial animation currently is and
for decades has been mostly targeted towards children. The massive success and eventual
ubiquity of Disney served as an example for all other child-targeted animation to follow; films
and television shows that promote the idea that dreams and desires can come true with the hope
of making the audience believe they can accomplish their own endeavors. The comic hero fits
perfectly with this framing since it is a character that starts at the bottom and ends at the top.
The tragic hero obviously does not. The Fox and the Hound is a rare example of an animated
tragedy in the US and The Plague Dogs and The Snowman are animated tragedies in the UK.
Chapter 3. The Cartoon Fool
So what is a “cartoon fool” exactly? The term was coined in an episode of Dexter’s
Laboratory by the main character in a painful moment of self-reflection. Dexter came to this
epiphany after innumerable unsuccessful attempts to keep his sister Dee-Dee out of his
laboratory had driven him to zealous insanity. He realized that all of his efforts to keep Dee-Dee
out of the lab will forever be doomed to prove futile; hence he referred to the monotonous
activity between the two of them as “the continuum of cartoon fools”. A cartoon fool is a
protagonist with a singular objective that he or she is doomed to fail every time. According to
Alan Dale in his book Comedy Is a Man in Trouble, “It’s the ultimate kinetic expression of the
hero’s being out of step: his wishes can’t be borne, his idiosyncrasy can’t be resolved; he simply
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has to hotfoot it out of the range of the authority or society he’s run up against if not out of the
world of the picture altogether”. The failed endeavors of the cartoon fool are typically marked
by immediate physical pain for the character and often play into the worst fears of that character.
Referring back to Alan Dale, “many of the typical gags slide into nightmare territory”. Going
back to Dexter as an example, the idea that he is forever stuck in an infinite loop of trying and
failing to keep Dee-Dee out of his lab is his worst nightmare coming true. Animation is an ideal
medium to illustrate this “nightmare territory” because it can eschew the rules of reality in the
same way dreams and nightmares can and its possibilities in physical humor go beyond anything
live-action slapstick can do. The cartoon fool aligns with Aristotle’s definition of comedy in the
sense that they are “characters of a lower type” and the humor “consists in some defect or
ugliness which is not painful or destructive”. One of the characteristics of comedy is the sense of
renewal, so the immense physical pain that cartoon fools endure is never severe enough to
permanently injure them. Cartoon fools may have infinite failures, but they also have infinite
attempts to try again. Cartoon fools fail to completely meet all of Aristotle’s principles of
comedy, however, because a character that is doomed to fail their endeavors every time
obviously cannot have a happy ending. The fate of the cartoon fool has more in common with
the tragic hero. Actually, cartoon fools do not just share the same fate as tragic heroes; their
personalities as a whole are completely parallel to each other. Just like the tragic heroes, the
inevitable fall of the cartoon fools comes about through the character’s hubris leading them to
take the miscalculated actions that lead to their misfortunes. The only difference between the
tragic hero and the cartoon fool is the context in which their failure is presented in. The strategy
that tragedy uses to evoke sorrow is to emphasize a sense of finality. The fall of the tragic hero
permanently alters his/her state of being and he/she is worse off at the end than in the beginning.
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The cartoon fool is ultimately a comedic character, so his/her fall is never permanent. The fall of
the cartoon fool places them back into the state of being they began at. The cartoon fool is
granted infinite attempts to accomplish his/her goal.
3.1 Chuck Jones: The Pioneer
The beginning of the “cartoon fool” character type in animation can be traced back to the
classic Warner Bros. cartoons. The style of humor that came to define the Warner Bros. cartoons
would serve as a basis for successor cartoon fools to follow. The very broad style of slapstick
that exemplifies these cartoons took absolute advantage of the possibilities animation offered that
live-action cannot. Directors like Tex Avery and Bob Clampett sought out to test the limit of
how much they can exaggerate and distort the levels of physicality for the sake of comedy. The
idea behind finding comedy in this was to push the violence to such an extreme that it becomes
unbelievable; the comedy being found in the absurdity of it all. Tex Avery’s rationale was
explained it in his eponymous documentary: “…[Y]ou can kill a character, destroy him, maim
him, whatever and bring him back to life again and the audience will accept it as funny
especially if it’s so wildly insane it couldn’t possibly happen. This was his way of looking at it.
He said ‘My thought was that an audience would think this would never happen to a guy and
then it’s funny.’ He never saw it as violent he was not a violent person”. Charles M. “Chuck”
Jones, another Warner Bros. director, also based the comedy of his cartoons on slapstick that
pushed the physicality of the characters beyond the realm of reality. However, Jones did not
seek out to push it to its most extreme like Avery and Clampett did. Instead, Jones constructed
his comedy on a very thorough understanding of character behavior. Rather than surprising the
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audience with an extreme visual gag, Jones approached his cartoons with the idea that the
audience has already anticipated what the gag will be. So the crux of humor is the behaviors and
actions of the character that lead up to the gag. It is through this basis on character behavior that
Chuck Jones is the true godfather of the cartoon fool, more so than any of the other Warner Bros.
directors. He opens up his gags by illustrating the hubris of his characters and uses the
exaggerated violent physicality at their expense as a succinct way of showing their hubris is
(literally) dangerously misguided.
3.1.2 Wile E. Coyote
Perhaps the most quintessential cartoon fool Chuck Jones created was the eternally
hapless Wile E. Coyote. The creation this character was inspired by a description of a coyote by
Mark Twain: “The coyote is a long, slim, slick and sorry-looking skeleton, with a gray wolf-skin
stretched over it, a tolerably bushy tail that forever sags down with a despairing expression of
forsakenness and misery, a furtive and evil eye, and a long sharp face with a slightly lifted lip
and exposed teeth. He has a general slinking expression all over. The coyote is a living,
breathing allegory of Want.” Jones used Twain’s description to shape Wile E. Coyote’s distinct
character design and used the “living, breathing allegory of Want” as a basis for the Coyote’s
eternal quest to capture the Road Runner. The Road Runner/Wile E. Coyote cartoons represent
the never-ending quest of the persistent desire to capture one’s lofty and perhaps unattainable
goal. The Road Runner itself is framed as less of a fully-fleshed out character and more of an
abstraction in order to represent that vaguely-defined lofty goal one seeks out to achieve (so the
fact that the Road Runner hardly even resembles an actual roadrunner does not even matter
anymore!). The audience for these cartoons is placed in the perspective of the Coyote in order to
communicate all the emotions and actions that exemplify that fanatical, but tragically unrequited
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desire. The audience witnesses the misguided hubris of the Coyote as he plots and finishes
preparation of his next scheme to capture the Road Runner. His hubris is swiftly met with a
brutal dose of reality represented by some sort of physical injury (be it falling from a cliff,
getting blown up, crushed by a boulder, etc.) played up for laughter from the audience. A very
important principle of these cartoons is that the Road Runner is never the cause of the Coyote’s
failures; it simply exists. Chuck Jones made it a point that all of the Coyote’s failures are due to
his own ineptitude. Despite the fact that the Coyote is the predator in this equation, he is meant
to be a sympathetic character. A device often used in these cartoons is that the Coyote will break
the fourth wall by looking at the camera. He tends to do this whenever he is sad, bewildered,
scared, or anticipating pain and these feelings are heavily communicated by the expression of his
eyes. These moments give the audience a window into how the Coyote really feels underneath
all of the hubris and fanaticism. He wants nothing more than to capture the Road Runner, but
deep down he realizes that he is in over his head in this endeavor.
3.1.3 Daffy Duck
Another well-known cartoon fool from the Warner Bros. stable is another brain-child of
Chuck Jones: Daffy Duck. Jones did not create Daffy Duck, but he changed his personality from
a manic duck to an eternal understudy to Bugs Bunny. The basis of Daffy’s personality was
constructed as a contrast to Bugs Bunny. Bugs is known as one of the Looney Tunes characters
who always wins. No matter whom Bugs’ adversary is, he is always two steps ahead of him and
always knows how to make his adversary’s schemes backfire on them. Keeping that in mind,
Jones conceived Daffy as a character that always loses. He says this about Daffy: “The story
always with Daffy is to put him in a situation that if Bugs were there he’d be triumphant, but if
Daffy’s doing it you know he’s gonna screw it up”. The Duck Season/Rabbit Season Trilogy
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(Rabbit Fire, Rabbit Seasoning, Duck! Rabbit, Duck!) pits these two personalities in competition
against other with Elmer Fudd representing a scorecard between the two. Bugs Bunny
symbolizes the ideal; he is everything people desire to be, which explains why he can so easily
trounce his adversaries with nary a scratch on him. Daffy Duck symbolizes the flawed, unsavory
characteristics that all people have and are not proud of. According to Chuck Jones, “I
understood Daffy because I was Daffy, and I am Daffy. I can dream about being Bugs Bunny,
but when I wake up I’m Daffy and there’s just no two ways about that”. Every Duck
Season/Rabbit Season cartoon begins with Daffy outlining his singular objective: getting Elmer
Fudd to shoot Bugs. Each of Daffy’s attempts to get Bugs shot are reversed by Bugs and end
with Daffy getting shot every time. Similar to Wile E. Coyote, Daffy is always the instigator in
the conflicts with Bugs. However, Daffy is a decidedly less sympathetic character than the
Coyote. While the audience understands that the Coyote has deep-seated, self-aware anxiety
under all the exterior hubris, Daffy is all hubris. The only times Daffy breaks the fourth wall is
when he is gleefully plotting to get Bugs shot. When Daffy does this, he directly confronts the
audience about who he really is. He owns up to being self-centered, spiteful, and conniving (“I
am a duck bent on self-preservation”, “Survival of the fittest; and besides, it’s fun!”, “Awfully
unsporting of me I know, but hey, I gotta have some fun!”). Daffy is completely sure that each
scheme he devises will get Bugs shot up until he finds himself with an askew beak and feathers
smelling of gunpowder.
3.1.4 Pepe Le Pew
Yet another cartoon fool conceived by Chuck Jones is Pepe Le Pew, who was once
described by Whoopi Goldberg as “just a horny skunk”. The singular objective of Pepe Le Pew
is to win the affections of a hapless female cat that he mistakes for another skunk. Pepe Le Pew
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is far from timid; he has an inextinguishable sense of confidence and he truly believes he can
sweep the cat off her feet if he tries hard enough. However, he is completely oblivious to the
fact that his foul stench is what scares the cat away from him. His desire to win over the cat does
not just border on the fanatical, it becomes downright harassment. Therefore, the fact that Pepe
is a skunk serves as a fitting allegory for the type of character he is. The tragedy of the Pepe Le
Pew cartoons is the constant distress he puts the poor cat through. She is forced to endure the
relentless stalking, unwarranted advances and physical contact, and rank odor of a predatory
character who refuses to take no for an answer. The cat’s palpable anguish and Pepe’s ravenous
behavior towards her are all played for laughs in these cartoons. However, an interesting note
about Pepe Le Pew in comparison to Wile E. Coyote or Daffy Duck is that he sometimes
manages to attract the female cat. This usually happens through some sort of misunderstanding,
like the cat mistaking Pepe for another cat or Pepe’s musk being neutralized for whatever reason.
Surprisingly, Pepe does not react well when the cat is attracted to him. He got so invested in the
quest to attract the cat that he never actually thought about what he would do if he ever
accomplished his task. So the goal that is doomed to never come true in these cartoons is not
Pepe ever attracting the female cat, it is Pepe and the female cat being together regardless of who
seeks out who.
3.2 Contemporary Cartoon Fools
The landscape of commercial animation underwent some change since the era of Looney
Tunes and the theatrical cartoon short. The “cartoon fool” character type became much less
commonplace and the comic hero became much more of the standard character type for
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protagonists as full-length animated features and television animation became more prominent.
Animation began to be seen more as a medium for kids at this time, and the cartoon fool
generally does not fit into the type of role models that animation studios seek to promote.
Modern examples of the cartoon fool do exist, although few and far between.
3.2.2 Dexter
One modern example of a cartoon fool is the titular character of Dexter’s Laboratory.
The constant running joke throughout Dexter’s Laboratory is that Dexter always fails to keep his
sister Dee-Dee out of his secret lab. The show does not rigidly adhere to this scenario in every
episode but the running joke underscores the relationship between Dexter and Dee-Dee, which
parallels the relationship Daffy had with Bugs. The respective character designs of both Dexter
and Dee-Dee provide a surface level indication that Dee-Dee is the dominant one on the onset.
Dexter is a short, pale-skinned, reclusive boy genius curmudgeon that speaks with an
indeterminate European accent that nobody else in his world shares (not even his parents). DeeDee on the other hand, is a tall, athletic, outgoing, free-spirited ballerina with no problems fitting
in with her peers. Dee-Dee always has the upper hand over Dexter, whether their conflict centers
on keeping her out of the lab or something else entirely. Dee-Dee differs slightly from Bugs
Bunny because she can perhaps be seen as the instigator in this relationship by breaking into the
lab, but she never does so with malicious intent. Dee-Dee enters Dexter’s lab with the intent to
play with him or see what he is doing. Dexter always responds to Dee-Dee by either shouting at
her, insulting her, or both, so perhaps Dexter is the actual instigator of the conflict in this
relationship. Just like Daffy, Dexter’s arrogance and detestable attitude is the reason he loses to
Dee-Dee every time. He believes he can accomplish anything due to his extremely high IQ, but
it is never enough to overcome his hubris. The best example of this is in the TV movie Ego Trip.
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The conflict begins when robots from the future invade the lab in order to destroy “the one that
saved the future”. Dexter easily dispatches the robots and goes forward in time in order to see
“how cool” his future self is. When his future adult self does not fit his image of “cool”, he
convinces him to go even further into the future with him. Both Dexters go to the future,
recklessly leaving the McGuffin used to save the future in plain sight for the villain. The two
Dexters meet their future self, who rules the world but is too old and senile to remember how
cool he looked saving it. The three Dexters go back in time in order to witness himself saving
the world. They go back to find this version of himself as an underground freedom fighter
against the villain, who took over the world thanks to that McGuffin. The Dexters battle the
villain and win, but just as the boy Dexter is just about to push the button that saves the world,
Dee-Dee shows up from the past, pushes it before he does, and goes home. The four Dexters are
so angry about it that they build robots and order them to go back to the past and destroy DeeDee, also known as “the one who saved the future”. These would be the robots the boy Dexter
of the present would destroy, setting in motion the events of the movie all over again. Every
conflict that arises in Ego Trip is caused by Dexter’s hubris and as a result, he is doomed to
perpetually avert all the crises without the glory of saving the future.
3.2.3 Johnny Bravo
Not long after Dexter’s Laboratory aired, Johnny Bravo, another show starring a cartoon
fool, made its debut. The principle running joke of Johnny Bravo is that the titular character asks
out any woman he sees in a disrespectful manner and is violently rejected as a result. The
description of Pepe Le Pew made by Whoopi Goldberg as “just a horny skunk” is just as fitting
to describe Johnny Bravo. What the show tries to make loud and clear is that the reason Johnny
is rejected by every woman he talks to is because he approaches them disrespectfully (very
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similar to the manner in which Pepe Le Pew harasses the female cat). Johnny Bravo stands in
contrast to Wile E. Coyote because Johnny is not meant to be a sympathetic character; he exists
for the audience to take delight in his failure. Johnny differs further from the Coyote because his
character design decidedly does not exude a “despairing expression of forsakenness and misery”.
It is influenced heavily by James Dean and by Adonis, the former being a Hollywood heartthrob
from the 1950s and a vision of the ideal masculine man. Johnny speaks with a voice that sounds
like Elvis Presley, who was another heartthrob from the 1950s. Comedic characters are typically
designed to be in worse standings than the audience in some way, but Johnny Bravo is designed
in a way that is presumably more physically attractive than most people in the audience in order
to diminish sympathy. He is completely aware of how good-looking he is and this is the source
of his hubris. Johnny is so narcissistic about his looks that he never realizes how much of a jerk
he acts like when he approaches women. He immediately recovers from a rejection by
erroneously believing that his usual approach will win the next woman over. A device that
Chuck Jones used to elicit sympathy for the Coyote was through his expressive eyes. Johnny
Bravo works in the opposite way; his eyes are covered by dark sunglasses that he never takes off,
thereby diminishing his eyes as a device for sympathy. The only aspect Johnny Bravo is in
better standing than the audience is his looks; everything else about him is worse than the
audience and is used to reinforce how much of a loser he really is. Johnny is not only
narcissistic; he is also very stupid and clumsy. The only woman in Johnny’s life is his Mama,
who he is still completely and childishly dependent on. The only “friends” that Johnny has are
people that would “cramp his style” in front of the ladies; a little girl named Suzy, a stereotypical
gawky nerd named Carl, and the proprietor of a road kill diner named Pops. Johnny is a large
muscular man, but he frequently experiences physical injury. He is not only beaten up by the
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women who reject him; he is also often beaten up by other men, large animals, small animals,
children, inanimate objects, and everything in between. Taking a page from the Looney Tunes
directors, the injuries that Johnny suffers are quite extreme and exaggerated. He has had his
arms and legs dislocated, broken every bone in his body, been electrocuted, had a tree fall on top
of him, been exposed to nuclear radiation, and just about every other injury short of being shot,
stabbed, or dismembered. Most episodes of Johnny Bravo end with Johnny either in jail or
incapacitated. Johnny Bravo borrows heavily from the Pepe Le Pew cartoons in the sense it also
centers on lustful advances being met with rejection, but while the Pepe Le Pew cartoons play up
a victim of stalking and harassment’s distress for laughs, Johnny Bravo puts the microscope on
the aggressor and uses comedy to debase and humiliate him for being disrespectful to women.
3.3 The Eternal Underdogs
The typical formula of the comic hero as defined by Aristotle is the rise of the underdog.
The comic hero begins in worse standings than the audience in some way but eventually rises up
to get their happy ending. However, there are circumstances, albeit rare in animation, where the
comic hero never rises up to get their happy ending. This is another type of cartoon fool. These
cartoon fools are not aggressors or instigators like the Looney Tunes characters, Dexter, or
Johnny Bravo. These characters are underdogs with the singular objective to prosper in life but
are doomed to fail under the weight of a cruel, oppressive world.
3.3.2 Charlie Brown
Charlie Brown is perhaps the most famous eternal underdog in comics and animation.
Charlie Brown constantly undertakes multiple endeavors that he fails every time. He never kicks
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the football out of Lucy’s hand, he never successfully flies a kite, and his team never wins a
baseball game. Charlie Brown’s reputation as a failure hangs over him like a raincloud and has
made him a social outcast to his peers. Charlie Brown does not wear his hubris on his sleeve like
the other cartoon fools; he is usually timid, melancholy, and pessimistic. His hubris only
surfaces while in the moment of the endeavor he is undertaking. Every time, he doggedly runs
towards the football, absolutely earnest in his belief that today will be the day he “kicks it to the
moon”. Every time, he painstakingly constructs a new kite from scratch believing today will the
day he can keep it in the air. Every baseball game, he mounts the pitcher’s mound like a general
and rallies his inept team with hopes that today will be the day they finally win. The brutal
reality is harsh and swift. Charlie Brown’s efforts to kick the football result in him not just
missing, but flying high in the air and landing hard on his back. His efforts to fly a kite often end
with the playground looking like a war zone covered in tangled string and ripped pieces of kite.
The scores for his baseball games are embarrassingly one-sided in favor of the other team. A
Boy Named Charlie Brown is a minor deviation from the typical formula because the endeavor
Charlie Brown undertook here was competing in spelling bees. Two key differences between his
participation in spelling bees and the other activities is that Charlie Brown’s hubris did not arise
in the moment of the spelling bees and he actually claimed some victories in them. Charlie
Brown became so good at spelling bees that he made it all the way to the final round of the
national spelling bee. The last word he had to spell to seal his victory was “beagle”. Getting
such an easy word, Charlie Brown’s hubris arose and in his self-assuredness, lost focus and
misspelled it. He did not just lose the spelling bee; he humiliated himself on national television
with all of his peers back home watching him. Usually, Charlie Brown’s failures never allow
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him to rise above his rock-bottom status. A Boy Named Charlie Brown allowed him to rise up to
the loftiest of heights just to swiftly knock him back down to rock-bottom.
3.3.3 Stressed Eric
A lesser-known example of the “underdog” cartoon fool comes from the short-lived
series Stressed Eric. The titular character of Stressed Eric is a divorced, middle-aged man who
is constantly stressed out by various misfortunes and adversities throughout his life. Eric’s rising
stress level is symbolized through a recurring throbbing vein that appears on the side of his head
during moments of distress. Every episode ends with Eric reaching his breaking point,
symbolized by the vein growing outward and strangling Eric’s neck until he loses consciousness.
Eric Feeble is a timid, mild-mannered man who is just trying to live his life but is consumed by
the hardships of it every day. He is a single father raising two kids and a live-in au pair. One of
his kids has allergic relations to most things and the other kid is a mute that chews on random
objects. The live-in au pair is a lazy alcoholic. Eric’s ex-wife still pesters him even though they
are divorced. His neighbors, aptly named the Perfects, stand in complete contrast to him. Eric’s
boss is short-tempered and his secretary is lazy and useless. Eric is like Charlie Brown in the
sense that he does not wear his hubris on his sleeve either. The world that Eric inhabits is cruel
and overbearing to him in particular, so his hubris is his having the audacity to try to prosper in a
world invested in his downfall. Eric is a comic hero in the sense that his thoroughly miserable
life is presumably worse than the lives of the audience and his hardships are played for laughs.
Simultaneously, Eric is a tragic hero in the sense that every episode builds up to his stress level
reaching a breaking point and “killing” him in the end.
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Chapter 4. The Visual Component
The name of the thesis visual is Starving Artist and it is a short film about the struggle a
young artist has with impressing an art critic. The film is built on a simple repetitious comedic
formula of the artist painting a picture and the art critic giving it thumbs down. The artist’s
fragile ego gradually goes further into disarray with each negative response from the critic,
culminating in the visibly shaken artist painting a blank canvas with his blood by shooting
himself in the head right in front of the critic. Adding insult to injury, the critic’s response is
little more than an indifferent scoff. The artist in this film is a cartoon fool; his singular
objective is to impress the critic with a painting but he fails to do so every time. He is tenacious
and dedicated to his craft but his flaw is his lack of artistic skill. Every action the artist takes is
driven by his own hubris and it causes him to unravel over the course of the film. The artist’s
decision to paint the canvas by shooting himself at the end and the critic’s aloof reaction is
comedic in the sense that the artist’s hubris drove him to such an extreme, which is juxtaposed to
the muted response from the critic. This is simultaneously tragic because the artist never
accepted the reality that nothing he could do would impress the critic; the point succinctly
punctured by the tepid reaction he received for shooting himself. The artist’s trajectory is the
same as the tragic hero; the film builds up to one pivotal moment that permanently changes him
for the rest of the story. However, Starving Artist stays true to comedic structure by placing
more of an emphasis on his negative attributes than his positive. The critic is unimpressed by the
artist’s paintings because the craftsmanship of his work is extremely amateur, not necessarily
because he is a mean critic. The artist deep down seems to know this, but refuses to accept it.
His decision to shoot himself is ultimately a vain attempt to get a rise out of the critic since his
paintings were unable to do so. The shortcomings of the artist are further emphasized by the
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music of the film. The music is an improvised piano song built off of “Chopsticks”.
“Chopsticks”, a song famous for how simple and rudimentary it is, serves as an allusion to the
artist’s painting skills.
Chapter 5. Conclusion
A thorough understanding of how comedy is constructed depends on an understanding on
how tragedy is constructed. Both dramatic devices seek catharsis through an examination of
unfortunate situations, tragedy treating the misfortune as it is and comedy placing it in a different
context. An effective comedy requires an understanding of how and why the situation in
question is unfortunate so that it can sufficiently reevaluated. Their divergences merely serve as
different strategies for achieving the same end.
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Bibliography:
Aristotle. “Poetics.”, The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation
Vol. 2, (Princeton Universery Press, 1984)
Dale, Alan. Comedy is a Man in Trouble, (University of Minnesota Press, 2000)
Golden, Leon. “Epic, Tragedy, and Catharsis”, Philology Vol. 71 No. 1. (The University
of Chicago Press, 1976)
Gutzwiller, Kathryn. “The Tragic Mask of Comedy: The Metatheatricality in Menander”,
Classical Antiquity Vol. 19 No. 1 (University of California Press, 2000)
Jones, Chuck. Chuck Jones: Conversations, (University Press of Mississippi, 2005)
Kenner, Hugh. Chuck Jones: A Flurry of Drawings, (University of California Press,
1994)
Lenburg, Jeff. Legends of Animation: Genndy Tartakovsky: From Russia to Coming-ofAge Animator, (Chelsea House, 2012)
Rosivach, Vincent J. “The Audiences of New Comedy”, Greece and Rome, Second
Series, Vol. 47 No. 2. (Cambridge University Press, 2000)
Stolnitz, Jerome. “Notes on Comedy and Tragedy”, Philosophy and Phenomenological
Research Vol. 16 No. 1. (International Phenomenological Society, 1955)
Ussher, R.G. “Old Comedy and ‘Character’: Some Comments”, Greece and Rome,
Second Series, Vol. 4 No. 1. (Cambridge University Press, 1977)
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Filmography:
A Boy Named Charlie Brown (feature film; dir. Bill Melendez, 1969)
Chuck Jones: Extremes and Inbetweens – A Life in Animation (documentary; dir. Margaret
Selby, 2000)
Dexter’s Laboratory (TV series; dir. Genndy Tartakovsky, 1996-2003)
Dexter’s Laboratory: Ego Trip (TV movie; dir. Genndy Tartakovsky, 1999)
Duck! Rabbit, Duck! (short film; dir. Chuck Jones, 1953)
Johnny Bravo (TV series; dir. Van Partible, 1997-2004)
Pepe Le Pew (short films; dir. Chuck Jones, 1945-1962)
Rabbit Fire (short film; dir. Chuck Jones, 1951)
Rabbit Seasoning (short film; dir. Chuck Jones, 1952)
Stressed Eric (TV series; dir. Carl Gorham, 1998-2000)
Tex Avery: The King of Cartoons (documentary; dir. John Needham, 1988)
Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner (short films; dir. Chuck Jones, 1948-1962)
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