JohnK talks about his Simpsons Opening

[Mr. Analog]

I'm pretty sure that not many people 'round here follow the Simpsons anymore (I know I don't) but last night, much in the tradition of Banksy's intro from last year, JohnK got his chance to break all the rules with the Simpsons.

There's a pretty good interview with him about it on the CartoonBrew blog:
http://www.cartoonbrew.com/tv/exclusive-john-k-talks-about-his-simpsons-opening.html

A good read. Matt basically told him to break all the rules

[Thorin]

I happened to catch that episode, and that intro sure was different!  Made me immediately think of Ren & Stimpy, even though here they say it wasn't like R&S.

[Lazybones]

Interesting but I didn't really like the sequence.

[Mr. Analog]

John's been surprising us with some crazy stuff this year, breaking all the rules that he himself has been espousing for a long time. It was very weird seeing 30s style non-key animation i.e. everything is in fluid motion with no "key frames" or fixed poses but applied to UPA inspired character design with virtually no construction.

Personally speaking, I think if you're going to go with UPA style limited construction you also go with limited animation (think Powerpuff Girls or Dexter's Laboratory). Seeing it put together with that level of fluidity was pretty jarring, but it's probably the liveliest 31 seconds the Simpsons has seen in a long, long time.

[Melbosa]

Being probably the few that actually watch the Simpsons still, I can definitely say that "but it's probably the liveliest 31 seconds the Simpsons has seen in a long, long time." just isn't true IMO.  The episode opener this year had me almost in tears for the majority of it... so many movie ripoffs that one had... so many!

The intro by John did, as with Thorin, bring me back to the R&S days... even if that was not his intent.  The episode following was funny as well, but the highlight was the intro.

[Mr. Analog]

I'm talking about the animation itself, much of the Simpsons is standing around and talking or moving from key to key in an extremely limited way. Each character has a limited set of stock emotional responses which are drawn from character model sheets so that the director can ensure that in every situation characters stay "on model". They tell you that this is to keep production time down but all it does is ensure that no artist gets in the way of production by doing anything creative lol

The Simpsons has been visually static since the mid-90s, the writing has kept it afloat for so long.