Maggie Simpson in "The Longest Daycare" short film

[zartok-35]

I hope they aren't planning on making the episodes in 3D...

I bet they do it like that bad 1990s "Yo Yogi bear" cartoon.

[CousinMerl]

I wonder if this will be a US-only thing or if it will be shown at movie theaters in other countries as well.

[Gran2]

MORE INFO

Milking the classic era again: it is set in the Ayn Rand School for Tots.

But, it does sounds pretty good.

[Dark Homer]

I like that there's going to be an Ayn Rand reference before a movie whose target audience is 7 year olds

[Cartoonnetwork]

Ice Age 4 is already in theaters here in Spain and I watched it mostly because of the short.

It's actually pretty good. It's fun, clever and sweet. It makes you laugh all around and at the same time you feel symphathy for Maggie. It also manages to appeal to both kids and adults by capturing the naivety of the children characters and still keeping some of the edge the show has.

But probably the most innovative thing about it is that it's totally a silent film. We kind of knew that but I couldn't help but thinking they were going to add some dialogue at the start or the end. I also thought they wouldn't resist to add Homer or Bart there. But not, this is only about Maggie, with a little role for Marge, but she doesn't say a word either. I mean, they can't even make a silent Itchy and Scratchy cartoon these days and they failed to do Simpstasia except for that decent segment in the Christmas episode that actually had songs with lyrics and dialogue in it. But they managed to do this without any dialogue at all and it works great.

Oh, and it looks fantastic in 3D. In fact it uses the 3D much better than the Ice Age movie.

About my only flaw is that the animation looks pretty much like The Simpsons Movie. Not bad, but it is still a little stiff when you compare it to season five or something like that. I think they could use a little more squash and stretch in this animation for theaters. It should look a little more like the Do The Bartman videoclip or even the Tracey Ullman shows. There is a moment that shows really good 'acting' from Maggie, though. She deserves an Academy Award for her performance .

I really wouldn't mind to see more of these shorts. It has a simplicity that really provides some charm the show is missing these days. I would give it a B+

[Dark Homer]

so it's not CGI?

[Cartoonnetwork]

Nope. I don't know how they made it (I think David Silverman said he used After Effects at some point) but the look is 2D and pretty simmilar to The Simpsons Movie. And I happen to like the 3D effect in 2D animation more than I do in most CGI movies, you notice the different layers a little bit more.

[Captain Squid]

Super short trailer showing off the.... er, short:

http://insidetv.ew.com/2012/07/03/si...ngest-daycare/

Looks very cool.

[Bert Stanton]

Luckily I have a 7 year old sister so I have an excuse to go and see it

[comeau]

I'll just wait for it to hit YouTube, that's what i did for all the new Looney Tunes shorts so far, instead of seeing the terrible movies they were attached to.

[Ryan]

About my only flaw is that the animation looks pretty much like The Simpsons Movie. Not bad, but it is still a little stiff when you compare it to season five or something like that. I think they could use a little more squash and stretch in this animation for theaters. It should look a little more like the Do The Bartman videoclip or even the Tracey Ullman shows. There is a moment that shows really good 'acting' from Maggie, though. She deserves an Academy Award for her performance .

I dunno... the animation in the Simpsons Movie was pretty fucking great. That seems like a plus.

God I'd love to see how the 3D looks but there's just no way in hell I'm paying for a ticket to Ice Age 4.

[Cartoonnetwork]

I dunno... the animation in the Simpsons Movie was pretty fucking great. That seems like a plus.

Yeah, I didn't make myself clear. The animation in The Simpsons Movie was pretty good and here it's really good too. I'm just saying that , even in the movie, I hoped it could be a little less stiff. There were a couple of moments in which it got a little more 'cartoony' but for the most part it kinda followed the style of recent seasons of the show, more than older seasons when there were more off model poses. I think Silverman himself would love to do that, but probably his 'bosses' want to stay in the on model animation. Anyway there is some really good animation in the short, and, like I said, there is a moment at the end in which the 'acting' and performance of Maggie is really great. Silverman did a fantastic job at that.

I'm just saying I'd enjoy the animation to be closer to THOH V, the Do The Bartman video, the Raven segment in THOH 1 or even the Tracey Ullman shorts, more squash and stretch. It would feel more like a 'classic' cartoon to me.

[Matty]

Yeah, from those very brief clips the animation doesn't look great. I also don't like 2D animation in 3D much, it always looks like a bunch of flat drawings on layers. It's supposed to add depth, but flattens the art.

Silverman was definitely toned down during the Simpsons Movie production. Some of the early animation I've seen that didn't make it in was far more fluid. An alternate take of Homer combing Plopper's hair comes to mind. It was pretty bad & cheap in the movie, but a previous version was very smooth, exaggerated and funny. They took an inbetween from that scene and put it on a poster, but the key was much more extreme than this:



David is a genius of cartoons and animation, so I wish they'd just let him do his thing more often. Though I guess there was very little time to put this short together aswell. I'll go check it out when I get the chance, since I have an unlimited cinema pass anyway, to catch the few golden Silverman nuggets.

[Homer I Am]

Thank god! I thought it was going look like those Roadrunner shorts in that new Looney Tunes show.

[Zombies Rise from the Sea]

That shit looks pretty amazing; I do wish it would be stylized like those initial promos shown but I'm really glad they didn't go the cheap route, though I'm irked by the security scanners...

[Cartoonnetwork]

I also don't like 2D animation in 3D much, it always looks like a bunch of flat drawings on layers. It's supposed to add depth, but flattens the art.

I actually kind of like it. I mean, I don't really like 3D too much in general, it can be ok, but I don't feel like it adds a lot to the movie experience and sometimes it distacts you from the whole composition of the frame, which , depending of the movie, could be more pleasing than noticing a snowflake closer to you. Even in CGI or life action movies it actually looks like layers and a little flat too IMO. Maybe in 2D animation it's more apparent but I find it kind of cool. I've only watched Beauty and The Beast, the Pixar short "Night and Day" and this in 2D-3D but I found myself liking it more than I usually do in CGI movies. Maybe not as much as "Hugo" or "Avatar" , which had some of the best use of 3D I've seen yet, but certainly more than the regular Pixar movie. I didn't feel 3D added much or anything at all to Up or Toy Story 3. In 2D animation it looks flat, but it also looks like it has more layers, flat layers but it's more apparent that there are more of them, and that look resembles Pop-Up Books for kids, which is kind of cool. They even play with this idea in the Maggie short by literally showing a Pop Up book in one scene. At the end of the day I am more interested about how fluid the actual animation looks but it's kind of cool when you are watching it for the very first time.

Also I think it encouraged Silverman to use deeper and more original shots, which is always good even if it wasn't in 3D. It had the opposite effect -a possitive effect instead of a negative one- that it had in those 3D CGI Road Runner and Tweety and Sylvester shorts that aired in theaters. They were well animated and had good timing but I felt that those abused of close ups and the big faces of the characters coming closer to you look ugly and cheap (especially in the T&S short) when you're not watching them in 3D. In the Maggie short they went for deep shots, but nothing so cheap, and in result they used interesting shots whether you watch it in 3D or not.

I agree with you on everything else and what you said about the early sketches in the movie was interesting to read.

[SmoothCriminal1990]

I would love to see this short but I just don't wanna see Ice Age 4.

[Cartoonnetwork]

I wouldn't say Ice Age 4 was brilliant in any way, but I find it watchable. Like every other one in this saga it has some funny moments and some dull ones. You forget about it once you leave the theater but it's not boring and it provides some laughs. If they had put this short before Alvin and The Chipmunks or another film of that kind I'd have never watched it in theaters.

[Matty]

...2D....3D...

It's a matter of taste, of course, personally I just don't like it when the seperate layers become too obvious. Takes me out of the world of the film. I'm intrigued by the deep shots, you mention though. But yeah, those Looney Tunes faces shoved in your own face were obnoxious.

[Blobulle]

Just watched it, that was pretty good and better than Ice Age 4.

[Dark Homer]

billy at boards & rec brings up a real good point

uhhhh how big are these babies supposed to be?

[D DEBBS]

I am in agreement with both SNES Chalmers and Smooth Criminal 1990...I do not want to See Ice Age 4 so I hafta wait for someone to post it on Youtube.

[Walter Pembroke the Third]

That shit looks pretty amazing; I do wish it would be stylized like those initial promos shown but I'm really glad they didn't go the cheap route, though I'm irked by the security scanners...

Why would that irk you?

[Zombies Rise from the Sea]

Why would that irk you?

Well to me it just seems like one of the jokes that the Zombie Simpsons would do; having TSA security security scans in daycares, making it ever so obvious that it's for the safety of the country. I'll admit it is something that the Classic Simpsons would do but I fear that they'll use it in a way that'll negatively affect the short.

[uruguayo]

The truth that Was very good, very beautiful end.

[CMYK]

Yeah I want to see it too.
I'd rather see it on the silver screen than see it back to youtube. There's a some sort of value to seeing a decent film in the theatre.
Shame I don't want to see ice age either.

[Dobbie]

Yeah, I'll stick to the YouTube version.

Ice Age wasn't bad but if there's 4 movies than it's all about the money than quality now!

[D DEBBS]

From all the reviews I heard or read...'The Longest Daycare' got better raves than 'Ice Age 4!'

[Malaise Forever]

I'm really tempted to go see it in theatres. There's a 9.15 pm showing at my local theatre but it seems like the kind of stuff they would cut for reasons that I don't know (probably so I feel ripped off and left seeing a kids film). I would leave right after anyway..

It seems there's a french version (I mean.. Every film shown in Quebec goes through a legal procedure to be rated and shown...) so there's a good chance it's still shown here in Quebec..

[HMS pinafore]

This got a positive review over at the Dead Homer Society
http://deadhomersociety.com/2012/07/...the-spotlight/