Kids' cartoons.

     Lately, with the numbers of manchildren (and womanchildren of course blah) steadily growing, angry nerds on the INTERNET have been defending what are commonly considered "kids' things" and holding the position that those childish matters could be enjoyed by adults just the same. That was the inspiration for this writing/article thing.

     But are people correct when they say "_____ is not just a kids' thing"? Hard as it may be to believe, often they are correct.

     A long long time ago, animation was invented. The prospect of taking a whole bunch of drawings and treating them as frames of a film was the craziest idea since electricity-powered streetlamps. And yet, a bunch of crazy folks did it. One of the first animations was the one of a dinosaur eating a tree. It was AMAZING, like a drawing come to life! From primitive tech demos like that came the Felix cartoons and Looney Tunes. Early cartoons were all experimental, since NO ONE did animation before, and there was no guaranteed audience. So, the creators made cartoons to please themselves, and hopefully their friends. Tex Avery and Chuck Jones both made animation for themselves the way they wanted, and were lucky enough that the movie going public liked it. Cause, in case you are unaware, there was no television for a while, and all animation was shown in theaters.

     Needless to say, all cartoons were made by adults. Duh. Made for other adults. Keep that in mind.

     But as time went on, animation somehow became a kids' thing. How did that happen?

     As the years gone by, several reasons happened.

     First of all, around the 1940s, producers noticed that kids liked cartoons quite a lot, and went to see the colourful imagination-fest more eagerly than the jaded mature adults. So, animators were told to make their wacky cartoons more child-friendly. I'm serious! – watch some of the oldest cartoons, you'll be surprised how naughty some of them are. Also, notice how in almost all early cartoons the protagonists are almost exclusively adults, while later we would see an influx of children taking those roles. Because, AS WE ALL KNOW, children cannot relate to adults or like grown up characters *cough PopeyeSupermanMickeyMouse*.

     Second, television happened. TV producers realized that children have much higher tolerance for shit quality and shit writing than adults. Cheap, badly written cartoons were cheaper to produce than live action. Adults wanted the kids to go the fuck away for most of the day (cause who wants to spend time with their unwanted children, amirite?). So, when you put the two and two together, we have the following: the rise of limited animation, and the rise of shit writing in animation. The Double Rise of Two Shits.

     Third, Di$ney. They made the first COLOURED animated feature film, and it was a hueg hit. Because on the over-the-top strong emphasis on fameelee in Murrika, adults would go with their children to see Di$ney films from then on. Seeing how profitable family films are by their very nature (family = more seats), Di$ney producers (Walt wasn't the one man in charge of where money comes from, despite what people believe) made it so the movies be more child-friendly, and the stories simpler for the tiny child brain to understand. To this very day, the Di$ney Corporation is trying their best to preserve an innocent child-friendly image (which is toxic for creativity in animation, but they haven't cared for decades now).

     Fourth, human stupidity. The general public does not give a FUCK why things are the way they are. Women belong in the kitchen, invading foreign countries to preserve FREEDOM is a good idea, capitalism is the best darn system ever created, Coca Cola is good for you, and cartoons are for children. The general public is never arsed to find out why things are the way they are, and how we came to this. Too much thinking will make your brain explode and shrink your dick, right? And nobody wants a shrunk dick, RIGHT??


     So, the combination of corporate greed and public ignorance are the two main reasons which made animation to be known as "kids' stuff".

     For comics, it was superhero shit.




     Satyrday chapters coming up next!

The Condensed History of Language.

     1. A word is invented.

     2. The word gets popular.

     3. The word gets overused to death.

     4. People don't like the word anymore.

     5. A new word gets invented to take its place.

     6. The new word gets popular.

     7. The new word gets overused to death.

     8. People don't like the new word anymore.

     9. See part 5.




     Ever wondered why we have so many euphemisms for "penis"?




     Now you know.

The Dark Side of Remastering, Part 1.

     Hello, underlings! The time has come to discuss the Dark Side of...what the title said.

     "Remastered" has become a buzzword in the music industry, and casuals (aka people who don't know shit about music) have been misusing it for years now. Fortunately, some people have been wising up to the whole thing, and becoming informed. And right now, YOU TOO can become informed! I will explain the basics and bullshits of remastering, in less than 9,000 words! So, gentlemen and gentleladies, THIS IS WHAT REMASTERING IS ALL ABOUT!

     And before you walk away from this frightening wall of text, let me remind you that you do have time to read all this. All those cat videos on YouTube can wait.


                                                                        Ahem......

     First of all, let's get back to basics. Let's go back in time. A long, long time ago, there were no computers, and no hard drives. All audio was stored on magnetic tapes (archival) and vinyl records (personal use). The former decays over time unless treated chemically, and the latter lasts for many decades (plastic decays real slow). Magnetic tapes sound freaking amazing (providing music was recorded with GOOD microphones and cables). And don't let the slight hiss distract you from what's important: professional magnetic tapes can store sound in theoretically infinite resolution. Before the invention of digital storage, tapes were the shit. Vinyl records are limited by time (only about 25 minutes on each side) and have a hard time holding overly compressed (all loud and zero quiet) sound, but sound about as good as the tapes, proving your player isn't shit and the speakers are not too shabby. Sure, vinyl degrades slightly with repeated use, but you have to pay some price for quality.

     Now, let's get to the meat of the businesses. In the olden days of the 50s, 60s, and 70s, high quality music was first always recorded on tapes, and then transferred to vinyl through a process called mastering. Basically, in the best case, you recorded the instruments and vocals on separate tapes, and then record those tapes on a single and final one. That final tape, be it mono or stereo, was called the master tape. Why? Because it was the final finished version, and from it, all the copies would be made. Think of the master tape as a painting: after you put all the colours together, you are DONE done. No retouching. No going back. Finished. And that finished version of yours could be copied for different museums.

     Let's take a half step back, and explain the mastering some more. Once you record your instruments on multiple tapes, making one tape of them all is not an automated process. You need to decide which instruments are louder, which are quieter, which should sound smoother, which ones harsher. The act of putting the separate tapes into one requires skill and lots of professional machinery, and making the result not sound like shit is called mixing. Ever heard of the word? Well, now you know what it means. The mixer can mix the tapes in a gazillion different ways, and therefore must make the tough decisions. Mixing audio can be quite stressful because of that.

     After the mixing has been finished, and you got your final master tape, you transfer the audio to a metal disk. That disk will be used to physically press the individual copies of vinyl albums.


So, let's look at the complete picture. This is how the sound traveled in the good old days, from the musicians, all the way into your ears:

Instruments & vocals
   v
Microphones
   v
Cables
   v
Recording equipment
   v
Individual tapes
   v
One tape/master tape
   v
Metallic master disk
   v
Vinyl record(s)


     One last thing for this chapter. This is important! >:( The quality of the musicians' performance, quality of the instruments, quality of microphones, quality of cables, quality of recording equipment, and quality of the tape stuff is recording to: it ALL is CRUCIAL. The better each component of this sound chain is, the better sounding recordings you will get. And once the recording is done, the tapes are your ONLY copies that you end up with. The musicians performed in the past, everything but the tapes exist in the past. Everything is gone, forever. Except the tapes, which you must guard like the most precious treasure. For they are the best sounding copies that exist for now, and ever.

     More in Part 2, coming soon!