#toon lore

Like how a toon works or how they live or what they need to live?

They can't die or more so physically I assume but they still need food and drink

And if there's can be clones or different versions of them then where do all of them go?

Or are they all one once a toon or a versions of a toon is their redesign like for example oswald and his various redesigns

Are they part if him? or is that different versions of him and how will it work

DIP is still around, so there is killing the other versions and replacing them with making a new version of them

But then we get to mickey mouse who has to have met his other versions

Is mickey an exception?

Have other toons met their other versions? Or is that edited in after filming?

If the different versions are separate from others are do they keep the memories, or do they have their own?

Cartoons are really weird but they are meant to sometimes be unrealistic

My theory or take on this is, toons when redesigning go through a surgery kinda like plastic surgery, their type of surgery advances over time of course

The toon cautiousness probably from its brain, heart or its ink or whatever it's made out of

Each surgery is different or not even having surgery like making a new cartoon that pretends/replace to be the other one and the other toon version gets locked up in tubes or somewhere, possibly DIP them or reuse thr toon for more toon making materials

I always have a thought of toons, no matter how popular or human they are, will always be lower than humans

And humans don't care much for toons as they are toons are play things and money making, now some may get attached and would never harm them

In order to avoid more too-zany toons.

My goodness, really didn't think this ask was nearly a year old. Sorry.

I definitely do think so! I've long viewed the Warners as the product of a "wild west" period of animation when the first toons were being created and people didn't know what they were doing. They didn't know how to control the product of what they drew, especially not a literally insane person like Lon.

I don't think there were more regulations on how many toons could be created, but rather how. We see in the reboot that they still create toons willy nilly as a concept and throw the resulting living being on the street. No reason to think this isn't an accurate portrayal of what would happen.

The regulations would instead be who is allowed to- probably only trained/licensed animators working for the big Hollywood studios. (I think the studios must have the only means of creating toons, otherwise there would be countless characters coming to life off the drawings of kindergartners and such.) There is probably a defined process. You have to be really specific about the traits and personality of the character you are creating, to prevent them from instantly going haywire and causing mass destruction. These are essentially unpredictable godlike beings that you're unleashing here. You better know what you're doing.

And in a meta sense, we see that a lot of the brand new cartoon characters created in recent decades are just regular people for the most part. They aren't the type to do crazy toon antics, they're rational people, unlike the earlier toons.

(Maybe a bad example, what kind of shit would Bill be up to in the real world? 😳)

I have a whole bunch of questions, and I'm not sure if it'd be annoying to flood your inbox with them, so feel free to pick and choose any of these to reply.

Questions for Dawn: who would you consider to be the animated 'it' girl right now?

What do you think about the recent trend of 'fleshwashing' that Disney has been pushing when it comes to remakes? Is this part of a bias against toons when it comes to casting?

In your opinion, who do you think is the best 'old-school' toon who still actively performs? Questions for Doris: Has toontown managed to avoid the plague of gentrification that hit a lot of other older neighborhoods in LA?

Is there a union for animated actors? If there is, how effective is it in your opinion? Have things gotten better or worse for animated actors over the years?

Did you ever get to know your animator? If not, would you have wanted to know them?

We should probably get a reddit at some point. Everyone on tumblr has been amazing though. We do have an instagram, @dawn_doodle and @dorisdoodle_toon.

There's also a fanmade discord! One we need to check on more after we're done...preparing some new things.

Who do I think is the current it girl of animation? It changes so fast, but my vote right now is POMNI! Who doesn't feel like Pomni like daily? Also, indie!

Check back in a month when my answer may change again!

What do we think of all these live action remakes? I still don't mind them too much, but Avatar on netflix might be unnecessary. I'm starting to wear thin. Doris gave a rambling answer on this before and I don't think her opinion has changed.

Best old School toon still in business? I think we actually have an agreement on this one and that's this 2D Girl boss!

Was Toon town able to avoid any gentrification? Here's Doris with a history lesson:

As some people know, ToonTown was left to the toons, and that was great. We could vote for changes in the town and run it ourselves, but that didn't mean we were separate from California and certain laws. So it was devastating when it was decided that the land we lived on wasn't fully ours and the decision to build a freeway system was still being considered. This was in the 50s and I had already moved out of ToonTown, but I heard about the protests and letters written to Earl Warren.

None of it helped, and in 1956, Eisenhower signed the highway act and a freeway was constructed. So the town wasn't as saved as the movie "Who Frames Roger Rabbit" lets you believe.

Since the toons owned ToonTown, they couldn't just completely destroy it. We were just told to move. So the town is split up into districts. There's one near Disneyland, another a few streets from Universal. Always near studios. They like keeping an eye on their assets. So at least we got to keep the town in some way.

Is there a union for toons? There have been attempts. But in the end were considered intellectual property of the studios. fully owned and by contract from the moment the first line is sketched. A lot of older toons have a little more freedom from those contracts. By older, I'm talking Bugs Bunny and the Peanuts kids. That's starting to get harder though as studios are stating to hold a tighter grip on animation. It's less a creative thought process and more business. Doris says it's colder in a behind closed doors way. I say that cold is starting to leak into the outside. So yeah, no union, especially for newly drawn stars, and well...things aren't exactly getting better.

Did we get to know our creators?

Doris did!

We all do I guess while being drawn. but it's not as personal now. I was kinda made through a committee. So there are artists who really care and I would've wanted to get to know them, but there are also execs, studio owners, managers, all hovering around to check on their investment. And once approved, you are under studio control. It's nice if the artists can stick around at the studio, but most times they're laid off once the creation is done and they need to go work at another place. This goes into that whole colder thing. From what Doris has shown me, it was a little more fun before. Animators and toons would just hang out I guess.

They would even have fun with their voice actors.

Today, studios want big celebrities to give us our voices. So they usually come in to lay down the track and then leave with the paycheck. Not all though, I heard Jack Black like to see the characters he's given a voice too. It just doesn't happen often.

Sorry it took a while to get to your question! We're trying to get a few things going right now so our timing is way off.

Like in both the book and movie of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Toons are given parallels to marginalized groups, for example the Ink And Paint Club is based off a club in that time where black people could work but never be customers, much like in the movie Toons worked but weren't customers, in the book Toons drank from separate water fountains than humans etc.

Still with me? This implies Toons are a minority/lower class citizens of some kind and the Animaniacs reboot actually supports this, other the fucked up 'locking three children in a tower for decades without them being able to age physically or mentally' thing, in s1 of the reboot we see that Toons did not have the right to vote until 2020 (when the episode took place and supposed to be on the eve of 100 years of women getting the right to vote)

Things like this make any property with 'Toons in the real word' as a concept very interesting its almost like they accidentally made an MCU but with cartoons and instead of large scale adventures its just silly goofy times.

It has also spawned headcanons on the Toon lore as well, maybe the in-universe Who Framed Roger Rabbit movie is a 'based on true events' sort of thing (remember the movie takes place in the 40s) and it caused Dip the one thing that can kill a Toon to be banned in the 80s, to humans, its a funny movie cause they don't typically take Toons seriously but to Toons its a scary retelling of how one of their own kind made something that could permanently kill them.

Space Jam movies are movies that toons can watch in this world.

Space Jam 1 follows the looney tunes who, in meta, are acting in the movie. Lola was added in as a one time character.

Space Jam 2 is another movie the looney tunes do. But the story’s weirdly inconsistent. Lola’s personality had a jump to what’s commercially sound at the time of early 2020s. But it’s possible it doesn’t speak to her character out of set.

Back in Action is slightly more true to the character portrayals of the looney tunes and their state out of set. But some level is fictitious due to it being technically Bugs’ movie…