Caricature involves the use of exaggerated defects on character appearance or exaggerating a character's actions. Realism is the use of more realistic appearance and action of characters. For example, using caricature a character may have huge eyes that pop out when scared, but when using realism a character would have a more human-like approach to being scared such as a shocked look or a startled jump. These methods to animation are opposites, but when used in combination they seem work well with each other. The combination of the two was also Walt Disney's preferred method of animation.

I believe that realism is the most important out of the methods. My reasoning behind this is that without realism, caricature would not be as meaningful because caricature would more than likely turn into a normal cartoon appearance. Walt Disney seems to have a similar view. One of Disney's quotes mentioned in chapter four of The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation says "I definitely feel that we cannot do the fantastic things based on the real, unless we fist know the real" (Thomas and Johnston 71). I interpret this quote as Disney saying that without knowing the realistic side of a situation, it is difficult to make use of exaggeration or caricature to make the situation enjoyable and funny to an audience.

In chapter two of The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation, Disney seems to believe that the most important thing about animating cartoons was to make the characters seem real by giving them emotions and putting the characters into funny situations (Thomas and Johnson 35). However, it is also mentioned that natural movement did not please Disney enough so he often tried to make animators add odd motions to the walk so that it was exaggerated and not as natural (Thomas and Johnson 37). Disney's views seem to change slightly in chapter four. His new focus seemed to be on making sure the animators knew how to make animated works appear more realistic. Eventually, after making works seem more realistic, Disney decided to capture the attention of the audience through a complete story, instead of just gags (Thomas and Johnson 74). This new approach by Disney, although seemingly contradictory to his earlier views, seemed be even more successful than the older works. However, Disney's older views of realistically emotional characters being in funny situations seemed to be put to the side.

Even though Walt Disney's views seem to change from chapter two to chapter four, there still seems to be many views that are alike. For example, Disney's animated work "The Pointer" is mentioned in chapter four of The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation, and the description says that even though the work had little story and few gags that it was built on personality (Thomas and Johnson 75, 77). Even in chapter two, Disney had strong views that emotion and personality were both important so that the the audience could identify with the character and so that the character would be more realistic. So even though the focus shifted toward more realism and a complete story to follow, Disney's old views were still being used in noticeable ways.

Other more independent animation studios such as UPA and Bakshi eventually began and seemed to challenge Disney's view of what animation should be like. While Disney liked realism mixed with caricature and stories about fairy tales and love, Bakshi seemed to break away from that by creating stories that utilized violence, excitement, and even sex. UPA studios also broke away from Disney's views by not being as realistic with their animation. Instead, UPA thought that cartoons should be entertaining because of gags or because the situations were naturally funny. UPA's views seemed to be like the early Disney views before Disney decided to take a more realistic approach.

It is safe to say that Disney Studios ended up being successful with many of their works even as it grew and took on a more realistic approach. Although some people such as the animators at Bakshi or UPA decided that the realistic approach was not as entertaining, Disney still kept creating successful animated works and is still around even today. In today's age, many types of animation methods involving realism and caricature still exist and they are still successful depending on the audience. However, these methods of animation may not have been as prominent as they are today if it had not been for early studios such as Disney, UPA, or Bakshi and their different views of animation.




Thomas, Frank and Ollie Johnston. 1995. The Illusion of Life: Disney Anmation. New York: Disney Editions.