Jun 22, 2013

Rethinking Chuck Jones' cartoon "Mrs. Doubtfire"

This year marks the 20th anniversary of Chris Columbus' comedy Mrs. Doubtfire. At the beginning of the film, Robin Williams plays a voice actor who is recording lines from an already produced cartoon. (Yes, this is out of the ordinary for a regular cartoon film, but for the sake of entertainment, we'll let it slide.)

The cartoon was supervised by legendary Warner Bros. director Chuck Jones and a small team of A-list animators, including legends like Bill Littlejohn and Tom Ray, as well as young animators like Eric Goldberg animated the film. Coincidentally, Goldberg was voicing Robin Williams in another animation project at the same time (Genie in "Aladdin").

In the film, we see barely a minute of animation of the two main characters, Paddy Parrot and Grunge the Cat. In reality, however, Chuck Jones and his crew animated five minutes of material. This was not released to the public until several years later, when it was included as a bonus feature on the "Mrs. Doubtfire" DVD.

The animation does not break new ground in terms of direction or gags, and does not even have a proper ending (it ends with Puddy repeating the cycle of enjoying a cigarette for 30 seconds), but the short film does have its moments. Williams voices all three characters, and it is a pleasure to hear his vocalizations. The animation is much more fluid and lively than is typical of Jones' work of this period, and is full of the energy of his classic mid-1950s cartoons.

But the story doesn't end there. Apparently, Chuck Jones was not too keen on the backgrounds, feeling that they were too detailed. So Jones had the animation completely re-shot with a new background that reflected a more understated graphic style. As an added bonus, here is another version:

Also, just in case you missed it, here is a 2-minute pencil test: