This weekend kicked off the second installment of the Animation Show, produced by Mike Judge (creator of Beavis and Butthead) and Academy Award nominated animator Don Hertzfeldt. The movies averaged about two and a half minutes but range from 30 seconds to almost 15, which is perfect for a diverse audience.

If someone did not enjoy one animation, it was not a big deal. You could wait a few minutes and the movie would change.

However, despite the various ranges of length, each cartoon was able to create a relationship with the audience, whether they loved or hated it. Observers had their own personal favorites as well as those movies they disliked most. Audience members all had different cartoons that stuck out in their minds for completely different reasons. This just embodies the various types of cartoons and people who came to see the show.

From a movie of a paranoid dog in a park to a 14-minute show about a man attempting to escape a psychotic hospital, the name of the game was diversity. The only thing these movies had in common was the fact that they were all animations. Everything else was up to the discretion of the animator, which is probably the main reason it’s so popular. From claymation to old fashioned scratchy, boxy drawings to computer animation, all the styles starkly contrasted with one another.

Some cartoons were obviously interested in mass audience enjoyment—in other words, lots of fight scenes, little speaking. Others were at the opposite spectrum, slow, no action, artistic, some vague references to old classical stories. One story had action but every word spoken was the word "blah."

"I found that one really interesting,” said David Wilkinson, a freshman. “Proof that visual stimulus was much more powerful than dialogue."

For more information on specific animators, fans can go to http://www.theanimationshow.com.

Comment on this story...