Like hey, What is the deal with this? I’d like to know.
It’s a matter both of esthetics and economics. Esthetically, a fat fingered cartoon character looks odd with 5 fingers, but okay with 4. Economically, it saves times to only have to draw 4 fingers instead of 5.
Three fingers plus thumb, actually.
Supposedly started by Disney on Mickey Mouse in “Tugboat Mickey”. Easier to draw, so it saves time, and looks OK as long as you don’t think about it too much, so many cartoon animals have continued using this shortcut.
The practice has led to more than one amusing comment on The Simpsons.
And rules are made to be broken. Bugs Bunny always had four fingers on each hand, except for one brief clip that required five. It’s in The Rabbit of Seville when Bugs is drumming his fingers on Elmer’s head in sync with the piano.
When I was at Sheridan College studying animation, they told us that animation is traditionally drawn with three-fingered hands because the middle two fingers most often move as one. Drawing them as one reduces the amount of work to be done, and doesn’t usually look sufficiently unnatural to be disturbing.
Though in an artform with the likes of John Kricfalusi (Ren and Stimpy and The Ripping Friends), I don’t see how that would be a problem, exactly…
I think you mean Steamboat Willie 12 years earlier.
Oops. OK. Right mouse, wrong cartoon.
I think Cafe Society is the best place for this thread, so I’ll move it. Besides, I don’t want Euty to miss it.
bibliophage
moderator GQ