History Main / InkblotCartoonStyle

Inkblot Cartoon Style is the cartoon style most prevalent from UsefulNotes/TheSilentAgeOfAnimation. Most historians refer to this as Rubber Hose Animation because characters' arms, legs and pretty much everything else are usually animated as if they were made of rubber tubing and without elbows or knees. In many cartoons in the [[RoaringTwenties very late Twenties]] and early and mid-Thirties, not only does everyone dance to the background music, ''{{everything|Dances}}'' [[EverythingDances dances to it as well]]. The style sometimes falls into AccidentalNightmareFuel territory because of the its tendency toward {{surrealis|m}}t humor.

* Inspired by the Inkblot Cartoon Style influence on ''Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog'', [[https://www.deviantart.com/spydaman/art/Classical-Sonic-12002978 these]] [[https://www.deviantart.com/spydaman/art/Classical-Robotnik-12030590 line]] [[https://www.deviantart.com/spydaman/art/60s-to-80s-Sonic-12044881 of]] [[https://www.deviantart.com/spydaman/art/Old-School-Amy-12178850 fan]] [[https://www.deviantart.com/spydaman/art/Knuckles-1960s-to-1980s-12209672 mock]][[https://www.deviantart.com/spydaman/art/A-Tale-of-Two-Tails-12423063 ups]] envision an AlternateHistory in which the ''Sonic the Hedgehog'' canon started in the UsefulNotes/TheSilentAgeOfAnimation era. Sonic, Tails, Amy, and Eggman first start as cartoon characters with the Inkblot style, with pudgy bodies, pie eyes, and 1920s-esque accessories, though they didn't have more black shapes and pronounced eyes until the 1930s. Even their simple initial names (Sonic having name "Hasty Hedgehog" at first), personalities, and roles within the cartoons fit the Inkblot aesthetic.

%%* UsefulNotes/GameAndWatch from ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros''

* The Warner siblings from ''WesternAnimation/{{Animaniacs}}'' are an obvious parody hitting all the aforementioned marks: they're ill-defined {{Cartoon Creature}}s likened to "puppy dogs" with their paws, ears, and tails, WhiteGloves, black bodies, beady eyes (with a notable shine), and (small) muzzles. In-universe, their design isn't a {{Retraux}}: they were actually ''created'' during UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfAnimation, but were too screwy to be contained and were hidden away until the '90s, at which point, their designs ''would'' look humorously old-fashioned.

[[caption-width-right:350:Ah, "the classics".]]

%%* The music video for [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RM7lw0Ovzq0 "The Story of O.J."]] by Music/JayZ has this style.

* The ''WesternAnimation/{{Popeye}}'' cartoons of TheThirties employ the ink blot style, especially with the characters' BlackBeadEyes and Olive Oyl's flexible RubberHoseLimbs. The earliest Popeye cartoons also have {{FunnyAnimal}}s drawn in a simplified style with the PieEyes / BlackBeadEyes that the humans have.

->''"Mickey had to be simple. We had to push out seven hundred feet of film every two weeks. His head was a circle with an oblong circle for a snout. The ears were also circles so they could be drawn the same, no matter how he turned his head. his body was like a pear, and he had a long tail. His legs were pipestems, and we stuck them in large shoes to give him the look of a kid wearing his father's shoes. We didn't want him to have mouse hands, because he was supposed to be more human. So we gave him gloves. Five fingers seemed like too much on such a little figure, so we took away one. There was just one less finger to animate. To provide a little detail, we gave him the two-button pants. There was no mouse hair, or any other frills that would slow down animation."''