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It's a Small World: The Animated Series
Posted: Thu Dec 05, 2013 9:12 pm
by jpanimation
Stop me if this has already been posted but it appears that Disney is making animated shorts for It's a Small World. They seem like the educational-type of programing you'd see sandwiched in-beween shows on Disney Jr. I like how it looks like Mary Blair's art. Here's the first one in the series:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFdNNp1O-Gg
The best part is around the 2:45 mark when they start playing music that sounds very much like the opening from Pokemon Snap (for you youngsters who don't know what I'm talking about, look it up) lol
Re: It's a Small World animated shorts
Posted: Fri Dec 06, 2013 3:41 am
by Sotiris
Re: It's a Small World animated shorts
Posted: Fri Dec 06, 2013 4:58 am
by Lady Cluck
That was fucking
TERRIBLE!!! 
Re: It's a Small World animated shorts
Posted: Fri Dec 06, 2013 6:20 pm
by TsWade2
Lady Cluck wrote:That was fucking
TERRIBLE!!!
What's wrong with it? I thought it was cute. Besides, putting Small World series on Disney Junior really makes sense.
Re: It's a Small World animated shorts
Posted: Fri Dec 06, 2013 6:56 pm
by SWillie!
Jesus, I thought it was fine. Relax. It's just a little educational series for young young kids.
Sotiris, I do agree about the barely-animated trend. I doubt we'll see it subside anytime soon unfortunately, as it's fast and cheap.
Anyways, for what it is I think it's cute. I always wondered how long it'd be before they started taking Small World into other projects.
Re: It's a Small World animated shorts
Posted: Fri Dec 06, 2013 7:36 pm
by Super Aurora
TsWade2 wrote:Lady Cluck wrote:That was fucking
TERRIBLE!!!
What's wrong with it? I thought it was cute. Besides, putting Small World series on Disney Junior really makes sense.
He just trying to be cool and edgy. Pay no mind to him.
Re: It's a Small World animated shorts
Posted: Fri Dec 06, 2013 10:53 pm
by Lady Cluck
Well I actually hated it.
I love the concept and wouldn't have watched a show for toddlers otherwise, but it should have been better. It would have been better if each child was a character with a distinct personality. They're all the same except their look, and there's not much variety there either other than skin/hair color. I also think a lot of shows "talk" to kids like they're idiots now. I know this is targetting a really young demographic, but kids are a lot more savvy than people think.
It could have been the Magic School Bus for learning about international cultures. Instead it's crap.
Re: It's a Small World animated shorts
Posted: Sat Dec 07, 2013 12:04 am
by TsWade2
Super Aurora wrote:TsWade2 wrote:
What's wrong with it? I thought it was cute. Besides, putting Small World series on Disney Junior really makes sense.
He just trying to be cool and edgy. Pay no mind to him.
Okay.
Re: It's a Small World animated shorts
Posted: Sat Dec 07, 2013 7:07 am
by estefan
Lady Cluck wrote:Well I actually hated it.
I love the concept and wouldn't have watched a show for toddlers otherwise, but it should have been better. It would have been better if each child was a character with a distinct personality. They're all the same except their look, and there's not much variety there either other than skin/hair color. I also think a lot of shows "talk" to kids like they're idiots now. I know this is targetting a really young demographic, but kids are a lot more savvy than people think.
It could have been the Magic School Bus for learning about international cultures. Instead it's crap.
It's only one four-minute short. Not much time to develop all of the children, which I'm sure they will expand on in future episodes.
I thought the short worked well in teaching children about Indian culture, without being condescending like Dora the Explorer or Barney the Dinosaur. At least, unlike Dora, the kids are able to do and figure out things by themselves without asking obvious, dumb questions to the audience.
Re: It's a Small World animated shorts
Posted: Sat Dec 07, 2013 11:53 am
by Patrick
That was super cute. In terms of learning about different cultures I don't really see this as beneficial. Maybe with other learning aids or in a classroom? Or if they put words on the screen like they did with Azul? Because it's so quick and they chose to start the series with a language that's very phonetically different from English I would imagine it's difficult for kids to remember. Very, very cool thing for Disney to do, though. And even despite what I said it's awesome that they chose India, and a culture currently suffering from a ridiculous amount of prejudice in the US.
Re: It's a Small World animated shorts
Posted: Mon Dec 09, 2013 9:10 pm
by disneyphilip
SWillie! wrote:Sotiris, I do agree about the barely-animated trend. I doubt we'll see it subside anytime soon unfortunately, as it's fast and cheap.
It's not "cheap" or "fast" and just because something is different does not make it fast or cheap.
Plus, there's nothing wrong with it either.
I'm also in the camp who thinks that this series is great so far and has lots of potential and will only get better with each new installment.
Re: It's a Small World animated shorts
Posted: Mon Dec 09, 2013 9:19 pm
by SWillie!
disneyphilip wrote:SWillie! wrote:Sotiris, I do agree about the barely-animated trend. I doubt we'll see it subside anytime soon unfortunately, as it's fast and cheap.
It's not "cheap" or "fast" and just because something is different does not make it fast or cheap.
Plus, there's nothing wrong with it either.
I'm also in the camp who thinks that this series is great so far and has lots of potential and will only get better with each new installment.
As someone working in the animation industry, I can tell you that this style of animation is most certainly cheaper and faster than alternatives such as CG animation or full hand-drawn animation. That's not to say there's anything wrong with it, or that it is in any way inherently bad. This series is actually really well done, as it's done by a great studio called Powerhouse Animation that is extremely passionate about the art of 2D animation. They also worked on the animation in the Epic Mickey series. Great stuff. But that doesn't change the fact that it's not as expensive and doesn't take as long.
It's simply a personal opinion that I prefer full animation over this style.
Re: It's a Small World animated shorts
Posted: Tue Dec 24, 2013 4:22 pm
by disneyphilip
Re: It's a Small World animated shorts
Posted: Tue Dec 24, 2013 4:28 pm
by disneyphilip
Another thing I like about this series is that each episode contains a cameo appearance by characters that come from the country being visited (ie: Mowgli & Shanti in the India episode, Merida in the Scotland episode, Anna & Elsa in the Sweden episode, etc.).
And they're all drawn in the Small World/Mary Blair design style.
Re: It's a Small World animated shorts
Posted: Tue Jan 14, 2014 5:05 am
by disneyphilip
Re: It's a Small World animated shorts
Posted: Tue Jan 14, 2014 7:07 am
by supertalies
With an appearance by Lilo.
Re: It's a Small World animated shorts
Posted: Tue Jan 14, 2014 4:22 pm
by thedisneyspirit
These shorts are quite sweet. I like the art style, and at least the kids are getting some culture from it. I'd rather my kids watch this than something stupid like Fanboy and Chum Chum or Spongebob.
Re: It's a Small World animated shorts
Posted: Wed Jan 15, 2014 5:39 pm
by disneyphilip
supertalies wrote:With an appearance by Lilo.
And also Marlin, Dory, Crush and Squirt. Plus Jose, Michael, Pierre, Fritz, Pele and Hina from the Enchanted Tiki Room
Re: It's a Small World animated shorts
Posted: Wed Jan 15, 2014 7:27 pm
by sunhuntin
comments on youtube are saying the mermaid is one of ariels sisters.
Re: It's a Small World animated shorts
Posted: Thu Jan 16, 2014 1:14 am
by supertalies
disneyphilip wrote:supertalies wrote:With an appearance by Lilo.
And also Marlin, Dory, Crush and Squirt. Plus Jose, Michael, Pierre, Fritz, Pele and Hina from the Enchanted Tiki Room
I posted that first comment when I hadn't finished the video yet but I also spotted the Finding Nemo characters, yes.
I don't know the Enchanted Tiki Room characters though, but it's still cool they included them. I really like seeing the Disney characters in this Mary Blair style.
The mermaid does look a little like Ariel's sister Andrina. However, I'm not sure if it's supposed to actually be her.
