Few quotations are as central to the history of American television animation than Chuck Jones's derisive classification of Hanna-Barbera as "illustrated radio," with a cross-medium comparison effectively othering an entire studio's output. In this videographic essay, Patrick Sullivan complicates Jones's quip by asking us to truly listen to Hanna-Barbera's so-called "radio." Sullivan efficiently walks us through the range of techniques that the studio's sound design team uses to distinguish itself, build on historical precedent, yield industrial efficiencies, and most importantly entertain a generation with sounds that have lingered in memories for decades. The result is that we are left with an acknowledgement that Jones was right in his description, but overly simplistic in the implications for how animation can operate differently by privileging sound over image.

 

The phrase "illustrated radio" evokes another cross-media comparison that used to discuss videographic criticism: "the illustrated lecture." Christian Keathley and I use this term to mark one type of video essay, lodged firmly in an explanatory mode that fails to capture the best of each format: "At its least sophisticated, a videographic essay functions as an illustrated lecture, with a critic reading a manuscript over a series of clips, but such an approach misses both the poetic possibilities of video and the engaged dynamic of a live lecture" (12). One could certainly imagine Sullivan presenting his analysis as a lecture with clips, and perhaps adapting such an approach to a video essay. But every videographic choice that he makes here leans into the medium possibilities unique to the audiovisual format, rather than trying to recreate the effect of an academic presentation. 

 

By limiting his own voice to text on screen, Sullivan directs our attention to the sound design of the clips he quotes from. His visual design creates a sense of play between text and cartoon clips, evoking the whimsical mode of Hanna-Barbera's animation. The quotations from Jones and Michel Chion are used effectively, creating rhetorical continuity between his sources and his own use of language. The timing of the video is tightly controlled, making efficient use of a six-minute run time to convey a lot of ideas and examples. In short, this is a video that exemplifies a mode of audiovisual rhetoric, rather than adapting traditional academic forms into a video. I imagine this will prove to be an important pedagogical piece in animation courses, highlighting sound design and complicating traditional hierarchies between film and television, and the relative worth of some of America's most successful animators.

 

Work Cited: