"Storietyd!"

So all you South African animators:

What was the first commercial animation ever produced in South Africa?
Who did it?
And when?


And would you believe that if you're older than 18, you've probably seen it several times already?



Start guessing so long, while I explain the background.




Due to...ahem...political reasons...television was only introduced in South Africa in 1975.

Dr Albert Hertzog, Minister for Posts and Telegraphs at the time, said that TV would come to South Africa "over [his] dead body," denouncing it as "a miniature bioscope (cinema) over which parents would have no control." -Wikipedia

Hmm...a very clear-thinking man if you ask me (in that respect. I don't agree with most of his other excuses and views)
This means we got only TV 14 years after Rhodesia (Zimbabwe these days). At least by then it was full colour TV. But, of course, due to the Apartheid policies, just about everybody was boycotting SA on just about every terrain, so just about nothing could be purchased to broadcast.
This then led to lots of homegrown shows like Interster and Wielie Walie...and so to the first commercial animation ever produced in South Africa.

It was the intro to Wielie Walie, a popular Afrikaans children's programme set in and around a house populated by a variety of puppets and two real people called Gert van Tonder and Magda van Biljon. The puppets ranged from a crow with a banjo living on a window-sill along with a friendly sea-monster, a book-worm living in the opposite window-sill along with singing flowers, three sock-monsters living in a cupboard... A merry, merry lot. They always sang. The sock-puppets once got hold of a phone and rang America to hear "the people there speaking funny."

Anyway, the intro was animated in 1975 by Boet Scholtz, the same year that broadcasting started in SA. The show started airing in 1976, and carried on for 20 years. According to creator and producer Louise Smit, the 8 second intro was the very first commercial animation produced in South Africa.

The irony is that I too watched that very intro, possibly more than once a week (I can't remember now if it aired every day or once a week) for several years, and do you think I thought I'd be writing about it 20 years later? Hah. Well, I was about 4, I probably didn't even know what writing was.

Anyway, so here, for posterity and nostalgia, is a bit of SA animation history.
You can find the theme song here.

Thanks to Jaco for capturing, and to Cubus for hosting this for me.

"Swim Away! Swim Away!"

Why, goodness me, what have we here?

It would appear that somewhere in the Big Book of Hollywood Rules there is a bit that says: "Underwater + sharks + animation = Huge success! Go make your own one! Now!"

Now, I haven't seen Shark Bait (The Reef) yet, (although others have) , and up until today I haven't even known about it, so I couldn't possibly comment on the story or animation, but just looking at the poster...well, it looks like a copy, really. I can forgive Shark Tale (2004); Dreamworks had already been working on it for a couple of years when Finding Nemo (2003) was released, although you hear rumours...but anyway.

However, I know the creators of Shark Bait/The Reef/Pi's Story/The Pearl at least knew about Nemo before they started on their version. Okay fine, so you're making an animated movie set under water.
No problem...not the most original concept, but acceptable. Now you work in a shark, a little orange orphaned fish and his love interest, and the concept starts going runny. Before you've even begun, you've come up with something that will inevitably be compared to and measured against the other two. Bad start right there. Already you look like you're just recycling someone else's story, and find yourself in the critics' firing line.

We've seen similar occurances before;
Antz(1998), Bug's Life(1998), Ant Bully(2006)...which were all different enough.
Madagascar(2005), The Wild(2006)...which was pretty blatant.
Shrek(2001 and 2004), Hoodwinked (2005), Happily N'Ever After (2007)...similar concept (the anti-fairytale).

I'm sure the list goes on.
My dad once worked with a guy who often said "Originality is the art of hiding your source." Hmm...enough said, I think.