Since this is making the rounds...

I figured it was worth commenting on:



Now the fact that animators take shortcuts should not be news to anyone who knows anything about the history of animation. Betty Boop shorts are nothing but cycles of animation repeated over and over. They, like Japanese animation, were often shot at under the recommended 24 fps rate (i.e., two or three shots of each frame, rather than one). Warner Bros. shorts, "The Simpsons"... the list of traditional animation sources that use techniques like this goes on and on.

In my book, re-using poses and angles is far less of a "cheat" (if that's what we consider this) than re-using whole animation clips, cutting the frame rate, or excessive use of cycles. I think that part of this may stem from the complexity of the movements that are in the animation shown in this clip, for one thing. Notice how much of the clip is made up of dancing. Dancing is a complicated thing to animate, and likely something that was rotoscoped (also an animation "cheat"). As the characters themselves, such as Snow White and Maid Marian, are too dissimilar to have been "traced" from one another, a likely explanation is that film footage was shot of live actors in the "Snow White" dance sequence, and then re-used as a reference point in "Robin Hood." It's also worth noting that most, if not all of the films shown were from the late 60s to early 70s period, already recognized as a period of artistic decline at Disney (and a period of cost-cutting techniques, such as Xeroxing cells).

Oh, and as for the similarity between Baloo of "Jungle Book" and Little John of "Robin Hood," it does bear mentioning that the two characters were voiced by the same actor, Phil Harris, which goes a long way towards explaining why the characters also look so similar.

Traditional animation is a horribly expensive art form when compared to live action or digital animation. Possibly the only thing more tedious and expensive would be claymation/stop motion animation (which also likely re-uses shots, movements etc. - Puppetoons, anyone?). If relying on prior films for reference is what is necessary to prompt studios to even consider even producing traditional animated films, then a little borrowing here and there is totally within the realm of respectability.