An ode to Genndy Tartakovsky

I was going to write a lengthy essay on how Genndy Tartakovsky’s (creator of Dexter’s Laboratory, The Powerpuff Girls, Samurai Jack and Star Wars: Clone Wars) imagination and love of brickolages makes him a real inspiration. He’s made cartoons more cinematic, poignant, funny and entertaining than I thought possible, blah, blah, gush, gush. Anything I write amusing, insightful, fanboyish or otherwise will only distract from this man’s genius. I wouldn’t do it justice, well, not judicial justice.

Instead it’s an ode the Tube way:

The Powerpuff Girls are unlikely heroes. Their accidental creation at the hands of Professor Utonium through a concoction of sugar, spice, everything nice and Chemical X is what makes them pocket sized punchers. They constantly have to ‘save the day,’ sometimes against the green super chimp, Mojo Jojo, the yokel with a death ray, Fuzzy Lumpkins and the nefarious cross dressing devil, HIM.




Tartakovsky’s use of sound, light and colour:



Three blind jackals guard a wishing well. Despite being blind the jackals have an acute sense of hearing with deadly bows to match. Jack realises he can’t defeat them with all his senses intact so he blindfolds himself to gain the same sensory advantage. Once blindfolded the screen turns black and you are treated to flashes of a foot fall crunching against the snow or a whirling noise as one of the arrows passes overhead. This all combines to convey Jack’s heightened sense of hearing in a remarkable way.



Tartakovsky always manages to weave new and old, mythology and technology into all of his works:




Tartakovsky never fails to inject some humour: