He is a curious little pointy-headed fellow from the sun, come here to Earth (specifically Minnesota) to hang out with his pet eel, the dragon who lives in his fireplace, and a flightless pterodactyl with a keen fashion sense. On a more prosaic level, he's the creation of musician/illustrator Morgan Taylor, based in Brooklyn here in New York City. Taylor came up with the concept in 2005 as a means to create narrative-based multimedia experiences for his live concerts. In these performances he sings and plays with the animation projected up on a screen, giving the kids multiple avenues to get into Gustafer's world (and live music!). Gustafer has since released three CD/DVD compilations: Gustafer Yellowgold's Wide Wild World, Gustafer Yellowgold's Have You Never Been Mellow?, and this year's Gustafer Yellowgold's Mellow Fever. There is a theme running through the titles, as these little films--essentially music videos--and the accompanying tunes are certainly mellow. The quality of the artwork and the musicianship is high, reflecting what I believe to be a general upward trend in the children's music industry, yet it's among the products that aim to let kids sit back and chill more than hop up and dance.
Here's what a recent publicity release said about Taylor and Gustafer, including blurbs from several major-market publications:
"Named “Best Kids’ Performer 2008” by New York Magazine, Morgan Taylor developed the Gustafer Yellowgold experience as equal parts pop rock concert and minimally animated movie. A natural storyteller with a comedic bent, Taylor has dreamed up a whole world of catchy and original story-songs about Gustafer (a friendly creature who came to Earth from the sun), performed alongside a large screen displaying vividly colored animations with karaoke-style subtitles. Gustafer lives out an explorer’s life in a slightly psychedelic version of the Minnesota woods, where he resides in a cottage with his menagerie of friends, including a pet eel, a tuxedo-wearing pterodactyl, and a dragon named Asparagus who inhabits the fireplace and loves corn on the cob. For recreation, Gustafer enjoys jumping on cake.
"Since his creation in 2005, Gustafer Yellowgold has become an international phenomenon, praised by Newsweek as “full of great pop tunes and hand-drawn animation about a li’l fella from the sun.” The Los Angeles Times enthused, "Taylor’s whimsical, lightly psychedelic world forms an interesting bridge between adult and kids’ music.” The Washington Post declared, “He’s a star on stage and screen! … The mix of catchy tunes and offbeat stories has endeared Taylor, and Gustafer, to teenagers as well.” The Chicago Tribune wrote, “Gustafer Yellowgold has made kids’ music so cool that teenagers and ultra-hip bands such as Wilco want to get in on the act … a shiny blend of pop art and pop tunes.” Parenting magazine called Gustafer “The coolest little space invader since E.T. … a hip and trippy sunsation. Parental warning: You, too, will become hooked on the tunes.”"
"Since his creation in 2005, Gustafer Yellowgold has become an international phenomenon, praised by Newsweek as “full of great pop tunes and hand-drawn animation about a li’l fella from the sun.” The Los Angeles Times enthused, "Taylor’s whimsical, lightly psychedelic world forms an interesting bridge between adult and kids’ music.” The Washington Post declared, “He’s a star on stage and screen! … The mix of catchy tunes and offbeat stories has endeared Taylor, and Gustafer, to teenagers as well.” The Chicago Tribune wrote, “Gustafer Yellowgold has made kids’ music so cool that teenagers and ultra-hip bands such as Wilco want to get in on the act … a shiny blend of pop art and pop tunes.” Parenting magazine called Gustafer “The coolest little space invader since E.T. … a hip and trippy sunsation. Parental warning: You, too, will become hooked on the tunes.”"
As I recently watched through the three DVDs I could definitely see where such enthusiasm was coming from, relating back to the mellowness. As I've said before about other products, it's nice to turn down the volume sometimes (a lot of the time, actually) and let kids be quiet and even pensive. Here's a YouTube example of one of Gustafer's exploits. It's one of my favorites, the lead number from the new DVD, "Getting in a Treetop":
In terms of the music, you can hear how Taylor uses a high vocal register, acoustic instruments, and a light touch to create the "mellow" world of Gustafer (although this is one of the most upbeat numbers). It's not so laid back as to avoid a drum set, but it is sufficiently calm that most parents won't freak out if kids want to listen to it again and again--in fact, the property's crossover appeal to adults is one of its key selling points.
You can also see the limited 2D animation at work: this is the visual feel of all the videos. The quality of illustration is fantastic and the karaoke-like frame that allows for the stylish presentation of subtitles is beneficial for literate viewers who want to sing along. For the most part the limited animation (probably done on Flash or AfterEffects--I have no eye for that kind of thing) works well, melding with the light music, although after a while it does start to feel incomplete, like watching an animatic rather than a completed cartoon (compare it with the less-detailed rendering but very rich atmosphere of the Brian Vogan video I posted a few days ago). It's probably as much a budgetary decision as an artistic one, but I found myself hoping that Gustafer will actually move at 30 or even 15 frames per second in the near future, which could be fairly easily done with Flash.
So if the music is hummable and able to stand up to adult music and the visuals are well drawn and adequately rendered, where does Gustafer fall short? Most obviously in the lyrics and the overall tone of the videos. Things in his world are certainly mellow, but at times--quite frequently, actually--the tone slips across the line from the mellow to the morose. There is simply an inordinate amount of sadness, ennui, longing, and unfulfilled desires here. When I first got the DVDs i started watching Mellow Fever with Loretta, who is over 5 1/2 and therefore well within the target demographic. She enjoyed the upbeat theme song and the treetop song shown above, but the third number, "Sunpod," had a different effect. It shows how Gustafer chose to come from the sun to the earth and how his space pod breaks up on entering the atmosphere, preventing him from ever returning home. He's crying when he leaves, his family is crying too, and he's still crying when the song ends with him on earth--thus it should not have been surprising that Loretta was crying also. It was bedtime so in an effort to quickly cheer her up, show her that Gustafer likes his new home, I skipped through to some other songs with happy-sounding names, but I found nothing less disconsolate than that number. I remember getting only partway through "Sugar Boat," about a ferret who has a long-distance obsession with Gustafer (with strong inferences of homosexuality that Loretta fortunately missed) before Loretta was sobbing inconsolably: it was hard to get her to bed and she woke up three times that night in tears, having bad dreams. (And that's where I see the real connection to E.T., a film at which I cried my eyes out in the theater.) There is of course the complete possibility that my child is abnormally sensitive or that it was just a bad time of night to show this to her or that the vibe is completely different in a live performance, but as I went back through the other DVDs and started counting how many times a character was crying versus how many times a character was happy, the balance weighed strongly towards the former, even when it doesn't make any narrative sense, such as when a bee puts together a rock band (something that should be happy). Gustafer may be the only children's cartoon character seen reclining on a psychoanalyst's couch.
So that in a nutshell is where the concept seems to have steered off course. Children have to learn to deal with sadness, death, separation, and unfulfilled desires--it's part of maturation and is absolutely healthy. But they shouldn't be made to wallow in it song after song after song. It is definitely possible to have mellow music and mellow characters who also smile: Mr. Rogers is the epitome of this, and Blue's Clues brought quietness into the new millennium. I really have affection for Gustafer: I like the character, if not all the sidekicks, and I really like the music. I hope, therefore, that Taylor is able to add a sense of joy, or even fun or comedy, into the next edition. That's where a band like Milkshake excels, and Taylor doesn't have to mimic their sound sonically to capture that feeling in the lyrics. (I'm no musical expert, but the Mamas and the Papas are the first example that spring to mind of a group with a bit of that folksy feel--not pure folk like Peter, Paul, and Mary--that still maintain a sense of forward progression and optimism, while staying generally mellow.)
There is humor, particularly in the visuals. The characters are so outlandish that it's quite comical to look at them in different situations and outfits, even if the visual references to Titanic and other such material are lost on kids. And the new DVD has a very funny live-action pseudo-documentary about the actual existence of a Gustafer-like creature out in the Minnesota woods: the visual reference to the famous Sasquatch home movie is spot on, with just the right posture, gait, and turn of the head. Brilliant.
I'd also like to make a quick comment about the quote from the New York Times on the front of all three DVDs, which is a comparison of "Dr. Seuss meets 'Yellow Submarine'!" At first I thought this quite apt, especially from the tranquility of the drawings (Seuss) combined with some of the outlandish zaniness like a pterodactyl in a tuxedo (Submarine). After watching a bit though I've modified the analogy. Dr. Seuss, after all, had more than a little zing in him: his creations were frequently more strikingly original than the Blue Meanies, and he could be acerbic in his films and adult material. I definitely think that UPA's Gerald McBoing-Boing (1950), a Seuss creation, was a necessary step to get to George Dunning and Yellow Submarine in 1968. Not to harp too much on the minutiae of animation history, but rather than comparing Gustafer to Dunning's masterpiece (which with The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is one of my favorite musicals ever), it could be more apt to reference Sylvain Chomet and Belleville Rendezvous/The Triplets of Belleville. I say that just because of the strange mixture of optimism and pessimism in the film; I remember Chomet saying lots of people kept telling him to clean it up, take out the grotesque and offensive bits (like the Mickey Mouse-shaped feces floating in a toilet) and he said that those people just didn't understand the film he was making. So that can be likened to my suggesting that Gustafer be made brighter and happier to appeal more to preschoolers: it may just be that I haven't grasped the kind of product that Taylor is striving to make.
Still, in summary I must maintain that Gustafer has major thematic problems--especially for children that young--but still a lot to offer, particularly for parents whose kids take to the melancholy moments of life better than my daughter. The music and visuals are great, but for my taste the sheer volume of tears makes it a bit of a drag and parents should go in with their heads up. For those in New York City for whom this is not a problem or who already love Gustafer please be aware of a special performance on November 15 at the Jewish Museum on the Upper East Side. It will have a larger-than-usual ensemble with lots of material from the new album/disc. Information is available on the museum website.
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