The One Reason Animators Went Above And Beyond On Genndy Tartakovsky's Fixed [Exclusive]

Critical reception of animation legend Genndy Tartakovsky's filthy new feature, "Fixed," is decidedly mixed, but if there's one thing everyone agrees upon, it's that the 2D animation is truly phenomenal. Netflix has been having a hell of a year in its animation department, with "KPop Demon Hunters" becoming a chart-topping sensation and early buzz surrounding the upcoming release "In Your Dreams" proving that the streaming juggernaut has become a legitimate contender in the animation space. As the creator of groundbreaking series like "Dexter's Laboratory," "Samurai Jack," and his magnum opus, "Primal," Tartakovsky is the kind of creative who should be handed blank checks to do with whatever he pleases — even if it's a movie featuring talking dogs and roughly 100 jokes about testicles. When it comes to animation styles, he's truly done it all, and when it came to "Fixed," he knew the story needed a classic, familiar look.

As he told me during our interview for the /Film Weekly podcast, "The story demands a certain style of animation, right? And it just kind of calls out to me, and this style in particular is the style that I love the most." The animation of "Fixed" is reminiscent of the cartoons that made many people fall in love with the medium in the first place. "It's the one that connected with me a lot more than Disney or Don Bluth or anything," Genndy says. "It's this Tex Avery/Warner Brothers style without the big googly eyes." The style adds a fun bit of subversion to the film, juxtaposing vulgarity with a sense of nostalgic entertainment.

But it's not just the style of "Fixed" that's worth highlighting, but the execution. Even with a relatively low budget for an animated feature film, "Fixed" is animated on a level typically reserved for theatrical releases. According to Tartakovsky, the animators worked at that level because they were excited to. After years of only working in CGI animation or children's fare, the chance to work on something in 2D and for adults only made them more enthusiastic.

Genndy Tartakovsky said he had a list of people he liked and wanted to work on the movie, and that he wound up hiring about 80% of that list. "I never thought we would get it to this level because we're pretty low budget [...] but then all of a sudden they started animating it, like at a theatrical level, and then they started to see each other's scenes and they started to one-up each other," Tartakovsky says. "And they're like, 'Oh wow, that person's doing that [so] I'm gonna push myself harder to do this even better,' and then all of a sudden, we got this incredible quality of animation. It enhanced the humor, it gave this incredible classic nostalgic style but with this contemporary storytelling and subject matter, it made it something very unique."

And it isn't just that 2D animation has become increasingly rare in the feature film landscape. Despite the fact that animation is not just for children, family-friendly fare certainly has a stranglehold on the medium. Meaning, the majority of animators are spending most of their days animating children's entertainment (a necessity, for the record!). Getting the opportunity to work on something for adults, even if it means animating dogs doing it "human-style," was met with eager excitement. "They were like, an animator from 'Roger Rabbit,' and ex-Disney animators, and they just exploded because they never are able to work on this kind of subject matter," Tartakovsky says. "So they were like, 'Whoa, I can get to do this,' and they just went for it."

And went for it, they did, and you can see the results in "Fixed," now streaming on Netflix. To hear our full interview with Genndy Tartakovsky, check out the latest episode of /Film Weekly: