>>94933534The backgrounds in the new Rocko special are still real watercolor. That's fairly simple to do and then scan in to use with your digital compositing software.
What I'm referring to is the actual process of cel animation and traditional coloring - they manufacture neither the cels nor the colors anymore. Ed, Edd, n' Eddy stuck to the old methods for as long as possible but still had to switch in 2005 or so.
Keep in mind most shows traditionally animated in Korea are still drawn pencil-on-paper, hand-inked, and then scanned in. The traditional coloring is what gives old animation its softer, less sterile look, along with the fact that each cel was captured on film. The "wobble" comes from the film not staying aligned precisely in the camera's film gate, along with the cels being physically lined up with the background one at a time (which can lead to imperfections).
Rocko's new special is probably as close as you can get to replicating the look of those colors digitally, but you'd probably have to get a programmer to write some complicated software algorithms to emulate the other flaws that give old animation its more dynamic look. Some of the more recent Ben Jones directed series like Stone Quakers and Major Lazer try but it isn't believable.
TJM however is intentionally a different style, as Craig wants it to be accessible to new kid audiences and leave the door open to another season set in 6th grade if the movie does well. And the last couple seasons of the original run were colored digitally anyway.