Continuing my post about the Toon Patrol's long snouts I have more ideas about why they have very short nubby tails.
I'm not gonna attempt to be a weasel expert because I'm not but from all the irl photos I've seen online— none of their tails are as short as the ones the toon patrol have which I always thought was a weird decision (though to be honest I didn't even notice it at first).
I don't think it's an issue of it looking weird or even inappropriate drawn between their legs from behind because essentially all tailed characters from other media have theirs shown on the side of their leg or sticking upwards for a clearer silhouette, for example if you look up Timon from The Lion King, Buck from Ice Age and titular I Am Weasel— etcetera etcetera anyone with a tail it's almost never drawn between the legs besides certain angles and poses like jumping or fear.
And with the kind of movie WFRR is anyways I can't see them caring about it looking like a third leg regardless lol.
My main theory is just that it made animating faster, it's one less thing they would've had to draw in every frame. And when they do have to draw it it's just a simple small curved line, instead of something longer where you need to put more attention into getting it to look right and also moving around with the character, and then doing all of that FIVE seperate times for each weasel.
Not to mention if they all had unique tails of different lengths or fluffiness like how they have different snout shapes and coat patterns/colours.
I guess you could propose maybe they saw the patrol as a specific kind of irl weasel with a shorter tail but it looked weird for their silhouette like it wasn't visually clear enough, but if it was longer then it'd take more time animating it so they just exaggerated the shortness to a nub and called it a day. And MAYBE? it's to make them look more human/serious too? But that might be reaching too much I think they just cut it for budget like how there was meant to be 7 of them but cut it to 5 for (I presume) the same reason.
(I don't remember if there are other examples of them doing things like that with other characters in the movie I just look at the weasels and no one else so🤓)
My personal in-universe theory is that they're docked like how fighting dog's tails are, whether intentionally to look more intimidating or they all somehow had the same accident I can see either. I guess if it was intentionally done it'd serve a practical purpose too because then their tails can't get tugged or caught on anything when they're fighting.
I also think cut tails as a reference to amputation punishments in gangs would be interesting but honestly mostly funny to me because they're so silly looking I can't take that idea seriously hehehehhe.
Anyways after reading these 2 posts you could say "why would they do that but make their snouts longer that'd also take more time animating over short muzzles, they could've made their clothes simpler instead too." Those are good questions! but they can be easily explained with prioritisation.
I obviously don't have the answer to every or any creative decision they made because I haven't looked it up tbh, but I believe those things mentioned above are simply what the creators wanted to focus on for them, they didn't find the tails necessary to them so they sacrificed it to focus on making what's important look better🤷♂️ which they decided was their face and clothes.
After fixating on the toon patrol I've been wondering (like many other people) why they have such long snouts because irl weasels have shorter muzzles so here are my personal theories from the design side of it:
-Through the lense of western beauty standards and how we're taught art based off that, small noses/snouts generally give characters a more youthful— and by extension an attractive and likeable face. Whether thats to look cuter on a young character or more beautiful for a female character etc. Making it smaller also accentuates the size of the eyes adding to the effect.
Characters that aren't meant to be likeable or nice are usually designed to prioritise expressiveness over attractiveness. To make them more "ugly" and/or funny looking. So for the weasels: giving them longer snouts = a bigger mouth = more expression = they look more "evil" because they're uglier. Makes me wonder how much racism has to do with it.
-Making them longer compliments their already long noodly body, shape language is crucial to character design!
We are taught through depictions of animals like these and others like snakes— that slender, bendy figures aren't trustworthy. Mainly because of how they use their bodies to slip into chicken coops among other reasons, so they exaggerate that concept visually.
-For the Toon Patrol specifically at least, the Fandom Wiki says they were Inspired by the weasels from Disney's The Wind in the Willows, which also have those long snouts. So sometimes its just a matter of it getting copied and sticking, thinking of it like "people recognise the way they're drawn here as weasels, and i need mine to be easily recognisable too so I'll draw them the same way (Plus we need it to be Disney looking for the movie)." Then the next person comes along thinking the same thing and so on.
After writing this i found this article about it that explains the history of the weasel's reputation in detail, and brings up some ideas i hadn't thought of yet. i recommend you check it out if you wanna know more.
My next post will be dedicated to questioning why they have such tiny nub tails! i still don't get that yet!
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