Lauren MacMullan is worth watching for the way she turns animation technique into comedy. We like her visual invention, though the slapstick in Get a Horse can feel dated.
Fi1m perspective
Hand-drawn animation and CGI share the comic work in Get a Horse (2013). We laughed at its visual gags because the changes of style become part of the joke, rather than an invitation to admire the technology. The slapstick can feel dated, but the timing is sharp. It is a useful introduction to a director whose work also includes design and storyboarding.
The Critic in 1994–1995 and King of the Hill in 1998 gave her early directing work in primetime animation. On Mission Hill (1999), she became supervising director and designer, helping to establish the series’ visual style. Those combined responsibilities offer a clearer indication of her contribution than a directing credit alone. Drawing has remained part of her work alongside directing, and the short makes that combination worth paying attention to.
Our enthusiasm for The Simpsons (1989) rests on the way its merciless jokes leave room for tenderness towards the people making fools of themselves. MacMullan directed seven episodes across three seasons from 2001 to 2004, but we would not assign the programme’s achievements to any one of its directors. It is worth making that distinction without dismissing the skill involved in contributing to an established series. We recommend it warmly, without making a duty of watching every episode, and without pretending that our affection for the whole settles the question of her individual contribution.
Her work then broadened beyond television comedy: she directed ten episodes of Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005), also storyboarding, before serving as a sequence director on the 2007 film adaptation of The Simpsons. Storyboarding on Wreck-It Ralph (2012), Zootopia (2016) and Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018) kept her involved in shaping feature animation; director Rich Moore is among her collaborators. These credits establish how much of her work happens before the finished animation reaches the screen, though they cannot tell us which choices were hers. Start with the short, particularly if old-fashioned slapstick still makes you laugh.
Biography
Lauren Hunter MacMullan (born 30 April 1964) is an American animation director. She grew up in the Pennsylvania suburbs of Havertown, Lansdowne and Swarthmore, graduated from Swarthmore High School in 1982, and attended Harvard University, where she worked on the staff of the Harvard Lampoon.
Her first prime-time directing work was on The Critic. She went on to direct episodes of King of the Hill and served as supervising director and designer on Mission Hill. She directed seven episodes of The Simpsons between 2001 and 2004, and several episodes of Avatar: The Last Airbender, for which she won an Annie Award for storyboarding. She was also sequence director on The Simpsons Movie (2007).
MacMullan later joined Walt Disney Animation Studios, where she worked as a storyboard artist on Wreck-It Ralph (2012), Zootopia (2016) and Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018). She directed the 2013 short Get a Horse!.
