On a site called Hollywood Animation Archive, I found this description by Stephen Worth about how the writers and artists of classic cartoons worked:
“The idea for a cartoon would start with a simple premise- a sentence or two that described the general theme of the cartoon. For example... "Porky is a bullfighter." or "Mickey, Donald and Goofy are ghost exterminators." In the premise there would be no real attempt at describing a plot, just a simple statement of a situation that might offer entertaining possibilities.
Once the premise was chosen, a group of artists would be called together for an initial gag session to come up with ideas. At Warner Bros, this meeting was referred to as a "No No Session", which meant that no one was allowed to say "no" to an idea- any suggestion was fair game. At this stage, the gags were generally isolated variations on the basic theme of the premise, with no attempt to put them into any sort of continuity or plot. The goal was to come up with funny situations that could be expanded upon and reworked into something more specific further down the line.
The artists would sit with pads and pencils or lap boards, jotting down notes and doodling up thumbnail sketches of what the ideas might look like. The sketches might be pinned up on a cork board so the other artists could work gags off if it. One person would be responsible for taking notes for the group, so after the meeting was over, the story man could go back and refresh his memory of a specific gag. As the doodles and notes piled up, certain themes would form, gags would lead to follow up gags and build to "topper gags". A continuity would begin to take shape."
This is a great example of the basic principles of brainstorming:
* Start with a premise - something to brainstorm about
* No negativity allowed (whether it’s a group or just you doing the brainstorming)
* Small ideas are fine—there’s no need for them to make sense or fit together yet
* It's fine to add to or piggyback onto other ideas
* Write down everything
Hey, if it worked for Porky, it can work for us!
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