Chapter 1: The Baby Steps of AnimationWhen you watch an old cartoon like Looney Tunes, do you ever wonder where or when it came from? Welcome to a series of articles that detail the history of animation. I am Isaac J. Espensen, and my specialty is the history of obscure things, like animation. The first article will span the years of 1899 to 1929, also known as the Early Years.
A cartoon called “Fantasmagoria,” by Emil Cohle, was the very first known animated footage. It used chalkboard drawings to tell the story of a constantly changing person. It only lasted a couple of minutes, but to the people of the day, it was revolutionary. Another early classic character was Felix the Cat, created by Otto Messmer. Felix was black and white, walked on two legs and found himself in precarious situations. Although his origin is debated, he is one of the best beloved cartoon characters of any generation. And we cannot forget Winsor McCay and his “Gertie the Dinosaur” – an inspiration for writing this article. It was the first cartoon to have some soul, to be really playful.
One of the major developments in current cartooning techniques can be traced back to this era. David and Max Fleischer were two brothers who opened the Fleischer Studios in 1914 in the Bronx, New York. They were known for creating the flirty Betty Boop, and invented and patented the Rotoscope. A Rotoscope, according to the dictionary, is the tracing of a live action actor playing an animated character. The tracing is used in the making of the cartoon to get human movement. An early example is Fleischer’s take on a classic book, “Snow White.” In one scene, Cab Calloway, the legendary blues singer, sings “Saint James Infirmary Blues” as they are rolling the casket of Betty Boop into a cave. They used a tracing of Cab’s movements in such a sophisticated way that the cartoon ghost felt and moved very realistically.
“Plane Crazy,” by Walt Disney (who will be discussed in a separate article), was a groundbreaking cartoon because of POV – Point Of View – it puts the viewer into the cartoon as if seeing through a character’s eyes. In this cartoon, in which Mickey imitated Charles Lindbergh flying a plane, the viewer saw the plane crash through Mickey’s eyes. This cartoon was also famous for being the first Mickey Mouse cartoon, and the first cartoon with sound. As Walt Disney always said, “It all started with a mouse.”
Chapter 2
The Beginning of the Golden Age of Cartooning
Hello all you happy people. I’m going to tell you a story about Walt Disney. It all started with….. a rabbit!? His name was Oswald. He was mischievous and he was possibly modeled off of W.C. Fields, a comic and actor of the 1920s and 30s. In “Trolley Troubles,” Oswald tries to keep hundreds of baby rabbits in the trolley while driving it through the country. He encounters a cow on the tracks and has trouble moving her off the tracks. Through the miracle of Disney animation, he shrinks the trolley down to go under the cow. Later, he encounters a goat who first rams into him on the tracks, then helps push the trolley up with a stick attached to him.
Well, it also started with….a mouse. You probably know that. “Steamboat Willie” was the first synchronized sound cartoon. It introduced one of the most beloved characters in animation history and in American pop culture – Mickey Mouse. The date of the cartoon’s release, November 18th, 1928, is considered Mickey Mouse’s birth date. He may look young, but that makes him 82 years old! Boy, how does he keep his energy up?! The cartoon pioneered what is known as Mickey’s original look, with overalls. Later, in the 1940s, he was drawn with the famed white gloves, red shorts with yellow buttons, no shirt and of course two slightly bigger ears. In “Steamboat Willie,” Mickey played a cow, pigs, a cat, a duck and a variety of pots and pans to the tune of “Turkey in the Straw,” also known as “Do your ears hang low.” This cartoon also introduced Pete, Goofy’s future nemesis, but I’ll tell that story later.
In 1929, the very first Silly Symphony called the “Skeleton Dance” was released. It was in black and white and there was no dialogue; it was very visually oriented. In the cartoon, which is rumored to be Halloween night, skeletons come out of their graves and dance to music until the rooster crows, and then they scramble back into the grave.
In 1932, Disney was approached by Technicolor to revamp the newly drawn, black and white version of “Flowers and Trees” with three-strip Technicolor, which used red, blue and yellow to get the whole spectrum of color. This cartoon told the story of two trees who fall in love and marry after surviving a near-devastating forest fire set by a bad, old dead tree. Technicolor is a very complex process and very difficult to explain, but it was used in making the movie based on a book by L. Frank Baum…can you guess what that was? Think…“Somewhere, over the rainbow…” Now you got it! In the animation department, Disney had exclusive rights to the 3-strip process, which unfortunately shut out Universal, MGM and other studios mentioned. It was not until 1936 that these companies started making color cartoons.
In 1933, the Silly Symphony “The Three Little Pigs” was released. What was important about this cartoon was that it featured character development. The big bad wolf represented the dangers of the collapse of the stock market. The 3 pigs represented practicality, hard work and invention. This was important because America was going through the Great Depression, and the cartoon gave them the hope that we would get out of it with those three traits.
I’d like to mention another famous character now – think a navy blue suit, white feathers, an ill temper, but hospitable, impulsive, a good heart and good intentions that always blew up in his face (really, Walt, were you thinking of me when you did this?), and he speaks a little “quacky.” I bet you can guess who I act like – Donald Duck! He first appeared in Disney’s Silly Symphonies, in a 1934 cartoon called “The Wise Little Hen.” Three years later, his girlfriend appeared. Daisy Duck, whose real name is Donna Duck, has some of the same personality qualities – she is coy, sexy, and can be very ill tempered, like Donald.
Finally, we can never forget the very first feature film ever created. Her name was Snow White.
Chapter Three
Animation in its Golden Age
1933 to 1969
This article is about the Golden Age of animation, 1933 to 1969. Why do we call this the Golden Age of cartooning? There was so much talent among animators and so much money during those years; studio budgets for animation were nearly unlimited. The four big studios that I’ll mention here are now powerhouses, but back then, they were just starting. These include the loony Warner Brothers, the calm, sensible Mickey and crew at Disney, the up and coming team of Hanna and Barbera (part of MGM at the time), and flying in last is the super Fleischer Studios.
In 1937, Disney decided to create the world’s first feature-length animated film. I’m not dropping any hints here – you should know that it was “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.” It was a hit, and it got them back all the money they had invested in it and then some.
In 1939, a last gasp for the Fleischers – a young, up and coming publishing company called National Periodical Publishers released “Superman” in comic book form, and was offered to turn it into a cartoon. We now know this company as DC Entertainment – but more on this later. Superman, in his early form, was only able to leap over tall buildings, not fly. It was not until the cartoons that he was able to fly, and that he was given x-ray vision. Fleischer studios used the rotoscoping technique again, the tracing of live action footage to draw the movements of the character.
The groundbreaking films of 1940 to 1942 were Pinocchio, Bambi, Dumbo and Fantasia. One of my personal favorites, because of the classical music and the great animated sequences, is Fantasia. One of the segments, Night on Bald Mountain, is one of Disney’s darkest pieces of animation. Haunting figures of the occult, including goblins, skeletons, harpies and the evil demon Chernabog, menace and scare the audience to the music of Mussorgsky, until the church bell rings near dawn. Fantasia was a feature-length film but it flopped in the box office, mainly due to the war. It was not until many years later that it achieved the great status of “classic.”
December 7, 1941 – a date that lives in infamy for Americans. Our involvement in World War II began with the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The ripple effect changed the landscape of animation again. In 1942, a young boy by the name of Osamu Tezuka began (by force) drawing war cartoons for the Nazis. Little did we know that in the 1960s he would create the Japanese Mickey Mouse, AstroBoy. But more about that in another article. In the 1940s, support for the war was widespread in America. One studio, Disney, created a full length animated/live action film about the use of air power in the war. It was called “Victory Through Air Power.” This film was shown to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and also to Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Disney created another film entitled “Education for Death: the Making of a Nazi” to educate Americans on the evils of Nazism. It is one of the darkest pieces of animation ever made, not only for its shocking depictions of Nazi cruelty but its grim ending. The main character, Hans, grows up within the Nazi regime, cruel, cold and emotionless, only to die for the Nazi cause. Although “Victory for Air Power” and “Education for Death” were not commercially available after 1945, they were reissued recently in 2000 in a DVD set to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Disney Studios’ formation.
Warner Brothers, with the help of Disney, created “Private Snafu,” a cartoon series about an irresponsible soldier who does everything wrong. For example, in “Spies,” Snafu accidently leaked classified information to the Germans and Japanese, which resulted in him being blown sky high! The purpose of the cartoon series was to educate people on what NOT to do during the war...as was commonly said back then, and now, “loose lips sink ships!” Oddly enough, one of the writers for the series was Theodore Geisel, otherwise known as….Dr. Seuss! The name “Snafu” is an acronym for “Situation Normal All Fouled Up,” an acronym still used in the military today, with a word that is a bit more “colorful” in place of the word, “fouled.”
“Falling Hare” was another cartoon by Warner Brothers. It introduced a gremlin, which was originally drawn in the Disney Studios for a film that was never released. In this cartoon, Bugs Bunny tried to stop this gremlin from blowing up a missile with a sledgehammer. Bugs also took a crack at it until he stopped in mid-swing and said, “WHAT AM I DOING!!??” The end of the cartoon is ironic – the plane Bugs and the gremlin were on is in a literal nose-dive, but just before it hits the ground, it sputters and comes to a quick stop. The gremlin said, “Sorry, folks, ran out of gas,” and Bugs points to the A-card, and says, “You know how it is with those A-cards,” referring to the rationing of gas at the time.
In the late 1930s and into the 40s, the company Terry Toons, whose cartoons were distributed through what is now known as Viacom, produced the classic Mighty Mouse set, which introduced us to the legendary and infamous theme song, “Here I come to save the day.” Mighty Mouse was originally drawn by Isadore Klein as a fly! Paul Terry, owner of Terry Toons, redrew the character as a mouse. The voice behind Mighty Mouse was originally an opera singer; this cartoon series was the first to use singing in the story line. The character was reinterpreted twice after that, in a way that was important to later animation, but we will mention that later.
Unfortunately, theaters would have new competition in the 1950s. Television.
In the early 1950s - KABOOM! – television dropped like an atomic bomb on the entire film industry. People started watching television instead of going to the movies. The film industry responded by giving the rights to many cartoons to television companies, and by creating six- to seven-minute cartoons instead of feature length cartoons.
“Here I come to save the day!” Mighty Mouse once again did the unthinkable – actually, it was his creator Paul Terry. He retired from the business after he sold the entire Terry Toons company and its library of cartoons to CBS. Mighty Mouse was the first cartoon to be seen on television. Warner’s created the Bugs Bunny Show for television using old Looney Tunes cartoons and a new opening animated sequence. Do you remember the opening song? C’mon, sing it with me!
"Overture, curtain, lights!
This is it. The night of nights.
No more rehearsing or nursing a part.
We know every part by heart!
Overture, curtain, lights!
This is it. We'll hit the heights!
And oh, what heights we'll hit!
On with the show, this is it!
Tonight what heights we'll hit!
On with the show, this is it!" © Warner Brothers
This show eventually became the Bugs Bunny Road Runner Show. Disney tried its hand in TV animation with the character Ludwig Von Drake, which I will talk about later, but it’s obvious that Disney was afraid of television animation – he thought it would not meet his production standards (Oh Disney, wait until Michael Eisner arrives in the 1980s!).
In 1953, a new idea in filmmaking happened - 3-D. Wearing special red and blue glasses, a film called “Lumberjack Rabbit,” directed by Chuck Jones, was illustrated to appear in three dimensions, popping right out at you. 3-D may seem common to all of us now, but back then, when your grand-pappy was young, it was revolutionary! This was the only cartoon short to ever be produced in 3-D.
Meanwhile, in Japan, a comic artist named Osamu Tezuka hit the scene. In 1950, he created “Shintakarajima”, known to us as the “New Treasure Island.” It was the first comic book series that gave more humanistic characteristics to the animated animals. In 1963, Osamu created one of the greatest characters in animation - Tetsuwan Atomu, known to us as Astro Boy. In the comic, Astro Boy was created by Dr. Tenma, with an atomic heart of gold and super strength. He was unfortunately abandoned and eventually sold to the circus. However, he was discovered there by Dr. Elfun, who convinced him to help people and fight for good, much like our beloved Superman. Although his style was similar to Disney as well as French and German cinema, he drew his characters with big eyes and a lot of emotion. This earned him the respect of his peers and he was named the Father of Manga and Anime. In 1966, Tatsunoko Production Co., Ltd. produced “Mach Go Go Go Go”, otherwise known as “Speed Racer.” It was the first dubbed anime. The lead character was voiced by Peter Fernandez. Sadly, he passed away just a few months ago of lung cancer and will be greatly and sorely missed.
In the late 1940s, America was under the second “red scare” – fear of communism. There was a small U.S. version of the party in Hollywood, and unfortunately, it was growing. This caused a controversy in the government and they took action through former Sen. Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin. Before that, Walt Disney had fired the first shots at the animation industry by bringing charges of communist affiliation against Mr. Mortimer William Pomerance, the executive at TEMPO Studios, who was a rival and former animator with Disney. Other animators also lost their jobs, including Bill Melendez, future animator of “Charlie Brown.” Fortunately, a judge finally stood up to Mr. McCarthy in 1957, and said the words that still echo today in many minds, “Have you no sense of decency, Mr. McCarthy?!” The blacklist was killed, and some people who had been accused of communism were able to slowly find work again.
In 1959, Disney financed and distributed Sleeping Beauty, the first feature film to use a new format called 70 mm. Up to this point; films were released in 35 mm format. Unfortunately, Sleeping Beauty flopped because most distributors and theaters could not technically support the larger format. Also, television continued to run circles around theaters, like an unruly child. As Disney’s profits plummeted, it had to take two loans to save itself from bankruptcy. In the end, Disney had to give in and produce film for television. Disney successfully created “The Wonderful World of Disney” to redistribute its cartoons and films on television. This show ran through 1996 and then from 1999 to 2001.
Another company may be quite familiar to you – Hanna Barbera. They started in 1959, while under contract with Screen Gems (Columbia Pictures), with “Ruff and Reddy,” a dog and cat buddy show. You may know Hanna Barbera for this particular show: “Hey Boo Boo! Let’s get some pick-a-nick baskets!” Uh-oh, better hide my lunch quick! Of course, this was the brazenly funny Yogi Bear, who was always getting into trouble with Ranger “Yogi!” Smith as he stole picnic baskets from innocent people in Jellystone Park. Hey, where did my lunch go?? Yogi!!!
In 1961, the first animated sit-com was born…its birth wail was, “Yabba Dabba Doooo!” That’s right, I’m mentioning “The Flintstones” here. Without this show, we would not have had the Jetsons and the Simpsons, and so many others. Although targeted to kids, The Flintstones appealed to adults because of its use of sophisticated humor and the fact that it was modeled after a popular sitcom of the 50s era called “The Honeymooners.” It was the first show to use the Xeroxing process, a complicated process that involved copying illustrated cells to use over and over, which saved money and increased profits for Hanna Barbera. Eventually, the company would switch gears to more action-oriented cartoons, such as “Inhumanoids” with character designs drawn by comic book artist Alex Toth. This bombed, but later became a cult classic.
In 1960, Alex Anderson (RIP) and Jay Ward created one of the most popular cartoons of that time, featuring a brilliant flying squirrel and a dim-witted moose. The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show! Rocky and Bullwinkle were thought to be spies and they always got themselves involved in protecting things like secret formulas from the Russians, Natasha Fatale and Boris Badinoff. The cartoon was funny and cynical and introduced another four well-known characters: Dudley Do-right of the Mounties, Mr. Peabody and his student Sherman, and the fractured fairy, who always introduced the Fractured Fairytales in the middle of the cartoon. Here’s a biting quote from the show:
Rocky: For all of you who want to be tigers in the field of journalism, here's Mr. Know-It-All.
Bullwinkle: Hello, copycats. Rocky: Bullwinkle, you’re not the best journalist and you need a good degree in it to interview this rock and roll of film(Get The Joke? Rock and Roll!)
Bullwinkle: Hello, copycats. Rocky: Bullwinkle, you’re not the best journalist and you need a good degree in it to interview this rock and roll of film(Get The Joke? Rock and Roll!)
In 1961, Disney came back stronger with “101 Dalmatians.” It was based on the book written by Bill Peet. In my opinion, this was the last original Disney animated feature. Starting with the Jungle Book in 1963, there was a new team of Disney illustrators, including a future animation director by the name of Don Bluth, who would later work with many other artists to create famous works that we will talk about later. But in 1963, after the Jungle Book, Disney tried to repeat their earlier successes but failed, and other studios tried to take over Disney – these were the dark times for Disney and for animation in general – the end of the Golden Age was at hand.
In 1969, one of the greatest comedy shows of all times was aired on BBC. This was “Monty Python’s Flying Circus.” What made it so different was the quality of the animation. Terry Gilliam, the animation director, pioneered the use of cut-outs of pictures of real people, things and illustrations of naked women.. and a dead parrot.
The nail in the coffin that ended American animation’s Golden Age was Japan’s output of new animators and a new style of animation. This was the beginning of anime, and its impact on the future of animation was stunning.
Chapter 4 of Mice and of Mecha or the years of bad humor
The artists of old, such as those working at Disney, were the guardians of a golden age. They brought prosperity to the animation studios and with it hope of a generation of viewers. Unfortunately, this era ended way too soon – before the dark times, before the Japanese empire (sorry, George Lucas he-heh). In my opinion, Japanese anime surpassed American animation in terms of story and visual design. However, New York had one last unsung hero of animation – Ralph Bakshi.
It was 1971, the beginning of the end, that a young, intrepid animator and former TerryToons artist by the name of Ralph Bakshi started working on one of the most controversial pieces of animation, based on a notorious comic book by R. Crumb, “Fritz the Cat.” Released in 1972, it was the first X-rated animated piece to be produced and marketed for public viewing. Suddenly, parents were going to see films like this while their children were watching Disney. Now there were truly cartoons for all ages. After two more controversial films, “Heavy Traffic,” which used live action interlaced with animation to the tell the story of a cartoonist(Similar to Ralph)living in New York, and “Street Fighting,” which dealt with racism, better known under a much more offensive title, which we won’t mention here. Standards and practices, you know. In 1977, Bakshi directed “Wizards,” which was released by 20th Century Fox. He originally wanted to call the film “Wizard Wars,” but George Lucas, the big wig of all that is sci-fi, called Bakshi and told him he could not use the title due to his own upcoming feature called “Star Wars,” which he hoped would be funded by Fox. Star Wars rose to the top while Bakshi dropped like a bomb. He slowly made other films, but we will see him again in 1987 with another animator.
This was the good part of the dark era. But at the same time, many of American animation studios were producing junk cartoons really meant to market comic books, toys, games, lunch boxes, etc. A good example of this was “Super Friends,” by Hanna Barbera. DC Comics had authorized Hanna Barbera to create the cartoon to promote their Justice League, which included well known characters from the DC stable such as Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. There was an overuse of the Xerox process in animation at that time. “Hey guys, you takin’ the cheap way out? Eh?” This caused many cartoons to look the same in many ways. They were not interesting.
However, in 1973, we see CGI, or computer generated imagery, being born. The first film using both digital imaging and wire frame imagery was MGM’s “Westworld” directed by the late author Michael Crichton. Wire frame imagery, simply put, is the skeleton of a computer generated character. In an homage to one of their more successful films, the “Magnificent Seven,” Yul Brenner played a cowboy robot. It was the first film to use digital imagery, in which the use of pixilated forms of photos created images of what the robot in the movie saw. The early era of computer animation started here. In the opening credits of Disney’s 1978 film, “The Black Hole,” a raster or composite of a black hole was made with wire frame imagery. “The Black Hole” would later on inspire Disney to fund another film, which we will mention later.
In 1973, the last “real” story-based Disney film was released. “Robin Hood” was based on the English legend but what made its animation so groundbreaking for its time was the use of anthropomorphic characters, illustrated by Ken Anderson. Anthropomorphic means animal-human, and in this case means that the characters were animals but had human-like characteristics. The movie also re-vamped versions of scenes in other Disney films, reusing concepts from movies such “Snow White” and “Jungle Book.” This recycling of animation with the Xerox process was almost a nail in the coffin in my opinion, and Ken Anderson along with Don Bluth and Gary Goldsmith left Disney to form their own studio. In sixteen years, Disney would have a whole new staff of animators and a new production head.
Lisberger Studios started working on Backlit animation, a process that uses light to create special effects – characters that glow. They used this technique to make a logo for their company. Come 1982, we will see this for the first time in “Tron,” but more on that later.
Let’s move to the land of the rising sun. “Mazinger Z” was a creation of the notorious Japanese animator Go Nagai. This was the first anime to be mechanical, based on a giant robot. The Mecha genre was born. In this golden age of Japanese animation, there were three shows that are the holy trinity of Mecha – “Getter Robo,” of course “Mazinger,” and “Grendizer.” “Getter Robo” was the first transforming robot in animation. Why was I thinking that? Without Getter Robo, we would not have TRANSFORMERS! “Grendizer” was the first anime to confirm that there was a universe where Nagai’s world of animation could thrive on its own terms and with its own licensing. Nagai formed his own production company in 1971 called Dynamic. It still runs today under his brother’s leadership; Nagai remains in charge as the lead artist. In 1979, the TV series “Mobile Suit Gundam” was born in Japan. It was the first realistic robot series to ever come on television. It flopped on TV, but was redone as three movies in 1981 and became a major success in Japan. America will get its taste of Gundam in the year 2000.
Meanwhile, Osamu Tezuka, the most popular and beloved Manga-Ka in the entire world, made “Kimba the White Lion” in 1971. Kimba inspired the “Lion King,” a 1994 Disney film that would cause controversy and success for Disney. It was controversial because it was rumored that scenes were lifted for the film from the Kimba series, and a certain character, Simba, mirrored the character Kimba in mood and in style.
In 1977, Sunrise Inc with Yoshiyuki Tomino first created Zambot 3. This cartoon had a controversial ending in Japan. An entire race of aliens, for the sake of stopping a war, behaved like WWII kamikazes and killed themselves by using their bodies as bombs on the Gaizok, or enemy ship. This caused some veterans of the war to protest Tomino’s work. In my opinion it is no wonder that Gundam, another war piece by Tomino, didn’t do so well.
Akira Toryama, with the help of a wild inventor, developed Dr. Slump in 1981. This was the very first long-running comic strip in Japan – 5 years. Dr. Slump was about an inventor doing outrageous things to save his girlfriend, even building a child called Arale-chan. This cartoon mixed three qualities that audiences appreciated – Tokyo’s comedy, slapstick, and gross-out humor.
As we move to the end of this era, America created the first music video station – ladies and gentlemen, rock and roll! MTV brought a new concept to television, and animation played a big role. In the launch sequence the MTV logo was superimposed over our American flag on the Apollo 11 mission on the moon.
In my opinion this era had the good times and the bad times but there were many financial problems not only for Disney, but for the other animation studios. The era was most noteworthy for the rise of Japanese anime, which is just beginning to lose its luster in the 2000s. But in this era, it was very appreciated by the American audience.
But 1982 an American toy company named Mattel asked Filmation to animate a top secret toy that would change animation again…BY THE POWER OF GRAYSKULL… THIS WILL CONTINUE!!!
Chapter 4.5
After The Thought
Broadcast television began to die because of video games during these years. The TV networks were losing ratings, audiences and sales for toys. They began to spring back when Filmation and Mattel (maker of Barbie) worked together to make He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. Later on they made another series called She-Ra. What made this extremely controversial is it was a tie –in to a toy! A tie-in is when a film or animation company strikes a deal with a toy company to produce animation that sells a toy. This did not happen before 1982. A federal law was repealed that year that allowed many animation companies to promote toys within their shows. Parent groups were outraged.
Later that same year, “Tron” was produced by Lisberger Studios and released by Disney. It was the most ground-breaking film because it was the beginning of computer animation. There were three techniques the film used – wire frame, solid images, and backlit animation. It was cheated out of a deserved Academy Award, because it used computer animation, although it also used real actors, including Jeff Bridges, who also would appear 20 years later in the sequel “Tron Legacy” due out on Blu Ray or DVD soon. The original Tron had a unique story about a man named Kevin Flynn who gets sucked into a computer world and has the adventure of a lifetime! Watch the movie to see what really happens.
“Tron” flopped, even though it was a cult success and eventually led to its sequel. But, in 1984 Disney triumphed – they opened up their first cable channel – the (ba dum dum) Disney Channel. Originally started by Ron Miller, the channel featured only Disney’s classic cartoons and original programming. It was high quality family entertainment, though that would change over the years to come…Excuse me, can someone perform the Heimlich on me? A certain 12-year-old blonde girl by the name of Hannah is stuck in my throat! The same year, we also almost lost Disney. Saul Steinberg, a well-known investor, tried to take the company by force – a hostile takeover. It took two knights in shining armor from Paramount named Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg to truly save the Disney empire. Eisner took over the business end and Katzenberg headed up the animation part. One of their first projects was “The Little Mermaid,” which in 1989 returned a sense of nostalgia and dignity to Disney. It was adapted from a classic fairy tale written by Hans Christian Anderson.
In 1986, media mogul and CNN owner Ted Turner created Turner Entertainment, Inc. It was created to oversee the recent acquisition of the pre-1948 Warner Brothers and MGM library. This fortunately meant that the older Looney Toons and Merrie Melodies cartoons were given a new lease on life. Turner originally aired these cartoons on two networks – WTBS, a super station of the time, and embryonic TNT. In 1991, because Ted was not satisfied to own just Warner’s and MGM’s libraries, he also acquired Hanna Barbera and its vast library of cartoons including The Flintstones. No hold still, Dino – Uncle Ted says this branding iron won’t hurt a bit! The best outcome of this acquisition was Cartoon Network, when the merging of all three libraries happened. It aired on television as a channel for the first time in 1991. This was the first time a channel had been dedicated to nothing but cartoons, and they were all the classics. At the same time, Pinwheel which started in 1979 as an educational channel, made its own name as the first kid’s network. Guess what it became? Nickelodeon! In 1991, when Nickelodeon was in its infancy (waa, waa!), a married animation duo by the name of Arlene Klasky and Gabor Cupso, created “Rugrats” based on their childhoods. What made this such an innovative cartoon were the adult characters – they had a dark and cynical tone that suggested a lot of the things about the pop culture of the 1990s – grunge, monster movies, and of course working mothers. Nickelodeon continued to break ground in 1992 with former Mighty Mouse co-creator John Kricfalusi, with the creation of “Ren and Stimpy.” You EEED-iot!!! The sick and twisted genre was born and came out kicking and screaming. Later the same year, MTV came out with I AM CORNHOLIO! “Beavis and Butthead,” created by Mike Judge. Outraged parents forbid their children to watch these warped cartoons.
In 1984, Hasbro one-upped Mattel by using Mazinger Z animators Toei Animation, Ltd of Japan. A top secret project was underway, one of the first to rely on outsourcing for animation. It was called “Transformers,” based on a toy line by Takara, which came out in 1980. The Transformer craze started with this – every boy in America wanted one! (In fact, we still do! Who went to see the Transformers movie of 2008? I did!) Some of the most powerful characters including one Optimus Prime were introduced first season. Sadly, the show lasted only four seasons as its popularity faded due to a movie version that killed Optimus Prime.
In the year 1985, a little known show dubbed by Carl Mameck (RIP) called “Robotech.” which combined three animated series into one super story. Woah! Now that’s a mouthful! “Robotech” introduced us to better dubbed anime and caused a Kaboom that sent shockwaves. It was the first animated space opera. It led to refined dubbing techniques that are now the standard.
In 1987, John Kricfalusi and Ralph Bakashi, along with future Pixar and
Wall-e director Andrew Stanton, resurrected Mighty Mouse after seven years. This introduced another Mighty Mouse story for a new generation. However, it was controversial for a scene in “The Littlest Tramp,” in which Mighty Mouse was rumored by a pastor to have snorted cocaine! Dammit, it was only flowers! The show was cancelled after a year, but it had a lasting impact, because it represented a move away from the commercialism of tie-ins and toward more creator-driven animation.
Who framed Roger Rabbit?? Well, that’s the name of the movie that Robert Zemckis did in 1989. It was the first combined live action-animation to be produced in a long while. There were many copyrighted characters in this film (Bugs Bunny by Warner Brothers and Mickey Mouse from Disney), and new characters written exclusively for this film, like Roger and Jessica Rabbit (“I’m not bad, I’m drawn that way!”).
The commercialism of animation and the emergence of brand new, creator-driven material caused the self-destruction of Tie-ins. The final nail in the coffin would occur in 1997 when President Clinton would sign the Children’s Television Act to prevent excessive commercialism and some violence from happening again in cartoons meant for children. Before this would happen, though, the cartoon industry would push forward toward more artistic productions, such as “Doug.”
Chapter 5 And 6 the Future is still uncertain of cartoons
After the tie-in years that I wrote about in the last article, many new independent animators began coming out of the woodwork. This had a major financial impact on the major as well as some lesser-known studios. Teams of animators were let go by the studios, and other studios cut back on their animators. Another nail in the coffin for the big studios was Internet animation. Flash animation, as it is called, became much more popular because it was interactive – an example of this was Atom Film’s, “The Gerbil in the Microwave” (that is too gross to describe here!). The viewer, sitting at his computer, could use his mouse to kill the gerbil in the microwave. The final nail in the coffin is HD animation, created in the recent past. My prediction is that 3D will probably cause regular 2D animation to become obsolete.
In 1991, Aeon Flux was created by Peter Chung. Aeon Flux was an MTV program, the first adult animation ever created to be sophisticated, sexy, dark and action-packed. It was the start of independent animation – no studio at the time would have produced this stuff. It took a small band of animators to make the show, and it kick started the adult animation craze. You may be familiar with “Adult Swim” on cartoon network - without Aeon, this line up of cartoons would never have existed. The birth of Liquid Television was another groundbreaking move by MTV, and introduced us to future animation creators such as Henry Selick, Tim Burton, and Peter Chung. Burton went on to work with Selick on the stop-motion animation masterpiece, “The Nightmare before Christmas” in 1993, and Chung later worked on a piece called “Reign” which told the story of Alexander the Great.
“Extra, Extra, Read All About It!" Breaking news – The Oscars snubs Disney! In 1993, “Beauty and the Beast” was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture. It lost to the horror film, “Silence of the Lambs.” It would not be until many years later that another animated film was up for an award – I’ll tell you about this a little bit later.
Also in 1993 a small animation company called DIC AudioVisual was given the rights to Sonic the Hedgehog, a very popular videogame at that time. It changed story writing forever. DIC used only a handful of writers including a man named Ben Hurst, who wrote most of the second season. The cartoon took the darkest turns and featured the voice of Urkle from “Family Matters.” You may know his name. Sonic was the last real cel-animated cartoon; after this, animation was more and more produced digitally. Sonic was cancelled when Disney purchased ABC.
In 1994, Katzenberg made the most colorful comment about computer animation in the movie “Toy Story.” He said it would never work and it should just keel over. Guess what happened? Complaints from Pixar and others from Disney forced the hand of Michael Eisner, and in February of 1995, he was let go. A year later, he returned and announced his partnership with Steven Spielberg and David Geffen, founder of Geffen and Asylum Records, and they created Dreamworks SKG in 1996. They started with “The Prince of Egypt,” and “Antz.” The former was a biblical epic, and the latter was a tongue-in-cheek joke of life in an ant colony.
In 1998, Cartoon Network aired Hanna Barbera’s first new cartoon since “The Real Adventures of Johnny Quest.” It was a cartoon of atomic proportions – mind the joke! “Dexter’s Laboratory,” about a young boy genius named Dexter and his ditzy sister, DeeDee. It was the start of the new wave of Hanna Barbera cartoons, also known as “cartoon’s cartoons.” These cartoons were better than Nickelodeon’s NickToons, which spurred Nickelodeon onward with “Rocko’s Modern Life,” “CatDog” and “Avatar- the Last Airbender.” What set “Dexter’s Laboratory” apart from other cartoons was the mix of surreal and realistic situations. One episode included an opera-based version of Dexter’s origin. The final episode is one of my personal favorites – “Ego Trip,” in which there were five different versions of Dexter. The story has an ironic twist – DeeDee saves the future, not Dex, just by pressing a button.
This goes out as an homage to my dog Courage, who was named after this character: “Stupid dog! You make me look bad!” Thus spake Eustace Bagg, the mean farmer from “Courage the Cowardly Dog” at the end of the cartoon’s theme song. Most of the episodes were co-written by John R. Dilworth and Speed racer himself, Peter Fernandez. What made this an extremely innovative cartoon was that it was the first to use HD technology to make a cartoon. At that time, in 2000, the company could not afford HD technology. In stepped Cartoon network, which funded the entire production. It’s a black-humored and macabre cartoon, and one of my all-time favorites as a child. The situations that Courage’s owners, Muriel and Eustace Bagg, found themselves in were sometimes horrifying, and sometimes disgusting. In the process of saving his owners, Courage would always create a more dangerous situation.
Toy Story II was a breach birth in computer animation terms. They had a script already finished, and the animation was done. John Lassiter took a look at it and said “ReDo!” He wanted more emotion from the characters, and a better story. So Pixar remade the move under his direction, using a special HD program called Final Cut Pro. They created new footage, and used that program to integrate it with the existing footage. This was another Pixar success.
In 2003, Eisner and Roy Disney, nephew of Walt Disney, started bickering over the direction of the company. Later that year, Roy Disney turned in a letter of resignation, in which he also called for the resignation of Michael Eisner. However, in a corporate shakeup, Eisner was let go. This led to the acquirement of Pixar and the insertion of Steve Jobs of Apple into the board of directors, shocking the entire animation industry. Steve, who also created the ipod, gave ideas that were revolutionary. “A Bug’s Life,” was the last film to use film negatives; Disney started using digital processing, which continues today.
Unfortunately, Japanese animators have suffered from the piracy of their work by fans who use it for non-profit or profit. To me, this is the worst case scenario for any animator, namely independents, who have suffered for years by not making a profit off their work. The quality of pirated material decreases each time that it is copied, and the copies don’t do justice to the originals.
Recently a law was passed that prevents sexually graphic material from ending up in mainstream Japanese Manga. This irritates me because it seems unfair to the artists and it restricts their work and causes them to fear censorship.
In spring of 2011, an earthquake of the magnitude of 9.0 on the Richter scale, destroyed the area of Northern Japan, where a nuclear power plant named Fukashima was hit. Animators of all genre and nationality got together and helped their fellow man survive. Japanese animators are using these events as subject matter in Manga and Anime.
Chapter 6.5 the Future is always still Creative
As I said in my first article, it all started with Emil Cohle and ends with the future. I don’t know where the future of animation is going – there is still 2D animation on television, there is computer animation on the big screen, and there are cartoons you can create on the computer at home. As long as there are innovators all over the world bringing new ideas to animation, there will always be something new and truly unexpected.
Chapter 7- THE END
