Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film
Many critics see the Saturday morning cartoon era
(1957–present) as the true demise of the American cartoon tradition, but arguably, especially in the pioneering
efforts of the Hanna-Barbera studio, it was the very
versatility of animation as an expressive vocabulary that
made its continuation possible at a time when its cost
might have caused its demise. Though predicated on
‘‘reduced animation’’—limited and repeated movement
cycles—and prioritizing witty scripts and vocal performances by key figures like Daws Butler and June Foray,
working in the tradition of Mel Blanc, Hanna-Barbera’s
output, including The Huckleberry Hound Show (1958–
1962), Yogi Bear (1958–1961), and the first prime-time
cartoon sitcom, The Flintstones (1960–1966), saved and
advanced the American cartoon.
In many senses, too, it liberated other cartoon traditions elsewhere from the shadow of American animation
and its standards. No longer did animation studios have
to aspire to the ‘‘full animation’’ aesthetic of the Disney
style, but could call upon their own indigenous graphic
design and illustration traditions to create new kinds of
work, expressed in different ways and with more progressive subject matter. Consequently, new animators
emerged with fresh approaches. The hand-drawn cartoons of Fre´de´rick Back (b. 1924) in Canada, for example, with their impressionist styling and ecological themes
(e.g. Tout Rien, 1979); the cartoons of Bruno Bozzetto
(b. 1933) in Italy, featuring Mr. Rossi, a little everyman
figure, (e.g. Mr Rossi Buys a Car, 1966), and the surreal
indictments of totalitarianism, created by Alexsandar
Marks (1922–2002) and Vladimir Jutrisa (1923–1984)
in Zagreb, Croatia (e.g. The Fly, 1966), all deserve mention as progressive works breaking new ground in the
cartoon short. Such work effectively responded to other
kinds of tradition in the sense that Back, for example,
drew upon the impressionist painting of Claude Monet
and Edgar Degas, as well as the indigenous FrenchCanadian canvases of Horatio Walker and Cornelius
Krieghoff, regional artists painting local and historically
specific scenarios and events, in order to create a different, more culturally appropriate, aesthetic to his films.
Marks and Jutrisa, though, like many artists working in
Eastern Europe, looked to the spareness and clarity of
modern graphic design, creating a maximum of suggestion with a minimum of lines and forms.
Also, during the 1960s the Japanese animation
industry expanded its production specifically for the television market, and series like Astro Boy (1963–1966)
debuted on US television. Echoing the popularity of
manga—mass-produced Japanese comic books and
graphic novels—anime´ of all kinds emerged in the postwar period. By the early 1980s Japanese studios were
producing some four hundred series for the global TV
market, and by the early 1990s over one hundred features
were produced annually. Katsuhiro Oˆ tomo’s Akira
(1988) was the breakthrough anime´, introducing
Western audiences to the complex, multinarrative, apocalyptic agendas of much Japanese animation. The works
of Hayao Miyazaki (b. 1941) (e.g., Nausicaa, Valley of the
Wind, 1984, Tonari no Totoro, 1988 [My Neighbor
Totoro], Princess Mononoke, 1999), Mamoru Oshii (e.g.,
Mobile Police Patlabor, 1989, and Ghost in the Shell,
1995), and Masamune Shiro (b. 1961) (e.g., Dominion
Tank Police, 1988, and Appleseed, 1988) that followed
competed with Disney, Dreamworks, and Pixar in the
global feature marketplace. The work of Miyazaki and
Studio Ghibli has been particularly lauded for privileging
female heroines, complex mythic and supernatural storylines, and moments of spectacular emotional epiphany
while still remaining accessible and engaging to the popular audience. Japanese television animation, though
cruder in style and execution, has nevertheless had a great
impact. Pokemon, Digimon and Yu-Gi-Oh! have all
proved popular, and their attendant collectibles, including computer games and trading cards, have prompted
near moral panic, as children have invested considerable
time, energy, and money in them.
Animation production houses Filmation and
Hanna-Barbera continued to produce cartoons for
American television, and Disney, perhaps inevitably, initially consolidated its place in the new medium with
Disneyland (1954–1958) and later variations like Walt
Disney’s Wonderful World of Color (1961–1972), which
recycled Disney cartoons, showing them on television for the first time. In the United States, where the television
cartoon became increasingly characterized by its relationship to other forms of popular culture—for example, series
about pop stars like the Jackson Five or the Osmonds, or
sitcom spin-offs like The Brady Kids (1972–1974) and My
Favorite Martian (1963–1966)—the cartoon lost its
capacity to shock or innovate. A reinvigoration of the
form came with Ralph Bakshi (b. 1938), who explored
adult themes and the spirit of the late 1960s counterculture in his sexually explicit and racially charged feature
films Fritz the Cat (1972), Heavy Traffic (1973), and
Coonskin (1975). In effect, this was the first time that
animation in America—with the possible exception of
UPA’s early effort, Brotherhood of Man (1946)—
addressed adult issues. While Bakshi has been criticized
for some aspects of racial and gender representation in
these films, it is important to remember that they effectively recovered the subversive dimension of the cartoon
so valued, for example, by the Fleischer brothers, and
later by John Kricfalusi in The Ren and Stimpy Show
(1991–1996), Mike Judge in Beavis and Butthead
(1993–1997), and Trey Parker and Matt Stone in South
Park (b. 1997), as well as in Spike and Mike’s Festival of
Animation.
Bakshi’s influence may also be found in Sally
Cruikshank’s Quasi at the Quackadero (1976); Jane
Aaron’s In Plain Sight (1977); Suzan Pitt’s extraordinary
Asparagus (1979); and George Griffin’s anti-cartoons. It
was actually the departure of Don Bluth (b. 1937) and a
number of his colleagues at the Disney Studio, in protest
of declining standards, that properly represented where
American cartoon animation had gone. Bluth’s The Secret
of NIMH (1982) did little to revise the fortunes of traditional 2-D cel animation, as it was clear that computergenerated imagery would eventually dominate.
Jimmy Murakami’s adaptation of Raymond Briggs’s
When the Wind Blows (1986), like Animal Farm, Yellow
Submarine (1968), and Watership Down (1978), represented attempts in Britain to innovate in the traditional
2-D cartoon, but it was Hayao Miyazaki’s Tenku no Shiro
Laputa (Laputa, Castle in the Sky, 1986), My Neighbor
Totoro, and Kurenai no buta (Porco Rosso, 1992) that
sustained and enhanced the quality of the animated
feature, while the partnership of Ron Clements and
John Musker for The Little Mermaid (1989), Aladdin
(1992), and Hercules (1997) revived Disney’s fortunes.
The Lion King (1994), clearly drawing upon Osamu
Tezuka’s television series, Janguru taitei (1965–1967;
Kimba the White Lion) and Shakespeare’s Hamlet, proved
to be phenomenally successful, showcasing songs by
Elton John and a spectacular sequence of charging wildebeests. While the cartoon short enjoyed continuing innovation in the work of Paul Driessen (Elbowing, 1979),
Richard Condie (The Big Snit, 1985), Cordell Barker
(The Cat Came Back, 1988) at Canada NFB, it was clear
that the impact of digital technologies would revise the
animated feature and production for television.
Matt Groening’s The Simpsons (1989–) has become
a national institution, and feature animation essentially
changed with the success of Pixar’s Toy Story (1995), the
first fully computer-generated animated feature. It is
clear, though, that the ‘‘cartoon’’ remains the core language of the animation field. Joe Dante’s films, Twilight
Zone: The Movie (1983), Gremlins (1984), Gremlins 2:
The New Batch (1990), Small Soldiers (1998), and Looney
Tunes: Back in Action (2003), all reference the classic
Disney and Warner Bros. cartoons. While Maurizio
Nichetti’s Volere Volare (1991) and Bakshi’s Cool World
(1992) also combined live action and cartoon figures,
Robert Zemeckis’s film Who Framed Roger Rabbit
(1989), featuring the animation of Richard Williams,
best epitomizes the respect for the American cartoon: it
celebrates the major studios, and specifically recalls movies where cartoon stars guest with live action counterparts, like Tom and Jerry in Anchors Aweigh (1945) and
Dangerous When Wet (1953).