Animation History

[MCerberus]

There's a lot of threads talking about individual shows and movies on the board, but there's little talk about the history and trends behind it. There's a lot of little quirks and coincidences and cause and effect to talk about. There's talk about subjects like did Mel Blanc's mastery of his roles effectively end the character as it was without complete re-imagining? Is the comic/animation dialog really that much different these days when Fleischer was making Superman cartoons? Would the passing of a voice actor not happening let the Samurai Jack movie happen?

Lots of subjects that aren't really talked about.

A couple of topics I've been thinking about in particular.

First, I've kind of grown to wonder what the legacy of the post-theatrical Hannah-Barbara era actually is. For a long while I've sort of blamed the studio for the animation dark age. However, the economics of the age were something pretty awful. It's possible that animation may have essentially died for decades unless the quality declined and all those shortcuts invented (the famous H&B ties. The reason Yogi wears a tie is essentially to cut costs).

Then, one must wonder at what the role of "The Misadventures of Flapjack" has in starting the current animation age. First, the arguments that it was actually a turning point is to look at the creative staff behind the show. All of the showrunners for big shows right now have either worked on the show directly or worked on a show the creators later made. We're talking Quintell, Ward, Sugar (who worked with Ward on Adventure Time). However, this may just be a coincidence. The show doesn't really fit well with what we'd consider "New Sincerity", but rather have a lot in common with cable-age shows like old Spongebob and Rocko. Shows like Chowder and Foster's may have more importance, or it could be the creators have used the internet to feel out ideas and markets. So what does that make Flapjack, a really weird footnote or a turning point?

[Jayngfet]

Sussing this kind of thing out is usually the purvey of specialists. Of course a lot of these specialists are a complete crock and the books tend to be full of bias and narrative, so there's that.

From what I understand the Hannah Barbera legacy is that it kept animation profitable and widespread even as studios with higher production value tended to flounder. Say what you will, but they knew how to work fast and efficiently.

Flapjack, I think, is mostly something of an incidental. It just happened to be the show that was on at the time while a bunch of things went on behind the scenes. It's more important to track who was involved with what for how long and what it meant for the network and industry. One thing to understand with that channel in particular is desperation. It's not nearly the most popular thing for it's intended demographic and it's cash cows are giving diminishing refunds that are half what they were even a couple of years ago. They're pretty clearly throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks and trying to make that work for as cheap as possible.

Which is the ultimate legacy of Hannah Barbera, which is the bedrock Cartoon Network is built on. Work fast and work cheap and get as much as possible out with as few resources needed. Actual quality is of secondary concern.

[MCerberus]

Well that's the weird thing, Flapjack's not safe or particularly a simple production. It contained multiple style shifts which require a hellish amount of custom assets. Additionally, the models actually change based on the producer, meaning a lot more is done 'the old fashioned way' than what was common for the time. It was also made after the official death of Cartoon Cartoons, meaning the cash cows were already all dead. Maybe the desperation lead to big bets.

Meaning the eclectic group of animators we brought in as a 'saving throw'. But then the show itself is both a coincidence AND an important turning point.

[Metahuman1]

Hanna Barbara got some blame for the dark age of animation, but you can also thank LOT'S of parents groups throwing lots of angry temper tantrums at the animation industry just before and at the start and during the Dark Age of Animation. Would be Moral Guardians who basically wanted every show to be G-3 My Little Pony. Totally safe with no conflict or anything that might give kids bad ideas.

[Jayngfet]

Well that's the weird thing, Flapjack's not safe or particularly a simple production. It contained multiple style shifts which require a hellish amount of custom assets. Additionally, the models actually change based on the producer, meaning a lot more is done 'the old fashioned way' than what was common for the time. It was also made after the official death of Cartoon Cartoons, meaning the cash cows were already all dead. Maybe the desperation lead to big bets.

Meaning the eclectic group of animators we brought in as a 'saving throw'. But then the show itself is both a coincidence AND an important turning point.

Hence why it's incidental. I think that was kind of a weird era where a lot of experimentation was done from a technical perspective(imagine trying to sell the textures on Chowder even today a few years later). Not to mention pretty much grabbing as much as they could from more places. It didn't matter what it was, it just had to go on screen ASAP to plug in the holes that'd appeared.

Of course right now it seems like things have solidified a bit more. There only seems to be like, one aesthetic going on.

Hanna Barbara got some blame for the dark age of animation, but you can also thank LOT'S of parents groups throwing lots of angry temper tantrums at the animation industry just before and at the start and during the Dark Age of Animation. Would be Moral Guardians who basically wanted every show to be G-3 My Little Pony. Totally safe with no conflict or anything that might give kids bad ideas.

...no. That's not what happened in the slightest. Otherwise we wouldn't have gotten Felix the Cat, which was one of the rare animated films of the decade to both get made and turn a profit. Say what you will, but the underground scene at the time was flourishing.

Hanna Barbara came into it's own when theatrical shorts were falling out of favor and TV animation was still relatively new, and even cheaper and worse looking than then. Those contracts drying up meant that pretty much every major studio was going with it. Hence why this is when UPA, Terrytoons, and pretty much all the previous major names had died around then. It doesn't matter what parents say, because parents always say things. If there's no work then there's no work. Pretty much the only reason the medium managed was that by the 80's people had figured out that cartoons were a really good way to sell toys.

Which is the long and short of it. HB's cheap, sellout style kept people employed and kept cartoons being made. Since Disney was hemorrhaging money and people it wasn't terribly rare to see whole groups leave to work there in a place that was more consistent and lower intensity.

[MCerberus]

Hence why it's incidental. I think that was kind of a weird era where a lot of experimentation was done from a technical perspective(imagine trying to sell the textures on Chowder even today a few years later). Not to mention pretty much grabbing as much as they could from more places. It didn't matter what it was, it just had to go on screen ASAP to plug in the holes that'd appeared.

Of course right now it seems like things have solidified a bit more. There only seems to be like, one aesthetic going on.



...no. That's not what happened in the slightest. Otherwise we wouldn't have gotten Felix the Cat, which was one of the rare animated films of the decade to both get made and turn a profit. Say what you will, but the underground scene at the time was flourishing.

Hanna Barbara came into it's own when theatrical shorts were falling out of favor and TV animation was still relatively new, and even cheaper and worse looking than then. Those contracts drying up meant that pretty much every major studio was going with it. Hence why this is when UPA, Terrytoons, and pretty much all the previous major names had died around then. It doesn't matter what parents say, because parents always say things. If there's no work then there's no work. Pretty much the only reason the medium managed was that by the 80's people had figured out that cartoons were a really good way to sell toys.

Which is the long and short of it. HB's cheap, sellout style kept people employed and kept cartoons being made. Since Disney was hemorrhaging money and people it wasn't terribly rare to see whole groups leave to work there in a place that was more consistent and lower intensity.

But the question is if Flapjack has impact on the uptick afterwards, or if it is just an odd footnote. Collaborations between creative types in a medium often lead to new trends.

And I also wouldn't discount the effect of moral codes on limiting creativity. The CCA and Hays code had some pretty awful effects on their medium. The pressures never really made it that far codified but it had the effect of forcing a limitation on audience ("Animation is just for kids" being policy) leading to lower potential revenue.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Generally limits increase creativity rather than actually limit them.

The Comics Code Authority killed off lots of genres but led to the rise of super heroes and the Silver Age. Underground comics wouldn't even have existed if there wasn't anything to force them underground.

The Hays Code was in place during Hollywood's greatest period. Old Hollywood was killed off by television before it dropped out of use.

The repugnant attitude towards homosexuality and enforcement of traditional American racial politics may make their claim to have been 'moral' ironic but criticising the creativity of the writers who worked under them is ignorant. What did the post Code comics industry give us? Recycled plots and copy and pasted rape victim backstories.

Live action cinema dying at the same time as animated features must have been linked. Hanna Barbara had to move into television because live action already had.

(cinema still is still a huge industry despite having been dead for 60 years, most people alive today will find this idea very strange. But before you leap in to say "that's blatantly untrue!" you should bare in mind that more films were made per year in the 20s and 30s than per decade from the 70s onwards, that's enough of a collapse in production that a mega million dollar industry can be comparatively dead. Most famous movies from the 40s and 50s weren't even in the running for the Oscars because even more famous movies were released in the same year, nowadays most Oscar nominations look like padding the list out)

[BannedInSchool]

(cinema still is still a huge industry despite having been dead for 60 years, most people alive today will find this idea very strange. But before you leap in to say "that's blatantly untrue!" you should bare in mind that more films were made per year in the 20s and 30s than per decade from the 70s onwards, that's enough of a collapse in production that a mega million dollar industry can be comparatively dead. Most famous movies from the 40s and 50s weren't even in the running for the Oscars because even more famous movies were released in the same year, nowadays most Oscar nominations look like padding the list out)

On one hand the vertical integration monopoly of the Golden Age of Hollywood meant they could just churn out mediocre movies, but on the other they weren't obsessed with trying to make only blockbusters and so good movies could sneak through as long as they were made on time and on budget, I suppose.

[Metahuman1]

And I also wouldn't discount the effect of moral codes on limiting creativity. The CCA and Hays code had some pretty awful effects on their medium. The pressures never really made it that far codified but it had the effect of forcing a limitation on audience ("Animation is just for kids" being policy) leading to lower potential revenue.

The Comics Code Authority killed not just genera's, but entire company's. And if Japanese Manga has taught us nothing else, it's taught us that comics of one style or another had a LOT market in genera's outside of super hero's which were neglected because of the CCA.




So, yeah, don't underestimate the damage Moral Guardians can do. At all. And remember, they were significantly more powerful at the time then they are today. Today, more often then not, such groups are only listened too if they have some serious trick up there sleeve to do damage, or are attacking something some network executive was either gonna cancel anyway or needed and excuse to cancel.

[Jayngfet]

The Comics Code Authority killed not just genera's, but entire company's. And if Japanese Manga has taught us nothing else, it's taught us that comics of one style or another had a LOT market in genera's outside of super hero's which were neglected because of the CCA.

Different industry, different rules.

The Hays code may have done it's damage, but it's entirely secondary to shifting markets. That's what put so many studios out of work, not censors. Comics and Cartoons aren't interchangeable, they play by their own rules and have zero overlap in terms of production.

Closet Skeleton also has the right of it. Again, the underground scene of each industry wouldn't have existed if not for those codes making them necessary. Given how much I love 70's era underground stuff and given that they again came in on time, under budget, and with enough profit to stay in the black, they clearly were viable despite not being within the confines of a moral code.

This isn't some vague unknown to theorize about. It's right there clearly recorded by a dozen different sources with dozens of specialists who can tell you day and night about exactly what went down. Many of them may be owned by some company or biased towards specific groups, but they're biased in enough different ways that if you hear a concensus that X happened, and they can provide identical specific dates and numbers with primary documents, then that's how it happened.

At the end of the day that's what it comes down to. Who can bring home what numbers for what cost. One studio can, one studio can't, so one gets to live and the other does not. Things like executive meddling or behind the scenes screwups play big factors, but even then money has the final word. Hannah-Barbera made money, so it got the influence. Flapjack made money, so it's people got influence. It's obviously a whole lot more complicated than that long form, but if you want to sum things up in short form without much guesswork or hearsay, it'll suffice.

[MCerberus]

Jay, the problem is we're talking about the switch to TV having a sudden influx of restrictions at the worst time possible. In essence, the post-theatric era didn't have time to establish itself before the moral crusaders censored it. The rules against conflict and, lets face it, anything a McCarthyist wouldn't like, drastically and suddenly limited appeal to adult markets. This reduced the audience and thus revenue.

A big difference between Hays, CCA, and the early TV rules is that movies and comics had restrictions placed upon them at a high-point, while animation was hit during an already existing period of decline. Animation simply didn't have the room to have an underground scene at the time, unlike the current digital environment allows.

[t209]

Hanna Barbara got some blame for the dark age of animation, but you can also thank LOT'S of parents groups throwing lots of angry temper tantrums at the animation industry just before and at the start and during the Dark Age of Animation. Would be Moral Guardians who basically wanted every show to be G-3 My Little Pony. Totally safe with no conflict or anything that might give kids bad ideas.

Mr. Enter, is that you?
Also kinda contrasted that comics become mature (Demon in the Bottle, anyone?) at that time too.

[Closet_Skeleton]

On one hand the vertical integration monopoly of the Golden Age of Hollywood meant they could just churn out mediocre movies

Every time period churns out mediocre movies. Sturgeons law claims that more movies should equal more good movies.

Film criticism has generally ignored those movies, so no one knows how good they were. At least one study on previously ignored parts of the western genre has shown that they were generally free of what was previously considered to be the tropes of 30s and 20s westerns.

Banning vertical integration and block booking helped free up talent that kickstarted television supplanting the cinema, but its hard to tell if the rise of television was caused entirely by that or if it just catalysed it.

The downscaling of film production also happened so fast that it was more a case of panic about what the ban on block booking might do than a organic result of the ban.

The Comics Code Authority killed not just genera's, but entire company's. And if Japanese Manga has taught us nothing else, it's taught us that comics of one style or another had a LOT market in genera's outside of super hero's which were neglected because of the CCA.

You can't just assume USA - CCA = Japan. Manga is a part of the overall printed media culture of Japan, it can't be easily compared to its counterpart in American printed media.

Manga in the 40s and 50s didn't directly compare to comics in the USA during that period for a start.

Saying that American comics were reduced to just Superheroes and Horror (despite horror ironically being more of a target for the code than romance was) requires you to limit the picture by excluding Newspaper comics, which generally had a more adult readership anyway. Romance and slice of life comics survived just fine, just in other formats.

Timely cancels Captain America, Human Torch and Submariner - 1949-50
All Star Comics becomes all Star Western - 1951
CCA - 1954
Flash #1 - 1956
Fantastic Four #1 - 1961

The CCA didn't kill off everything but Super Heroes, Super Heroes died on their own and were then revived on their own.

Super heroes weren't popular because other stuff was banned, they were popular because they were an innovation that appealed to people. Comic books were never going to be as popular as television so they had to find niches that television couldn't fill.

[MCerberus]

Mr. Enter, is that you?
Also kinda contrasted that comics become mature (Demon in the Bottle, anyone?) at that time too.

Well agree or not his views are rather prevalent for a lot of culture. We're talking 'Han shoots second to preserve the rating', 'does anyone on the ESRB play games' distrust of censor boards.

-snip for length-

At the same time heroes were resurrected as a potential response to the death of the other genres as comics due to censorship. We also have additional points in time that provide examples of how the CCA prevented entire types of stories being told, the famous 'Spiderman fights drugs' comic et al.

Additionally, relaxing censorship appears to correlate with periods of increased creativity. The decline and death of the CCA leading immediately to new trends is one. In animation you could argue that the abandonment of the forced moral content eventually lead to better educational content later (re: animaniacs, PBS cartoons, discussions of other cultural elements making their way back into shows). It did say correlate, however, so there's obviously room to posit other causes. However, one of the explanations of correlation IS causation, we just need to make sure it isn't another cause.

I'm of the opinion that censorship leads to reduced creativity while restrictions can lead to some interesting new things. The difference is "This doesn't really fit what we're looking for" compared to "You can't talk about this subject ever."

[Metahuman1]

Mr. Enter, is that you?
Also kinda contrasted that comics become mature (Demon in the Bottle, anyone?) at that time too.

Who?

And yes, comics were becoming more mature. Death was a thing that could happen and be permanent for significant characters (Spiderman's Stacy Family. Everyone forgets that Captain Stacy died before Gwen did.) Drugs were a thing that could not only happen but even effect a hero that wasn't careful about it (Spiderman and a few months later Roy Harpers legendary reveal of his China Cat addiction.) Social commentary was possible (X-men Comics, Green Lantern Green Arrow.) Characters could be out for the money or totally willing to kill as a first choice (Luke Cage: Hero for Hire, Punisher.) Race was on the table (Superman helping Lois Lane recreate an experiment to experience being black for a day using tech form the fortress of solitude.), feminism was on the table, Heros could really fall and fail (Spider-man, Iron Man, Batman, Green Arrow, need I go on cause will be here all night?).





Closet_Skeleton: Ok. Prior to the comics code authority, we had, super hero comics (Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman were all still running and there were other company's putting out comics about super hero's. Faucet Comics comes to mind, they had the original Captain Marvel.), Horror comics, Western comics, Sci-Fi Comics, Pulp Adventure comics, Noir mystery's, sword and sorcery fantasy type series, Romance comics, Slice of life comics, comedy themed comics. Just off the top of my head.

By the time the comics code authority wasn't a thing anymore, we had, Super hero comics, and once in a great while a horror comic.

Meanwhile, Japan NEVER had such censorship on it's local comic industry, which we call Manga, and still has large scale and profitable variety. Granted, they didn't have precisely the same super hero genera, but I've read Shonen Action series, there not so very different in what they target.

Also, at the time Seduction of the Innocent came out and went on an all out attack on the comic book industry and got parents groups and then congress, through the parents groups, to do likewise, the newspapers got together and went on a massive campaign to impress upon congress that Newspaper Comic Strips were NOT comics or even close to comics, so they should be exempted form the restrictions of Comic Books. And they were given this. So, newspaper comic strips are not a good thing to point too on the matter.

[Jayngfet]

Jay, the problem is we're talking about the switch to TV having a sudden influx of restrictions at the worst time possible. In essence, the post-theatric era didn't have time to establish itself before the moral crusaders censored it. The rules against conflict and, lets face it, anything a McCarthyist wouldn't like, drastically and suddenly limited appeal to adult markets. This reduced the audience and thus revenue.

A big difference between Hays, CCA, and the early TV rules is that movies and comics had restrictions placed upon them at a high-point, while animation was hit during an already existing period of decline. Animation simply didn't have the room to have an underground scene at the time, unlike the current digital environment allows.

You've got your timing wrong though. The codes would have been in place well before then. The codes in question were already in place for decades by the time the transition had to happen. In fact, most of the larger studios spring into existance around the time those codes were seriously enforced and were consistently meeting guidelines anyway.

[t209]

Who?

Well, Sorry about the assumption.
Mr. Enter is a reviewer on Youtube channel who also said that 70's animation was like MLP: G3.

[Reddish Mage]

E
You can't just assume USA - CCA = Japan. Manga is a part of the overall printed media culture of Japan, it can't be easily compared to its counterpart in American printed media.

Didn't Japanese Manga develop in response to Japanese censorship? I recall a factoid that the tentacle hentai considered the most extreme actually developed as a response to the ban against explicit content.

Also, we talk about post-comic code being a boring era but what about 2000-today? There's been a variety of innovations in comics recently and its mostly because comics have become increasingly integrated with other media.

[t209]

Didn't Japanese Manga develop in response to Japanese censorship? I recall a factoid that the tentacle hentai considered the most extreme actually developed as a response to the ban against explicit content.

Also, we talk about post-comic code being a boring era but what about 2000-today? There's been a variety of innovations in comics recently and its mostly because comics have become increasingly integrated with other media.

Well, Walking-Dead is kinda only known to in mainstream as non-superhero comics.
Then there are many "superhero comics" that fit into other genre, especially Iron Fist and other martial-arts themed heroes (Then Batman and Film-Noir).

[Closet_Skeleton]

Meanwhile, Japan NEVER had such censorship on it's local comic industry, which we call Manga, and still has large scale and profitable variety.

Japanese comics in the 50s weren't in the same place American ones were. This theory just doesn't work as a historical narrative. Even if the theory holds true in some form its a contributing factor among many. Shoujo manga is mostly a 60s development with women artists starting to dominate it from the end of the decade. Adult women's manga really started in the 80s. You can't just look at modern industries and explain away the differences based on 1954 to mid 60s America.

There were horror, fantasy, science fiction (half of the super heroes), war (Sgt. Rock), western (the western genre peaked around 1960), comedy and romance comics (Archie, Patsy Walker) in the silver age. Super Hero comics dominated because they sold the best, not because censors banned everything else. Most of Marvel's Silver Age heroes started as features in Fantasy, Mystery and Horror anthologies and then took them over.

It was probably the initial panic that did the most damage to the industry, not the years of subsequent regulation (CCA was never really 'censorship')

Manga is just cheaper than American comics due to being printed in Black and White. That helps a lot in the modern period, probably had some effect back then.

Faucet Comics comes to mind, they had the original Captain Marvel

Captain Marvel's last Fawcett issue was January 1954 and most of his books were cancelled in the preceding years. The only Superheroes running outside of backup strips in other books in 1954 were Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman (the latter probably due to the "if you cancel this book I get the rights back" savy of the creator).

[Lacuna Caster]

Meanwhile, Japan NEVER had such censorship on it's local comic industry, which we call Manga, and still has large scale and profitable variety. Granted, they didn't have precisely the same super hero genera, but I've read Shonen Action series, there not so very different in what they target.

Everyone here seems to be forgetting about the European comics scene. I remember walking into a bog-standard shopping mall in France more than a decade ago and found a fair section of floor-space dedicated to large, full-colour, hardback graphic novels, most of which were not superhero-related. There was science-fiction (the 'hard' kind), drama, westerns (the famous Blueberry by Moebius), sex comedy, horror and so forth. (If you don't automatically hiss and turn pale at the name, Ron Edwards made an interesting post on the subject, specifically with reference to Page 45 in England.)

In any case this sort of genre diversity is apparently typical for comics sold in Europe (my brother confirmed this during his foreign exchange.) I can't say I have a detailed command of the medium's history, particularly in the states, or know how relevant this would be as an analogy to trends in animation. But maybe this would be useful as a case-comparison for those who do.

[Lacuna Caster]

Well, Sorry about the assumption.
Mr. Enter is a reviewer on Youtube channel who also said that 70's animation was like MLP: G3.

That's probably correct, but anyone who does a Top 20 cartoon theme songs compilation and includes nothing by Shuki Levy is dead to me. Dead I say!

[MCerberus]

Changing the subject a little, I've found that Fleischer's Superman actually holds up pretty well. That plus it may be one of the most successful adaptations in animation. It captures the spirit and style of the source material (golden age comics) while changing what's needed to work for the format. Especially when you compare it to some other cartoons (Popeye doesn't hold up).

Also, does anyone know if Disney ever made more modern versions of the Goofy sports shorts? It seems like something that could easily be popular applying the thinking of the day towards the various pro sports.

[Lacuna Caster]

That's probably correct, but anyone who does a Top 20 cartoon theme songs compilation and includes nothing by Shuki Levy is dead to me. Dead I say!

I stand corrected- turns out the Knights of Justice theme is Shuki. Some of his worst work though.

Can't really speak for Fleischer, but I will say I enjoyed the hell out of the small sample of early-run superman strips I've read. (You know, the ones where everyone today complains about him being a huge jerk. ...For some reason I love that guy.)

[Metahuman1]

European Comics: My knowledge of them is Extremely limited. I know a bit about Judge Dread, that the UK G1 Transformers run was apparently good, and a bit about TinTin. That's it.

Fletchers Superman: They were fun for what they were and got away with a lot of stuff you wouldn't likely see today, and the animation and music are excellent.

Goofy Sports: Disney did a "Goofy's Extreme Sports." shorts series somewhere in the late 90's early 00's as part of there The House of Mouse series.

[MCerberus]

Goofy Sports: Disney did a "Goofy's Extreme Sports." shorts series somewhere in the late 90's early 00's as part of there The House of Mouse series.

Extreme sports is... disappointing. The culture, especially around things like basketball and football have changed enough to leave some pretty large openings for BRUTAL SATIRE. But then, it seems Disney in the past decade or so has mostly been getting success by allowing creators free reign on their own projects, instead of the classic stable.