The Last Great Wave of Animation

When I landed a job in an animation studio in the mid-80's, I realized that watching TV cartoons was now homework. Never before had homework been so much fun. I didn't have much access to TV during my college years, so I didn't see much of what was on the tube at the time. But upon graduation, and then grabbing that job a few months later, owning a television became a necessity. So I suddenly reverted to my cereal and 'toons on Saturday mornings. A kid again!

I can't say that 80's TV animation was all that great. The ideas were often half-baked rehashes of already established franchises. Like the two Star Wars spin-offs Droids and Ewoks; Alf and Alf Tales; Alvin and the Chipmunks; whatever incarnation of Scooby-Doo; Beetlejuice; Carebears; Chip & Dale's Rescue Rangers; Curious George; Dennis the Menace and Teddy Ruxpin (both of which I worked on at my job); Donkey Kong; Duck Tales (a fun Disney production); Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids (a carry-over from the 70's); many Flintstones spin-offs; Fraggle Rock; a new Jetsons; a couple of Laverne and Shirley shows (gag!); various Little Rascals programs; a new Mighty Mouse; Mr. T; two Mork and Mindy series; Muppet Babies; Winnie the Pooh; many Popeye shows; The Real Ghostbusters; Richie Rich; Smurfs; a new Super Friends program; a couple of Super Mario shows; and last but not least, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

A little collectible Ren head.... but where's my

beloved Stimpy? Must tear my place apart to find it.

Those are just a handful of the ones I was aware of at the time, a few good, some okay, and most dreadful. But the world demanded animation... the industry was booming. Studios were popping up everywhere, and many international partnerships made it more affordable to pump out assembly line cartoons. The glut of average - or worse - animation was fed by all of the big companies and studios who owned the rights to movies, toys, and videogames, all of which (and more) inspired so many of these shows.

The more original concept shows included Captain Caveman, Inspector Gadget (a fun re-imagining of the 60's TV comedy Get Smart!); The Raccoons; My Pet Monster (a personal favourite); and The Simpsons (of course... and it's still on the air, as of this posting). 

Then along came a 1990's modern animation renaissance of sorts. The "safe" franchise cartoons did not dominate the airwaves so much. Daring writers and artists pushed boundaries and drummed up some amazing works of art. Very little from the previous decade impressed me, but the 90's was a glorious time for creative, funny TV animation. 

Sure, there were the "safe", often uninspired franchise adver-toons (as I like to call them), like Pokemon, Sailor Moon, Digimon (these first three were based on already successful Japanese icons); more TMNT (which I never ever watched, simply out of ignorance and lack of interest); and then a whole wack of very cool shows. By this time, I no longer worked in animation (though still in the art field), but I'd become a father. Soooo, there was reason number two to keep at the Saturday morning 'toons. Here are a bunch I watched fairly regularly (and the little kiddie shows are only there 'cos I had my own little kiddie to entertain):

Johnny Bravo (quite silly and comical)
Tiny Toon Adventures
Pinky and the Brain (fun and wacky)
Animaniacs (like a bowl full of pure sugar - buzzzzzz)
Winnie the Pooh (Disney's quality made this a favourite in our household)
Talespin
Cow & Chicken, Rocko's Modern Life, Rugrats (these three were among my faves)
Beavis and Butt-head (not a fave, but a piece of 'toon history, in its own stupid way)
Babar, Franklin, Rupert, Doug, Arthur (kiddie stuff my daughter loved, and it didn't bug me)
Magic School Bus
Hey, Arnold!
Dexter's Lab
Disney's Recess
various Spiderman shows
SpongeBob SquarePants (ridiculous, infantile, and hilarious... I can still watch this)
Reboot (clever, imaginative and pioneering computer animated show - a fave at the time)
Futurama (which I didn't check out until many years later, but ended up loving it even more than Simpsons)
King of the Hill (another that I missed in its early days, but learned to love it)
The Ren & Stimpy Show (one of my fave 'toons of all time, right up there with Bugs & Daffy)

I dug this Spidey out of my "grown-up toy-box"

I must admit that my TV cartoon-watching has taken a serious nosedive since the late 2000's. My daughter wasn't hanging around as much, and she didn't watch as much of that stuff anymore. We'd occasionally tune in to Arthur, SpongeBob or Magic School Bus for old times' sake. 

And since I've been living without cable TV for the past few years, I haven't been in the loop at all. From what I have seen and heard, television cartoons are a dying breed, especially the good ones. Some of the shows on my 90's list above still carry on, but man, the last few times I did channel surf the major networks on a Saturday morning, I was astounded to see there was precious little kids programming, let alone animated shows, on that most sacred of mornings (Shaun the Sheep was the only thing that caught my eye). Whatever happened to the ritual of a bowl (or two) of Sugar Smacks cereal along with about four hours of cartoon heaven? And the very few animated shows I did see were of horrendous quality. Seems the kids nowadays would rather tweet and post and online game. Maybe they dial up cartoons on Youtube?

So what has changed so drastically? The internet may be the guilty party. It seems to fit. I mean, look at the timing of it. There were good cartoons right up through the 90's and into the early 2000's, just about when cell phones and laptops became so common for youngsters. Public TV stations still ran the wholesome edu-tainment programs like Magic School Bus and Arthur, but outside that realm, it looked like slim pickings. A real shame. I sure loved my Saturday morning routine as a kid. This was in the 60's and 70's, mind you, so you may be shocked when I mention stuff like Underdog, Magilla Gorilla, Mighty Mouse (the original), Popeye, Mr. Magoo, Yogi Bear, Deputy Dawg, Aquaman (and loads of DC comic superhero shows), the original Spiderman cartoon, and The Archie Show and its spin-offs. 

I may be ignorant of the situation now, but from what I gather, the U.S. does not dominate the market anymore. A quick online scan revealed that Japan produces dozens more cartoon shows than the States. Those shows, or at least not many of them, ever make it to regular network TV in North America. So there is a drought, domestically. Maybe that's a good thing, if the quality of modern shows isn't going to measure up anymore. 

Not exactly the cream of the crop of 80's cartoons

Then again, specialty channels in the U.S., like Cartoon Network, Disney Channel, and Nickelodeon, carry a set of home-grown cartoons. Most of the major networks have discontinued their weekend cartoon shows and kids-dedicated networks, yet a few brave and hardy networks carry on. The many internationally-produced programs are probably lost on anyone without the high-end cable packages that include the weird and wonderful animation that may exist today. But I don't know. Anyone?

Pretty much the only animation I've continued to watch is in the form of animated feature films and the odd TV cartoon on Netflix. And I have been collecting the Samurai Jack series, which debuted in 2001, on DVD. This show stands head and shoulders above everything else... well, sort of alongside Ren and Stimpy and Bugs and Daffy. Jack is so cinematic in its storytelling, visuals, music, and sound design. Each episode is like watching a mini-movie. It is often funny, but is just as often dramatic, thrilling, and even touching. 

And then there are the brilliant stop-motion animated Wallace and Gromit short films and one theatrical feature. Not really billed as little kids shows, they are perfectly suited to older kids and up. Aardman Animations, the studio responsible for Wallace and Gromit, has also been producing the funny and creative Shaun the Sheep television series. I've only seen a handful of episodes but I did find them highly entertaining. Its brand of humour works on both a kid's level and an adult's level, so it's perfect for the little ones as well as the "grown-up kids" (like me).