Timothy Kozul

Paloma Trecka
ANI-206
11/28/13
Animation Research Paper
The Death and Revival of Cartoons on TV from the 1980s to 1990s
The world of animation is a free form and accepting one, as well as exclusive and fickle.
It feels only recently that TV animation has as much variety as it does. Well, theres a reason for
that, its because there was a revival in the quality of animation, particularly in the Television
sector. But it wasnt all great though, for things to be revived, they need to be dead first.
Well start with a bit of animation history. It was during the 1950s that the Television
was invented and mass produced. People no longer had to go out anywhere to watch movies or
cartoons, they could watch them in their own house with little cost to them. However this was a
problem for the animation industry as nearly all cartoons were theatrical releases only. Since no
one bothered to leave their house, cartoons were quickly losing their profitability and many
studios were forced to close down. The few studios to survive were the UPA and the newly
created Hanna-Barbera Studio.
With their places set they began to create cartoons for television audiences. This meant
that production values had to be cut in order to make weekly episodes. The very first cartoon for
television was Jay Wards Crusader Rabbit. While it has its place in animation history, it was
also notoriously poorly constructed. With extremely little animation used, the production team
resorted to moving paper cut outs with no proper sound synchronization. Truly, this was a dark
start to the era. Along with them were several UPA cartoons as well, such as Gene Deitchs Tom
Terrific, which featured a bit more animation, while still using minimalist, high design
techniques. Never the less, animation made for TV had a rough start back in the 1950s and it
would continue this trend for near forty years.
Animation seemed to be at its lowest during the 1980s. Since TV cartoons were all but
devoid of quality and substance, the audiences at the time began to take the craft less seriously.
During this time there were very few studios still around, with the biggest being Hana-Barbera
Studios. Hanna-Barbera were a tag team that originated from MGM studios and created the
famous cat and mouse duo, Tom and Jerry. While their previous work happened around the
Golden Age of Animation with Disney-esque quality, their studio during the 1950s and onward
dominated the animation industry in the West. Despite having done and amazing job with Tom
and Jerry, their first made for TV cartoon, Ruff and Reddy(1957), was the polar opposite. Most
of the cartoon was made with using time and cost saving techniques. It had minimal sound

synching, blatant reuse of animation cels, characters talking off screen to save time animating
them, and minimal backgrounds with no real adherence to them as three dimensional space.
Perhaps at the time this was acceptable as television animation had just begun, but HannaBarbera used these techniques for near forty years. They continued on with The Flintsones,
Scooby Doo, Where are you?, HuckleBerry Hound, and numerous others all adhering to the save
cost effective and time saving techniques that was slowly tainting the art of animation. They
even went as far as to capitalize on their own franchises by making cloned cartoons, most
notably, JabberJaw, and Speed Buggy, being clones of Scooby Doos formula. This was quite
possibly one of the lowest points for the animation industry, but during the 80s it would get
much lower.
While Hanna-Barbera had an iron grip on the animation industry, as Disney was focusing
more on making theme parks, a couple other studios and cartoons were being created. Although,
they may as well have not been any better than what Hanna-Barbera was creating. The 1980s
was also the time of action figures and other such toys and games getting their own cartoons
series. The toy company Hasbro was commissioning cartoons for many of their popular toys
series such as G.I. Joe, My Little Pony, and Transformers. While these cartoons are considered
cult classics, they seemed to be one of the lower pegs of the animation industry. Creativity
seemed to be completely gone during this point, as these shows didnt really do much in neither
the animation portion nor the writing portion. They simply were cartoons of toys doing things,
though the worst was yet to come when video games began to attain their own television
adaptations.
The Super Mario Bros. Super Show, The Legend of Zelda, and Captain N and the N
Force were abysmal, making sure that animation was on par with Hanna-Barbera production
values. These shows were completely devoid of sound design as well, simply taking sounds and
music wholesale off of the video games. While the cartoons about toys such as G.I. Joe had some
more creative freedom, with the video games of the time having simple objectives it was hard
making story lines for a Saturday morning show. Though the worst of it is the complete lack of
referencing proper source material for these video game shows with Captain N and the N Force
being a prime suspect, as it simply lifted characters from their respective games, reworked their
design, changed their personalities, and simply did things outside of their original character. This
may be the lowest point TV animation. No talent was to be seen, no creative or original
characters were around, and no hope for industry. It was during this time that no one took
animation seriously anymore. Though during the next coming years, that was about to change.
With the 1980s bringing forth the dregs of what animation could be, it was time for a
major overhaul. It was during the time of the very late 1980s and the very early 1990s that
cartoons were seeing a resurgence of quality. A whole slew of animators were rising to the scene
and Hanna-Barbera were adapting their ways to increase quality in their productions. As Martin
Goodman put it, Perhaps the most salient change was the saturation in cartoon fare that resulted
from three networks presenting round-the clock animation. During the 1980s animated cartoons

were limited to Saturday morning or the afternoon syndication market during weekdays. The
thought of even one network devoted entirely to animation was unthinkable. (Goodman,
Animation World) But thats eventually what happened, and these studios were out in force.
The three major studios in the West were Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, and the
reworked Disney Studios. These three names would reshape the industry from the 1980s by
introducing a myriad of drawing styles, writing styles, and overall content creation. HannaBarbera eventually turned itself into Cartoon Network, which was really just Hanna-Barbera
Studios, though they had rebuked their old cost cutting ways and hired a slew of quality
animators like Gennedy Tartakovsky, Craig McCracken, Danny Antonucci. They even
convinced Warner Bros. to come back into the animation business with spectacular results. The
studio mostly focused on comedic cartoons akin to the Golden Era of classic Looney Tunes even
airing those old classics. Disney at the time was focusing on reformatting their old cartoon reels
for television. Another strategy was to create spin-off cartoons of their classic animated movies
with mixed results. Nonetheless, their programming focused on the family oriented
entertainment that it always had. However, Nickelodeon was taking a different approach to the
other two studios. Rather than outrageous gags or whole sale family entertainment, they focused
primarily on relating to modern youth. Doug, Hey Arnold!, and Rocket Power are chief examples
as they had teenage characters and told narratives of the problems youths face in their lives.
Thats not to say that Nickelodeon wasnt also creating comedy cartoons. They also featured
many comedic shows like The Angry Beavers, Catdog, and John Kricfalusis bizarre and
wonderful, Ren and Stimpy.
Yes, animation seemed to be at its finest during the 1990s and all because of the
enhancements of satellite and cable television channels. Television boomed with half a dozen
primetime and late-night shows in addition to the regular daytime and cable fare. Disney
Channel and Nickelodeon went out to 80 countries, 24 hours a day. The explosion of cable
channels meant reduced fees that could be asked of sponsors. Where once the kid audience
dependably were all watching Scooby-Doo or He-Man, now they were splintered among dozens
of channels, Cartoon Network, Kids WB!, Nick, Disney, Boomerang, Discovery Kids, etc.
Producers of animated shows could no longer ask the same rates from advertisers.(Sito,
Animation World)
But other than the quality aspect, why did cartoons need an overhaul? Sure people can
pick apart the technical aspects of those older cartoons, but when someone breaks a 1980s
cartoon down they realize that there wasnt much there. It was mentioned before that the
narrative levels of these shows was appalling, but what about psychologically? They werent like
Japanese cartoons that featured heavy, worldly related themes, but they werent as simple as old
Warner Bros. slapstick. And when someone really thinks about a lot of the television animation
featured in the 1990s it was mostly geared toward children, rather than adults. But why still?
Well, looking back at the 1950s and their television cartoons, they seemed geared toward a
young audience as well.

I think Martin Goodman sums it up quite well by saying, Preschoolers and toddlers
might be delighted by colorful commercials, but were hardly influenced by the content. While
the older, Saturday morning crowd could be swayed into influencing adults to purchase funky
toys, breakfast cereals, and other marketable effluvium of childhood, the very young had only a
dawning glimmer of recognition for these coveted products. They were, at best, Something Else
That Came On The Screen until Something Else replaced themThere is another, possibly more
salient reason why it took so long for toddlers and preschoolers to get their slice of the rich
animation pie. These shows had been very difficult to write. Deceptively difficult. The main
cause is that the natures of adult and child fantasy are widely disparate, and are not as easily
bridged as many might think. (Goodman, Animation World) Perhaps cartoons of these eras just
didnt know who to appeal towards. Adults werent getting much out of them and younger
children couldnt appreciate them. The late resurgence of cartoons in the 1990s may have
bridged that gap by appealing to both adults and young children.
Animation has been through some rough patches to get where it is today. TV cartoons
would die again in the late 2000s and come back by 2011. Animation, like any industry will have
its ups and downs but it will always reach points of high quality. It just takes time and a long
slog of poorly done cartoons to get the industry back on its feet.

Bibliography
Goodman, Martin. As Time Goes By. Animation World. Thursday, June 10, 2004
<http://www.awn.com/articles/drtoon/time-goes/page/1%2C1>
Sito, Tom. The Late, great, 2D Animation Renaissance-Part 2 Animation World.
Tuesday, March 14, 2006.
<http://www.awn.com/articles/late-great-2d-animation-renaissance-part-2/page/1%2C1>
Goodman, Martin. Dr. Toon: Youth Shall be Served. Animation World. Friday, March 2, 2012
<http://www.awn.com/articles/2d/dr-toon-youth-shall-be-served/page/2%2C1>