1. The history of the creation of animation
2. Russian animation
3. Russian animation today
4. Walt Disney
3. American animation for adults
5. Japanese animation
6. The role of animation in our life
The history of animation
In 70 B.C. the Roman poet and philosopher Lucreciy described an appliance for projecting the
image on the screen.
In the Middle ages actors created something like a film-strip projector and used it in their
performances.
In the XVII century a Jesuit monk described a device which allowed flashing pictures on clear
glass.
The system of production of animated films began to form in 1916.
In 1917 the first animated feature film “El Apostol”, directed by Quirino Cristiani was shown in
Argentine.
In 1921 Walt Disney made debut as the author of animated films.
In 1924 the Soviet age of animation began. The Soviet animators Bushkin and Ivanov made the
cartoons “Soviet games” and “Light verses”. In 1924 the first animation studio in the USSR was
created.
The first colored cartoon “Flowers and trees”, produced by Walt Disney was presented in 1932.
In 1934 a new animation studio, which produced films using Disney’s methods was created in
the USSR.
In 1936 studio “Soyuzdetmultfilm” which reproduced Disney’s technique was created. The
imported technology promised a great success to the Soviet animation.
In 1943 the first French colored cartoon “Scarecrow”, made by Paul Grimeau was shown in
Paris. Soon Grimeau became one of the most famous animators in France.
The first theme park, Disneyland, was opened in 1955.
In 1960 the United Nations created The International Animated Film Association. The first
cartoon for adults “The Flinstones” was presented in USA.
The first computer animated film “Bell Telephone Laboratories” was shown in the USA.
The first part of one of the most popular series “The Pink Panther” was debuted.
In 1968 The Beatles and the animator George Dunning made “Yellow Submarine”, the short
cartoon sounded with The Beatles’ music.
In 1979 the soviet animator Yuri Norshtein made a film “Tale of Tales” which was presented in
Los-Angeles. It was elected the best animation film of all time during the 1984 Olympic Arts
Festival.
The first full-length animated film “Toy Story” made with the synthetical pictures only,
produced by Disney and Pixar Production was presented in the USA in 1996.
In 1997 “Imax Corporation” company presented the new technology “Stereo Animation Drawing
Devicе”, a set for drawing stereo-animation.
The first full-length animated films “Tarzan” and “Toy story 2” were shown in 1999.
In 2000 the Russian animator and artist Alexander Petrov was awarded an “Oscar” for his film
“The old man and the sea” made in 3D format.
Due to the rapid progress of animation the American Academy of Cinema decided to introduce a
new Oscar nomination “full-length animated film”.
History of the Russian animation
The first animator in Russia was Aleksandr Shiryayev, who was a principal dancer at the
Imperial Russian Ballet, as well as a teacher and choreographer. He made a number of
pioneering puppet-animated ballet films between 1906 and 1909.
The second person in Russia to independently discover animation was Vladislas Starevich. Being
a trained biologist, he started to make animation with embalmed insects for educational
purposes, but soon realized the possibilities of his medium to become one of the undisputed
masters of stop motion later in his life. His first few films, made in 1910, were dark comedies on
the family lives of cockroaches, and were so revolutionary that they earned Starevich a
decoration from the Tsar.
After Starevich's emigration following the October Revolution, animation in Russia came to a
standstill for years. Only by the mid-to-late-1920s could Soviet authorities be convinced to
finance experimental studios. These were typically part of a bigger film studio and were in the
beginning most often used to produce short animated clips for propaganda purposes.
In doing so, these early pioneers could experiment with their equipment as well as with their
aesthetics. Creators like Ivan Ivanov-Vano, Mikhail Tsekhanovsky or Nikolay Khodatayev made
their debut films in a very fresh and interesting way, aesthetically very different from American
animators.
Another remarkable figure of the time is Aleksandr Ptushko. He is known for the invention of an
adding machine that was in use in the Soviet Union until the 70s. When he joined the puppet
animation unit of Mosfilm, he found an ideal environment to live out his mechanical ambitions
as well as his artistic ones, and became internationally renowned with the Soviet Union's first
feature-length animated film, The New Gulliver. This film mixes puppet animation and live
acting. Ptushko became the first director of the newly founded Soyuzdetmultfilm-Studio.
In 1934, Walt Disney sent a film reel with some shorts of Mickey Mouse to the Moscow Film
Festival. Fyodor Khitruk, then only an animator, was absolutely overwhelmed by the liquidity of
the films' images and enthusiastic about the new possibilities for animation that Disney's ways
seemed to offer.
Higher officials shared this impression, too, and in 1935, the Soyuzdetmultfilm-Studio was
created from the small and relatively independent trickfilm units of Mosfilm, Sovkino and
Mezhrabpromfilm in order to focus on the creation of Disney-style animation, exclusively using
cel technique.
In 1930s Soyuzmultfilm became the leading animation studio in the Soviet union, producing an
ever-growing number of children's and educational animation shorts and features, but the
experimental spirit of the founding years was lost.
One of the most alarming examples of the transformation that not only the studios underwent,
but also the artists were succumbed to, is Mikhail Tsekhanovsky. The artist made a name for
himself in book illustration and graphics. He became internationally renowned by his film
“Post”, shot in 1929 and earning him a number of prizes at international film festivals. In 30s he
made films “The Tale of the Priest and of His Workman Balda” and “The Tale of the Fisherman
and the Fish” in 1950, both based on poems written by Aleksandr Pushkin. The differences in
visual decisions are clearly visible and characteristic for the transformation not only Mikhail
Tsekhanovsky, but Soviet animation as a whole had to go through during that time.
For two decades, the studio confined itself to sober and to an extent tedious adaptations of folk
tales and communist myths. An exception might only be found in wartime propaganda spots,
shot during evacuation in Samarkand 1941 - 1943, but their humour is arguably unintentional.
Nevertheless, directors like the sisters Zinaida and Valentina Brumberg with films like “Fedya
Zaitsev”, Ivan Ivanov-Vano with 1954's “Moydodyr” or Lev Atamanov with “The Snow Queen”
managed to create masterpieces of their genre that have been rewarded various prizes at festivals
all over the world and have taken a lasting place in animation history.
When Khrushchev in 1956 proclaimed the end of the personality cult about Stalin, he started a
process of political and cultural renewal in the country. Even though animators still needed a
while to free themselves from the long tradition of "Éclair", from the 1960s onwards, animation
films gain completely new qualities. The starting point for this was Fyodor Khitruk's film
“History of a Crime”. Not only had he changed the animation style to something that resembled
what the UPA was doing, but for the first time since the avantgarde years, he was able to tackle a
contemporary story.
Khitruk's revolutionary approach paved the way for a vast number of young animation directors
that in the following years developed their own distinctive styles and approaches. One of the
most political was Andrey Khrzhanovskiy, whose surrealist film “The Glass Harmonica” was
severely cut by censors, but shelved nevertheless. Anatoly Petrov is known as the founder of the
cinema journal “The Happy Merry-Go-Round” that gave an opportunity to many young directors
to make their first own films.
The 1970s saw the birth of the Soviet Union's most popular animation series “Nu, Pogodi!”,
directed by Vyacheslav Kotyonochkin. These seemingly simple miniatures about a wolf chasing
a hare through soviet-style cartoon worlds owe a great deal of their popularity to the cunning
subtexts built into their parts.
During the Stalin period, puppet animation had come to a halt. Only in 1953 was a puppet
division was refounded at Soyuzmultfilm. Its first head of department was Boris Degtyarev,
under whose direction young animators tried to recover the knowledge that had been lost since
the time of Aleksandr Ptushko. Among the most outstanding of these young artists were Vadim
Kurchevskiy and Nikolay Serebryakov. One generation later, Stanislav Sokolov started to make
movies that brought the art of puppet animation to a new height. His approach, characterized by
complex animation structures and multiple special effects can well be observed in “The Big
Underground Ball” or “Black and White Film”.
Roman Kachanov made numerous films for children, starting from puppet animation:
“Varezhka”, “Cheburashka” series, and later with traditional animation (“The Mystery of the
Third Planet”).
One of the most famous Russian animators is Yuriy Norshteyn. His films “Little Hedgehog in
the Fog” and “Tale of Tales” show not only technical mastery, but also an unrivaled magic
beauty. Tale of Tales was elected best animation film of all time during the 1984 Olympic Arts
Festival in Los Angeles.
Unfortunately, since the beginning of Perestroika, other directors were able to cope with the
changes that this time brought; they even commented on it in their films. Garri Bardin's “Little
Red Ridinghood et le Wolf” not only provoked by including a foreign language into the title, it
also was full of allusions to the upcoming end of communism. Aleksandr Tatarskiy even
managed to found his own studio “Pilot” in 1988.Yuriy Norshteyn founded a school and studio
in 1993 which exists to this day, called SHAR Studio.
Russian animation today
The life of Russian animation over last ten years reminds us of someone jumping on a bouncing
castle. During the Soviet era Soyuzmultfilm alone released up to forty ten-minute films per year.
But in 1996 for the first National Screenings of Animation in Tarussia we just about found six
films. After the economic crisis of the 1990s, not only animation, but all of Russian cinema fell
into a lethargic dream, when production and distribution practically came to a halt and the
infrastructure of cinemas collapsed.
The process of reanimation began in 2000, when 17 short films were produced with support from
the state. The turning point came in 2004. A decision was taken to increase state funding for
animation. The result consisted in 68 films made with state support; of these three were fulllength films, and three were films for serials. There followed the release of the most popular
Russian serial, Smeshariki. The six-minute series intended for family viewing with stylised ballshaped creatures were loved by spectators of different generations and became the basis of the
Studio Petersburg and of a whole industry of franchised goods, including computer games,
television and radio programs, toys, books and textbooks. By the way, Smeshariki have also
been dubbed into English. 2004 also marks the birth of the largest and most complicated project
in the history of Russian animation: “Mountain of Gems” (Gora samotsvetov), launched by the
studio Pilot. This project continues at present, and some of the films included in this afternoon's
programme.
The studio Pilot is the first independent Russian animation studio. According to the plan of its
founders, Aleksandr Tatarskii and Igor Kovalev, Pilot was designed to be a laboratory for the
creation of auteur films. Here we must note that the studio became a festival champion: the wellknown films of Kovalev, Maksimov, and the Oscar winner Petrov were made under its brand.
On the other hand the project facilitated a steady stream of films produced for mass audiences,
whilst — and this is of huge importance — ensuring professional quality with thorough and fine
plasticity.
The studio's activity culminated with Mountain of Gems, which was more than a film project: it
was a new brand of Russian animation. Fifty-two fairy tales of the peoples of Russia were
produced: such a thing had never been seen in the Soviet era. The thirteen-minute films were
created in the most different techniques and had not only an educational, but also and
enlightening value. In each series the trailer told in a humorous manner about traditions, life,
crafts and arts of one of the people. The project had a happy festival life: “About Ivan the Fool”
(Pro Ivana duraka) by Mikhail Aldashin and Oleg Uzhinov, “The Cat and the Fox” (Kot i lisa)
by Konstantin Bronzit, and of course the effervescent, magnificently timed, funny film with a
refined visual language — “Zhikharka” by Oleg Uzhinov.
I cannot claim that all the films of the cycle are equally talented. There are magnificent works
with a picturesque style and professional work, such as Aleksei Alekseev's “About a Raven” (Pro
vorona), or Andrei Kuznetsov's “How the Snake was Deceived” (Kak obmanili zmeiia), but there
are also less mature films. However, as a whole, Mountain of Gems is without doubt visible from
afar, and it offers a clear and distinct aesthetic leap forward for Russian animators. The cycle
continues to develop, and new works have been completed quite recently.
So, we can say that the landscape of Russian animation today has changed cardinally. In the
Soviet era there were two main studios in Moscow: Soyuzmultfilm and Multtelefilm, as well as a
small studio in Sverdlovsk (now Ekaterinburg). Today Multtelefilm no longer exists, and after
long squabbles, conflicts, and the departure of many masters the former main studio of the
country, Soyuzmultfilm, is now merely one of many studios, and it must be added that the
quality of its films has gone down rapidly in the last few years.
The current map of Russian animation dazzles with names of new studios located not only in
Moscow, but also in Saint Petersburg, Saratov, Sverdlovsk/Ekaterinburg, Kazan, and Iaroslavl,
and the films from these studios are known within the country and beyond its borders.
The studio Animos Film occupies a particularly significant place among Russian studios. The
studio has not only created a number of high-quality auteur films, but Animos is almost the only
studio that maintains the traditions of classical puppet animation, which today is already a rarity.
Their cartoons based on Aleksei Tolstoi, Samuil Marshak, Aleksandr Pushkin, and Aleksandr
Ostrovskii. For example, “The Captain's Daughter”. In “The Captain's Daughter” a screen
adaptation of Pushkin's story, they chose traditional puppet animation combined with modern
cinema techniques, such as foreshortenings, close-ups and mystical transformations.
A whole range of Russian studios today are formed by groups of “accomplices” who tend to
gather behind a master of the art. Thus, the studio Stair is inspired and led by Garry Bardin; one
of the most recent projects of the studio is the puppet-animated trilogy about a nanny made from
cushions, called Chucha. The studio in Iaroslavl, Panorama, is engaged in the creation of the
films of Aleksandr Petrov who based his delightful film on a novel by Ivan Shmelev, entitled My
Love (Moia liubov', 2006) which was painted on glass. Iurii Norshtein's studio Artel continues to
work on the long-term epopee, the screen adaptation of Gogol''s “Overcoat”. During the creation
of the film he also made the trailer for the popular Russian television programme “Good night,
kids!”.
One of the oldest animation collectives is the Sverdlovsk animation studio, which honours not
only the traditions of the Soviet period. Zoia Kireeva made her debut film here, one of the most
brilliant and paradoxical films of the year “The Silly Girl” (Devochka dura), developing the
traditions of modern cinema.
Attempts to introduce an authorial view and experiments into the field of digital technologies
continue. In Vlad Barbe's version, the founder of the studio Classics, the axiomatic tale about
Kolobok and his travel become a variation on the biblical theme of the prodigal son. The director
populates the stale sphere of 3D space like a deserted and cold world, thus emphasizing the
enormous loneliness of the tramp Kolobok.
In 2007, 137 films have been produced with state support, among them one full-length feature
and nine serials. The arrival of a young generation in animation has been aided by the “green
light” contained in the state program for debut films. The work on Smeshariki and “Mountain of
Gems” continues.
In 2008 a total of 109 films were made with state support, of them twelve full-length features,
and the work on serials continues. Approximately 25 % of films are made with partial support
from the state.
In the next year financial support is expected to remain approximately at the same levels
(although the current economic crisis may reduce the volume of state finance). However, it is
planned to focus on features (currently over 14 feature films are in production), and also on
serials.
I would like to talk about modern Russian cartoons which became popular due to the internet.
For example “Masyanya”. This series was popular at the beginning of the XXI century. Many
people saw it and sent these cartoons to their friends. Everybody liked Masyanya, a student from
St Petersburg in a red T-shirt, blue skirt and with a few hairs on her head. But it is not very
popular nowadays. Today the most famous character in Russian internet is Mr. Freeman.
On the 21 of September in 2009 Mr. Freeman loaded on YouTube his first short film “Are you
sure that you know who you are and that you really exist?” The number of those who saw the
video is more than 600 000. Two next videos were seen by more than 500 000 persons.
About 4000 users became followers of Mr. Freeman’s Livejournal. It happened mostly because
of the style the cartoons were drawn. The pictures are black-and-white, well-drawn, dark and
very stylish.
But there is also a content which is a little unusual for cartoons: a small spiteful man talks about
philosophy. He hates people who pass all the time in the internet, sending his short films to their
friends. He hates the so-called pin-striped masses which have done nothing in their lives, which
will die if they lose their mobile phone or hard disc.
Digital Mr. Freeman considers himself more real than people made with flesh and blood.
People draw Mr. Freeman’s portraits on the walls, buy T-shirts with his picture. But nobody
knows if it is Mr. Freeman who does it. Indeed nobody knows who Mr. Freeman is in real life.
Walt Disney
Walt Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator,
entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon and philanthropist. Disney is famous for his
influence in the field of entertainment during the twentieth century. As the co-founder (with his
brother Roy Disney) of Walt Disney Productions, Disney became the best-known motion picture
producers in the world.
Disney is particularly noted for being a film producer and a popular showman, as well as an
innovator in animation and theme park design. He and his staff created a number of the world's
most famous fictional characters including Mickey Mouse, a character for which Disney himself
was the original voice. He has made 111 films, won 26 Academy Awards out of 59 nominations
and seven Emmy Awards. He is the namesake for Disneyland and Walt Disney World Resort
theme parks in the United States, Japan, France, and China.
Disney’s career as animator began in January 1920, when he and his brother formed a short-lived
company called, "Iwerks-Disney Commercial Artists". At this studio they became to make short
cartoons “Laugh-O-Grams”.
Presented as "Newman Laugh-O-Grams", Disney's cartoons became widely popular in the
Kansas City area. Through their success, Disney was able to acquire his own studio, also called
Laugh-O-Gram, and hire a vast number of additional animators. Unfortunately, with all his high
employee salaries unable to make up for studio profits, Walt was unable to successfully manage
money. As a result, the studio became loaded with debt and wound up bankrupt. Disney then set
his sights on establishing a studio in the movie industry's capital city, Hollywood, California.
Disney and his brother pooled their money to set up a cartoon studio in Hollywood. Needing to
find a distributor for his new Alice Comedies Disney sent an unfinished print to New York
distributor Margaret Winkler, who promptly wrote back to him. She was keen on a distribution
deal with Disney for more live-action/animated shorts based upon “Alice's Wonderland”.
The new series, Alice Comedies, was reasonably successful. By the time the series ended in
1927, the focus was more on the animated characters, in particular a cat named Julius who
resembled Felix the Cat, rather than the live-action Alice.
By 1927, the new series, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, was an almost instant success, and the
character, Oswald became a popular figure. But because of some problems Disney lost the right
to him.
After losing the rights to Oswald, Disney felt the need to develop a new character to replace him.
He based the character on a mouse he had adopted as a pet while working in a Kansas City
studio. Ub Iwerks reworked on the sketches made by Disney so that it was easier to animate it.
However, Mickey's voice and personality was provided by Disney. The mouse was originally
named "Mortimer", but later christened "Mickey Mouse". Mortimer later became the name of
Mickey's rival for Minnie, who was taller than his renowned adversary and had a Brooklyn
accent.
The first animated short with Mickey in it was titled, “Plane Crazy”, which was, like all of
Disney's previous works, a silent film. After failing to find a distributor for Plane Crazy or its
follow-up Disney created a Mickey cartoon with sound called Steamboat Willie. Steamboat
Willie became an instant success, and Plane Crazy, The Galloping Gaucho, and all future
Mickey cartoons were released with soundtracks.
Following the footsteps of Mickey Mouse series, a series of musical shorts titled, “Silly
Symphonies” was released in 1929. It was a musical project where every short was sounded with
some classical composition.
By 1932, Mickey Mouse had become quite a popular cinema character, but “Silly Symphonies”
was not as successful. In 1932, Herbert Kalmus, who had just completed work on the first threestrip technicolor camera, approached Walt and convinced him to redo “Flowers and Trees”,
which was originally done in black and white, with three-strip Technicolor. “Flowers and Trees”
would go on to be a phenomenal success and would also win the first Academy Award for Best
Short Subject: Cartoons for 1932. After “Flowers and Trees” was released, all future “Silly
Symphony” cartoons were done in color as well. Through “Silly Symphonies”, Disney would
also create his most successful cartoon short of all time, “The Three Little Pigs”, in 1933. The
cartoon ran in theaters for many months, and also featured the hit song that became the anthem
of the Great Depression, "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf".
In 1932, Disney received a special Academy Award for the creation of "Mickey Mouse", whose
series was made into color in 1935 and soon launched spin-off series for supporting characters
such as Donald Duck, Goofy, and Pluto.
All development and training was used to elevate the quality of the studio so that it would be
able to give the feature film the quality Disney desired. “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”, as
the feature was named, was in full production from 1934 until 1937, when the studio ran out of
money. To acquire the funding to complete Snow White, Disney had to show a rough cut of the
motion picture to loan officers at the Bank of America, who gave the studio the money to finish
the picture. The finished film premiered at the Carthay Circle Theater on December 21, 1937; at
the conclusion of the film, the audience gave “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” a standing
ovation. Snow White, the first animated feature in America and Technicolor became the most
successful motion picture of 1938 and earned over $8 million in its original theatrical release.
The success of Snow White, (for which Disney received one full-size, and seven miniature Oscar
statuettes) allowed Disney to build a new campus for the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank. Snow
White was not only the peak of Disney's success, but it also ushered in a period that would later
be known as the Golden Age of Animation for Disney. The feature animation staff, having just
completed “Pinocchio”, continued work on “Fantasia” and “Bambi” and the early production
stages of “Alice in Wonderland” and “Peter Pan” while the shorts staff continued work on the
Mickey Mouse.
“Pinocchio” and “Fantasia” followed Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs into the movie theaters
in 1940, but both were financial disappointments. The inexpensive “Dumbo” was planned as an
income generator, but during production of the new film, most of the animation staff went on
strike, permanently straining the relationship between Disney and his artists.
By the late 1940s, the studio had recovered enough to continue production on the full-length
features “Alice in Wonderland” and “Peter Pan”, both of which had been shelved during the war
years, and began work on “Cinderella”, which became Disney's most successful film since
“Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”. The studio also began a series of live-action nature films,
titled “True-Life Adventures”, in 1948 with On Seal Island. Despite rebounding success through
feature films, Disney's animation shorts were no longer as popular as they used to be, and people
began to instead draw attention to Warner Bros and their animation star Bugs Bunny. By 1942,
Leon Schlesinger Productions, which produced the Warner Bros. cartoons, had become the
country's most popular animation studio. However, while Bugs Bunny's popularity rose in the
1940s, so did Donald Duck's; Donald would also replace Mickey Mouse as Disney's star
character by 1949.
During the 1950s, Disney produced a number of educational films on the space program in
collaboration: “Man in Space”, “Man and the Moon”, Mars” and Beyond”.
On a business trip to Chicago in 1940s, Disney drew sketches of his ideas for an amusement park
where he envisioned his employees spending time with their children. He got his idea for a
children's theme park after visiting Children's Fairyland in California. The original ideas
developed into a concept for a larger enterprise that was to become Disneyland. Disney spent
five years of his life developing Disneyland and created a new subsidiary of his company, called
WED Enterprises, to carry out the planning and production of the park. Disneyland, the world's
first theme parks, finally opened on July 17, 1955 was immediately successful. Visitors from
around the world came to visit Disneyland, which contained attractions based upon a number of
successful Disney properties and films.
As Walt Disney Productions began work on Disneyland, it also began expanding its other
entertainment operations. In 1950 The Walt Disney Studio produced its first TV special, One
Hour in Wonderland. Disney began hosting a weekly anthology series on ABC named
“Disneyland”, where he showed clips of past Disney productions, gave tours of his studio, and
familiarized the public with Disneyland. In 1955, the studio's first daily television show,
“Mickey Mouse Club debuted”, which would continue in many various incarnations into the
1990s.
As the studio expanded and diversified into other media, Disney devoted less of his attention to
the animation department, entrusting most of its operations to his key animators, whom he
dubbed the “Nine Old Men”. During Disney's lifetime, the animation department created the
successful “Lady and the Tramp”, “Sleeping Beauty”, “101 Dalmatians”.
By the early 1960s, the Disney empire was a major success, and Walt Disney Productions had
established itself as the world's leading producer of family entertainment. Walt Disney was the
Head of Pageantry for the 1960 Winter Olympics.
After decades of pursuing, Disney finally procured the rights to P.L. Travers' books about a
magical nanny. “Mary Poppins”, released in 1964, was the most successful Disney film of the
1960s.
On November 30, 1966, Disney collapsed in his home, but was revived by paramedics, and was
taken back to the hospital, where he died on December 15, 1966, ten days after his 65th birthday.
The final productions in which Disney had an active role were the animated feature “The Jungle
Book” and the live-action musical comedy “The Happiest Millionaire”, both released in 1967.
Today, Walt Disney's animation/motion picture studios and theme parks have developed into a
multi-billion dollar television, motion picture, vacation destination and media corporation that
carry his name. The Walt Disney Company today owns, among other assets, five vacation
resorts, eleven theme parks, two water parks, thirty-nine hotels, eight motion picture studios, six
record labels, eleven cable television networks, and one terrestrial television network. As of
2007, the company has an annual revenue of over U.S. $35 billion.
American animation today
Animation has changed nowadays. Disney’s production continues to made few films a year.
Many series as “Tom and Jerry” continue to be shown on TV. But beside, there are many new
cartoons and unfortunately many of them are not for children.
The Simpsons and Fox
The 1990s saw the beginnings of a new wave of animated series targeted primarily to adults,
after a lack of such a focus for over a decade. In 1987,”The Simpsons”, an animated short
cartoon segment of The Tracey Ullman Show, debuted. The creation of Matt Groening led to its
own half-hour series in 1989, the first prime-time animated series since “The Flintstones”.
Although 70% of the first episode's animation had to be redone, pushing the series premiere back
three months, it became one of the first major hit series for the fledgling Fox network. It caused a
sensation, entering popular culture and gaining wide acclaim for its satirical handling of
American culture, families, society as a whole and the human condition. The show has won
dozens of awards, including 24 Emmy Awards, 26 Annie Awards and a Peabody Award. Its
success led Fox to develop other animated series aimed at adults, including “King of the Hill”,
“Futurama”, “Family Guy”, “American Dad!” and “The Cleveland Show”. “King of the Hill”
was an instant success running 13 seasons. Both “Futurama” and “Family Guy” were cancelled
by the network, only to be brought back on the strength of their DVD sales.
Ren and Stimpy
In 1991, Nickelodeon introduced The Ren and Stimpy Show. Ren and Stimpy was a wild and
off-beat series that violated all the restrictions of Saturday morning cartoons and instead favored
the outrageous style of the shorts from the Golden Age period. Indeed, the series creator, John
Kricfalusi, a Ralph Bakshi protege, was largely influenced by the classic works of Bob Clampett.
In spite of the show's popularity, the show was beset with production delays and censorship
battles with Nickelodeon, who fired Kricfalusi in 1992. The show continued under the
production of the network-owned Games Animation company until 1996, though many
animators followed Kricfalusi out. TNN revived the show in a more risqué form in 2003, with
Kricfalusi receiving more creative freedom, but it only lasted 10 episodes.
Spike and Mike
Alongside the mainstream revival of animation in the 1990s there was a stranger and more
experimental movement occurring. In 1989 a festival of animation shorts, organized by Craig
"Spike" Decker and Mike Gribble and originally based in San Diego, began showcasing a
collection of short subject animated films, known as the Classic Festival of Animation, in
theatrical and non-theatrical venues across the country
The collections were largely made up of Oscar nominated shorts, student work from the
California Institute of the Arts, and experimental work funded by the National Film Board of
Canada. Judge's piece, Frog Baseball, marked the first appearance of his dimwitted trademark
characters Beavis and Butt-head, while McCracken's short The Whoopass Girls in A Sticky
Situation featured the introduction the trio of little girl superheroes that would later gain much
popularity under their new moniker The Powerpuff Girls.
However, the festival gradually turned into a program of films called Spike and Mike's Sick and
Twisted Festival of Animation which become an underground movement for adult humor and
subject matter.
Adult Swim
In 1994, Cartoon Network gave the nod to a new series titled Space Ghost: “Coast to Coast”. In a
particularly postmodern twist, this show featured live action celebrity interviews mixed with
animation from the original Space Ghost cartoon. The series opened the vaults of Hanna-Barbera
Productions, now owned by Cartoon Network. It was the beginning of the now common practice
of using old Hanna-Barbera cartoon characters for new edgier productions, such as the
surrealistic Sealab 2021, based on the early 1970s short lived environmentally themed cartoon,
Sealab 2020. Also, Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law, about a lackluster superhero, Birdman
who was originally the star of Birdman and the Galaxy Trio, who has become a lawyer. His
clientèle, as well as most of the other characters on the show are made up entirely of old HannaBarbera characters.
In addition to these new programs, American audiences—particularly those in geographic areas
influenced by the intermixing of Pacific Rim cultures—began to embrace Japanese cartoons, or
anime, sometime in the 1980s. This growing anime home video market catered to the teenage
and college crowd, with a large number of Japanese animated series being translated into
English. Initially access to the videos was limited, but as anime became more mainstream it
found its way into the larger video stores all across the U.S. Because animation occupies a
somewhat different place in Japanese culture, it includes a range of subject material not often
addressed by American animation.
Today, Adult Swim, a scheduling block of adult-oriented cartoons appearing on Cartoon
Network beginning after primetime, leads the way in adult-oriented and cutting-edge animation.
Adult Swim, which was originally on Sunday nights, now remains on the air until 5:00 a.m. ET,
and is now broadcast every night of the week as of July 6, 2007. Series produced exclusively for
Adult Swim include The Brak Show, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Sealab 2021, Harvey Birdman:
Attorney at Law, The Venture Bros., Perfect Hair Forever, Stroker and Hoop, Tom Goes to the
Mayor, Robot Chicken, and Metalocalypse. In addition to comedy cartoons, Adult Swim also
runs several popular Anime series such as Cowboy Bebop, Ghost in the Shell, Eureka Seven,
Bleach, and InuYasha.
Other cartoons for adults
Other TV networks also experimented with adult-oriented animation. MTV produced several
successful animated series especially for its young adult audience, including Liquid Television,
Æon Flux, Beavis and Butt-head (and its spin-off Daria), and Celebrity Deathmatch (in spite of
the disastrous performance of 1994's The Brothers Grunt). Even USA Network's Duckman,
starring the voice of Jason Alexander, found a cult following. But another successful adultoriented animated series of the 1990s next to The Simpsons was South Park, which saw its
beginnings in 1995 with the short cartoon The Spirit of Christmas and is currently airing on
Comedy Central.
Japanese animation
Anime in English usually refers to a style of animation originating in Japan, heavily influenced
by the manga, Japanese comics.
Anime, like manga, has a large audience in Japan and high recognition throughout the world.
Distributors can release anime via television broadcasts, directly to video, or theatrically, as well
as online.
The history of anime began at the start of the 20th century, when Japanese filmmakers
experimented with the animation techniques also pioneered in the United States and Europe. The
oldest known anime in existence first screened in 1917, made by Osamu Tezuka. It was a twominute clip of a samurai trying to test a new sword on his target.
While different titles and different artists have their own artistic styles, many stylistic elements
have become so common that people describe them as definitive of anime in general. However,
this does not mean that all modern anime share one strict, common art style. Many anime have a
very different art style from what would commonly be called "anime style", yet fans still use the
word "anime" to refer to these titles. Generally, the most common form of anime drawings
include "exaggerated physical features such as large eyes, big hair and elongated limbs and
dramatically shaped speech bubbles, speed lines and onomatopoeic, exclamatory typography."
Anime also tends to borrow many elements from manga, including text in the background, and
panel layouts. For example, an opening may employ manga panels to tell the story, or to
dramatize a point for humorous effect.
Body proportions emulated in anime come from proportions of the human body. The height of
the head is considered as the base unit of proportion. Head heights can vary as long as the
remainder of the body remains proportional.
Variations to proportion can be modded. Super deformed characters feature a non-proportionally
small body compared to the head. Sometimes specific body parts, like legs, are shortened or
elongated for added emphasis.
A common approach is the large eyes style drawn on many anime and manga characters.
Coloring is added to give eyes, particularly to the cornea, some depth. The depth is accomplished
by applying variable color shading. Generally, a mixture of a light shade, the tone color, and a
dark shade is used. Cultural anthropologist Matt Thorn argues that Japanese animators and
audiences do not perceive such stylized eyes as inherently more or less foreign.
Anime characters may employ wide variety of facial expressions to denote moods and thoughts.
These techniques are often different in form than their counterparts in western animation.
There are a number of other stylistic elements that are common to conventional anime as well
but more often used in comedies. Characters that are shocked or surprised will perform a "face
fault", in which they display an extremely exaggerated expression. Angry characters may exhibit
a "vein" or "stress mark" effect, where lines representing bulging veins will appear on their
forehead. Angry women will sometimes summon a mallet from nowhere and strike someone
with it. Male characters will develop a bloody nose around their female love interests.
Embarrassed characters either produce a massive sweat-drop or produce a visibly red blush or set
of parallel lines beneath the eyes.
Like all animation, the production processes of storyboarding, voice acting, character design,
production and so on still apply. With improvements in computer technology, computer
animation increased the efficiency of the whole production process.
Anime is often considered a form of limited animation. That means that stylistically, even in
bigger productions the conventions of limited animation are used to fool the eye into thinking
there is more movement than there is. Many of the techniques used are comprised with costcutting measures while working under a set budget.
Camera angles, camera movement, and lighting play an important role in scenes. Directors often
have the discretion of determining viewing angles for scenes, particularly regarding
backgrounds. In addition, camera angles show perspective. Directors can also choose camera
effects within cinematography, such as panning, zooming, facial closeup, and panoramic.
While anime had entered markets beyond Japan in the 1960s, it grew as a major cultural export
during its market expansion during the 1980s and 1990s. The anime market for the United States
alone is "worth approximately $4.35 billion, according to the Japan External Trade
Organization". Anime has also been a commercial success in Asia, Europe and Latin America,
where anime has become even more mainstream than in the United States.
Anime distribution companies handled the licensing and distribution of anime outside Japan.
Licensed anime is modified by distributors through dubbing into the language of the country and
adding language subtitles to the Japanese language track. Using a similar global distribution
pattern as Hollywood, the world is divided into five regions.
Some editing of cultural references may occur to better follow the references of the non-Japanese
culture. Certain companies may remove any objectionable content, complying with domestic
law. This editing process was far more prevalent in the past, but its use has declined because of
the demand for anime in its original form. This "light touch" approach to localization has favored
viewers formerly unfamiliar with anime.
TV networks regularly broadcast anime programming. In Japan, major national TV networks,
such as TV Tokyo broadcast anime regularly. Smaller regional stations broadcast anime under
the UHF. In the United States, cable TV channels such as Cartoon Network, Disney, Syfy, and
others dedicate some of their timeslots to anime. Some, such as the Anime Network and the
FUNimation Channel, specifically show anime. Animax and Disney's Jetix channel broadcast
anime within many countries in the world. AnimeCentral solely broadcasts anime in the UK.
The Internet has played a significant role in the exposure of anime beyond Japan. Prior to the
1990s, anime had limited exposure beyond Japan's borders. Coincidentally, as the popularity of
the Internet grew, so did interest in anime. Much of the fandom of anime grew through the
Internet. The combination of internet communities and increasing amounts of anime material,
from video to images, helped spur the growth of fandom. As the Internet gained more
widespread use, Internet advertising revenues grew from 1.6 billion yen to over 180 billion yen
between 1995 and 2005.
1. Do you like watching
cartoons?
2. What cartoons are better,
American or Russian?
3. What is your favorite
cartoon?
>14 y.o.
84% - yes
16% - no
46% - American
54% - Russian
42% - Soviet cartoons
40% - Disney’s cartoons
and “Ton and Jerry”
18% - modern American
cartoons
<14 y.o.
82% - yes
18% - no
60% - American
40% - Russian
26% - Disney’s cartoons
27% - Modern American
cartoons
22% - Soviet Cartoons
25% - Modern Russian cartoons