An
animated cartoon is a short, hand-drawn (or made with computers to look similar to something hand-drawn)
film for the
cinema,
television or computer screen, featuring some kind of story or plot (even if it is a very short one). This is distinct from the term "
animation" or "animated film", as not all follow the definition.
Although cartoons can use many different
types of animation, they all fall under the
traditional animation category.
History
Early examples of attempts to capture the phenomenon of
motion into a still drawing can be found in
paleolithic cave paintings, where animals are depicted with multiple legs in superimposed positions, clearly attempting to convey the perception of motion.
The
phenakistoscope,
zoetrope and
praxinoscope, as well as the common
flip book, were early animation devices to produce movement from sequential drawings using technological means, but animation did not really develop much further until the advent of
motion picture film.
The first animated cartoon (in the traditional sense, i.e. on film) was
"Fantasmagorie" by the French director
Émile Cohl. Released in 1908.
One of the very first successful animated cartoons was "
Gertie the Dinosaur" by
Winsor McCay. It is considered the first example of true
character animation.
In the 1930s to 1960s, theatrical cartoons were produced in huge numbers, and usually shown before a
feature film in a
movie theater.
MGM,
Disney,
Paramount and
Warner Brothers were the largest studios producing these 5 to 10-minute "shorts".
Competition from
television drew audiences away from movie theaters in the late 1950s, and the theatrical cartoon began its decline. Today, animated cartoons are produced mostly for television.
Technologies
A horse animated by
rotoscoping from
Eadweard Muybridge's 19th century photos. The animation consists of 8 drawings, which are "looped", i.e. repeated over and over.
The advent of film technology opened opportunities to develop the art of animation. The basic animation process is described in the article
Animation, and the classic, hand-drawn technology in
Traditional animation.
At first, animated cartoons were
black-and-white and silent.
Felix the cat is a notable example.
The first cartoon with
synchronized sound is often identified as
Walt Disney's
Steamboat Willie, starring
Mickey Mouse in 1928, but
Max Fleischer's 1926
My Old Kentucky Home is less popularly but more correctly credited with this innovation. Fleischer also patented
rotoscoping, whereby animation could be traced from a
live action film.
With the advent of sound film, musical themes were often used. Animated characters usually performed the action in "loops", i.e., drawings were repeated over and over,
synchronized with the music. The music used is often original, but
musical quotation is often employed.
Disney also produced the first full-color cartoon in
Technicolor, "
Flowers and Trees", in 1931, although other producers had earlier made films using inferior, 2-color processes instead of the 3-color process offered by Technicolor.
Later, other movie technologies were adapted for use in animation, such as
multiplane cameras,
stereophonic sound in Disney's
Fantasia in 1941, and later, widescreen processes (e.g.
CinemaScope), and even
3D.
Today, animation is commonly produced with
computers, giving the
animator new tools not available in hand-drawn traditional animation. See
Computer animation for further information of the specific technologies. However, many types of animation cannot be called "cartoons", which implies something that resembles drawings. Most forms of
3D computer animation, as well as
clay animation and other forms of
stop motion filming, are
not cartoons in the strict sense of the word.
An animated cartoon created using
Adobe Flash is sometimes called a
webtoon.
Feature films
The name "animated cartoon" is generally not used when referring to full-length animated productions, since the term more or less implies a "short". Huge numbers of animated feature films were, and are still produced; see
List of animated feature-length filmsNotable artists and producers of "shorts"
Television
American television animation of the 1950s featured quite
limited animation styles, highlighted by the work of
Jay Ward on
Crusader Rabbit.
Chuck Jones coined the term "illustrated radio" to refer to the shoddy style of most television cartoons that depended more on their soundtracks than visuals. Other notable 1950s programs include
UPA's
Gerald McBoing Boing,
Hanna-Barbera's
Huckleberry Hound and
Quick Draw McGraw, and rebroadcast of many classic theatrical cartoons from
Warner Brothers,
MGM, and
DisneyHanna-Barbera's show,
The Flintstones was the first successful
primetime animated series in the United States, running from 1960-66 (and in
reruns since). While many networks followed the show's success by scheduling other primetime cartoons in the early 1960s, including
The Jetsons,
Top Cat, and
The Alvin Show, none of these programs survived more than a year in primetime. However, networks found success by running these failed shows as
Saturday morning cartoons, reaching smaller audiences with more demographic unity among children. Television animation for children flourished on Saturday morning, on cable channels like
Nickelodeon and
Cartoon Network, and in syndicated afternoon timeslots.
Primetime cartoons were virtually non-existent until 1990s hit
The Simpsons ushered in a new era of
adult animation. Now, "adult animation" programs, such as
Aeon Flux,
Beavis and Butt-head,
South Park,
Family Guy,
The Boondocks,
American Dad!,
Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and
Futurama are a large part of television.
Commercial animation
Animation has been very popular in
television commercials, both due to its graphic appeal, and the humor it can provide. Some animated characters in commercials have survived for decades, such as
Snap, Crackle and Pop in advertisements for
Kellogg's cereals.
The legendary animation director
Tex Avery was the producer of the first
Raid "
Kills Bugs Dead" commercials in 1966, which were very successful for the company. The concept has been used in many countries since.
Genres of animated cartoons
Funny animals
The first animated cartoons often depicted
funny animals in various adventures. This was the
mainstream genre in the
United States from the early 1900s until the 1940s, and the backbone of Disney's series of cartoons.
Zany humor
Bugs Bunny,
Daffy Duck of
Warner Brothers, and the various films of
Tex Avery at
MGM introduced this popular form of animated cartoons. It usually involves
surreal acts such as characters being crushed by massive boulders or going over the edge of a cliff but floating in mid air for a few seconds. The
Road Runner cartoons are great examples of these actions. The article
Cartoon physics describes typical antics of zany cartoon characters. Disney has, to a lesser extent, applied this to some of their cartoons.
Sophistication
As the medium matured, more sophistication was introduced, albeit keeping the humorous touch.
Classical music was often spoofed, a notable example is "
What's Opera, Doc" by
Chuck Jones. European animation sometimes followed a very different path from American animation. In the Soviet Union, the late 1930s saw the enforcement of
socialist realism in animation, a style which lasted throughout the
Stalinist era. The animations themselves were mostly for kids, and based on traditional fairy tales.
Limited animation
In the 1950s,
UPA and other studios refined the
art aspects of animation, by using extremely
limited animation as a means of expression.
Modernism
Graphic styles continued to change in the late 1950s and 1960s. At this point, the design of the characters became more angular, while the quality of the character animation declined.
Animated music videos and bands
Popular with the advent of
MTV and similar music channels,
music videos often contain animation, sometimes
rotoscoped (see:
Take on Me), i.e., based on
live action performers. Cartoons animated to music go at least as far back as Disney's 1929
The Skeleton Dance. These are now popular with the animated bands
Gorillaz and
Dethklok, the latter of which is based around a
television show about the band.Anime
Anime is traditionally hand drawn, but computer-assisted techniques (such as
cel-shaded animation) have become quite common in recent years. The subjects of anime represent most major genres of fiction, and anime is available in most motion-picture media ranging from television broadcast to literature. Anime is basically an animation style from
Japan.
Computer Animation
Beginning in the 1990s, with the rise of
computer animation, some cartoons implemented CGI and a few were done entirely in computer animation.
Beast Wars and
Reboot were done entirely in CGI whereas
Silver Surfer only partially implemented CGI.
Donkey Kong Country also used CGI to make it look like the SNES game. CGI is common today, whether obvious such as in
Tak and the Power of Juju or made to look two-dimensional such as in
Speed Racer X.
See also
