From Poisoned Apples to Annoying Oranges: An Essay on the Birth and Death of Animation Part VI (1988-1995)

The Televised Renaissance

The revival of animation was not just kept to motion pictures.  Throughout the late 1980's and beyond, animation studios all over the world were working hard to help bring a modern entertainment to an art form long thought dead.  Remember, Saturday Morning Cartoons were in steep decline ind quality, with most more interested in selling toys than producing quality content.  To add insult to injury, with the advent of weekend activities (Kids sports, summer camps, video games, etc.) the idea of having a few hours dedicated purely for cartoons was also slowly fading into obscurity.  This, however, would prove exceptionally important for the overall revival of the art form on television, as entire networks were now being dedicated to producing fun and comedic cartoons and shows for the entire family.  

Enter Nickelodeon, named after the original theaters that showed cartoons back before the days of sound.  Nickelodeon would re-air many of the shows that had been popular in the 1980's, before producing their own content.  This era saw the dawn of such memorable shows as "Ren & Stimpy", "Rocko's Modern Life", "Hey Arnold", "Doug", and one of the biggest hits in television history, "Rugrats".  Eventually, Nickelodeon would be the pioneer in children's entertainment and for a short while, were the kings of children's entertainment.  We'll talk more about Nickelodeon in later segments, but for now, let's just say that they were sewing the seeds for a complete renaissance of entertaining proportions.  

Nickelodeon was not alone, however.  Ted Turner, who had acquired the television rights to numerous older cartoons, including many of the pre-1950's Looney Toons, was in the market to make a television network similar to Nickelodeon, but with more of a lean towards classic cartoons.  Having purchased the fledgling Hanna-Barbera, they set to work in establishing their own channel which they would ultimately call, Cartoon Network.  Their first step was to, like Nickelodeon, make their own content.  The result was a unique kind of cartoon variety show that could pilot many different types of shows that could ultimately be made.  "What a Cartoon!" would bring about the first great age of Cartoon Network shows, alongside launching the careers of many (and I mean MANY) animators who would go on to create shows of their own.  These names would include Genndy Tartakovsky (Dexter's Lab), Craig McCracken (Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends), Butch Hartman (The Fairly Odd Parents, Danny Phantom), and Seth MacFarlane (Family Guy, American Dad).  

The kinds of cartoons that "What a Cartoon!" generally managed to turn into shows would turn into some of the most well known shows of the era and would spark the greatest era Hanna-Barbera had ever had.  Shows like "Johnny Bravo", "Dexter's Lab", "The Powerpuff Girls", "Cow and Chicken", among others.  These in turn would provide spring boards for another generation of successful cartoon shows.  

Disney and even Steven Spielberg would also get heavily involved in television animation.  Building shows around their library of characters, Disney would create some of the 1990's kids most beloved shows, including "Ducktales", "The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh", "Chip n Dale: Rescue Rangers", "Talespin", "Goof Troop" and "The Little Mermaid" among others.  Their shows would be staples of many kids who grew up in this era's childhoods.  

Spielberg, on the other hand, was so motivated by his success with Roger Rabbit, The Land Before Time, and An American Tail, that he wanted to create a kind of Looney Toons show for the next generation.  The result was the wacky and zany "Tiny Toon Adventures" which followed the adventures of aspiring cartoon characters who hoped to live up to the legacy of their predecessors.  He would follow up this success with the even more wildly acclaimed "Animaniacs" which followed the adventures of a cavalcade of characters and their adventures.  These shows would be praised for their innovations to the art form with solid callbacks and fourth wall jokes.  

But the best shows of the era were the ones that treated both the artform and it's audience seriously.  Hence, this is why this era brought about the resurgence of comic book cartoons.  Many would sprout out of this time, but the two best are often considered to be "X-Men" and "Batman: The Animated Series".  "Batman" in particular is especially praised with giving a sense of darkness and adult themes and natures into something that no one had considered scary since the campy Adam West show had siphoned most of the grittiness out of the show.  This show would evoke the darker imagery the comics suggested, with more human yet dark portrayals of formerly comedic villains such as Mr. Freeze, The Penguin, Two Face, and Catwoman, while also seriously introducing non-readers to such menacing villains as R'as Al Ghul, Bane, the Scarecrow, and everyone's favorite sidekick, Harley Quinn.  

A Fall from Grace

This era was not without it's casualties, though.  After All Dogs Go to Heaven was crippled at the box office by The Little Mermaid, Don Bluth made it an effort to avoid further competition with Disney.  His next film, Rock-A-Doodle, would be released in the Spring of 1992 to avoid competition with both Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin, but still didn't fair well at the box office.  Despite following in the footsteps of his previous work, many of the films Bluth made in the post-All Dogs era were not regarded by many as quality films.  His films would continue to dip in quality as time would progress.  His three films that would be released in this era (including the 1994 flops Thumbelina and A Troll in Central Park) grossed a combined $24.7 million, which a few of the Disney films being made in this era were grossing in two weekends (or one in some cases).  

Bluth's creativity was also being closely observed in this era.  His days of creating unique and beautiful animated films were well behind him, but he was being pressured into matching Disney in quality.  This was a suicide mission, as Disney was at their best game since the 1950's and no studio could match them in gross revenue at this point in regards to animation.  Even Bluth has admitted to phoning in a few of his own films, including Thumbelina, which was made to try to duplicate the formula of the successful films at the time, including hiring many frontline celebrities to work on their films along with help from previously cast Disney actors (Jodi Benson and Kenneth Mars for example).  But Bluth would not have another success at the box office until 1997, so his last minute of fame was coming, but he would have to wait for it.  It's a shame, because Bluth really was a master of his craft.  

Rubbing the Lamp...

The tragic death of Howard Ashman did not just hinder the production of one film.  Howard's untimely death also left his dream project, Aladdin, on the cutting room floor.  Ashman had poured his heart and soul into the creation of this fairy tale turned musical, but many of his ideas were being flatly rejected despite his close ties to both composer Alan Menken and Studio Chief Jeffery Katzenberg.  Over half a dozen songs, four or five characters, and more than half of the story was thrown out, forcing what animators were on the project to begin to rework the film into something the studio would accept.  The infinite wishes was cut back to three, the villain's sidekick evolved from a stuffy British buzzkill into Gilbert Gottfried with feathers, and the film was given a much more adventurous approach to the story.  When this new approach was accepted, the animators flipped on the burners and began to turn Aladdin into the kind of film they were molding it to be.  

Much of the film's comedic appeal has to be granted to the late Robin Williams' performance as the showstealing Genie of the Lamp.  The combination of Williams's riffs and impersonations with the almost mercurial animation style of leading animator Eric Goldberg, would create a character that would forever reign as one of the studio's finest.  

The intense work and long hours that went into Aladdin proved to have a tasking cost on the studio.  From 1988-1992, the studio had released an animated film a year, with no regard for the physical and emotional limitations on the animators.  While they insisted on pushing themselves to the fullest extent of their talent, Jeffery ultimately pushed back the start dates of many of their animated films.  The November 1993 release of "King of the Jungle" would be pushed back to June 1994, along with many other films in the works at that time.  

As was the case with Beauty and the Beast, all of the painful moments were made worth it when Aladdin burst onto the screens in 1992 to overwhelming praise and quickly outgrossed Home Alone 2 as the most successful film of the year, topping out at just over $500 million worldwide.  As it's predecessors had, Aladdin won two Academy Awards for Best Song (A Whole New World) and Best Score, while it fell short of the Golden Globe for Best Picture.  Nevertheless, Aladdin would quickly become the studio's most profitable franchise, and would even outsell Beauty on home video by nearly 5 million cassettes.  

Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast would prove to be the last two films that the entire studio would be working on fully one at a time.  After 1992, the studio's growing employment prompted the splitting of the workforce on multiple projects at the same time.  Two to three films would be in full production at once, while three to four would be in development at the same time.  The fruits of their labors would not be felt until the studio's next major release in 1994, but nevertheless, they would still have animated content being made at the studio.  

The Haunted Christmas 

Few people know that Tim Burton started out his career at the Disney Studios as an animator.  He was dismissed when management cut down the amount of people in studio (even future Pixar mastermind John Lasseter was cut), prompting Burton to continue his path to filmmaking as a director.  Perhaps it was for the better, as some of Burton's best work came after his dismissal from the studio.  Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, and Batman would become huge box office and cult classic successes the likes no one had seen before.  This drew the newly run Disney Company to Burton again and the two collaborated on one of Burton's pet projects.  Having written a poem about a world of monsters taking over Christmas, Burton was given the budget he wanted to create an animated film based on this poem.  The decision to make a full length animated film in stop motion was very toned down in the film's creation, but it's originality and creative atmosphere would still make the feat incredible.  

Stop Motion Animation is a form of animation in which models are used to illustrate the illusion of movement.  The models are moved slightly and a picture is taken until you could flip the pictures over one another to create the illusion drawing on paper did.  The art form had been around for decades before this film, but with the exception of the Rankin Bass Christmas Specials, few are truly cared about by the public (or even known about the public) to this day.  

The Nightmare Before Christmas would be made a musical like other Disney Animated films of the same time, but instead of Alan Menken, Burton insisted on Danny Elfman (his collaborator on  multiple of his projects).  The dark and grim designs, the gothic and sinister tone of the film, and the absolute jaw dropping beauty of the stop motion animation would make the film a cultural phenomenon the likes of which no film could possibly replicate.  This was because, like All Dogs Go to Heaven, the film was a modest success in theaters in 1993, but was a huge success on Home Video and would slowly build a cult following.  Being a personal favorite of mine, I always watch it at least a dozen times around Halloween and Christmas (so 24 times a year at least in total).  

Bambi in Africa...

As Aladdin neared completion, a breakfast meeting was held to discuss the next two projects available.  Jeffery Katzenberg insisted that their upcoming film Pocahontas was a bonafide success with Oscar glory written all over it.  Their other film, then titled "King of the Jungle", was toted as being a $50-$60 million dollar grosser that few would want to see.  This prompted many of the studio's top animators to reject the film and move onto Pocahontas.  This left rookie director Roger Allers (who had been the head of story for Beauty and the Beast), and producer Don Hahn in a huge predicament, especially after co-director George Scribner (Oliver and Company) left the project due to creative differences.  A clustered story about a lion cub framed for murder, with Hamlet thrown in, was not being looked upon with respected eyes.  

This prompted a complete overhaul of the story and tones of the film.  Now dubbed The Lion King, the film maintained it's blend of Hamlet and Africa, while certain aspects of the film were now being emphasized.  The epic scale of the continent was now being highlighted, as was the moving score composed by Hans Zimmer.  The songs, written by rockstar Elton John and Aladdin writer Tim Rice, were slowly becoming as major staples of the studio as the other films were.  The stunning animation, the breathtaking music, and the stellar voice acting with stars such as James Earl Jones, Jeremy Irons, Matthew Broderick, among others, was slowly building momentum as the studio's next big film.  A thanksgiving teaser trailer (the first four minutes of the film with the first song "Circle of Life") was universally praised and built up a great deal of optimism and expectation for the film.  

The film had a much more adult tone to it's story and it's animation, with part of the team travelling to Kenya to study the wildlife and the setting their story would take place in.  Like with Bambi, the realism in the movement of each animal was taken into effect along with the natural occurrences in the Serengeti, including rain storms and droughts, were also heavily studied.   In all, the film would be a deep and thought provoking look at finding your place in nature's Circle of Life and how to accept your place in it.  The last scene added to the film, the famous scene of Simba encountering Mufasa's ghost, is still being considered the crowning achievement of the film.  

Despite everything in the universe wanting the film to not be completed on time (from the tragic death of Disney COO Frank Wells to the North Ridge Earthquake forcing the studio to close down for the time being), The Lion King opened worldwide on June 24th, 1994.  The film was praised by critics and quickly swept Aladdin away as the most successful animated film of all time, grossing around $750 million world wide.  The film also garnered two Academy Awards (Best Song and Best Score) and three Golden Globes (Including Best Picture).

But life would get in the way of the success of the film, and the studio would take a good long time to recover from it.  After a bitter feud following the death of Wells, Jeffery Katzenberg departed the studio and the warring between Michael Eisner and Roy Disney would continue deep into the next decade, turning what should have been a celebratory moment into one of doubt and confusion.  

Lofty Expectations...

Despite the departure of Katzenberg from the studio, they remained as equally confident in Pocahontas as they had just a few years before when they underrated their chances with The Lion King.  After all, the film is arguably the most beautifully animated in the decade, with intense attention to detail given in the human characters and the scenery (though I have yet to see these grand sweeping mountains in coastal Virginia).  Alan Menken and new collaborator Steven Schwartz wrote soothing and sweeping musical numbers and a bewitching score, which certainly boosted the film's credibility.  Marketed as the first Disney film to be based on historical events, Pocahontas took many years of hard work and determination to reach the same levels the studio had been climbing the past few years.  An enormous premiere was scheduled for the summer of 1995.

But the reaction to the film was decidedly mixed, with no one heaping the same praise they had shown to the film's predecessors.  Like Sleeping Beauty before it, Pocahontas was a visually stunning film that could capture an art lover's eye quite well.  However, like the former, the latter also suffered from underdeveloped or uninteresting characters and a flimsy plot that could be predicted to the letter.  It's leads were bland and boring, it's villain was a pompous and pathetic symbol of the oppression of the settlers to the natives, and the rest of the cast is not strong enough to contest with.  And while it certainly made a great deal of money at the box office, it earned roughly half of what The Lion King had earned and only won a handful of Oscars and Golden Globes.

To add insult to injury, despite being an enormous success, the film wasn't even the most successful or acclaimed animated film of the year.  Pocahontas is often seen as the turning point for Disney Animation, where the studio began to lose that "magic touch" they had had since the end of the 1980's.  In many cases, this is true, not only for Disney, but for animation as well.  Traditional hand drawn animation was about to meet it's match, ironically coming from the same company that had helped them make some of the most famous 2D animated films ever: Pixar.

To Infinity and Beyond...

The parallels that run between Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Toy Story are obvious.  Both films were touted as failures long before their release and were heavily scrutinized and criticized for breaking the status quo.  But John Lasseter and his assembled team went to work on taking the boundaries of animation into the next stratosphere, by taking on the challenge of creating the first ever animated film to be animated entirely with computers.  The advantages were obvious.  For starters, the planes with which you could work with were limitless.  This means you could easily give even a simple scene a sense of depth and atmosphere.  No longer would animators struggle trying to create scenes like the Ballroom dance in Beauty and the Beast or the wildebeest stampede in The Lion King, now that you could now literally create and alter the planes yourself instead of being limited to the paper you were tracing and painting.  However, there were still problems, most prominently being the infancy of the technology in comparison to the 2D films.  Computers would not have the processing power to create realistic human characters for several years afterwards, so this left the team at Pixar to solve this problem on their own.

With a looming deadline, the decision was made limit the amount of humans to their bear minimum and keeping the focus mostly on the toys.  The results gave the film with strong characters and deep connections between the two leads.  Added into the story and framework was the vocal talents of Tim Allen and Tom Hanks, who have since etched their names into the glorious rankings of animation voice actors.  After some minor feuding with Disney over how to tell the film (with music or not), Pixar agreed to allow their film to become a musical on the condition that the main characters not sing on screen.  Hiring Randy Newman to write the score and songs, he added his own charm to the overall film and making it the film we know and love.

With substantial pomp and circumstance around it's debut, Toy Story came to theaters in 1995 and garnered critical praise and immense commercial success, grossing the most of any film in the domestic box office.  Critics praised it for it's originality, it's charm, and it's stunning animation.  It was quickly brought into the fold in Disney parks and merchandising and would become one of the most successful franchises the company has ever had.

Change

This era of growth and prosperity in animation would set the standards by which all animated television shows and movies would be judged.  Eternal shows like Rugrats, Dexter's Lab, Batman: The Animated Series etc. would be the springboard for many more successful shows to come later on, while the success of films like Aladdin and The Lion King would prompt many more companies to toss their hats back into the ring of the medium.

But the release and public praise and acceptance of Toy Story would change the medium in more ways than anyone would have expected.  Computer animation would soon start to push traditional animation out of the spotlight and take center stage.  Along with that, proof that animated films could be successful without subscribing to the Disney Formula would drive a nail into the coffin that was becoming the Disney Renaissance.

The rest of the 1990's would bring about great change to the medium.  Competitors to Disney, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, The Simpsons, and many others would rise and make animation a better medium because of it.  Some things would succeed and others would fail, but all would be attempts to keep the medium moving forward into the new millennium.  And it wouldn't be long before long dormant animation would spring into the spotlight and make it's place on pop culture.  Animaiton would officially be accepted as a significant part of our lives.