From Poisoned Apples to Annoying Oranges: An Essay on the Birth and Death of Animation Part VII (1992-1999)

Mountain Town

The trend started by the Simpsons would continue into the 1990's.  Not only could animation be looked at as applicable to mass audiences, but some shows even went strictly for adults.  Shows like "Beavis and Butthead" and "King of the Hill" tried to appeal more to adults than to children and had great success with it.  But by far the biggest hit with the young adult and adult demographic was one of Comedy Central's launch titles, "South Park".  On the surface, it looks like a show that would last one or two seasons due to poor animation styles, hard to comprehend dialogue, and vulgar humor.  However, the show's crass attitude and complete disregard for anything and everything has made it a powerhouse in the adult animated world.  It was little like the Simpsons, as continuity, pop culture, and even race and gender lines were crossed on almost a daily occurrence in this little Mountain Town, mostly being observed by Stan (the Straight Man), Kyle (the Righteous Man), Kenny (The Dead Man), and Cartman, who may very well be one of the most cleverly written characters in television history.

The show would not hesitate to cover anything from alien anal probes, to PETA's cult-like attacks on our society, to even trashing whichever pop cultural icon they chose (their best in my opinion being Barbara Streisand, Tom Cruise, George Lucas, Russell Crowe, Mel Gibson, and Saddam Hussein).  And unlike other television shows, which often rooted themselves in one particular demographic or political view, "South Park" has proven time and time again to have literally no restriction on the stories and current events they want to take their shots at and do NOT allow themselves to be restricted by the blurry lines of today's world.  And even to this day, the show continues it's crusade against everything dumb and wrong with America and hopefully, so long as it remains good, it will not go away anytime soon.

The Cheap Route 

I've always been of the opinion that a sequel should only be made if there is more of a story to tell.  Even if a film is monumentally successful that the big business moguls at the film company believe could be milked for more money, a weak and worthless sequel should not be made just to capitalize on a film's success.  But if there was even a fraction of money to be made on one of their products, you could bet that Disney was going to milk that product until the cow was completely dry.  Around the time The Lion King was being finished, several more animation divisions in Australia, South Korea, and Japan were hard at work on making sequels to some of the studio's most successful products.  Seeing as how it was the most successful animated film in history in 1994, it would have been shocking had Aladdin not been picked to be the first film to get this treatment.  While not an awful film in terms of it's sheer existence, The Return of Jafar is the ultimate example of a sequel that, in all rights, would NEVER have existed if I was in charge of Disney in the 1990's.  Not only was the film a flimsy seemingly television pilot that changed almost nothing about the cast aside from Iago and Jafar, but it set a DANGEROUS trend that the studio is still trying to clean up the mess from.

The Return of Jafar was just the first step in a horrendous trend that would have Disney making cheap and flimsy sequels made exclusively for home video that would drain parents pockets and occupy time for the kids who watched them (trust me, I grew up in this era).  Few Disney films were left unscathed by this new direction, as virtually the entirety of the Disney Renaissance and quite a few of the films made in Walt Disney's era were given these lazily cobbled together films that, in general, the public loathes.  I've already gone into detail about how piss poor these films are, but considering this is supposed to catalog the entirety of animation, I figured I would talk about them again.  In my opinion, the worst is Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas, and the LEAST AWFUL of them is Aladdin and the King of Thieves.  But considering there were 14+ years of these films, there were A LOT of deserving candidates.

The Darkest Dawn 


If you divided the Disney Renaissance into categories (and unfortunately give the shaft to The Rescuers Down Under), then there would be three categories:

The Fairy Tale Musical Trilogy
The Ambitious Trilogy
The Lesser Trilogy 

While it can be argued that the films in The Fairy Tale Musical Trilogy did break new ground in terms of art and style, it was The Ambitious Trilogy where Disney Animation truly broke new grounds in terms of technical achievements, voice acting achievements, artistry, and most importantly, in terms of story telling.  Whether you like them or not, The Lion King and Pocahontas both covered these grounds by telling darker, more serious stories.  But if you look at it in terms of stories and themes you thought Disney would NEVER cover, I have to tip my hat to The Hunchback of Notre Dame.  The film is a true example of how much Disney could do with a more adult story, even with all of the self imposed restrictions (no, there isn't any rape scenes and the majority of the cast still survives).  Even without these scenes, the film took itself very seriously, with very intense dark moments including an opening scene that involves Frollo murdering an innocent woman on the steps of Notre Dame and attempting to drown her baby.  The film also covers much deeper thematic statements, from prejudice and sexual lust, to societal acceptance and genocide.

In terms of animation, much like Pocahontas and The Lion King, the film does put a great deal of effort into it's most ambitious scenes, from the Festival of Fools to the dramatic "Sanctuary" finale.  However, it is far more evident in this film that the studio was becoming more and more reliant on CGI and other computer tools, where the art styles of the two previous films could overpower the overly "generated" scenes.  Hunchback would unfortunately start the trend of effects and special scenes being more obviously computed, as future films like Hercules and Fantasia 2000 would all have scenes that stick out like a sore thumb in comparison to the other moments in the film.

To add further insult onto this injury, the film was not much of a success at the box office when released in the summer of 1996, only grossing about it's production budget at the domestic box office and only retaining about $300 million at the worldwide market.  Despite being praised upon initial release and garnering an immense following in recent years, the film still gets the personal shaft from Disney and is constantly ignored by it's shareholders.  This is unfortunate, as many other mediocre films get more attention from the studio in retrospect.

One Last Gasp...

After a string of failures at the box office and among critics, there came a point in the career of Don Bluth where he unfortunately came to realize that his idea well was running dry and that he would need to adapt to what was popular if he was to survive as an animator.  With his studio already shut down due to unprecedented bombs with A Troll in Central Park and Rock-A-Doodle, he gathered up the traditional Disney Renaissance formula and flung out Anastasia to theaters in the Fall of 1997.  The story of the last surviving Romanov Princess has become a respected and well appreciated film of the 1990's and was a staple of many childhoods at the time.  And in many cases, the respect it gains is not exactly poorly placed.  The film does have a charm to it and while it does have many things in common with Disney films being released at the time (an evil sorcerer adviser, Broadway styled music, spunky and flirtatious leads, cute cuddly animal sidekicks, etc.), those things are mostly in there because of the studio's need to copy Disney at everything.  Like with The Lion King, the heart of the story is not the relationship between the male and female leads, but the relationship between Anya and her grandmother, the former Empress of Russia.  You feel a genuine amount of joy when the two are finally reunited and it does keep the overall focus on this relationship.

In terms of animation, the film is a marvel, taking advantage of Disney's over-reliance on CGI to produce many beautifully hand-drawn animated scenes and even giving more recent Disney films a run for it's money with a beautiful musical score.  The line work in the film is very reminiscent of older films like Cinderella while also having the jaded uniqueness of  Bluth's other works.  But the film lags in it's constant necessity to repeat the tired cliches of the Disney Renaissance, which slows down one's enjoyment of a film many hoped would be something different.  And it showed when the film was released in theaters in November 1997, earning less per weekly capita than a 17 day re-issue of The Little Mermaid, while also failing to outgross the far more mediocre Hercules before losing almost all revenue to Titanic.  Despite this, the film was Bluth's first and only success of the 1990's, as his studio would suffer another bomb in the late 90's with Titan A.E. before Bluth retired to teach animation and even begin work on a Dragon's Lair movie which is currently in development.


SKG: The Ten Commandments 

Having departed from The Walt Disney Company following a feud with Michael Eisner, Jeffery Katzenberg returned with a vengeance a few years later with the establishment of his own production company, DreamWorks SKG.  The SKG is an acronym for the names of the studios first heads/shareholders: Steven Spielberg, Katzenberg, and David Geffen.  Within their first few years of existence, the studio would make many films that would have striking similarities to Disney and Pixar films being made at the time.  Their first animated film, for example, was a more mature version of an upcoming Pixar film called A Bug's Life, named Antz.  But while breaking down their upcoming films list, Katzenberg and Spielberg decided to retell the epic biblical fable of The Exodus from Egypt.  However, both agreed that they could not simply replicate Cecil B. Demille's epic masterpiece and instead made the film more relatable in contrast.  The story of The Prince of Egypt takes far less from the 1956 epic and instead focuses on the relationships between characters, most notably between Moses and his biological siblings, but especially his relationship with his adopted brother Ramses.  Instead of outright making Ramses a generic villain who would gladly challenge Moses for right to control the Hebrew's, the Ramses in this film is played off more as a Tragic Character, who was under the thumb of a domineering father for so long, that he retained his hatred and lust for power while still desperately trying to cling to a relationship with Moses, whom must now face him as an enemy.

With a powerful score from Hans Zimmer, well written songs by Steven Schwartz, stunning direction from Brenda Chapman, breathtakingly beautiful animation on DreamWork's behalf, and an all star cast including Ralph Fiennes, Val Kilmer, Sandra Bullock, and Patrick Stewart, the film was a critical and commercial darling in the Fall of 1998 and won the Academy Award for Best Song "When You Believe", proving that Disney did not have a monopoly on film animation anymore.  Despite this success, the film is not often talked about in the same vein as the bigger animated giants, mostly because of how swiftly DreamWorks would shift gears into more of a comedic animation department.  Which is a shame, considering when DreamWorks does make a serious animated film, it can be really good...

Falling Stars

To say that Disney had a monopoly on the motion picture animation department would be a bit of an understatement for the bulk of the 1990's.  Don Bluth had begun a slide and while there would always be an animated film to be released once in a while (such as FernGully: The Last Rainforest, Swan Princess, and Quest for Camelot), none of the films made a decent profit and Disney's film of the year swallowed over them.  However, as the 1990's moved forward, Disney was beginning to show signs of fatigue and wear, with declining profits and critical praise becoming more mixed.  For example, The Lion King garnered nearly $800 million in it's first release, but both Pocahontas and The Hunchback of Notre Dame only made approximately half of what it's predecessor made.  The true decline really began with Hercules in 1997, which despite being marketed well, was a mess in terms of development and articulation and grossed under $290 million dollars worldwide and only got fair reviews.  The film certainly looks beautiful, but lacked many things that made the renaissance so good, including likable leads, good well rounded plots, and great music.

I am in the minority on this next point, but of all the films made during this time, I personally think Mulan is the worst of them.  Like Hercules, the film was a hollow shell of earlier films.  Despite having a strong lead character and an above average art style that truly delved into Chinese Artistry, it suffered from an incredibly weak villain, a highly mediocre Eddie Murphy performance, and a very weak musical score from some of the industries finest.  Though the film was more successful than both Hercules and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, it has since been relegated to the lesser bin of Disney Films.

Compared to it's predecessors, Tarzan had many more positive things about it that made it resemble the films of the past.  However, like Mulan, the film seemed more interested in selling toys and merchandise, borrowing elements from previous films (a villain obsessed with wealth, a celebrity writing the songs, celebrity comic relief, and a self-discovery story).  In essence, these ideas could have been more interesting if they were taken into different directions, but the film went for more predictability than to be unique, hence why I placed it in the lesser category.  With that said, the film is brilliantly animated once again.  I'd even go as far as to say that of the three lesser films in the late 90's, it had comparable animation to the films made earlier in the era.

However we may feel about Tarzan, it cannot be denied that it represented the end of Disney's dominant era of success.  With a tired string of formulas that had made their films and fluctuating profits over the last few years, the studio was in desperate need for a new string of unique ideas.  And while these ideas would certainly break ranks for the studio moving into the 21st century, the critical and commercial success of these films would be put into dire straights, that would result in one of the most infamous decisions a studio head ever made...

Absorbent and Yellow

Nickelodeon would continue to create many animated shows throughout the 1990's.  While some would not last long, others would become network staples for nearly ten years.  While shows like the Rugrats, Ren and Stimpy, Doug, and Hey Arnold! would keep the original Nick Toons name alive until their subsequent cancellations, one show in particular has completely dominated the children's animation landscape since the 1990's drew to a close.  Created in the same nonsensical style as some of their previous shows, Spongebob Squarepants is a show that follows the adventures of a plucky and childish sea sponge, his dimwitted best friend named Patrick, a grouchy neighbor named Squidward, and an assortment of both sea and land life that would culminate in it becoming the network's most popular show.

I must preface this with the fact of my full and complete knowledge of the show's steep decline (which I will get into in a later page).  However, throughout Spongebob's initial three seasons, you would be hardpressed to find more than one or two episodes a season that would be considered lukewarm.  In fact, some of the show's most famous episodes, such as "Dying for Pie", "Chocolate with Nuts", and "Something Smells" have been deemed some of the best episodes of any cartoon series, period.  These episodes fueled the successful empire that Spongebob represents and brought the studio great success in merchandising, television viewership, and two very successful film releases with a third coming to theaters soon.

The Bubble Bursts 

Despite it's immense popularity overseas, anime would take a long time to become mainstream in North America.  And when it did become mainstream, it was heavily censored by the corporations (the few that were still terrified of soccer moms that write angry letters about commercials poisoning youth).  For instance, when it was distributed in North America for the first time, Dragon Ball Z was dubbed and edited considerably by a company called Saban, which included ridiculous edits, ranging from quick cutting to avoid watching someone die, pretending those that did die just disappeared to another dimension, or downright making things up in the narrative to better suit what they wanted.  These changes were also egregious in DIC's dub of Sailor Moon, which removed blood from battle scenes, turned the Sailor scouts dying into them "getting captured", and turned the villain's dark hellish kingdom into something called, "The Negaverse".  Despite these changes, anime was finally beginning to gather an audience in North America, but which one would bust the door open for countless others to come and enrich us with the strengths and weaknesses of the Japanese culture?

Enter Pokemon.  Based off of the immensely popular video game and trading card game with the same name, the story follows protagonist Ash Ketchum as he goes off on his journey to become the best Pokemon trainer in the world, alongside his trusted friend, Pikachu.  Along the way, he encounters tough life lessons, battles sinister villains, and constantly proves himself time and time again with every challenge he and Pikachu undergo.  The show has undergone numerous story and artistic changes over time, taking Ash to new regions (most based off of the recently released games, such as Johto, Hoenn, and Kalos), bringing along new friends like the aquatic tomboy named Misty, the lovestruck breeder named Brock, the equally ambitious Dragon Tamer Iris, and his childhood friend Serena.  Ash's journey has gone almost as long as the length of the franchise, as Nintendo has yet to change him out as the anime's central protagonist (despite some fans asking for a new protagonist).  As with most immensely popular anime of the late 1990's and early 2000's. the main characters had either non existent personalities or largely negative ones that made their characters feel worse than normal protagonists were perceived.  Despite this, the show was incredibly popular and would begin the new age of anime in America, for better or for worse.


The following era of animation would see a much bigger spike when it came to television animation in comparison to feature animation.  While there would be a few very successful franchises and films launched in the early 2000's, success was mostly seen on television, with Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, and even Disney at the forefront of art and entertainment.  Such shows that started in this era would include a secret agent cheerleader, a group of kids battling waves of evil adults, an anime/comic book hybrid that brought out the best in everyone, and arguably the greatest animated show of all time that was, in it's entirety, a completely original idea...