Raised On Crap: My Childhood Cartoons pt.2

So what exactly happened to cartoons after the Golden Age of animation? Perhaps better understanding this will help those people out there who believe they actually enjoyed shows like Tiny Toons and Animaniacs realize they are terribly wrong, and that these were ugly shows created by people who couldn't draw if their life depended on it. This is all stuff that I have learned from reading publications like Wild Cartoon Kingdom, which was written by heroes of the animation industry like John Kricfalusi, who actually were working animators during the '80s. Since those magazines are out of print now, I will gladly pass the good message along.

There's a reason the 1940s and '50s were referred to as the Golden Age of cartoons, it's that all cartoons were made by Cartoonists! That's right, zillions of years ago there were guys like Bob Clampett, Chuck Jones, Tex Avery, Walt Disney, Ub Iwerks, Frank Tashlin, Bob McKimson, and many more who would make cartoons so funny that we are still laughing at them today (even though now they come packaged with a parental advisory!).


It was in the 1960s that cartoons were taken away from Cartoonists, and put into the hands of people who hate cartoons, not to mention hate the Cartoonists as well! These were people who didn't understand how to read storyboards, and this is where Cartoon Scriptwriters came from. In fact, not only can the Cartoon Scriptwriter not draw, they can't write either! Did you know that cartoon scripts are well known for being the most illiterate entertainment medium today?

This is where the Dark Ages began, and we pressed on into the '80s with shows like Gilligan's Planet, He-Man, Lavern and Shirley In the Army, Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, My Little Pony, The Care Bears, Smurfs, Snow White and the Seven Giants... do I need to go on? This list could extend for pages.


John Kricfalusi actually had to go work for the worst cartoon studio of all time, Filmation, where the artists were hired to rehash versions of old cartoons, classics like Tom and Jerry, Droopy, Heckle and Jeckle, and Mighty Mouse. He once stated, "Our job was to destroy these cartoons that we all loved when we were kids. We did a pretty good job of it too. Over the years I worked on some of the worst crap in history".


When Who Framed Roger Rabbit was a hit in 1988, it set the stage for the return of cartoony creator-driven cartoons, and that's where The Ren & Stimpy Show came from; Nickelodeon executives hired Spumco to produce what they thought was a new concept, cartoons made by Cartoonists.

But Nickelodeon didn't like what they saw, and they not only fired Spumco just a little over a year after production began, they stole the characters and created Games Animation where they made their own episodes, destroying the series just the way Filmation destroyed classic cartoons in the '80s... only this time it took 2 years instead of decades to achieve.


What did Nickelodeon hate about Ren & Stimpy? They hated the gross jokes, they hated how crazy Ren was crazy and they wanted him to be nice to Stimpy (what if Moe had been nice to Larry and Curly?), and they also hated weird stuff. They even threatened to fire the staff after seeing the storyboards for "Stimpy's Invention", an episode they would later promote with countless posters and toys!


There are other heroes in animation like Ralph Bakshi, who actually sold CBS The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse during a staff meeting, when he didn't even own the rights to the character! Network executives didn't allow anything original during the '80, it was all about selling the toys or pre-existing franchises. Once the meeting was over, they found the rightful owners and were able to produce a series created by cartoonists. Flawed, sure, but it was the first time since the Golden Age that cartoons were pure again!

I kind of got off subject here, and talked more about the good stuff as opposed to the "crap", so I think the best thing to do to try and wrap up my point is to have you compare cartoons. Below is a Bob Clampett short called "Baby Bottleneck", and directly below that is a Tiny Toons short. Watch these two back-to-back and then tell me that Tiny Toons did not destroy everything wonderful about Looney Tunes. Just below that, check out this really cool article by Kali Fontecchio on "Baby Bottleneck"!




Kali Fontecchio's "Baby Bottleneck" Review!

written by Jason Anders