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July 20, 2004

Golden Age of Animation

I never liked cartoons much. When I was a kid back in the seventies, it was the beginning of the great drought in American animation; the wretched cookiecutter output of the Hanna-Barbera studios dominated Saturday mornings - hence, I spent most Saturday mornings outside. I probably am better off for it; to this day, I watch very little TV compared to most people. In my entire house, there is one thirteen-inch TV, which I take as a point of perverse pride.

And yet, at least a couple nights a week I catch myself watching "Adult Swim" on the Cartoon Network.

Justin Peters explains:

The Adult Swim entourage is only the latest in a series of consistently witty and original cartoons that have emerged on television in recent years--from "The Simpsons" to "South Park" to "King of the Hill." And this is on top of the plethora of fine feature-length animated films that have graced movie theaters such as Monsters Inc., and the Shrek series. Indeed, if novels, pop music, and live action movies have been going through a bit of a fallow period, we are arguably living in a golden age of cartoons, one that rivals in creativity and appeal to the era of "Looney Tunes" and "Betty Boop" over half a century ago.
Read the whole article - it's a fascinating look at the Williams Street animation shop which produces most of "Adult Swim", which I think has some englightening parallels with the alternatie media:
The emergence of such high-quality commercial animation begs an intriguing question about the entertainment industry as a whole. How is it that the same economy that gives us bland fodder like Vin Diesel, Evanescence, and "According To Jim" can sometimes suddenly produce the sort of wonderful, bizarre material that we see on Adult Swim? It's because the good stuff tends to come when nobody's looking--created by those on the fringes of the studio system, occupying marginal creative real estate with minimal supervision. In the natural world, punctuated evolution occurs when small groups find themselves geographically isolated and free from natural predators, allowing creatures with rare mutations to thrive and develop into entirely new species. So it is in entertainment: The best material has often come from the back alleys of the studio system. Though only 200 yards across the street from the Turner Entertainment corporate complex, the Adult Swim's Williams Street warehouse is miles away in terms of sensibilities--and it has given rise to an entirely new species of cartoons.
Read the whole thing. The article is fascinating - although you get the impression that when Justin Peters calls ""Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law," a "Perry Mason"-like spoof in which a winged superhero with a law degree defends famous cartoon figures accused of various crimes", you get the impression he's not old enough to have connected the show with the original "Birdman" series.

To help you keep track, here are the official ratings:

Good:

  • Home Movies - an off-kilter show about a movie-making kid, his single mom, and his alcoholic soccer coach.
  • Aqua Teen Hunger Force - a milkshake, a wad of meat and a floating carton of french fries fight crime. In theory.
  • Harvey Birdman, Attorney At Law - Birdman represents Hanna Barbera cartoon characters (Shaggy and Scooby, Grape Ape, Devlin, Penelope Pitstop and many more) in court
  • Family Guy - wonderfully twisted show about a lunatically-dysfunctional family, which debuted in
  • Space Ghost Coast to Coast - the original old cartoon spoof.
Bad:
  • The Brak Show - Never, ever funny.
  • The Oblongs - I'm not sure what it is about this show, but it makes me want to drink Drano...
Your mileage may vary.

Posted by Mitch at July 20, 2004 06:41 AM | TrackBack
Comments

I don't know if it's on right now, but add Cowboy Bebop to the must-sees on Adult Swim. It isn't American, so that may keep it off the list. But it's still one of the best on the network.

Posted by: Jerry Leigh at July 20, 2004 07:43 AM

And don't forget Futurama, which is quite possibly the best-written half-hour show of any genre. There are a couple of episodes of that show that are beyond brilliant. Of course, like most good shows on Fox, it was mistreated and eventually cancelled...

Posted by: Jay Reding at July 20, 2004 09:02 AM

I've seen Cowboy Bebop, but only after I've already fallen asleep; it'll be one when I wake up sometimes. In that half-awake dazed state, it seems like a very fascinating show.

Doh! Forgot Futurama. Their spoof on Willy Wonka was incredible (partly because of my hatred for the original movie...)

Posted by: myatch at July 20, 2004 09:08 AM

Futurama is (obviously, IMHO) the best animated show of the decade. The "Roswell" show was superb, with animation that will blow you away. (And anyone who's seen it knows what I'm talking about.)

The Brak show used to be funny, but it ain't no more, since they got British-mom.

Posted by: Pious Agnostic at July 20, 2004 09:48 AM

Good: Last year's Sealab 2021
Bad: This year's Sealab 2021

It just ain't been the same since the original Captain died.

Posted by: ccwbass at July 20, 2004 11:06 AM

Oh no! How can you say that Brak is "never, ever funny"? It's freaking hilarious. Particularly the first season. Totally low-brow, post-modern absurdity. I still giggle when I think about the episode where Brak takes care of Thunderclese's goldfish. Wonderful!

Posted by: Monkey RobbL at July 20, 2004 01:45 PM

It pains me, gentlemen, to remind you that The Weekly Standard calls us to be adults.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/content/public/articles/000/000/003/825grtdi.asp

Well, as Dick Cheney might say, then f*** the Weekly Standard.

Futurama was one of the biggest disappointments of recent television. Matt Groening + sci-fi should = brilliant. Instead it came out as dull and forced. Amazing that it lacked the sparkle of The Simpsons.

For my own part, I look forward to the return of Silver Surfer. Now there's a kewl animation.

Posted by: pinkmonkeybird at July 20, 2004 03:47 PM

I didn't get too much of a chance to see Futurama, but I have been soaking up mass quantities of anime since the late 1990s. This is the stuff that American animation studios should have been producing instead of unfunny dreck like Scooby-Doo and endless variations on the superhero cartoon. Gundam Wing, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Trigun...this is the stuff that kids are tuning into. Well, okay, Invader Zim, but that got cancelled by Nickelodeon.
Sealab 2021= lame, old, and burnt.
Inu-Yasha = very much the new hotness.

Posted by: Kevin at July 20, 2004 04:03 PM

The current tagline for my blog, "How you gonna clean a kitchen with cheese, Shake?" comes from ATHF, which may be one of the funniest shows on television, ever. I'm an especially big fan of the Mooninites.

As for the others:

Futurama: occasionally great. (The Star Trek parody was spot-on.) Occasionally not. Although, to tie it to yesterday, when they order their supercollider from PiKEA, the robot who delivers it says "please to enjoy your Swedish crap," then falls apart as it drives away.

Family Guy: a better Willy Wonka parody than Futurama's. And how can you not love a show that ends with this exchange:

Lois: Well, Peter, I guess you learned a big lesson, didn't you?

Peter: Nope.

Sealab 2021: Occasionally funny, usually not so much.

Harvey Birdman: Consistently funny. Features Stephen Colbert. And the Flintstones/Sopranos parody was perfect.

Home Movies: I'm usually pretty sleepy by this point.

Space Ghost: Good, but I rarely see it anymore.

Brak: Brak is funny on Space Ghost, but a little Brak goes a long way.

The Oblongs: Somehow, I've managed to avoid it.

Posted by: Jeff Fecke at July 20, 2004 04:27 PM

Good post Lileks.

Posted by: JB Doubtless at July 20, 2004 04:30 PM
hi