While studying animation for the past several years, over time, I began to wonder why the general opinion in Western countries is that "animation is just for children".
When most people try to research the reason, many point their fingers at 70's animation as well as a few years leading up to the 70's. With movie theaters no longer interested in short features, animated or not, studios like Hanna-Barbera and Filmation became known for their limited animation television shows primarily aimed towards a child audience. It was even around this time when they began airing these cartoons on Saturday mornings, and as a teacher of mine who grew up in the 70's stated, pretty much all the adults knew that Saturday morning was kid's time. It didn't help that Disney, pretty much the only consistent animation studio making features, made some of their least-acclaimed pictures at this time. Not even the adult-driven Ralph Bakshi films could relieve the attitude for long.
So while I don't disagree with all this, I would like to amend that while the 70's, and to an extent, the 60's certainly put animation on the path to being completely child-oriented, it was the animation of the 80's that has older generations waving their hands in dismissal at animation today.
Why? Because cartoons from the 80's made cartoons synonymous with toys, a mostly child-marketed industry.
Of course, I'm not saying that cartoons before the 80's didn't have tie-in toys released in stores. The difference with many 80's cartoons is that shows began based off existing toy lines, or became notorious for being toyetic in general. In the early 80's, we had a cartoon based off the RUBIK'S CUBE. It lasted 12 episodes.
List off some American 80's cartoons from the top of your head. Right now. What do you first think of? Transformers? He-Man? G.I. Joe? Care Bears? Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? My Little Pony(original series)? Real Ghostbusters?
What do these series have in common? A megaton of merchandising. A big peeve of mine is merchandise-driven animation, which accounts for my severe displeasure with American 80's cartoons. The reasons for this are that toyetic cartoons have all the same problems: Several 1-dimensional characters created just to be another toy, lowest common denominator puns and jokes that got terribly old back in the 70's, and rushed animation leading to a great many inconsistencies, a lot of which are simple continuity errors. P.S.A's began showing up around this time, too. Not all cartoons were like this, naturally, but nearly all the most popular ones were. The only one that I thought rose a bit above this trend was the Ghostbusters cartoon. Better animation, better stories, and actually well made toys.
Nevertheless, with so many shows marketing toys, parents, and thus the older generations, began associating animation with toys, and having to go and buy these for their tykes who watched all these shows. An association that continues to this day.
It wasn't just TV animation. Disney's theatrical contributions during the 80's, with the exception of Little Mermaid, weren't very successful. The only decent contributor to American theatrical animation during the 80's was Don Bluth and his three 80's movies. It wasn't until the tail end of the 80's when things started to pick up, even leading into the 90's renaissance of animation, but the damage had been done. Cartoons were toys, and therefore child's play, in the eyes of people whose decisions meant anything back then. Despite the restrictions of subject matter being loosened during the 80's, too many studios decided to pander and look down on the youngest instead of making timeless works that everyone could potentially enjoy.
Nowadays, people who grew up in that era are adults now, having children of their own. Many of them are more open-minded to so-called "kid's stuff" like animation and video games. However, there are still people who can't look beyond bright colors and large eyes. Hopefully, with people who grew up with animation getting older, the public opinion will shift for the best in coming years.
Now, I mostly talked about American cartoons because I found them to be the biggest problem. There were other cartoons in the 80's produced world-over that had a bit more going for them.
Thanks for looking at my wall of text.
When most people try to research the reason, many point their fingers at 70's animation as well as a few years leading up to the 70's. With movie theaters no longer interested in short features, animated or not, studios like Hanna-Barbera and Filmation became known for their limited animation television shows primarily aimed towards a child audience. It was even around this time when they began airing these cartoons on Saturday mornings, and as a teacher of mine who grew up in the 70's stated, pretty much all the adults knew that Saturday morning was kid's time. It didn't help that Disney, pretty much the only consistent animation studio making features, made some of their least-acclaimed pictures at this time. Not even the adult-driven Ralph Bakshi films could relieve the attitude for long.
So while I don't disagree with all this, I would like to amend that while the 70's, and to an extent, the 60's certainly put animation on the path to being completely child-oriented, it was the animation of the 80's that has older generations waving their hands in dismissal at animation today.
Why? Because cartoons from the 80's made cartoons synonymous with toys, a mostly child-marketed industry.
Of course, I'm not saying that cartoons before the 80's didn't have tie-in toys released in stores. The difference with many 80's cartoons is that shows began based off existing toy lines, or became notorious for being toyetic in general. In the early 80's, we had a cartoon based off the RUBIK'S CUBE. It lasted 12 episodes.
List off some American 80's cartoons from the top of your head. Right now. What do you first think of? Transformers? He-Man? G.I. Joe? Care Bears? Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? My Little Pony(original series)? Real Ghostbusters?
What do these series have in common? A megaton of merchandising. A big peeve of mine is merchandise-driven animation, which accounts for my severe displeasure with American 80's cartoons. The reasons for this are that toyetic cartoons have all the same problems: Several 1-dimensional characters created just to be another toy, lowest common denominator puns and jokes that got terribly old back in the 70's, and rushed animation leading to a great many inconsistencies, a lot of which are simple continuity errors. P.S.A's began showing up around this time, too. Not all cartoons were like this, naturally, but nearly all the most popular ones were. The only one that I thought rose a bit above this trend was the Ghostbusters cartoon. Better animation, better stories, and actually well made toys.
Nevertheless, with so many shows marketing toys, parents, and thus the older generations, began associating animation with toys, and having to go and buy these for their tykes who watched all these shows. An association that continues to this day.
It wasn't just TV animation. Disney's theatrical contributions during the 80's, with the exception of Little Mermaid, weren't very successful. The only decent contributor to American theatrical animation during the 80's was Don Bluth and his three 80's movies. It wasn't until the tail end of the 80's when things started to pick up, even leading into the 90's renaissance of animation, but the damage had been done. Cartoons were toys, and therefore child's play, in the eyes of people whose decisions meant anything back then. Despite the restrictions of subject matter being loosened during the 80's, too many studios decided to pander and look down on the youngest instead of making timeless works that everyone could potentially enjoy.
Nowadays, people who grew up in that era are adults now, having children of their own. Many of them are more open-minded to so-called "kid's stuff" like animation and video games. However, there are still people who can't look beyond bright colors and large eyes. Hopefully, with people who grew up with animation getting older, the public opinion will shift for the best in coming years.
Now, I mostly talked about American cartoons because I found them to be the biggest problem. There were other cartoons in the 80's produced world-over that had a bit more going for them.
Thanks for looking at my wall of text.
