Discussion How and why did animation become a "children's" medium?

[MagiCarbo]

Cartoons... It's a phrase commonly associated with childhood. Everybody remembers those days as a kid where they would just sit in front of the tv on Saturday Mornings or after school and watch hours of animated adventures, or when we begged our parents to take us to the newest Pixar or DreamWorks movie. In recent times, animated series aimed at more mature audiences had become popular. Fox put the concept of the "adult cartoon" on the map with its long-running hit, The Simpsons in the early 90s, and since then networks like MTV, Comedy Central, and Adult Swim popped up and dedicated entire lineups to so called "adult" animation. Today, there seems to be a major boom in adult cartoons, with streaming services producing as many uninspired clones of Family Guy as their budget would allow. But even now, animation is still seen as something primarily for the elementary school set. Anything that isn't a raunchy sitcom is either watered down into something an 8-year-old can enjoy, or is just not made at all. Especially true for movies where even a PG-13 rated animated feature feels rare.

But how did we get to this point? What caused "cartoons" to have this air of childishness to it. Like it's something you're supposed to outgrow once you reach a certain age? Was it the death of animated shorts in theatres? The rise of made-for-tv cartoons? The success of Disney movies and shorts? The overplay they had on Saturday Mornings and Afternoons?

 

[Mekanos]

One of the biggest shifts was when TV animation was produced to be as cheap as possible which is what gave Hanna-Barbera its infamous reputation. While the Flintstones was not really aimed at kids either, overtime animation being made for TV was done as cheap as possible and by the time we get to the 80s, the Reagan administration rolled back a lot of advertising restrictions so cartoons became glorified toy commercials. The shift in the late 80s/early 90s with shows like the Simpsons, Batman and Beavis And Butthead laid the groundwork for animation to be more "mature."

Disney also became so popular that Disney = animation in the minds of most people. Whereas things like Looney Tunes were not aimed at "kids" per se but moreso general audiences, Disney started to really push the animation into a more "family friendly" and then "kid" angled direction.

That's the extremely abridged version anyway that I smashed on my keyboard right now lol

 

[Mr Doggo]

I blame disney.

 

[xghost777]

There is this sense of culture in America where you are supposed to give up everything you enjoyed as a kid especially if it is colorful / creative. Cartoons fall into that camp despite examples to the contrary. The taste makers at the top are old fashioned.

It’s also a self fulfilling prophecy of sorts since America doesn’t really make much cartoons aimed at teens anymore. It’s been well over a decade since Cartoon Network for example had the Toonami block air in the afternoon or even Saturday evening / early night. The DC comics cartoons like Justice League even got pushed out of Cartoon Network. I remember reading for Cartoon Network specifically there was some weird stuff where shows would get canceled or get less promotion if they had appeal outside their target demographic. Like if a show was aimed at boys, but girls also really liked it some people at the top of Cartoon Network saw that as an issue which was super dumb.

The world is definitely changing though especially as manga and anime keep growing in popularity. It’s filling that middle ground gulf you mentioned between kids animation and adult animation because there is stuff that’s aimed at kids, stuff aimed at teens, and stuff aimed at adults. Some of the biggest shows, like My Hero Academia, have incredible appeal to kids, teens, and adults which really helps. I think it being easy to access anime and manga has definitely helped. I am worried though about the impact of Crunchyroll no longer adding to their free tier since Sony bought them out will have. Losing that onramp to Premium is bad and we won’t know the effects exactly for a few years probably.

But anyway I do think kids who never gave up Cartoons becoming parents is going to only accelerate the death of the dumb idea that animation is only meant for kids. It’s the same thing we see happening with video games. Way less backlash against enjoying video games today as an adult than 20 years ago.

 

[Mekanos]

 

[Yzz]

The Hays code began to be enforced in the middle of the golden age of animation. A lot of the cartoons before that were made for soldiers and other manly men. Betty Boop was pretty much the first waifu.



Around the mid-century, there were efforts like Disney's Fantasia that attempted to make animation seen as high-brow by adults, while still being apt for all ages. Unfortunately these efforts weren't very fruitful at the end (Fantasia released in the middle of WWII and didn't have big returns).

When the Hays code ended, the animation industry was in its darkest days. Animators like Ralph Bakshi took advantage of this to raise a market for adult animation on the ruins of the old animation industry, but nothing really stuck out. Bakshi films lacked proper funding and were just too raunchy for general audiences. I think the problem here was that Hollywood producers would rather fund a live-action movie for adults, rather than an expensive and risky animated movie for an unproven market. It didn't help that in the 70s, the movie industry was more interested in cheap productions because of the recent crash and the death of the roadshow model, so animation was a no-no.

Then, as Mekanos said, the 80s happened and animation was associated with toy commercials.

The renaissance era was the last time Disney tried to make animation more adult. Eisner poured a lot of cash in Pocahontas because he wanted it to be an Oscar film with strong colonialist themes and representation of a vulnerable group of people. Pocahontas was pretty much Eisner's Fantasia, a risky venture that was set to change the general perception of the medium. In the end Pocahontas ended up being, well... Pocahontas, and other projects like Emperor's New Groove were stripped of its political elements because of the underwhelming reception the film had.

Despite of this, Eisner wanted to revive Disney's Fantasia project by releasing Fantasia 2000, which was set to be the first of a series of upcoming 'high-brow' films. Disney animators even finished Destino, the collaborative film between Dali and Disney. Nobody cared in the end and Eisner left Disney, which concluded in the current-day Disney that doesn't want to pursue any risky ventures.

TL;DR a series of unfortunate events across many decades and a dash of risk-averse capitalism

 

[neil]

There is this sense of culture in America where you are supposed to give up everything you enjoyed as a kid especially if it is colorful / creative.

That’s interesting. I’ve been in the US again the past week. I’m always struck by how openly adults here express their love for “childish” things whether it’s Disney, gaming, Star Wars etc. I don’t think people in Europe do this, but that’s just my perspective.

As a parent I’ve seen how very young children respond to animation compared to live action. They love it. Might be one reason animation is seen as “for kids”.

Personally I love animation

 

[xghost777]

That’s interesting. I’ve been in the US again the past week. I’m always struck by how openly adults here express their love for “childish” things whether it’s Disney, gaming, Star Wars etc. I don’t think people in Europe do this, but that’s just my perspective.

As a parent I’ve seen how very young children respond to animation compared to live action. They love it. Might be one reason animation is seen as “for kids”.

Personally I love animation

It’s relatively improved a ton in the last twenty years where people are allowed to be more open about what they love. As long as people aren’t over the top, I think it’s great!

 

[Rika]

There is this sense of culture in America where you are supposed to give up everything you enjoyed as a kid especially if it is colorful / creative. Cartoons fall into that camp despite examples to the contrary. The taste makers at the top are old fashioned.

Yeah, big time with this. It's one reason I stopped watching cartoons around the beginning of like high school or the middle of it. It isn't as bad anymore, but yeah.

 

[Clix]

It’s a bit more complicated than that. The Hannah Barbara era for sure led that, however cartoons like Flintstones and Jetsons were aimed at the whole family.

But the easy answer is the rise of television. Also known as the babysitter in the 50s.

And while Loony Tune shorts were a hit with adults who would watch tv with their children, and which had subtle risqué humor, they were still aimed primarily at children. My parents and grandparents saw them as kid stuff but kid stuff they could tolerate and get a chuckle of.

But before TV, the shorts shown in theaters were big with adults. But that’s before the rise of TV as a mainstream staple in the 50s.

On the flip side though, as someone that loves cartoons to this day, it’s also perfectly fine to have cartoons aimed strictly to children, and don’t get the disdain some people have for cartoons that also don’t cater to teens or adults.

Now days we have so many options, and I gladly do not hide my love for all types of cartoons and never have. But it does weirds me out when I would watch a cartoon with my daughter and it’s strictly made for and directed for children and just see a bunch adults argue about it back and forth. Like, let kids enjoy things. Not everything has to have us in mind either. I watch both types and appreciate and love both.

Now days it’s rich with content. But as an early Gen Y who grew up as both an 80s and 90s kid (didn’t become a teen until the kid 90s) there was some really great stuff in the 80s before the 90s renaissance, which the latter was filled to the brim with great stuff all around.

Galaxy High, Smurfs, Gummi Bears, Count Duckula, Kidd Video… all great and well animated and some clever writing. There was a lot of fluff too as many cartoons were in sync with toy companies. One exception being Transformers, which started that way primarily, but the show actually grew into something really cool as it went on, especially after the release of the movie. And Dungeons and Dragons, which was also very cool and different for its time.