Prime Time Animation Television animation and American culture Edited by Carol A. Stabile and Mark Harrison PRIME TIME ANIMATION In September 1960 a television show emerged from the mists of prehistoric time to take its place as the mother of all animated sitcoms. The Flintstones spawned dozens of imitations, just as, two decades later, The Simpsons sparked a renaissance of prime time animation. The essays in this volume critically survey the landscape of television animation, from Bedrock to Springfield and beyond. The contributors explore a series of key issues and questions, including: How do we explain the animation explosion of the 1960s? Why did it take nearly twenty years following the cancellation of The Flintstones for animation to find its feet again as prime time fare? In addressing these questions, as well as many others, the essays in the first section examine the relation between earlier, made-for-cinema animated production (such as the Warner Looney Toons shorts) and television-based animation; the role of animation in the economies of broadcast and cable television; and the links between animation production and brand image. Contributors also examine specific programs like The Powerpuff Girls, Daria, The Simpsons, The Ren and Stimpy Show and South Park from the perspective of fans, exploring fan cybercommunities, investi- gating how ideas of ‘class’ and ‘taste’ apply to recent TV animation, and addressing themes such as irony, alienation, and representations of the family. Carol A. Stabile is associate professor of communication and director of the Women’s Studies Program at the University of Pittsburgh. She is the author of Feminism and the Technological Fix (1994), editor of Turning the Century: Essays in Media and Cultural Studies (2000), and is currently working on a book on media coverage of crime from the 1830s to the present. Mark Harrison is a Ph.D. candidate in communication and cultural studies at the University of Pittsburgh. His work has appeared in Bad Subjects and Cultural Studies as well as the anthology Turning the Century. He is currently working on a project tracking the figure of the extraterrestrial from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. This page intentionally left blank PRIME TIME ANIMATION Television animation and American culture Edited by Carol A. Stabile and Mark Harrison First published 2003 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon Ox144RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group © 2003 Carol A. Stabile & Mark Harrison, selection and editorial matter; individual chapters © contributors Typeset in Perpetua by Taylor & Francis Books Ltd All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Prime-time animation / edited by Carol Stabile and Mark Harrison. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Animated television programs – United States. I. Stabile, Carol, 1960– . II. Harrison, Mark, 1967– . PN1992.8.A59 P75 2003 791.45'3--dc21 2002012968 ISBN 0–415–28325–6 (hbk) ISBN 0–415–28326–4 (pbk) CONTENTS List of illustrations viii Notes on contributors ix Acknowledgments xii Introduction: prime time animation – an overview 1 CAROL A. STABILE AND MARK HARRISON PART I Institutions 13 1. “Smarter than the average art form”: Animation in the television era 15 PAUL WELLS 2. The great saturday morning exile: Scheduling cartoons on television’s periphery in the 1960s 33 JASON MITTELL CONTENTS 3. Re-drawing the bottom line 55 ALLEN LARSON 4. The Flintstones to Futurama: Networks and prime time animation 74 WENDY HILTON-MORROW AND DAVID T. MCMAHAN 5. Synergy nirvana: Brand equity, television animation, and Cartoon Network 89 KEVIN S. SANDLER 6. The digital turn: Animation in the age of information technologies 110 ALICE CRAWFORD PART II Readings 131 7. Back to the drawing board: The family in animated television comedy 133 MICHAEL V. TUETH 8. From Fred and Wilma to Ren and Stimpy: What makes a cartoon “prime time”? 147 REBECCA FARLEY 9. “We hardly watch that rude, crude show”: Class and taste in The Simpsons 165 DIANE F. ALTERS 10. “Misery chick”: Irony, alienation and animation in MTV’s Daria 185 KATHY M. NEWMAN vi CONTENTS 11. “What are those little girls made of?”: The Powerpuff Girls and consumer culture 205 JOY VAN FUQUA 12. “Oh my god, they digitized Kenny!”: Travels in the South Park Cybercommunity V4.0 220 BRIAN L. OTT Index 243 vii ILLUSTRATIONS 5.1 Duckman: a casualty of branding (Courtesy of Klasky Csupo) 93 5.2 Scooby-Doo: Cartoon Network’s most ubiquitous brand extension (Courtesy of Cartoon Network) 99 5.3 Synergy at work: Samurai Jack (Courtesy of Cartoon Network) 103 6.1 Character creation with wireframe and texture mapping (Courtesy of Minna Långström, Virta Animated Ltd) 114 6.2 The TeleANT animated interface (Courtesy of Peter Coppin, Department of Robotics, Carnegie Mellon University) 122 6.3 Eventscope: interactive Martian data (Courtesy of Remote Experience and Learning Lab, Pittsburgh, PA) 123 6.4 Machinima screenshot from Barracuda Beach Bar (Courtesy of Hugh Hancock, Strange Company) 126 6.5 Machinima screenshot from Hardly Working (Courtesy of Hugh Hancock, Strange Company) 126 10.1 Another excruciating day at Lawndale High for Daria and Jane (Courtesy of MTV) 189 11.1 Blossom as Lara Croft 208 11.2 Powerpuff-inspired Rave Wear (Courtesy of The Cartoon Network) 211 11.3 Consuming the Powerpuff Girls (Courtesy of The Cartoon Network) 212 12.1 Sweeet.com 228 viii CONTRIBUTORS Diane F. Alters completed her Ph.D. in media studies at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Colorado, Boulder in 2002. She has taught at the Graduate School of Public Affairs at the University of Colorado and previously worked as a staff writer at The Boston Globe, the Sacramento Bee, and other publications. Alice Crawford is a Ph.D. candidate in communication at the University of Pittsburgh and teaches classes in visual rhetoric, web design, and media criticism. Her dissertation investigates relations between spatial metaphors embedded in information technologies and the rhetoric around them, and the manner in which urban spaces are experienced and used. She has published in Social Epistemology, and has forthcoming essays in Eloquent Images: Visual Literacy and New Media and Critical Perspectives on the Internet. Ms. Crawford worked in information design before her current incarnation as an academic. Rebecca Farley worked on animation at Queensland University between 1992 and 1999. She has published in Media International Australia and is book reviews editor for Intensities: The Journal of Cult Media and Social Semiotics. She is presently writing her dissertation on adventure at the School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies at Cardiff University. ix CONTRIBUTORS Joy Van Fuqua is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication at Tulane University. She teaches courses in television and popular culture and is the director of the cultural studies minor. Her current research project examines television and the rise of health consumer culture. Mark Harrison is a Ph.D. candidate in communication and cultural studies at the University of Pittsburgh. His work has appeared in Bad Subjects and Cultural Studies as well as the anthology Turning the Century. He is currently working on a project tracking the figure of the extraterrestrial from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. Wendy Hilton-Morrow is a doctoral student in the Communication Studies Department at the University of Iowa, specializing in media studies. Her research interests include media institutions, cultural theory and gender issues. Before attending graduate school, she worked in television jour- nalism. Allen Larson is a doctoral candidate at the University of Pittsburgh’s Department of Communication. His dissertation is titled Alienated Affections: Stardom, Work and Identity in US 20th Century Culture. David T. McMahan, Ph.D., University of Iowa, is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication Studies and Theater at Missouri Western State College. His research interests include media institutions, communi- cation education, personal relationships, and the bridging of interpersonal communication and mass communication. Jason Mittell is an assistant professor of American civilization and film & media culture at Middlebury College. He has published essays in Cinema Journal, The Velvet Light Trap, Television and New Media, Film History, and a number of anthologies. He is currently working on a book on televi- sion genres as cultural categories. Kathy M. Newman is assistant professor of English/literary and cultural theory at Carnegie Mellon University. Her first book, Radio-Active: Advertising and Consumer Activism, 1935–1947, is forthcoming with University of California Press.Though she once tried her hand at animation with a hand-drawn cartoon (Poor, Hungry and Desperate) when at grad- uate school, today she writes a bi-weekly television column for the alternative press called “What’s Left on Television?” Brian L. Ott is an assistant professor of media studies at Colorado State University, where he teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in communication and popular culture, critical media studies, and virtual culture and communication. His essays have appeared in Critical Studies in x CONTRIBUTORS Media Communication, The Western Journal of Communication, and Rhetoric and Public Affairs. Kevin S. Sandler is an assistant professor of media industries in the Department of Media Arts at the University of Arizona. He is the editor of Reading the Rabbit: Explorations in Warner Bros.