History of Animation 1950’s – Today Television History Animation to the Television The first imaged ever broadcasted on a television was Felix the Cat Willie the Worm (1938) o This 8 minute animated short was created solely for television and was the first animation on TV. Crusader Rabbit (1949-1952) o 1st animated series primarily produced for TV o Produced for NBC Disneyland (1954-1958) o This show combine animation, live action and regular television during primetime o This show gave a look into the things that were going on in the Disney corporation o Show was released to build hype and later promote the opening of Disneyland in California o While the name has changed over the years (currently known as the wonderful world of Disney), this is considered the second of the longest running television program. Hanna-Barbera (1957-1989) o MGM Production studio closes and their two head animators start their own studio. o In 1957, their first production is the evening “family hour” featuring with “Ruff and Reddy”. o In 1958, Huckleberry Hound joins the “family hour” o In 1960, Hanna-Barbera gets its first big hit with The Flintstones . Remember that this is prime-time so not only are kids watching, but parents are too, so Hanna-Berbera had the cartoons doing the commercials too. The Movement of Saturday Morning Cartoons The first Saturday morning cartoon was in 1955 with Mighty Mouse. Hanna-Barbera was not getting the ratings and the recognition that it wanted, so they moved to the now growing Saturday morning cartoons audience o Produced 12 shows from 1957 to 1976 . Yogi Bear, the Jetsons , Scooby Doo and the Smurfs to name a few . This type of productions makes them the kings of Saturday Mornings Television animation is a huge production. o If you think about the animated shorts of the 30’s and 40’s, it took 5 to 6 months to produce one short while an animated television series has 12 to 20 half hour shows per season. 1960’s decline of animation o Because of the high production cost and demand, the productions to either speed up production of fold up the studio History of Animation 1950’s – Today Television History . UPA, which produced Mister Magoo and Dick Tracy, is the first to close . Jay Ward studio, which is producing Rocky and Bullwinkle goes into limited production . Warner Brothers shuts down its studios This starts the DePatie-Freleng Enterprise which creates the Pink Panther Show o All of this high demand starts to produced low budget animation, with crude drawings, jumpy animation, repeating scenes and repeating motion Prime-time animations did still exist with Animated holiday Specials o Columbia Broadcasting Station (CBS) decided to use animation for holiday’s . Rudolph the red-nosed Reindeer (1964) . Charlie Brown Christmas (1965) . It’s the Great Pumpkin. Charlie Brown (1966) . Frosty the Snowman (1969) . How the Grinch Stole Christmas Saturday morning didn’t really take off until the early 1980’s when President Reagan loosened the restrictions on educational learning, opening the door for more cartoon series to start. This move really started to put a strain on Hanna-Barbera o Marvel Comics buys the now retired DePatie-Freleng Enterprises and produces Saturday morning shows such as GI-Joe, Transformers o DIC Entertainment produces Inspector Gadget, Dennis the Menace, Heathcliff, Strawberry Shortcake, o Atkinson Film-Arts produces the Care Bears and The adventures of Teddy Ruxpin Saturday morning cartoons really made a strong run until the early 1990. o It is this time when animations started to make a strong reappearance on primetime television. Tracy Ullman was a comedian with her own show on a new channel called FOX Had animated clips on the show of a sarcastic working class family of the 80’s . Simpsons in 1989 starts the whole thing off FOX tried to have a couple of other series that never took off o Family Dog, Capitold Critter and Fish Police ABC got into the mix with The Critic o Quickly cancelled, picked up by FOX and cancelled again History of Animation 1950’s – Today Television History . The second animated primetime series took off 8 years after the Simpson’s with King of the Hill . Three years later, Family Guy gets into the mix and Animations Domination is born. o Not the only reason for the death of Saturday morning cartoons . Then in 1992, the introduction of the Cartoon Network, which was introduced by Turner Broadcasting Station, who brought out Hanna Barbara productions, giving the world all of the old Hanna Barbera cartoons. This one channel started other animation channels to form such as: Boomarang Disney Jr. Nick Jr. Sprout .