Worst Decade For Animation?

[RichDante]

What do you feel was the worst time for animated movies?

The 70s. The worst slump Disney had was in the 70's. The Aristocrats and the Rescuers were bleh forgettable flicks, Robin Hood has it's fans but was one of those movies they did on a budget thus them reusing animation from other movies, and then there was Winnie the Pooh which was comprised of 3 shorts, two of which were made in the 60's not 70's. Honestly again Disney was way worse in that decade as they still had no idea how to handle their films after the tragic loss of Walt Disney. So yeah the only real interesting and unique animation of the 70's were just outright weird and trippy fare like the Raggedy Ann and Andy movie or Fritz The Cat. And honestly even if these films were interesting none of them were really terribly successful and are at best even at the time were more cult hits.

So yeah 1970's are by far the worst decade for animation for having so little quality animation worth talking.

[Comic-Reader Lad]

As I said in your other thread, I grew up in the 1970s so I experienced the shows first hand.

I disagreed with you about 1970s sitcoms, but as far as animation, I think the 1970s was probably the worst. At least the 1950s still had good theatrical shorts and features.

Television animation in the 1970s was hampered by the fact that the budgets were tiny and the reality that the networks programmed Saturday morning because they HAD to create x number of hours of kids' programming per week as part of their license agreement. So, they used Saturday (and Sunday) as a dumping ground. There were also restrictions on cartoon violence thanks to parents' groups, so even Looney Tunes got censored for TV exhibition. So, even the cartoons that we did get were unimaginative and carefully constructed not to offend the parents.

That's really what Saturday morning was all about: keep the kids quiet and the parents unoffended.

Still, I do have fond memories of many of the cartoons, and I like them today because they're part of my childhood. Not so much Scooby-Doo, which even as a kid, was a chore for me to get through, but Superfriends and other superhero-type shows like Shazam/Isis, Space Sentinels, etc.

They can't compare to what came later in the 80s in beyond when the daily syndicated cartoon market exploded and animation was farmed out overseas--cheaper labor allowed for better animation while still keeping the budget low, but I still have a nostalgic fondness for my 1970s favorites.

[AndrewCrossett]

The 1970's was my childhood, so some of my favorite animation memories come from then... but in terms of the objective quality of the animation, it wasn't very good. After theatrical shorts died out in the late 60's, everything shifted over to made-for-TV animation made on the cheap. Animated features were almost MIA during the decade... Disney only put out 4 of them (Aristocats, Robin Hood, Winnie the Pooh and The Rescuers... plus the partially animated Pete's Dragon). Outside of that there was Watership Down, Charlotte's Web, some anime and Ralph Bakshi.

Things started getting better in the 80's with Don Bluth, Shinsha, and then the Disney Renaissance.

[Jokerz79]

Once upon a time I would had said the seventies but going by tv While few bright spots like Young Justice and Voltron, and Rick and Morty I'd say overall right now this decade.

[Personamanx]

In terms of film the '70s don't have a lot going for them. There's always good stuff if you're willing to look, but I don't think a lot from that period has aged terribly well. Even the better films are often praised for experimentation more so than quality of final product.

Television animation progressives in quality fairly consistently. You get the experimentation out of the way in feature/independent film production, and what works/can be replicated in a studio environment is usually picked up fairly quickly. It's always a mixture of crap with gold, but the crap gets forgotten more quickly, and the gold gets shinier as time goes on.

[Vakanai]

Once upon a time I would had said the seventies but going by tv While few bright spots like Young Justice and Voltron, and Rick and Morty I'd say overall right now this decade.

Gotta agree with this. But then a lot of that might just be because of how little I care for the current art style or aesthetic or whatever you want to call it. The weird, round, whatever the fudge you call it that's so popular today. Starting I think with Adventure Time, going through Gravity Falls, Stephen Universe, that one I forgot the name of with Star Butterfly, and on. Okay, it's not all the exact same style, but it's all part of the same design feel or whatever, the same source. Whatever the objective quality is of the rest of the show on the animation and plotting end, that kind of design sense is something I'm more than tired of and would love to see go or get used a lot less.

Not so much Scooby-Doo, which even as a kid, was a chore for me to get through,

Sacrilege!

[ChrisIII]

I would argue that the late 70s were pretty good for alternative animation outside of the mainstream-it started to see the rise of higher quality Japanese animation (Miyazaki/Ghibli, and a more serious take on Space operas with the works of Matsumuto, Tomino etc) and independent stuff (Baskhi).

[jetengine]

Gotta agree with this. But then a lot of that might just be because of how little I care for the current art style or aesthetic or whatever you want to call it. The weird, round, whatever the fudge you call it that's so popular today. Starting I think with Adventure Time, going through Gravity Falls, Stephen Universe, that one I forgot the name of with Star Butterfly, and on. Okay, it's not all the exact same style, but it's all part of the same design feel or whatever, the same source. Whatever the objective quality is of the rest of the show on the animation and plotting end, that kind of design sense is something I'm more than tired of and would love to see go or get used a lot less.



Sacrilege!

Thin line animation is the style.

[Comic-Reader Lad]

Yeah, I agree that today's animated shows are generally not appealing to me, but on the other hand I (and probably a lot of us) are really far removed from the key demographic for animation in the first place.

With that being said, I prefer more realistic character designs over today's style, which often gets derisively labeled by the "Cal-Arts" catch-all. Call it "Cal-Arts." Call it "thin line animation." Whatever. I like the more realistic style of character design that used to be the norm.

I appreciate highly stylized stuff in certain cases where there's a point to it like Samurai Jack, Dexter's Laboratory, Spongebob, etc. However, the Steven Universe looking stuff just does nothing for me.

It's also the writing style that I don't like. I'd prefer adventure cartoons to be done more seriously without the Joss Whedon quippy dialogue and sitcom beats. Not everything needs to feel like a millennial sitcom. My personal taste is that nothing should feel like that, but I guess that's a battle that's been lost as everything from drama to comedy, from live action to animated, is largely written in that same annoying style.

So, the combination of Joss Whedon writing style plus Cal Arts animation style plus Flash Video production style makes today's animation mostly uninteresting to me.

I'd rather watch Scooby-Doo.

[Jackalope89]

70s for sure.

I don't agree about the 2010s being lackluster in animation. Not with films like Frozen, How to Train Your Dragon, Under the Red Hood, and multiple animated series (a number of which do use the 3D style animation). Tales of Arcadia, Legend of Korra, Young Justice, etc.

[AJBopp]

There hasn't been a good decade for animation since the 50s

[Vakanai]

Thin line animation is the style.

Thin line is what they call it? The lines being thin is hardly the most notable aspect of the style.
It just kind of looks, I want to say blobby, but it's not quite blobby.

So, the combination of Joss Whedon writing style plus Cal Arts animation style plus Flash Video production style makes today's animation mostly uninteresting to me.

Oh this too! The animation is always so distinctive and the color palette is so limiting with Flash, that all the shows look kind of samey these days. I get that it makes it all cheaper, and in today's market they kind of have to go cheap, but still it feels like variety in animation is dead.

I don't agree about the 2010s being lackluster in animation. Not with films like Frozen, How to Train Your Dragon, Under the Red Hood, and multiple animated series (a number of which do use the 3D style animation). Tales of Arcadia, Legend of Korra, Young Justice, etc.

Under the Red Hood was a part of last decade's animation (either 08 or 09). I'm not going to discuss 3D Hollywood pictures (outside of saying it's a shame there are no big 2D theatrical films anymore). And I haven't seen Tales of Arcadia (don't have a Netflix subscription [or was it Prime?]). But Legend of Korra and Young Justice was great because they bucked the trend of almost everything else animated this decade, keeping to the more realistic type of design aesthetic of decades past. Kind of like a divide, these shows felt aimed at older fans and were drawn more in keeping with a lot of what we grew up on in the 80s, 90s, and 00s, as opposed to the 10s which have largely looked like the Cal-Arts/thin line/Flash Video styles. They're more the exception than the norm. Never mind that CN did a damn good job of killing YJ and we'll never get another show of that design caliber on the network again unless something major happens behind the scenes (at least we're getting season 3 elsewhere now, although I won't get DC's subscription service so can only hope it won't take too long to come out on DVD).

[jetengine]

Its called thin line because everyone was screaming Cal arts ignorant of the fact that Cal arts has evolved in multiple ways. Also cause shitty memes wouldn't stop circulating.

[babybats]

It's called Cal Arts style because many of the people who work on those shows happen to have also gone to Cal Arts. But so did the guy who made Spongebob and John Lasseter and Lauren Faust and Tim Burton and Brad Bird and tons of Disney and Pixar animators, so honestly I have no idea why people started calling it that. Thin Line Style is also bizarre to me because most animations use thinner lines, and it was only a popular trend in America in the 90s and 2000s to use thick lines.

Flash style is almost completely different from what people consider to be Cal Arts style. Flash style uses symbols and tweening, and often thicker lines because that was in style when Flash was being used to animate a lot of shows. (Now I guess they're using Toon Boom.)

Anyway, I think this decade has been great for animation. With streaming becoming a thing, there's been more animated shows greenlit all over the world, which has opened the door for a lot of good work. (A lot of bad work, too.) Amazing films by Laika and Cartoon Saloon have risen to prominence, and tons of great indie films have been made. Every year, the student films coming out of schools like Cal Arts and Gobelins have just gotten better and better. Patreon-style crowd funding has gotten a lot of indie projects off the ground that wouldn't have had a chance ten years ago. Online courses for animation has also made it easier than ever for anyone to learn to animate--which means even more brilliant student work coming out all the time. The talent pool for animation is bigger than it's ever been in history, and I think people in the industry would agree with me.

The Hollywood films have been good, too. Disney's figured out their 3D stuff (Zootopia, Wreck It Ralph), Pixar put out some good stuff (Toy Story 3, Inside Out, etc.), the Lego movie happened and was surprisingly brilliant, that new Spider-Man movie is out and everyone says it's great (I still haven't seen it but I'm excited to). Yeah, there were some breathtakingly bad movies, but that doesn't negate the good ones. TV shows have had some pretty great animation for the budget they're on, and even ones with minimal animation like Steven Universe have done some brilliant things with background, prop and character design. And CGI in movies has also been advancing in an exciting way.

Over in Japan they've been doing their thing as usual. Makoto Shinkai had some films. There was also Wolf Children, The Wind Rises, Arietty, Princess Kaguya, etc. One Punch Man happened. Mob Psycho. I haven't seen it, but I've heard the animation in Castlevania is amazing. I'm sure there's more, but I haven't been following anime so idk.

Video game animation has also been doing really well. Overwatch, Smash Bros, God of War, Red Dead 2, Cuphead (!!!), The Last of Us, Super Mario Odyssey, that new Spider-Man game... There's so much good work being done. And indie games have been amazing as well.

(Sorry, my post is way off topic. I also agree that the 70s was probably the worst for American animation.)

[CliffHanger2]

Yeah I'd have to say the 10s adventure time, uncle granpa almost everything on cartoon network just bad. There's a few standouts here and there but... I'd rather watch anything by Bashki than most of the stuff on T.V. 3-D animation doesn't really appeal to me either. I mean I like the Incredibles but I would like that if it was 2-D too.