I am a huge cartoon fan. I have always been strangely attracted to drawings in motion; amusing caricatures brought to life through the process of animation. Along with children from around the world, I grew up (and continue to grow) with off-coloured elves, muscular heroes, spectacular robots, and personified animals of all kinds. Cartoons were always there when I needed a laugh - in fact; cartoons are one of the very few reasons that I still own a television. Cartoons have been a very important part of pop culture in the last hundred years, but in general are rarely analyzed.
There is some controversy over the exact definition of the word "cartoon". The Canadian Oxford Dictionary defines "cartoon" as simply; "a filmed sequence of drawings using the technique of animation" - seems okay to me - but extensive search of the internet lead me to someone who had a somewhat different opinion that I had never considered. One of the single most innovative, influential, and controversial cartoons to come out of the last decade, was undoubtedly The Ren & Stimpy Show. When this perverse and peculiar show hit the airwaves at the launch of the 1990’s, it spun the heads of unadventurous parents and teachers across North America, and triggered a nerve in the brain of delighted children and adults causing them to belt out loud spurts of laughter. The show was truly a masterpiece. Unfortunately, the fun-hating corporate censors and bigwigs (as you can tell, I’m trying to be as unbiased and objective as possible) at Nickelodeon, the network who owned and distributed the show, felt that they needed to change it to satisfy advertisers and angry parents as the show became increasingly popular and contentious. This did not go over well with creator, writer, and head animator of the show; John Kricfalusi. Differences between the two quickly lead to the termination of Kricfalusi and his team; leaving the show in the hands of the bigwig bastards who mutilated and eventually squeezed every last ounce of comedy and goodness out of it. The show was soon canceled. Kricfalusi and his team of insane animators went on to create the first online cartoon series at Spumco.com. Kricfalusi himself is one of the foremost speakers on cartoon culture, and his articles and interviews raise some good points while causing internal indecision and argument. Kricfalusi’s definition of a cartoon (actually, please read all of Krifalusi's Article in order to fully understand what I'm blathering about) is different than Oxford’s. He says that a cartoon’s distinguishing feature is not that it is "animated"; for all types of animation "move". Kricfalusi says that the primal attribute we derive our pleasure from while we watch a cartoon is FUNNY DRAWINGS that move: "Not Story, not Music, not Dialogue, not Background design, not even pretty animation; all these can be important additions or enhancements to a Cartoon but they are all subservient to the Funny Goddamn Drawings". Based on this definition, Kricfalusi suggests that the cartoons have lost their priority; This completely logical and obvious fact has been forgotten or banished from human thought for the last 30 years or so. It has only lately been rediscovered and is still not yet widely-known or accepted, certainly not by the decision makers in today's Animation Field. Cartoons are no longer Cartoony. I think about it this way: How many of the cartoons you watch could be produced as live action television shows or movies, with human actors instead of animated ones? Disney movies and the like are constantly finding new ways to make their animation more realistic. Isn’t the whole point of a cartoon to be far-fetched and unrealistic? This is why Kricfalusi does not consider these types of animation "cartoons". I think Kricfalusi sums it up when he talks about "the decision makers in today’s Animation Field". I guess in the end, it all comes back to that same nagging point; the effect of the huge capitalistic commercialization of everything. According to Kricfalusi, cartooning is an artform that has been near-dead for ages. If he is correct or not, this idea can be related to all other media and pop culture. It is sad to see that our media is increasingly changing from something that sells information and entertainment to consumers, to something that sells consumers to advertisers, by force-feeding us "what sells" and leading ultimately to the death of art forms. Hopefully, new media resources such as the internet will stop this sort of thing from happening, and possibly bring back some of the historic aspects of our culture and make them available to a wider range of people. As for cartoons, I haven’t come to a conclusion... but I will keep searching for more info!
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