If there's one era in the animation history where it was a real game-changer for the medium/artform/industry in the whole and how audiences would react positively to the medium itself, it's from the shining days of UPA, and where the original creation of Theodore Giesel (aka Dr. Seuss) will be redesigned to a small boy character and give them their first Oscar in 1950.
Why do I saying this? It's simple -- The current animation factory is far less charitable with clever, intelligent and fresh blood than it ever were on decades.
The creation of United Production of America (aka UPA) came from 1944, where Chuck Jones and Bob Cannon co-produced together the topical cartoon film for approved the candidate of future American President Theodore Roosevelt "Hell-Bent For Election", about a race against time about two locomotive rivals. Jones and Cannon were also known for have created altogether for Warner "The Dover Boys at Pimento University", a earlier attempt of limited animation with smear sequences and characters actions covering on dialogues, but where it don't toned down the whole structure and humor of what the Termite Terrace pals were been known. Such a disgrace that Leon Schlesinger originally hated this picture by wanted to shutdown completely Jones and his unit.
These earlier efforts were part of an artform in changes of motion. The one highlight of wide attention span was "Brotherhood of Man", a socio-film about the inter-cultural exchanges to be pictured in the same place. By 1948, Columbia signed the contract deal with UPA, by even incoroporated their earlier big stars, Fox and Crow, in only three cartoons films and inadvertly, the "one eye-sighted" and lovable senior man, Mr. Magoo, the first non-animal cartoon character star that went with a cult status, thanks to the Jim Backus' iconic voice that went from his old radio days.
Everyone in social media and internet own already an opinion about this studio; the blacklisted names that include Bousustow and John Hubley, the pretention about their "design" motif, the lack of actual entertainment compared to the best Warner efforts from this period, the drift of quality after Hubley leaving the studio and so, Television itself! UPA is been doomed to dying before we'll known it, so terribly that the stylized animation trademark became much likely a gimmick to quit with about entertaining audience of all ages, even if their firsts intentions went in the right sense.
Constantly sick of the "slapstick violence" that usurped the cartoons business in the late-1940s, the reformed studio was the head of many veterans artists that went from Disney and others. They weren't fans who just drawed stick-figures on their bedroom. They wanted clever, intelligent, smart and violence-free products, notably, a trait that have also own some repercusions to layout artist Maurice Noble where he were concerned of how the shorts released before he gets his first on-screen credit in Warner were much a pain in the butt, with animal-talking characters clobbered the others with a club. If I recall so, it's by reading an interview he has done with historian Michael Barrier or something, but if ever I finding out the interview, I am going to linked here.
75 years after UPA's Gerald McBoing-Boing hit both the satisfaction of critics and audiences, a newer revolution of animation is all we need. The last time that such revolutionnary event has happened without that went with any harsh cynicism would be in the early-2010s, when fresh works like Adventure Time or My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic grounded the high-praises of fans everywhere without that just went like internet products. This is the biggest flaw of that era, where cartoons were more aimed to clickbaits than in any actual sort of merchandising.
Today's animation is now-on fully at the mercy of internet when more metrosexuals, with their constant impulse for females characters with exagerated sense of proportions and oversexualization and their Pedo-freak attitude now control the whole fandom and even so, the industry. At my knowledge, I haven't seen much newer animated productions to be either, smart, clever or intelligent that call us about resilience, empathy or kindness. Yeah, Tweedy and Fluff worked well for that, but they are an exception to the rule rather the norm.
The current mold employed lots of cynicism and outrage by repeated the same formulaic themes and elements that never left the basement culture that have growth us since the earlier internet days. They even praise animated works that are more likely the kind of generic brand you would find in your nearest big retail store, such as Miraculous: Lady Bug and Cat Noir or the seemingly-long Winx Club franchise of old. The high-praises and decline of UPA was more likely at the Walt Disney and Warner's advantages. Disney were much busy with newer animated features releases and his own Disneyland park with bigger success than it ever have done by the creation of Mickey Mouse alone and Warner spotlighted some of the more brilliant, innovative and high-art pictures ("What's Opera, Doc?", "Duck Amuck" and its likes) without sacrificed the one-liners and humor of the characters we all know.
This is what UPA has lacking, and reason why the studio was likely dying to public less than one decade after Gerald hit the big screen for the first time, with Giesel's chagrin where he assumed that his original Boing-Boing story was constantly a flop.
In this age of sadistic, over-the-top and dominator cartoon bug, more places have to be done to psychiatrists and parenting groups, more than ever. This is that the premise of activist Peggy Charran, to not cut with children Television, but offering them a safe environment to watch TV cartoons without any realistic violence or junk-foods ads. Charran has passed away in 2015 and since then, none of her commitements were ever subjected to TV announcers and the American society. Audience responded better to the manic orgy of violence and characters who talked each other with bad words than the kind of empathy, resilience or kindness that all creators, past or present, eagerly demanded if for them, their children represent the world they have by now-on to re-built.
Sources that have make based this article:
Animation Scoop - The Life and Times of Gerald McBoing-Boing
Cartoon Research - Sounds Like a Classic: The 75th Anniversary of "Gerald McBoing-Boing"
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