History of animation facts for kids

The history of animation is all about how moving pictures came to life! It started long before movies, but this article focuses on animation after film began in 1888. This includes cartoons made for cinemas, TV, and home videos.

Between 1895 and 1920, as movies became popular, many animation tricks were invented or brought back. These included stop-motion with objects, puppets, clay, or cutouts. Hand-drawn animation, especially on clear sheets called cels, was the main way cartoons were made for most of the 1900s. This is now called traditional animation.

Today, computer animation is the most common type in many places. However, hand-drawn animation is still very popular worldwide, like Japanese anime and European hand-drawn shows. Computer animation often looks three-dimensional with detailed shadows. But computers can also make many other styles. Some cartoons might look like "Flash animation," but computer animation that looks flat with clear outlines and few shadows is often still called "traditional animation." For example, The Rescuers Down Under (1990) was the first full movie made on computers without a camera, but it looks very much like cel animation.

Early Ideas for Moving Pictures

Animated movies come from old ways of telling stories, making art, and performing in theaters. Before film, people used shadow plays, mechanical slides, and magic lantern shows to make moving images. They also used masks, costumes, puppets, and moving figures called automata. Children's books with pictures, funny drawings (caricatures), political cartoons, and especially comic strips are very similar to animation. They greatly influenced how cartoons look and the types of jokes they tell.

Modern animation works because of a trick called the stroboscopic effect, which makes still images look like they're moving. This idea started in 1833 with spinning discs like the phenakistiscope. These discs usually had 8 to 16 images that looped endlessly, like many GIFs today. They were fun toys for home. People hoped to use this idea for longer shows, but for a long time, it was mostly combined with 3D viewers (stereoscopes) and photography. When movies that could record real life came out in 1895, drawing animated pictures seemed old-fashioned. But then, some artists made popular animated shorts, and producers found cheap ways to turn comic strips into cartoons.

1888–1909: First Animations on Film

Théâtre Optique

Émile Reynaud created the Théâtre Optique in 1888. It used transparent, hand-painted pictures on a long strip of film. From 1892 to 1900, Reynaud gave over 12,800 shows to more than 500,000 people in Paris. His animated films, called Pantomimes Lumineuses, had 300 to 700 frames and lasted 10 to 15 minutes. A background scene was projected separately. Live piano music, singing, and talking were part of the show, and some sound effects were even synced using magnets. The first show included Pauvre Pierrot (1892).

Standard Picture Film

Even with Reynaud's success, it took a while for animation to become part of the film industry after the Lumiere brothers introduced their Cinematograph in 1895. Georges Méliès made early fantasy and trick films that sometimes looked like animation. He used painted props or creatures moved by wires in front of painted backgrounds. He also colored films by hand. Méliès made the "stop trick" popular, where the camera stops, something changes, and then filming continues. This trick was used in The Execution of Mary Stuart in 1895 and likely led to stop-motion animation later. It wasn't until 1906 that proper animated films appeared in cinemas.

Printed Animation Film

By 1897, German toy makers like Gebrüder Bing made toy "kinematographs." These were like magic lanterns but used 35mm film. They were for home fun, just like earlier optical toys. These companies made many cheap films by printing drawings. These animations were probably black and white at first, but by 1902, they were in color. The pictures were often traced from real-life films, similar to a later technique called rotoscoping. These very short films usually showed a simple action that repeated, and they were designed to play in a loop.

Katsudō Shashin (made between 1907 and 1912), thought to be the oldest animation in Japan, was probably made like these Western printed films.

J. Stuart Blackton

J. Stuart Blackton was a British-American filmmaker and one of the first to use animation. His film The Enchanted Drawing (1900) was one of the first movies shown in theaters that had animated parts. It shows Blackton drawing a face that changes expression when he pours wine into its mouth or takes a cigar. He used the stop trick: he would replace one drawing with another slightly different one. Sometimes, drawn objects were replaced by real ones.

Blackton's 1906 film Humorous Phases of Funny Faces is often seen as the oldest known hand-drawn animation on standard film. It has a part where blackboard drawings change to show two faces changing expressions and cigar smoke moving. It also has parts with cutout animation for smoother movement.

Segundo de Chomón

Spanish filmmaker Segundo de Chomón made many trick films. By 1906, he used stop motion in films like La maison ensorcelée. Blackton's The Haunted Hotel (1907) has stop-motion parts very similar to De Chomón's work. It seems De Chomón's work might have inspired Blackton. The Haunted Hotel was very popular in Europe and inspired other filmmakers, like Émile Cohl, to try this new animation trick. De Chomón also made Hôtel électrique (1908), which included a short scene using pixilation (a type of stop motion with real people).

Émile Cohl

In 1907, French artist Émile Cohl started making films. His 1908 film Fantasmagorie is considered the first animated film using what we now call traditional animation. The film mostly shows a stick figure moving and changing into different objects, like a wine bottle turning into a flower. Sometimes, the animator's hands appear in the scene. Cohl made the film by drawing each frame on paper and then filming it onto negative film, which made it look like a blackboard drawing. Cohl later moved to the US in 1912 and shared his animation techniques there.

1910s: From Single Artists to Studios

In the 1910s, bigger animation studios started to appear. This meant that single artists were no longer the main focus. The first known professional female animator, Bessie Mae Kelley, began her career in 1917.

Winsor McCay

Starting with his 1911 film Little Nemo, cartoonist Winsor McCay made hand-drawn animations with much more detail than anything seen before. His 1914 film Gertie the Dinosaur was one of the first to show a character developing a personality in animation. It was also the first film to mix live-action footage with animation. McCay used the film in his stage show: he would talk to Gertie, and she would respond with gestures. At the end, McCay would walk behind the screen and appear to ride Gertie. McCay drew almost every one of the thousands of drawings for his films himself. Other famous films by McCay include How a Mosquito Operates (1912) and The Sinking of the Lusitania (1918).

Barré Studio

Around 1913, Raoul Barré invented the peg system, which made it easier to line up drawings by putting two holes in each drawing and placing them on fixed pins. He also used a "slash and tear" method so he didn't have to redraw the whole background for every frame. He would cut out parts that needed to change and draw the new part on the sheet below. Barré started his own animation studio in 1914, one of the first dedicated to animation. Barré Studio was successful with their cartoons based on the popular comic strip Mutt and Jeff (1916–1926). Many famous animators worked there, including Frank Moser and Pat Sullivan.

Bray Productions

In 1914, John Bray opened John Bray Studios, which changed how animation was made. Earl Hurd, one of Bray's workers, patented the cel technique. This meant animators drew moving parts on clear celluloid sheets. They would photograph these sheets over a still background. This, along with Bray's use of an assembly-line method, helped John Bray Studios create Colonel Heeza Liar, the first animated series. Many future cartoonists started at Bray, including Paul Terry (who later made Heckle and Jeckle), Max Fleischer (who later made Betty Boop and Popeye), and Walter Lantz (who later made Woody Woodpecker). The studio operated from about 1914 to 1928.

Rotoscoping

In 1915, Max Fleischer patented a technique called rotoscoping. This process uses live-action film as a guide to create realistic animated movements more easily. This technique was often used in the Out of the Inkwell series (1918–1929). The series came from experimental rotoscoped images of Dave Fleischer acting as a clown, who then became the character Koko the Clown.

Felix the Cat

In 1919, Otto Messmer of Pat Sullivan Studios created Felix the Cat. Pat Sullivan, the studio head, took all the credit for Felix, which was common back then. Felix the Cat was shown by Paramount Studios and became very popular, becoming one of the most famous cartoon characters in film history. Felix was also the first cartoon character to have merchandise sold.

Quirino Cristiani: The First Animated Features

The first known animated full-length movie was El Apóstol by Quirino Cristiani, released in Argentina on November 9, 1917. This successful 70-minute movie used a cardboard cutout technique, reportedly with 58,000 frames. Cristiani's next movie, Sin dejar rastros, came out in 1918 but was not popular and was even taken by the police. None of Cristiani's full-length films still exist today.

1920s: Sound and the Rise of Disney

The 1920s brought big changes, including the first animations with synchronized sound and the start of the Walt Disney Studio. This decade also saw the first appearance of Mickey Mouse in Steamboat Willie (1928).

Early Synchronized Sound

From 1924 to 1926, Dave and Max Fleischer's Inkwell Studios made 19 sound cartoons as part of the Song Car-Tunes series. They used a "sound-on-film" process. This series also introduced the "bouncing ball" over lyrics to help audiences sing along. My Old Kentucky Home (1926) was probably the first film to have a bit of synchronized animated talking.

Paul Terry's Dinner Time, from his Aesop's Fables series, came out on September 1, 1928, with a synchronized soundtrack that included talking. Even though his cartoons were popular, audiences weren't impressed by this first sound episode.

Lotte Reiniger

The oldest surviving animated full-length film is the 1926 silhouette-animated Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed. It used color-tinted film. It was directed by German Lotte Reiniger and her husband Carl Koch. They created a sense of depth by placing figures and backgrounds on several levels of glass plates, lit from below. This technique later became the basis for the multiplane camera.

Early Disney: Mickey Mouse

Between 1920 and 1922, cartoonists Walt Disney, Ub Iwerks, and Fred Harman worked on cutout animation commercials. Disney started trying out drawn animation in his garage. He sold a series of cartoons that made fun of local topics to a theater owner. With his own company, Laugh-O-Gram Films, Inc., Disney and his team made a series of modernized fairy tale cartoons. The studio went out of business in 1923, but they had already made the film Alice's Wonderland, which showed a real girl interacting with cartoon characters.

When Disney moved to Hollywood, he made a deal to create the Alice Comedies series (1923–1927). The series was successful, but Disney wanted to make a new, fully animated series. Oswald the Lucky Rabbit followed in 1927 and was a hit. But after problems with negotiations, Disney lost his character and most of his staff.

Disney and Iwerks then created Mickey Mouse in 1928 to replace Oswald. Their first Mickey Mouse film, Plane Crazy, didn't impress audiences. After some live-action movies with synchronized sound became popular, Disney decided to put sound in a new Mickey Mouse cartoon. Steamboat Willie (November 1928) became a huge success, and Mickey Mouse quickly became the most popular cartoon character ever.

Bosko

Bosko was created in 1927 by Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising specifically for "talkie" films. They later signed with Leon Schlesinger productions and started the Looney Tunes series for Warner Bros. in 1930. Bosko was the star of 39 Warner Bros. cartoons.

1930s: Color, Depth, and Snow White

Even though the world faced the Great Depression in the 1930s, animation kept growing. Early color processes and the multiplane camera were introduced. In 1937, Snow White became the first full-length traditionally animated movie.

Two-Strip Color

Most animated films before 1930 were black and white. So, color processes were a welcome change in Hollywood, especially for cartoons. A cartoon part in the film King of Jazz (1930) was the first animation shown in two-strip Technicolor.

Disney's Silly Symphonies in Technicolor

When Disney's Silly Symphonies series wasn't as popular as he hoped, he used new technology. In 1932, he worked with the Technicolor company to create the first full-color animation, Flowers and Trees, using the three-strip technique. This cartoon was a success and won an Academy Award. Disney had an exclusive deal for this full-color technique in animated films for a while. After his exclusive deal ended in 1935, full-color animation quickly became the standard for the industry.

Multiplane Cameras

To make animation look like it had depth, several techniques were developed. The most common was to have characters move between different background and foreground layers that could move separately. This followed the rules of perspective, meaning things further away moved slower.

In 1933, Ub Iwerks developed a multiplane camera and used it for some of his cartoons. Disney employee William Garity developed a multiplane camera that could have up to seven layers of artwork. It was tested in The Old Mill (1937) and used a lot in Snow White and later films.

New Colorful Cartoon Superstars

After sound and color made Disney a huge success, other studios followed. By the end of the 1930s, almost all cartoons were in full color. At first, music and songs were the main focus of many series, but it was the memorable characters that audiences loved. Mickey Mouse was the first cartoon superstar to become more popular than Felix the Cat, and soon many more cartoon stars followed.

Warner Bros. had a large music library that they used for their cartoons. They created the Merrie Melodies series, which had to include at least one song from their music catalog until 1939. Eventually, Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes became very similar and produced many new popular characters. Animator Bob Clampett designed Porky Pig (1935) and Daffy Duck (1937). The 1930s also saw early versions of characters who would become superstars like Elmer Fudd (1937) and Bugs Bunny (1938). Since 1937, Mel Blanc voiced most of these characters.

Disney introduced new characters to the Mickey Mouse universe who became very popular, including Minnie Mouse (1928), Pluto (1930), Goofy (1932), and Donald Duck (1934). Disney also realized that animated films needed emotionally strong stories. He created a "story department" where artists focused only on developing the story. This proved successful with Three Little Pigs (1933), the first animated short with well-developed characters.

Fleischer Studios introduced Betty Boop (1930–1939), who became their most famous creation. In the 1930s, they also added the popular animated version of Popeye (1933).

=Snow White and the Animated Feature Film

At least eight animated feature films were released before Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Most of these used cutout, silhouette, or stop-motion techniques. When it was known that Disney was making a full-length animation, critics often called it "Disney's folly," not believing audiences would watch bright colors and jokes for so long. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs premiered on December 21, 1937, and became a worldwide success. The film continued Disney's tradition of using old fairy tales, as most of his later films would.

The Fleischer studios followed Disney's lead with Gulliver's Travels in 1939, which was a small success.

1940s

Wartime Propaganda

During World War II, animation became a common way to spread information and propaganda. US studios worked for the war effort. Warner Bros. made the animated series Private Snafu to teach military personnel. Dr. Seuss helped write the scripts, and Chuck Jones directed. Disney also made instructional shorts and even paid for the full-length film Victory Through Air Power (1943), which promoted the idea of long-range bombing.

Many popular characters helped promote war bonds. Bugs Bunny, Disney's little pigs, and Donald Duck starred in films that encouraged people to support the war. Donald Duck's film Der Fuehrer's Face won an Academy Award.

Japan's first full-length anime, 桃太郎 海の神兵 (Momotaro: Sacred Sailors), was made in 1944. It was for children and aimed to inspire dreams and hope for peace.

Feature Animation in the 1940s

Disney's Pinocchio and Fantasia (both 1940) and Fleischer Studios' Mr. Bug Goes to Town (1941) were liked by critics but didn't make much money at first. This was mainly because World War II cut off most foreign markets. These problems discouraged most companies from making animated features.

Disney cut costs for his next films. Dumbo (1941) was animated in a simpler style and was only 64 minutes long. Its shorter length and efficient techniques helped it make a profit, and critics and audiences liked it. Disney's next film, Bambi (1942), had a bigger budget and lavish style, but its more serious story and lack of fantasy elements were not well-received at first.

Even though most of Disney's other films in the 1940s were collections of shorts or mixed with live-action, Disney kept believing in animated feature films. Few other American animation studios released many full-length films before the 1990s.

American cel-animated films were very popular worldwide since the 1920s. Studios from other countries found it hard to compete. However, several countries, especially Russia, China, and Japan, developed their own large "traditional" animation industries. Russia's Soyuzmultfilm studio, founded in 1936, made about 20 films a year.

Successful Short Cartoons of the 1940s

During the "Golden Age of American animation", new studios competed with the older ones. Cartoon animals were still common, and music was important, but storytelling and wild humor became more central.

Disney continued its cartoon successes, adding Daisy Duck (1937/1940) and Chip 'n' Dale (1943/1947). Warner Bros. developed new characters for their Merrie Melodies/Looney Tunes, including Tweety, Henery Hawk (both 1942), Pepé Le Pew, Sylvester the Cat, Yosemite Sam (all three 1945), Foghorn Leghorn, Barnyard Dawg, Gossamer (all three 1946), Marvin the Martian (1948), and Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner (1949).

Other popular new characters included Mighty Mouse (1942–1961) and Heckle and Jeckle (1946–1966).

Fleischer/Famous Studios

Fleischer launched its amazing Superman adaptation in 1941. The success came too late to save the studio from money problems. In 1942, Paramount Pictures took over the studio. The renamed Famous Studios continued the Popeye and Superman series. They also made popular adaptations of Little Lulu (1943–1948) and Casper, the Friendly Ghost (1945).

Walter Lantz Productions

Walter Lantz started his animation career at 16. He later gained control over the Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoons in 1929. In 1935, his studio became independent. When Oswald's popularity faded, Lantz developed Andy Panda in 1939. Andy Panda was popular, but he was soon outshone by the famous Woody Woodpecker, who first appeared in the Andy Panda cartoon Knock Knock in 1940.

MGM

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer started its own cartoon studio in 1937. The studio had great success with Barney Bear (1939–1954), Hanna and Joseph Barbera's Tom and Jerry (1940), and Spike and Tyke (1942). In 1941, Tex Avery joined MGM and created Droopy (1943).

UPA

While Disney and most other studios aimed for depth and realism, UPA animators had a different artistic idea. They developed a simpler, more stylized type of animation. The studio started in 1943. A few years later, they signed a contract with Columbia Pictures. Mr. Magoo (1949), a near-sighted old man, became a hit. UPA won Academy Awards for their films, including Gerald McBoing-Boing (1950). Their unique style was very influential and even affected big studios like Warner Bros. and Disney. UPA showed that simpler animation could be just as, or even more, appreciated than expensive, lavish styles.

TV Animation in the 1940s

Old animated cartoons, originally made for theaters, became very valuable for television. Movies for Small Fry (1947) was one of the first TV series for children and showed many classic cartoons. Many classic series from Walter Lantz, Warner Bros., Terrytoons, MGM, and Disney found new life on TV shows for children, with many reruns for decades.

The first American animated series made specifically for TV came out in 1949: Adventures of Pow Wow and Jim and Judy in Teleland.

1950s: TV Cartoons and Limited Animation

In the US, cartoons were mostly shown for children on weekend mornings, weekday afternoons, or early evenings. To make more cartoons faster and cheaper for TV, a new style called limited animation was developed. This simpler animation style, which UPA had used as an artistic choice, became a way to cut production time and costs. Full-frame animation became rare in the US, except for a few theatrical productions. Some producers also found that limited animation looked better on the small, black-and-white TV screens of the time.

Animated TV Series of the 1950s

Jay Ward produced the popular Crusader Rabbit (1949–1952), which successfully used a limited-animation style. By the end of the 1950s, several studios started making TV animation. The focus shifted from quality and innovation to making animation fast and cheaply. Critics often said the quality of many shows was poor compared to classic cartoons. But network executives were happy as long as there were enough viewers, and kids didn't seem to mind. Watching Saturday-morning cartoons became a favorite pastime for American children.

Disney started TV production early but avoided creating new animated series for a long time. Instead, Disney had their anthology series on air since 1954, promoting the Disneyland theme park.

William Hanna and Joseph Barbera (who created Tom and Jerry) continued as Hanna-Barbera after MGM closed their animation studio in 1957. Hanna-Barbera became the most successful producers of animated television series for decades. They started with The Ruff and Reddy Show (1957–1960) and continued with hits like The Huckleberry Hound Show (1958) and The Quick Draw McGraw Show (1959–1961).

Other notable shows included UPA's Gerald McBoing Boing (1956–1957) and Soundac's Colonel Bleep (1957–1960), the first animated TV series in color.

Theatrical Feature Animation in the 1950s

Disney

After a series of package films and live-action/animation mixes, Disney returned to fully animated feature films with Cinderella in 1950. Its success saved the company from going bankrupt. It was followed by Alice in Wonderland (1951), which didn't do well at first. Peter Pan (1953) and Lady and the Tramp (1955) were hits. The ambitious Sleeping Beauty (1959) lost money at the box office and made people doubt the future of Disney's animation. Like "Alice in Wonderland," it later became a classic through re-releases.

Non-US

• Jeannot l'intrépide (France, 1950)
• Animal Farm (U.K./U.S.A., 1954)
• Снежная королева (Soviet Union, 1957)
• 白蛇伝 (Japan, 1958)
• 少年猿飛佐助 (Japan, 1959, first anime released in the U.S.)

1960s

US Animated TV Series and Specials in the 1960s

Many American animated TV series from the 1960s to 1980s were based on popular characters from other media. Filmation, active from 1962 to 1989, made many adaptations of DC Comics and live-action TV series. Grantray-Lawrence Animation was the first studio to adapt Marvel Comics superheroes in 1966. Pop groups like The Beatles and The Jackson 5ive got animated versions. Hanna-Barbera turned comedians into cartoon characters with Laurel and Hardy (1966–1967).

The Flintstones (1960–1966) was the first animated series shown in prime time and became extremely popular. It was the longest-running network animated TV series for three decades. Hanna-Barbera had more hits with The Yogi Bear Show (1960–1962), The Jetsons (1962–1963), and Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! (1969–1970).

After 1968, networks hired censors to remove anything too violent from children's shows. Besides regular TV series, there were also popular animated holiday specials, like UPA's Mister Magoo's Christmas Carol (1962), and the Peanuts specials (1965–2011), based on Charles M. Schulz's comic strip.

US Theatrical Animation in the 1960s

For One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961), production costs were kept low by using the xerography process, which printed drawings directly onto the cels. This made the animation look sketchier, but animators liked that their drawings went straight to the final picture. This period at Disney was also when the "Nine Old Men," a group of animators Walt trusted, became very skilled. Their animation and character designs are still used as examples in animation schools today. One Hundred and One Dalmatians was a hit, as was The Sword in the Stone (1963). Mary Poppins (1964), which mixed live-action and animation, received many awards. Disney's biggest animated film of the 1960s was The Jungle Book (1967), which was a success with both critics and audiences. This was also the last film overseen by Walt Disney before he passed away in 1966.

Decline of Theatrical Short Cartoons

By the end of the 1960s, most studios stopped making theatrical cartoons. Even Warner Bros. and Disney largely stopped after 1969. Walter Lantz was the last classic cartoon producer to stop, closing his studio in 1973.

DePatie–Freleng

DePatie–Freleng Enterprises, founded in 1963, found new success with short theatrical cartoon series. They created Pink Panther in 1963 for the live-action The Pink Panther films. Its success led to a series of short films (1964–1980) and TV series (1969–1980). Pink Panther was followed by spin-offs like The Inspector (1965–1969).

Rise of Anime

Japan became very successful with its animation style, known as anime. Anime often uses limited-animation techniques that focus more on beautiful art than on lots of movement. It also uses a "cinematic" approach with zooms, pans, and detailed backgrounds to create a mood.

Anime was first shown on TV in Japan in 1960. The export of anime films started around the same time. Within a few years, several anime TV series were shown in the United States and other countries, starting with the very influential 鉄腕アトム (Astro Boy) (1963), followed by ジャングル大帝 (Kimba the White Lion) (1965–1966) and マッハGoGoGo (Mach GoGoGo a.k.a. Speed Racer) (1967).

The popular サザエさん / Sazae-san started in 1969 and is probably the longest-running animated TV show in the world, with over 7,700 episodes.

1970s

Artistic Short-Animation Highlights

Short animated films mostly became a way for independent animators to show their talents at film festivals. With the big studios less involved, the Academy Awards for animated shorts often went to lesser-known artists.

La Linea (Italy 1971) is a popular animation series with a main character that is part of a straight white line across the screen.

Soviet/Russian animator Yuri Norstein is considered one of the best animators ever. He released several award-winning short films in the 1970s, including Hedgehog in the Fog (1975) and Tale of Tales (1979).

Early Animated Music Videos

While music and animation had a long history, it took some time for animation to become part of music videos. Halas and Batchelor made an animated video for Roger Glover's Love Is All (1974), which was shown internationally for decades. Pink Floyd's 1977 Welcome to the Machine music video, animated by Gerald Scarfe, was first used as a background for concerts.

1980s

US Animation Explosion (the 1980s)

By the end of the 1970s, Saturday morning cartoons in the US often felt very similar, based on old cartoons and comic strips. But in the 1980s, new rules allowed for more cartoon content on TV. Cartoons with action, fantasy, and science fiction became common, with more complex stories. Many popular animated TV series were based on toy lines, like Mattell's He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (1983–1985) and Hasbro's The Transformers (1984–1987). Other cartoons were based on superhero comics, video games, or children's books.

Disney's feature films were seen as going through a difficult period after Walt Disney passed away. The failure of The Black Cauldron (1985), made with a big budget, was a low point. Tim Burton said Disney didn't train new animators enough in the 1960s and 1970s, relying instead on older animators.

Don Bluth, who left Disney in 1979 with other animators, started competing with Disney in cinemas in 1982 with The Secret of NIMH. The film was praised by critics but only had moderate success.

Europe

Compared to US animation in the early 1980s, international co-productions seemed more creative. The Smurfs (1981–1989), produced by Belgian SEPP International and Hanna-Barbera, was very successful. In the U.K., Cosgrove Hall Films' successful TV series Danger Mouse debuted in 1981 and became popular with both young and adult audiences.

Rise of Computer Animation

Early experiments with computers to make moving images started in the 1940s, but they didn't get much attention until video games became popular in the early 1970s. Pong (1972) and Space Invaders were huge successes that led to interactive computer animation.

3D computer animation started to have a much wider impact in the 1980s, seen in the 1982 movie Tron and the music video for Money for Nothing (1985). The idea even created a popular fake 3D-animated character: Max Headroom (1985). In the 1980s, computer animation also became common for logos and text in TV commercials and movie title sequences.

1990s

Disney Renaissance

The 1990s saw Disney release many films that were both praised by critics and very successful financially. This period, from 1989 to 1999, is called the Disney Renaissance or the Second Golden Age. It began with The Little Mermaid (1989). Their success led other major film studios to create new animation departments to copy Disney's success. The 90s cartoons are sometimes called the "Renaissance Age of Animation" for animation in general.

Disney's Beauty and the Beast (1991) (the first animated film nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards), Aladdin (1992), and The Lion King (1994) all broke box-office records. Pocahontas (1995) and Mulan (1998) were also very successful.

Television

Nickelodeon started making its own cartoons, called Nicktoons, in the 1990s. These included Doug (1991–1994), Rugrats (1991–2004), and The Ren & Stimpy Show (1991–1996). Later Nicktoons included Rocko's Modern Life (1993–1996) and Hey Arnold! (1996–2004). The most successful cartoon for Nickelodeon became SpongeBob SquarePants (1999–present).

On September 13, 1993, Fox Kids aired the first episode of Animaniacs (1993–1998). The huge success of The Simpsons (1989-present) and The Ren & Stimpy Show led to more original and daring series, including South Park (1997-present) and Family Guy (1999-present).

Warner Brothers' 24-hour cable channel Cartoon Network launched in the United States on October 1, 1992. It first showed classic cartoons from Warner Bros., MGM, and Hanna-Barbera. From 1996 to 2003, new original series called Cartoon Cartoons introduced popular titles like Dexter's Laboratory (1996–2003) and The Powerpuff Girls (1998–2005).

Television animation for children also continued to grow on other channels like Disney Channel/Disney XD and PBS Kids. Examples of animated Disney cartoons in the 90s are TaleSpin (1990–1991) and Darkwing Duck (1991–1992). The Disney Channel, Nickelodeon, and Cartoon Network became known as the "Big Three" of children's entertainment.

Breakthrough of Computer Animation and New Media

In the 1990s, 3D animation became more common, especially in video games. It had a big breakthrough in 1995 with Pixar's hit film Toy Story.

Realistic 3D animation was used for special effects in commercials and films since the 1980s, with big effects seen in Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) and Jurassic Park (1993). Since then, techniques have improved so much that it's hard to tell the difference between computer-generated images (CGI) and real-life filming. The Matrix (1999) is considered a breakthrough film in this area.

The launch of the World Wide Web increased interest in computer animation, leading to many new uses and markets for what became known as new media.

2000s–2010s: Computer Animation Takes Over

After the success of Pixar's Toy Story (1995) and DreamWorks Animation's Shrek (2001), computer animation became the main animation technique in the US and many other countries. Even animation that looked traditional was often made entirely with computers. By 2004, only small productions still used traditional techniques.

The early 2000s also saw 3D films become popular in theaters. CGI is perfect for 3D viewing. Disney successfully released a 3D version of The Lion King in 2011.

Disney-Pixar

Disney started making its own 3D computer-animated films like Dinosaur (2000) and Chicken Little (2005). But they also continued to make animated films with a traditional look, such as Lilo & Stitch (2002) and Brother Bear (2003).

Treasure Planet (2002) and Home on the Range (2004) were big failures, and it seemed Disney would only make 3D computer animation. In 2006, Disney bought Pixar and put Pixar's John Lasseter in charge of both Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios. Under Lasseter, Disney developed both traditional and 3D animation projects.

The Princess and the Frog (2009) was a moderate success for traditional animation, but not the big comeback Disney hoped for. Its perceived failure was often blamed on the word "princess" in the title, making people think it was only for little girls.

Winnie the Pooh (2011) was well-liked but didn't do well at the box office. It became Disney's most recent traditional feature film. Frozen (2013) was originally planned in a traditional style but switched to 3D CGI to create certain visual elements. It became Disney's biggest hit at the time and won the studio's first Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.

Anime

Hand-drawn animation remained very popular, especially in Japan, where traditionally styled anime continued to be the main technique. The popularity of anime kept growing in Japan and internationally, with special blocks on Cartoon Network and streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime licensing and producing more anime.

Ghibli continued its huge success with Miyazaki's Spirited Away (2001), ハウルの動く城 (Howl's Moving Castle) (2004), and 崖の上のポニョ (Ponyo) (2008). These films earned over $100 million worldwide.

Stop Motion

After early work by people like J. Stuart Blackton and Segundo de Chomón, stop motion became a less common but still important type of animation compared to hand-drawn and computer animation. There have been many successful stop-motion films and TV series. Famous animators include Wladyslaw Starewicz and Henry Selick. Popular films using animated clay include Gumby (1953), Pingu (1990–2000), and many Aardman Animations productions like Wallace and Gromit (1989).

Stop motion was also a popular technique for special effects in live-action films until computer-animated effects largely replaced it. Pioneers like Willis O'Brien and Ray Harryhausen animated many monsters and creatures for Hollywood films using models or puppets.

Cutout Animation

Cutout techniques were often used in animated films until cel animation became the standard method. The earliest animated feature films, by Quirino Cristiani and Lotte Reiniger, were cutout animations. Before 1934, Japanese animation mostly used cutout techniques because celluloid was too expensive.

Since cutouts are often hand-drawn and some productions combine different techniques, cutout animation can sometimes look very similar to hand-drawn traditional animation. While sometimes used as a simple and cheap method in children's shows, cutout animation has also remained an artistic and experimental medium.

Today, cutout-style animation is often made using computers, with scanned images or digital drawings replacing physical cut materials.

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See also

In Spanish: Historia de la animación para niños

• Firsts in animation
• History of anime
• History of art
• History of Cartoon Network
• History of comics
• History of Disney Channel
• History of film
• History of manga
• History of Nickelodeon
• History of television
• History of video games
• History of YouTube