Some Memorable Moments in Cartoon History

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1920s: The first animated character to fill theaters in the silent-film era, Felix the Cat, became so popular that his gaping grin was reproduced on mugs, watches and other merchandise. Although he was soon eclipsed in movie theaters by talking cartoons, Felix’s fortunes revived when he began airing on TV in the 1950s.

1928: Synchronizing sound with on-screen action, Walt Disney’s Steamboat Willie launched Mickey Mouse on his cruise to stardom.

1930: The eight-minute musical adventure, “Sinkin’ in the Bathtub,” was the first Looney Tune, created by two exDisney animators.

1937: Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was the first full-length animated feature film.

1940: The first collaboration of William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, Tom and Jerry traces the foiled efforts of gray house cat Tom to catch brown mouse Jerry and the resulting, sometimes sadistic, mayhem. With little vocalization beyond the animals’ shrieks of pain and panicked gulps, the shorts are renowned for their slapstick violence, recently parodied in “The Simpsons’ ” cartoon within a cartoon, “Itchy and Scratchy.”

1949: The Road Runner cartoons, a takeoff on traditional cat-and-mouse antics, featured Wile E. Coyote, who never kills his Road Runner quarry and typically ends up injuring himself.

1960: The first animated sitcom on prime time TV, The Flintstones, was designed to appeal to the whole family. Each half-hour episode showcased the challenges of contemporary working-class life in a stone-age setting.

1987: Created as a series of 30-second filler spots for “The Tracey Ullman Show,” The Simpsons has become the longest-running TV comedy series ever. The original shorts were so successful that “The Simpsons” premiered on the Fox network as a 30-minute Christmas special in 1989 and then began as a regular series the following month.

1992 : A cable channel created by Ted Turner, the Cartoon Network started out in 2 million households and three years later was available in 22 million.

1995 : As the first 3-D computer- generated feature film, Toy Story opened new horizons in animation.

1997 : Comedy Central’s South Park, a provocative adult parody of small-town life in Colorado,pushed new limits with its surreal depiction of contemporary events and often crude language.

2001: With the advent of Flash animation in the late ’90s, a whole new cartoon era was born in the unrestricted world of the Internet, including programs such as Happy Tree Friends .

Viloence in Cartoons

Violence in animated film can be traumatic for children 
 
Children’s movies should be a “journey into happy fantasy” but instead children are often subjected to upsetting things such as the death or disappearance of a parent, something they should not have to learn about from the movie industry (Heavy Issues, 1994). Child development experts say that children under the age of seven can not tell the difference between the fantasy world and reality and may find violent scenes distressing (Thomspon, 1996). In Disney’s movie Bambi, the mother is shot by a hunter, resulting in her death and the young fawn has to find a way to survive without her. This traumatic event could be very upsetting to a young child. 
 
Some feel that lessons can be learned from these violent scenes 
 
Not everyone is completely opposed to allowing their children to be exposed to animated violence. Some believe that these movies contain lessons for children. Leonard Pitts, a writer for The Detroit Free Press, believes that we can’t change the fact that violence will always be a part of our lives so we must “change the way we and our children relate to it” (2000).  He uses an example from Disney’s The Lion King to illustrate a lesson learned from violence in animated films. Simba, a young lion cub witnesses the death of his father and mourns with unmistakable sorrow.  He feels that children come away from an experience like that learning that violence hurts (Pitts, 2000). 
 
Parents need to take an active role in selecting appropriate films for their children 
 
It is unfortunate that filmmakers are willing to expose young children to all of these questionable materials.  Today’s child is growing up in an increasingly violent world and children seem to be left to their own resources far too often.  It is also obvious that the film industry is going to continue to do this.  The bottom line here is that parents must take a more active role in monitoring what their children are viewing on a daily basis. Everyone has their own comfort level with regard to what they are willing to allow their children to view. Ones own morals, values and parenting styles need to be considered when making these judgment calls.  The important act of teaching a child values and showing them the difference between right and wrong lies in the hands of parents, who must come to recognize this responsibility and take action by becoming involved as much as possible when selecting appropriate films for their child’s viewing.

History of cartoon

The word cartoon has various meanings, based on several very different forms of visual art and illustration. The artists who draw cartoons are known as cartoonists.The term has evolved over time. The original meaning was in fine art of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance, where it referred to a preparatory drawing  for a piece of art, such as a painting or tapestry. In the 19th century, it came to refer to humorous illustrations in magazines and newspapers, and in the early 20th century it was sometimes used to refer to comic strips. In more modern usage, it commonly refers to animated programs for television and other motion-picture media. A cartoon (from the Italian “cartone” and Dutch word “karton”, meaning strong, heavy paper or pasteboard) is a full-size drawing made on sturdy paper as a study or modello for a painting, stained glass or tapestry. Cartoons were typically used in the production of frescoes, to accurately link the component parts of the composition when painted on damp plaster over a series of days (giornate).

Comic strips, also known as “cartoon strips” in the United Kingdom, are found daily in newspapers worldwide, and are usually a short series of cartoon illustrations in sequence. In the United States they are not as commonly called “cartoons” themselves, but rather “comics” or “funnies”. Nonetheless, the creators of comic strips—as well as comic books and graphic novels—are usually referred to as “cartoonists”. Although humor is the most prevalent subject matter, adventure and drama are also represented in this medium. Noteworthy cartoonists of humor strips include Scott Adams, Steve Bell, Charles Schulz, E. C. Segar, Mort Walker andBill Watterson.

Because of the stylistic similarities between comic strips and early animated movies, “cartoon” came to refer to animation, and the word “cartoon” is currently used to refer to both animated cartoons and gag cartoons. While “animation” designates any style of illustrated images seen in rapid succession to give the impression of movement, the word “cartoon” is most often used in reference to TV programs and short films for children featuring anthropomorphized animals, superheroes, the adventures of child protagonists and related genres.

At the end of the 1980s, the word “cartoon” was shortened, and the word “toon” came into usage with the live action/animated feature Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), followed two years later by the TV series Tiny Toon Adventures (1990).