Word: cartoonable
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...animation, this is a Golden Age. Not since the 1940s -- with Pinocchio and Dumbo from Walt Disney and the great cartoon shorts by Tex Avery at MGM and by Bob Clampett and Chuck Jones at Warner Bros. -- has the form been so commercially successful and artistically exhilarating. Moreover, at a time when mass art is fragmented, even divisive -- when virtually no species of entertainment has universal appeal -- the hip, comic ingenuity and emotional breadth of the best cartoons reunite the consumers of popular culture with Hollywood's surest instinct to please in a vast Saturday matinee of the spirit...
...prime-time success of The Simpsons (the medium's best-written series, no question, no competition) and the cult appeal of Nickelodeon's gross-out, only slightly homoerotic Ren & Stimpy is matched in daytime slots by cartoon shows from Disney and Fox. In commercials and music videos, in Nintendo games and as a top-selling portion of the videocassette market, animation appeals both to adults nostalgic for their Roadrunner days and to ) kids, whose attention span just about carries them from one frenetic cartoon frame to the next. "Video has made children discriminating consumers of cartoons," says Simpsons creator Matt...
...cartoon revival was dramatic on the big screen as well. Disney, which slumped after Walt Disney's death in 1966, regained its touch in the mid-'80s under the urging of Jeffrey Katzenberg, the new studio boss, and Walt's nephew Roy Disney, who godfathered a new generation of animators. The Little Mermaid (1989) not only proved that joy could again be a component of movie craftsmanship, it earned $84 million in its North American theatrical release. Last year's Beauty and the Beast outgrossed Mermaid by $50 million and was the first cartoon feature nominated for an Oscar...
...studio was just regaining its animation stride in 1989 when lyricist Howard Ashman (who with Menken wrote the songs for The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast before dying of AIDS last year) suggested a Disney cartoon musical of the Aladdin story. After he wrote six songs and a story treatment, Musker and Clements (The Adventures of the Great Mouse Detective, The Little Mermaid) took over. But something was wrong with the story. "It just wasn't compelling," Katzenberg says. "Aladdin's journey didn't engage." At first, the hero had a mother with a personality forceful enough...
Casting is as crucial a decision for cartoons as for live-action films. Aladdin's voice cast includes curmudgeonly comic Gilbert Gottfried as Jafar's parrot and Lea Salonga, the original Miss Saigon, as the singing voice of Jasmine. But the true inspiration was to have the Genie voiced by Williams, whose comedy routines pinball from one manic impression to another. Every time Williams would lurch into a new character, even if for a second, the Genie would assume that form. In five recording sessions spanning 15 months, Williams simply revolutionized cartoon voice acting. "Until now," Katzenberg notes, "we have...