The Renaissance Age of Animation: Difference between revisions

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{{Useful Notes}}
 
[[File:Renaissance_6935_6462.jpg|frame|A sampling of influential animation from this era.<ref>In order: Fievel from ''[[An American Tail]]'', Ariel from ''[[The Little Mermaid]]'', Butthead and Beavis from--take a guess--''[[Beavis and Butthead]]'', Buster Bunny and Babs Bunny (no relation) from ''[[Tiny Toon Adventures]]'', Unit 01 from ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'', and Buzz and Woody from ''[[Toy Story (franchise)|Toy Story]]''.</ref>]]
 
 
The return of animation to a point of artistic respect. At first [[The Dark Age of Animation]] persisted -- [[Limited Animation]] was still the rule on television. The [[Disney Animated Canon]] came close to ending for good when ''[[The Black Cauldron]]'', intended to be the stunning debut of a new generation of animators, didn't impress just-arrived company executives Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg; they recut it and it proceeded to tank at the box-office. [[Merchandise-Driven]] shows/specials such as ''[[He-Man and the Masters of the Universe]]'', ''[[Strawberry Shortcake]]'', ''[[Care Bears]]'', and ''[[The Transformers (animation)|The Transformers]]'' ruled 80s television animation and had parents' groups up in arms about children watching glorified toy commercials (commercials that were extremely split between gender lines at that).
 
Fortunately, things got better.
 
As early as 1980 a Japanese Animation studio called Tokyo Movie Shinsha (Presently [[TMS Entertainment]]) sowed the first seeds that would eventually lead to the full-blown renaissance of animation when they teamed up with French company [[Di CDiC]] in order to fund ''[[Ulysses 31]]''. The show worked, and it served as a precursor which eventually led to the start of this age of animation (TMS did try to get out of [[The Dark Age of Animation]] as early as 1971 with ''[[Lupin III]]'' series 1 but nothing worked until ''[[Ulysses 31]]''. ''[[Lupin III]]'' series 2 did do well, but it did not bring the industry out of the dark ages). TMS continued working with Dic until 1984 when two of their staff members, Tetsuo Katayama and Shigeru Akagawa, left TMS to found [[KKC and D Asia]]; but even after that TMS was still making the industry better, with their own productions like ''[[The Blinkins]]'', ''[[Mighty Orbots]]'', and ''[[Galaxy High]]'', and with shows like ''[[The Wuzzles]]'', ''[[Adventures of the Gummi Bears]]'' and ''[[DuckTales]]'' which were done in collaboration with [[Disney]], ultimately bringing quality animation to television for the first time ever. TMS were practically the sole producer of quality animation (and to a lesser extent, [[Studio Ghibli]]) until a man named [[John Kricfalusi]] teamed up with Ralph Bakshi to produce ''[[Mighty Mouse the New Adventures]]'', a show that helped bring back old school, insane "cartoony cartoons". This team up did not last long as [[John K]] went solo to do ''[[The Ren and Stimpy Show]]'' for Nickelodeon. TMS stopped working with Disney after Motoyoshi Tokunaga founded [[Walt Disney Animation Japan]], and then came TMS's golden age, when the studio was working with [[Warner Bros]] to produce shows like ''[[Tiny Toon Adventures]]'', ''[[Batman: The Animated Series]]'' and ''[[Animaniacs]]''. TMS's last major production in this era was ''[[Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker]]''.
 
Outside of TMS, Disney defector [[Don Bluth]] started making movies with 1982's ''[[The Secret of NIMH]]'', pushing for a return to the rich classical style of [[The Golden Age of Animation]]; while it was not a blockbuster, it quickly became a [[Cult Classic]]. It attracted the attention of no less than [[Steven Spielberg]], which led to Bluth's directing the successful ''[[An American Tail]]'' and ''[[The Land Before Time]]'' for Amblin Entertainment. Don Bluth would both rise to prominence and [[Fallen Creator|fall]] during this period, but his collaboration with Steven Spielberg proved to be the first real challenge Disney had ever faced in the animated film department, at least since the [[Max and Dave Fleischer|Fleischers]] were in business.
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For this era's successor, see [[The Millennium Age of Animation]].
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