‘Prime time animation; television animation and American culture’

Citation bibliography;  Stabile, C. and Harrison, M. (2003). Prime-time animation. 1st ed. London: Routledge.

In text ;      (Stabile and Harrison, 2003) 




'prime Time animation- television animation and American culture’ edited by Carol a. Stabile and mark Harrison
1st edition
Routledge 2 park square, Milton park, Abingdon, oxon 0x144RN

 
 


 

 
 

 

 

History of animation/ television

‘Cartoons demonstrate their own textuality, speak directly to their audience and crucially, reveal the presence of their creators as the  deconstructive agents of deliberate artifice, and in doing so, promote animation as a singularly auteurist medium’ p. 16

‘Animation always have the excuse that "it’s just ink and paint"’ p.16

‘As British based animator director, John Halas, had anticipated in 1956, "animation is bound to be greatly stimulated by televisions in the future. In the last two years, on both sides of the slant if, it has resulted in the number of personal engaged on cartoons being increased by nearly 100 per cent.’" P.17

‘Disney essitently defined animation, and having established this as a bench mark for the industry, was reluctant to embrace other approaches...’p.18

Hanna barbera - ‘graphic freedoms afforded by the simple use of line and form... this is what hanna barbera returned to as its prevailing aesthetics, concentrating on producing simple forms in both line and firm, but in colour. In many senses there was less concentration on animation itself and more on the ingenuity of a visual joke making and creating characters as graphic ciphers for spefic ideas.’ P.19

‘Hanna barbera created a new model of animation for television which immediately embraced by the new culture of animation professionals - largely veterans re-configuring their role in the industry- and which formed the benchmark for economically sound practice in the late 1950’s’ p.20-21
‘Oriolo.. equally recognizing the importance of the shift emphasis and the possibilities of recovering an established market, trained his workers in this style... fully animated scenes were considered a threat to the budget and were sent back to the animators for changes" (canemaker 1991:150)’ p.21

‘Cartoons still remained surreal and fantastical even in their simplest forms - zany animals with obsessive or compulsive personalities in bizarre conflicts and pursuits remained the main stray  on animated shorts... this gave the work an intrinsic difference from the quasi-realist, neo-theatrical
Models of late 1950’s television entertainment.’ P.21

' Stephen [Busustow ] inevitably stresses the ways in which the art of animation survived  through the self-conscious approaches in attempting to progress the form, it is still the case that this sense of progress was predicted on the notion of becoming more cost effective, and it privileged a less is more approach to the work.' p.22
‘UPA specialised in "limited" or "planned" animation, which in the American idom operates as a more economic form of animation by using fewer and less detailed backgrounds; creating fewer animated movements- often only the movement of eyes, mouth and functional limbs on key characters; employing simple, repeatable movement cycles; and by stressing sound over some aspects of action.’ P.22-23
‘The design of Cartoons was radically different, and suggested a range of metaphoric meanings.’ P.23
'Minimalism- "Reduced Animation"' ' P.23
'Hanna - Barbera returned animation as a form of to simple story telling, drawing upon the distinctiveness of its language to differentiate the form from other televisual genres, more importantly, Hanna-Barbera  had to necessarily re-invent the nature of personality animation, as well as graphic and iconic visualization, and crucially, move from the notion of a soundtrack as a set of aural signifiers.' p.23

'Chuck Jones lamented that Saturday morning were little more than "illustrated radio" in which the dialogue had prominence over the visual and graphic elements, adding " the drawings are different,  but everybody acts the same way"' p.23

- scan page 24

'Huckleberry working in the tradition of endearing idiot-savant, combined accidental heroism with customary slapstick... the show won an Emmy in 1959 as the outstanding achievement in children's programming, the first animated cartoon series to be hindered by the television industry.' p.24

'recombinancy  effectively worked as a basic principle underpinning the production of cheaply made cartoons which sought to embrace cross-over audiences or already established demographics and became an intrinsic approach with in television animation in the US.' p.25

'in 1967, ABC broke new ground with the introduction of the fantastic four   and Spiderman, animation based on popular comic books, which already had an established design strategy, narrative, and core themes, but more importantly, a committed fanbase and market.' p.25

'[spin-offs] The most popular elements of one programme could be re-contextualised and resold, - and the appeal of Scooby Doo, where are you? Scooby survived on Saturday morning television for over twenty years, and still is one of the most popular cartoon characters on Cartoon Network.'
'Animated versions of popular prime time series were also crucial to the advances in the Saturday morning cartoon schedules.' p.26

'recombinancy is most obviously understood as the re-circulation of materials and cultural resources which already enjoyed favorable dissemination and market acceptance, it is important to note that each version of the form either as a vehicle for a pop group, or as a moving comic, or as a sitcom, still operates as a re-interpretation of the material and an echo of the primary developments that prefigured the Disney style.' p.26

'animation survived because  of the recombinancy strategies that enabled it to re-event itself in a populist idiom and context in the post-theatrical era.' p.27

Economics of television ;

'The context of cable network programming economics on the other hand is not one in which animated production ever presented it's self as an unhertley thrifty alternative standard fare.' 57

'to understand the economic incentives toward an increase in animated program production in the 1990s we, cannot, then rely upon a simple model of cost per episode versus revenue, or even upon the assumptions that luring of demographically desirable audiences its self rendered animation more profitable than other forms of programming.' p.57

'Even today advertisers rarely pay a significantly higher raw cost per an thousand rates for viewers based upon their demographics alone. Attraction of a particular demographic makes the shows  commercial time more sellable - more likely to be purchased - but does not necessarily raise the value of  the time it's self'. p.57

'For all of its arguable complexity, much of what we find on our television screens therefore still emotes from decisions made in accordance with the first order economic logic of the television industry: profits come from the difference between production and distribution costs versus revenue generated by advertising sales.' p. 57

'Branding the business of imputing a generic product with an idea, attitude or value has transformed cable networks into one of the most powerful commodities in today's commercial market place.'p. 91

'Solid branding equity is a new form of currency (together with ratings) that is exchanged between networks, audiences and advertisers. The networks mandate to build  and maintain a brand profile, the audiences has turned original animated series into a lucrative and hip programming option on cable' p.91
'The major distinction between the two competitors is that broadcast networks do not have the same programming freedom as their cable brethren. Broadcasters  must serve public interest, follow fcc guide lines, appease hundreds of local affiliates, program success is primary measured by ratings, the number of people tuned to a show at a specific time. To attract large undifferentiated audiences in prime time, which in turn attract powerhouse advertisers such as Mcdonalds and IBM, broadcasters try to produce entertainment and news programs that alienate a few viewers as possible. Cable network on the other hand, have a different programming audiences and bottom line with cable viewership, much smaller than broadcast numbers, networks measure success not only by ratings but the type of viewer watching their show. Cable networks aim to deliver a densely packaged,  but modestly sized target audience to advertise fortune 500 companies to local business owners. theses advertisers subsequently are guaranteed an audience demographic predisposed to purchasing or liking to purchase its products. Since the Fcc has no jurisdiction over the cable networks have greater flexibility than broadcasters in shaping their content to fit their needs and dislikes of viewers and advertisers' p.92
'The brand of a cable network helps attract specific target audiences, which in turn are sold to advertisers wanting to reach that demographic market.' p.29

'cable networks... are essentially brand-less' p.29

'when an animated show not only has low ratings but also a high production cost and a less then desirable target audience base for advertisers, why not replace them with new, low-cost, live action programs, especially if the ratings stay the same?' p.92

'animation, more than any genre can be logically exploited across a variety of retail outlets. Theme parks,toys, clothes, magazines, CDs and musical -on-ice... these ancillary consumer products or experiences, known as brand extensions  are not just  sound financial practices but are essential to brand's survival.' p.95

My notes based on my research;
essentially animated has competition with low-budget reality/live action programs on cable.
Cable has more freedom in what it , a more niche target audience, where as broadcast has to follow many rules and has a much larger target audience.
Animation needs to made cost effective, a 'desirable target audience' and needs to try and attract higher ratings to compete with reality programs when it comes to television. success comes with making it most sell able to advertisers, either by having a large audience or a specific target audience most likely to purchase a product.
brands need multiple relationships with their consumers. (p.95')