Animated Movies Throughout the Years: 1988-1991
In memory of Will Vinton, Stan Lee, and Stephen Hillenburg.
1988
In March, there was The Pound Puppies in Search of the Big Paw, based on the toy line
by Tonka. The film got very negative reviews and did poorly at the box-office.
In May, from French animation legend René Laloux came an English dub of the science-fiction film Gandahar- Light Years. Instead of using cutout animation (think South Park and Monty Python's Flying Circus) that Laloux is famous for, Gandahar used traditional hand-drawn animation.
The second was Disney's feature that year, Oliver & Company. It took the story of Charles
Dickens' Oliver Twist and turned it into a dog tale like Lady and the Tramp and 101
Dalmatians. While not as loved as 'Land', Oliver and Company did better at the box-office
and was even rereleased in theaters in 1996!
1989
In July, Babar, the famous children's book elephant created by Jean de Brunhoff,
made his leap to the big screen with Babar: The Movie.
Once again, there were two animated movies released in November on the same day.
The first was Disney's 28th animated movie, The Little Mermaid. It was Disney's
first fairytale since Sleeping Beauty in 1959, grossed over 100 million dollars
worldwide, got great reviews, and won the Oscars for Best Original Song and
Best Original Score. 'Mermaid' was also the last animated Disney movie to
use cels*, but lead to the wondrous era known as the Disney Renaissance.
The second was Don Bluth's fourth feature film, All Dogs Go To Heaven.
The film was largely overshadowed by The Little Mermaid, but managed
to spawn a sequel and a TV series.
And finally, on Christmas, the super-violent anime film Akira made it to the US.
It would demonstrate to Americans what anime is capable of doing story-wise.
1990
In July, The Jetsons made their jump to the big screen with The Jetsons Movie.
Despite the show's popularity and legacy, the film got rather negative reviews,
with 27% on Rotten Tomatoes.
In August, Scrooge McDuck, along with Huey, Dewey, and Louie, made their
feature film debut with Duck Tales: The Treasure of the Lost Lamp. This was
the first movie to come out of the now defunct Disney Toon Studios, who would
go on to make nearly every Disney direct-to-video sequel and the Tinkerbell films.
And finally, in November, Disney's 29th animated movie, The Rescuers Down
Under, soared into theaters. It was the first Disney movie to use CAPS, which
stood for Computer Animation Process System. This means the characters
were still animated by hand, but they were colored digitally. CAPS was
produced by Pixar, who were then a little-known company. Unfortunately,
The Rescuers Down Under tanked at the box-office, as it was released the
same day as Home Alone.
1991
In August, from the creators of The Brave Little Toaster came Rover Dangerfield,
a forgettable and unbalanced animated film. It's basically about Rodney
Dangerfield as a dog with a mishmash plot reminiscent of The Aristocats,
All Dogs Go To Heaven, and, even though it didn't exist yet, Babe.
There were two animated movies released in November. The first was the far
superior and immortal Beauty and the Beast. It received overwhelmingly
positive reviews, grossed over 400 million dollars at the box-office, and won
the Oscars for Best Original Song and Best Original Score. Beauty and the
Beast was also the first animated movie to receive the Oscar nomination for
Best Picture, but ultimately lost to Silence of the Lambs.
The second was An American Tail 2: Fievel Goes West. It was the first
movie from Amblimation, a predecessor to DreamWorks. In this movie,
Fievel and his family move to the Wild West and meets his hero Wilie
Burp, a dog sheriff who's a parody of Wyatt Earp. While 'Fievel Goes
West' may not live up to the original, it's definitely better than Don Bluth's
feature at the time, the notorious and ridiculous Rock-a-Doodle.
*Cels, short for celluloids, were how most cartoons during the 20th century were made.
After the animation was done, poses of the character would be painted onto cels and
placed on a painted background. A camera would be hoisted from above and would
take pictures.
For more information on how cels worked, watch these links below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oktGlZQgYWs
This one is from British animation veteran Sheila Graber. She gives a demonstration on how an episode of Just So Stories, a British cartoon that recreated fables from Rudyard Kipling, would have been made.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhfp6Z8z1cI
This one was a promotional film for Snow White, which demonstrated how Disney
cartoons were made at the time. However, this video is in black and white, since color was
expensive back then.
That's all I have to say for this week's Animated Movies Throughout the Years! Tune in next
week when we talk about animated movies from 1992-1994,in which a lamp was rubbed and
a genie granted us a memorable film, the king of Halloween discovers Christmas and tries
to mix the two holidays, with disastrous results, and an African lion cub ran away from home
only to return home years later to take his place as king.
