Dr. Toon: Going Swimmingly? — Part 1
“Adult” animation has been a problematic concept for decades, possibly due to cultural confusion over the term itself. In the typical sense, “adult” entertainment carries sexual connotations that run the gamut from the merely salacious to the outright pornographic. Using descriptors such as “mature” lends a more sophisticated air, but an underlying hint of carnality remains. This problem may possibly be the result of trying to design forms of entertainment that draw a clear line between assumed periods of psychosocial growth.
One obvious example is the current movie rating system, which I am sure no parent can adequately summarize, let alone apply to their progeny. When the term “adult” is applied to animation, a genre generally regarded to be the province of children, distinctions are even more difficult to make. American animation and American culture have never adequately reconciled the dilemma of what adult animation consists of, except that it is somehow more sophisticated than children’s fare and targets the population demographic aged 18-49.
It seems likely that the entire conundrum of what constitutes “adult” animation began in the early 1950s.
If that date seems curious to you, consider this — we had adult animation all the time. We called it the theatrical cartoon. It is impossible to watch any part of the Warner Bros. manifest, for example, from 1940-1959 and not realize that children were not the primary intended audience. The increasing sophistication of humor, the references to celebrities and popular culture, and the comical, casual violence bespeaks volumes about what entertained movie audiences. It is inconceivable that said audiences were wholly or even mainly composed of children, or that Frank Tashlin, Chuck Jones or Bob Clampett were directors of kiddie fare. The latter two have stated that they made cartoons mostly to please themselves, based on what they found funny. If you require more proof, just listen to today’s adults profess their love for the “classic” Looney Tunes.
Max and Dave Fleischer, in their most creative period, presented cartoons filled with sex, jazz and sophistication. It is difficult to make the case that even the beloved early Popeye cartoons had young audiences in mind. No one will ever accuse Tex Avery of making toons for tykes while at MGM, and it is certain that the artists and directors at UPA were aiming for a highbrow, art-savvy audience above the age of 13. When the cartoons became too expensive to recoup their costs and the great movie studios closed their animation departments, we essentially lost adult animation in America.
Cartoons made their march to the television set. For a brief moment, it seemed that the tradition of cartoons tailored to adult sensibilities might triumph. Beginning in 1958, the first efforts of ex-MGM directors Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera held promise using clever scripts that compensated for weak animation. Huckleberry Hound and his pals actually had a cult following, and it is no surprise that some of the writers had migrated over from Warner. Also coming to the small screen, in 1959, was Jay Ward and Bill Scott’s satirical opus Rocky and His Friends.
In 1961, Bob Clampett tried mightily to appeal to adults with his outstanding Beany and Cecil series, and, for the most part, succeeded. Literate, funny and fresh, these three efforts, until recently, represented the last successful versions of adult animation. Men who were in their prime during the heyday of theatrical shorts made them, but they could not sway the overall march to mediocrity. Like a bright sun setting behind countless bowls of sugary cereals, television animation was about to sink into Saturday morning kidvid. For the next 20 years, the viewing public would hold the broad perception that cartoons were strictly for kids. Stringent efforts by broadcast standards and practices departments, as well as watchdog groups, only reinforced this view.
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