Tough list for me as I never had a daughter.  I've thought about how the shows influenced young girls over the years and how they have evolved, although many still are created only to sell product.

Unlike the boy’s action list, I didn’t grow up watching a lot of these shows so I’ve tried to do a little research and sought friend’s opinions.    I’ve even watched a few candidates and called my 7 year old granddaughter once or twice.   At the end of the day I sort of formed an idea of how I would make the selections and I decided to take into account the importance of the show within the category itself as well as the quality of the animation production.

Making these kind of lists is fun but once you sit down and start to do it you soon begin to second guess yourself.  In a way you start to ask yourself if it is even a good idea to set yourself up as a judge of others work and creative output.  For me it is particularly hard as I know many of the people that had a hand in making these shows, and even worked on some of the shows myself.  However at the end of the day I just pushed on - after all my judgement is only that, my judgement. Each reader will have their own ideas and ways of measuring and balancing their own decisions, which may be completely different than mine.. So take a look at what I came up with and feel free to let me know your thoughts...

This is the first of 6 lists I've proposed making that will rank my favorite domestic 2-D animation series starting with what I'm calling Boy's Action Shows.  Girl can watch too but I don't think most of these are their cup of tea - but times are a changing so maybe I'm wroing.

Old animation is not necessarily important becasue it is old.  There is a lot of bad old stuff just like there is a lot of bad new stuff.  It's always hard to put your finger directly on what makes one show a hit and another a miss but with classics we have the benefit of some perspective.  Did a show create a new style or popularize a treand or make use of technology never tried before?  Is the show still known and revered years after its run on television?  Have the characters become cultural icons or hae they become lost to all but a small group of devotees?  I've tried to look at all the old series while balancing these kind of questiions - as always this list only represents my opinions so read on if you're interested.

I have been wondering how I should begin with this new thing, to write a regular blog for AWN as one of their new-featured experts.  Being me, I think I’ll start with a gripe. 

The migration of digital effects work to offhshore studios is a continuation of a movement of animation work that began over forty years ago.  This means of cutting labor cost is now a normal consideration and VSX is only the newest branch of our industry to be effected.

Talking with an old friend who has a passion for hand drawn animation made me wonder what the future holds for this old mainstay that brought us such wonderful moments over the years.  Is anyone learning to become a 2-D animator anymore?  It seems that every working in 2-D only wants to learn the basis that they can apply when they move under the big CGI tent..... Doesn't anyone still love this lovely artform for what ii is, not where it can take them?

Recently a friend and I started talking about his film "Attila the Ham" and how he got tired of trying to sell his ideas to the media giants who were always complimentary but always had their own 5 films in development and had no interest in producing anything they didn't have a heavy peice of or own outright...  He came to the conslusion that he should pmake his own films, and he did.

We all have our own projects that we feel are better than some of the things that we see on broadcast television or cable.  Who hasn't wondeded what would happen if only they could get their film seen - After all it has to be better than a lot of the crap that seems to fill the airways.  Kent Butterworth worked for a number of years off and on to make his film Attila the Ham, in the end he finsihsed the film, found a distributor and kept the lion's share of ownership and rights.... Just like the good old days when broadcasters were broadcasters and producers were producers...  Here's how he did it.

If you've ever wondered if animation has joined the global economy just see, finally, some work returning to the U.S.  Granted it is not a huge windfall of jobs but we should see this new start-up digital company as at the very least, a start.