TRADITIONAL ANIMATED FEATURE FILMS OF THE 1990's

Some time ago I posted a series of reviews on DA of what I considered to be the best animated features of the 1990's. I chose that decade for the simple fact that more English language animated features were released in that time span than during the previous three decades COMBINED. It was a fleeting period of Renaissance for the art form. It was a golden age of traditional animation, the artistic equivalent of Periclean Athens. The reason for this is that the moribund Disney Studios suddenly escaped from the doldrums that it had been in since the death of Walt Disney. This transient boom began with the release of “The Little Mermaid” in 1989. Disney maintained a winning streak with “Beauty and the Beast” and “Aladdin”. Other studios looked at the ticket receipts and jumped on the band wagon. Studios such as Warner Brothers that had abandoned animation for nearly thirty years suddenly rebuilt their animation divisions and ramped up for major new animated feature productions.

This period actually ran from 1989 through about 2004. It was a fifteen year span in which children who happened to be growing up at the time were privileged to experience a Golden Age. The tipping point came in 2004. That was the year in which more computer animated films were released than the number of cell drawn animated films.

Disney dominated this interval. The studio produced 24 out of the 69 feature films (over 1/3)  on this list. Disney also accomplished feats that it had not achieved in half a century. For decades a new Disney animated feature came out maybe once every few years. In between Disney would rerelease old features from out the vaults to make back-end money before the age of home video. Some of the films which Disney counts as “animated”, I dismiss. I consider movies such as “Pete’s Dragon” and “Bedknobs and Broomsticks” to be live action movies in which limited animation is inserted.

During this period the Disney studio released new movies back-to-back every year. It also premiered two or even three new features in a single year! In part this was due to the odd relationship between the feature film division and television workshops that were running in parallel. The features that were derived from TV shows such as the “Pooh” franchise came out of these subsidiaries. Sometimes the decision to release a film theatrically was arbitrary. In fact the “Tarzan” project was taken away from the television division while it as in development. Good films such as “An Extremely Goofy Movie” that should have gone into theaters were dumped into the video bin while not so good movies such as “Return to Neverland” went to the big screen. The studio has to make the bottom line decision of whether or not to shell out the shekels to promote these products. The public does not generally appreciate the fact that half of the cost of many new theatrical releases is the overhead incurred in promoting, advertising and physically duplicating all the film stock prints that must run through the projectors simultaneously in over 1000 thousand cinemas. Some studios such as Nickelodeon existed entirely on this razor’s edge by releasing only films that were derived from successful TV shows.

In the 15 year period a number of modern classics were created. It looked as though traditional animation was back to stay. Alas, this was not to be. Just as automobiles superceded the use of horse drawn carriages, CGI killed classic cell animation. When Disney made a mountain of money off of  “Toy Story” in 1997, it tolled the death knell for what has retroactively become known as 2-D animation. Warner Brothers, Fox, Universal and many new companies such as Turner and Nickelodeon shut down their feature animation departments and started hiring computer programers. The new computer generated films that poured out of studios such as Pixar, were no better than the art form they had replaced. They were only more lucrative. The studios bowed to the bottom line.

The fact that “The Princess and the Frog” did lackluster business for Disney in 2009 resulted in the instant abandonment of “Rapunzel” as a traditional animation project. The whole effort was round filed and then handed over to the computer geeks. The name of the film was changed from “Rapunzel” to “Tangled”. This decision was made by marketing strategists. It was concluded from product testing that preteen boys would not pay to see a cartoon with a girl’s name in the title. That is why “The Ice Queen” became “Frozen”. I suppose that if Disney were to have made “Snow White” today it would have to be re-titled “Poisoned”.

This essay does not address the large number of foreign language animated films that were made during this period even if they were dubbed into English. Japanese anime should be treated as a universe unto itself. “Traditional” cell animation is not under threat of extinction in Japan. The Japanese respect it as an art form rather than an obsolete way to make money. The one exception is “Little Nemo in Slumberland”. This was a co-production with an all-American subject and an American screenplay based on a treatment by Ray Bradbury.

This list ONLY includes feature films that were made with traditional cell animation. CG , stop-motion and puppet movies are not included. These media have their merits but they are not the subject of this discussion. The Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences defines a “feature” as a film of at least 60 minutes of running time. Therefore a number of good theatrically released cartoons such as Disney’s “A Christmas Carol” don’t make the cut. They are by definition “short subjects”.

This topic does NOT include Made-for-TV or Direct-to-Video entertainments. These represent the farm leagues of animation. Think of theatrical features as the Big League! “Videos” are generally of lesser quality but most important they are not released theatrically. Some studios will play a very cynical trick. They will schedule limited theatrical showings of certain films in New York and Los Angeles solely to meet the minimum MPAAS requirements as a “theatrical release”. This is done to qualify for Academy Award nominations. It is a marketing gimmick intended to boost video sales. Therefore there are a few such films that I disqualify from this list.

Here are the major English language (traditional) animated features of the Nineties Renaissance. They are in chronological order (by year of release) to avoid prejudicing their ranking.

All Dogs Go to Heaven Sullivan Bluth US (1989)
Barbar: The Movie Nelvana/Ellipse CN/FR (1989)
The Little Mermaid Disney US (1989)
The Nutcracker Prince Lacewood Prod. CN (1990)
Duck Tales the Movie: Legend of the Lost Lamp Disney US (1990)
The Rescuers Down Under Disney US (1990)
An American Tail: Fievel Goes West Spielberg US (1991)
Beauty and the Beast Disney US (1991)
Rock-A-Doodle* Sullivan Bluth US (1991)
Rover Dangerfield WB US (1991)
Aladdin Disney US (1992)
Cool World * Paramount US (1992)
Freddie the F.R.0.7 H.R.F./J&M Prod. UK (1992)
Tom and Jerry: The Movie Turner US (1992)
Ferngully the Last Rainforest  Fox US/AUS (1992)
Batman: The Mask of the Phantasm WB US (1993)
Once Upon a Forest Hanna-Barber/HTV US/UK (1993)
The Princess and the Goblin UK (1993)
The Thief and the Cobbler R. Williams Prod. UK (1993)
We’re Back! A Dinosaurs’ Story Universal US (1993)
A Troll in Central Park Bluth US (1994)
The Lion King Disney US (1994)
The Pagemaster* Fox US (1994)
The Swan Princess Fox US (1994)
Thumbelina Bluth US/IRE (1994)
Balto Universal US (1995)
Little Nemo in Slumberland Tokyo Movie Shinsa US/JAP (1995)
A Goofy Movie Disney US (1995)
The Pebble and the Penguin Bluth US/IRE (1995)
Pocahontas Disney US (1995)
All Dogs Go to Heaven 2 MGM US (1996)
Beavis and Butt-head Do America Geffen MTV US (1996)
The Hunchback of Notredame Disney US (1996)
Space Jam* WB US (1996)
Anastasia Fox US (1997)
Cats Don’t Dance WB US (1997)
Hercules Disney US (1997)
Mulan Disney US (1998)
The Prince of Egypt Dreamworks US (1998)
Quest for Camelot WB US (1998)
The Rugrats Movie Nickelodon US (1998)
Fantasia 2000 Disney US (1999)
Doug’s 1st Movie Disney US (1999)
The Iron Giant WB US (1999)
The King and I WB US (1999)
Tarzan Disney US (1999)
The Emperor’s New Groove Disney US (2000)
The Road to El Dorado Dreamworks US (2000)
Rugrats in Paris: The Movie Nickelodeon US (2000)
The Tigger Movie Disney US (2000)
Titan A.E. Bluth US/IRE (2000)
Atlantis the Lost Empire Disney US (2001)
Eight Crazy Nights Fox US (2002)
Hey Arnold! The Movie Nickelodeon US (2002)
Lilo and Stitch Disney US (2002)
The Powerpuff Girls Movie Turner US (2002)
Return to Neverland Disney US (2002)
Treasure Planet Disney US (2002)
The Wild Thornberrys Movie Nickelodeon US (2002)
Brother Bear Disney US (2003)
Piglet’s Big Movie Disney US (2003)
Rugrats Go Wild! Nickelodeon US (2003)
Sinbad Legend of the Seven Seas Dreamworks US (2003)
Home on the Range Disney US (2004)
Pooh’s Heffalump Movie Disney US (2005)
================================ **
The Simpson’s Movie Fox US (2007)
The Princess and the Frog Disney US (2009)

*these films combined live action with animation. Their legitimacy is questionable.

** 2006 marks the end of this Age. Exactly ZERO (0) qualified films were released that year.


Here is their time distribution:

1989-90  6
1991-92  8
1993-94 10
1995-96  9
1997-98  8
1999-00 10
2001-02  8
2003-04  5
2005-06  1
2007-08  1

Stay tuned. I will soon follow up with an application of my new rating system to these films.