Animation America In The 20th Century

Animating America in the 20th Century

During the 20th century America faced many issues overseas, but during times of trial America continued to grow culturally and developed many new media. Throughout the 20th century new forms of media were slowly being produced throughout America, including animation. While there were many experiments during this time that ultimately failed animation grew in popularity very quickly. Animation slowly developed throughout the 20th century and encountered three eras, the silent era, the golden age, and the television/dark era.

Animation in America began during the early 1900s while the production of media was still very experimental. During this time moving picture movies had a lack of color as well as a lack of sound, therefore storytelling relied completely on visual cues. This period in both animation and any other form of American

media is referred to as the silent era. One prolific animator of the time was Winsor McCay who completed up to ten animated films between 1911 and 1921 ("The Silent Age”). His films were created frame by frame and often included bits of live action in them. The reason for this is to fill up enough time to make good content while still keeping production fairly cheap. A new form of production in animation that arrived during this time however was assembly line (“Baker”). This made animation easier as well as quicker to release. A few other prolific animators got their starts during this era such as Walt Disney as well as Max and Dave Fleischer, but they didn’t rise in popularity until later on in the golden age.
Most people designate the beginning of the gold age as November 18th, 1928 with the release of Walt Disney’s Steamboat Willie, starring Mickey Mouse (“History”).

By this time there is the emergence of many new concepts and techniques in animation such as color, sound, and feature length animations. While Walt Disney is mostly reliable for creating the golden age with his recognizable characters and techniques, there were other key players in the success of this time. Two of these men were Max and Dave Fleischer who help develope audio techniques such as synchronization in animation (“History”). Another animator of note was Paul Terry, creator of Terrytoons, he helped create memorable characters that were easily recognizable. The emergence of iconic characters in this time really made animation stand out to family audiences and the feature length nature of animations at the time allowed animation to be viewed as a medium for both adults and children (”Baker”). During this time the animation industry faced little to no adversity and expanded greatly, but like all golden ages it had to come to

end.
By the early sixties animation entered the next era, known both as the television era and in some circles the dark era of animation. During this era Walt Disney, an important figure in the community passed away 1966 from lung cancer ("What Killed”). While Disney's death was already devastating, the rise of the saturday morning cartoons caused animation to be taken less seriously and considered childish ("Film”). The creation of animated films also slowed due to the increase of episodic saturday morning cartoons ("Film”). The biggest issue with this time however was the development of new shortcut techniques that cause a decrease in animation quality of most animation studios (“History”).
The 20th century introduced animation to America as well as saw the development of animation through three specific eras; the silent era, the golden age, and the television/dark era. Throughout this time Animation developed and blossomed into what it is today.