Data-centric website FiveThirtyEight thinks it’s nailed down the Seven Ways to Become an Animation Powerhouse. Their analysis is incomplete though, and misses a few large factors that make animated movies successful. For starters, their title is misleading; there are no seven ways listed in the article. Instead writer Walt Hickey merely analyses the performance of […]
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Despite Four Shrek Films, History Will be Kind to Jeffrey Katzenberg
August 26th, 2016 
Charles Kenny This week Jeffrey Katzenberg said goodbye to the studio he founded. Evaluating the full impact of Jeffrey Katzenberg over the past three decades will take years. The animation industry loses a true cheerleader whose legacy has barely been formed but finds itself without an immediately apparent replacement. Katzenberg’s live-action background didn’t exactly prepare him for […]
Why Some Fans Are Giving Animation A Black Eye
August 19th, 2016 Charles Kenny Fandoms in general constantly contend with a minority that makes the majority look bad. If it isn’t long-term fans belittling newcomers, it’s one faction squaring off against another over some trifle disagreement. Fans arguing amongst themselves is nothing new, but when the anger gets directed towards creators or those on the creative team, the results […]
What Cartoons From Today Will Be Written About in 25 Years?
August 11th, 2016 Charles Kenny Entertainment Weekly has published an article reminiscing about the three original Nicktoons that turn 25 this year. It’s a memorable birthday for a trio of revolutionary cartoons, yet it’s an excuse to wonder what cartoons from today (if any) will be given the same treatment in 2041. The period of 1989 to 1991 witnessed radical […]
Why Did Chowder Never Get A Cookbook?
August 5th, 2016 Charles Kenny Earlier this week, VIZ announced that they are releasing a cookbook based on Frederator’s web series Bee & Puppycat by Natasha Allegri. It’s somewhat surprising news, but begs the question of why an even more well-known cooking-based cartoon never got the same treatment? Remember Chowder? The Cartoon Network series about the eponymous plucky purple creature […]
The World Isn’t Ready for a Live-Action Beavis & Butthead
July 15th, 2016 Charles Kenny Mike Judge has indicated that if the seminal MTV show Beavis & Butthead were to be rebooted (again), it probably wouldn’t be animated. Just what is he thinking??? In an interview, the creator of the show prophesises that if the show were to return, it should be a new incarnation, not a reboot. If should […]
Where’s Our 21st Century Ralph Bakshi?
July 8th, 2016 Charles Kenny Has animation gone stale? Perhaps not quite, but it certainly has become a tad boring. Between large, big-budget features, there’s a decent number of independent features, but none are rattling any cages, and animation has historically been much better at doing just that. Ironically enough, it’s the advent of the internet that has made animation […]
“Angry Birds” May Have Won the Battle, But It Has Lost The War
June 30th, 2016 Charles Kenny The announcement that the enormously popular app known as Angry Birds was to be given the silver screen treatment caused a bit of a stir as people began to seriously wonder if an app could even be translated into a feature film, let alone a successful one. After a couple of years’ development the questions […]
On The Manufactured Rivalry Between Disney And Pixar
June 23rd, 2016 Charles Kenny Ever since both animation studios were joined under the same corporate umbrella, there has been a fair degree of rampant speculation over which studio has been the ‘better’ of the two. The existence of a rivalry between the two may be real, but the extent to which it is pedaled borders on the obscene. In […]
Forget ‘Finding Dory’ – The Sequel You Secretly Really Want Could be on the Way!
June 16th, 2016 Charles Kenny Yes, barely two months since it was first announced that Universal bought Dreamworks, comes the news we’ve been clinging to the edge of our chairs for: Shrek is coming back! It’s still only a possibility at this stage, but even that remains worrisome. The entertainment business has a bad reputation for flogging horses until they’re […]
Is A New, All-Animated “Garfield Movie” a Nail in the Coffin for CGI/Live-Action Hybrids?
May 26th, 2016 Charles Kenny The announcement that comic strip star Garfield is to return to the big screen in fully animated form is rather surprising given that his previous outings were mostly live-action hybrids. Does this news mean that there is a nail being (finally) driven into that style of film? Garfield is well-known for his animated outings. The […]
Family Guy’s Stealthy Renewal Spells Bad News for Broadcast Toons
May 19th, 2016 Charles Kenny Long a permanent fixture of Fox’s ‘Animation Domination’ Sunday night lineup, Family Guy continues to rack up the episode count as it nears its 14th season. This time around though, nobody really seemed to notice that it was renewed at all, and that could spell trouble ahead. As far as animated programs go, Fox has […]
The Comcast-DreamWorks Deal is About More than ‘Synergy’
May 2nd, 2016 Charles Kenny That good ol’ corporate buzzword is being bandied about as the largest development in the animation industry so far this year has been announced. Just what exactly does that mean, and why is there so much more to the deal than that? Comcast has tendered an offer for DreamWorks Animation in the region of three […]
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Kubo’s Box Office Performance Hides Bigger Troubles
Coming from a studio with an established track record in making uniquely crafted stop-motion films, and with a story this is much more interesting than most of the other summer fare, Kubo and the Two Strings ought to be a home run of a film. Its failure to become a smash hit however hides bigger […]