Williams Street and Cartoon Evolution
The June issue of Washington Monthly has a long piece on the evolution of animated cartoons, using the Cartoon Network's Williams Street studios (creators of Adult Swim fare like Sealab 2021 and Aqua Teen Hunger Force) as the latest model for intelligent, innovative TV animation. The author suggests that the best cartoons have always been created by people on the very edges of the studio systems -- given freedom to experiment outside the usual corporate restrictions:
"How is it that the same economy that gives us bland fodder like Vin Diesel, Evanescence, and 'According To Jim' can sometimes suddenly produce the sort of wonderful, bizarre material that we see on Adult Swim? It's because the good stuff tends to come when nobody's looking -- created by those on the fringes of the studio system, occupying marginal creative real estate with minimal supervision. In the natural world, punctuated evolution occurs when small groups find themselves geographically isolated and free from natural predators, allowing creatures with rare mutations to thrive and develop into entirely new species. So it is in entertainment..."
The article recaps the advancement of cartoons from the days of Tex Avery and Chuck Jones working in the Warner Brothers back lot during the 1940s and 50s, Hanna-Barbera's groundbreaking (and cheap) work with limited animation techniques on TV cartoons in the 60s, up through The Simpsons and Adult Swim block today.
It's interesting how Williams Street has built such an incredible following with shows designed to be as cheap as possible; with computer animation, repurposing of old shows (like Sealab), and in-house voice talent, they can create new episodes quickly without the benefit a large staff or outsourcing the art to a foreign country. Williams Street head honcho Mike Lazzo points out that "at most networks, the enormous costs of producing television shows means that network executives favor safe choices, but, at Adult Swim, 'We've designed the system to be inexpensive enough to make risky choices.'" And if a sarcastic, talking milkshake doesn't define "risky", I'm not sure what does.
