There is no creative parity throughout the ages. It’s possible, depending on when one lives, to either witness a great flourishing of artistic works and talents or sit through a mind-numbing vacuum.
Today, the TV viewer sits in the middle. While there are productions worth watching, there are others whose very existence threatens good taste and civilization.
Unfortunately, most of today’s cartoons sit in the latter category. Feeding kids crap is easier than feeding adults crap. What crap does end up on kids’ doorsteps is thus easier to justify, being aimed at minds deprived of reason. But this overlooks the fact that one of the best television shows ever created was a cartoon—the Bugs Bunny/Looney Tunes franchise. Though it may be ignorant to judge today’s cartoons by yesterday’s standards, the fact remains that very few productions equal the original Looney Tunes. It may seem like comparing Frasier to Shakespeare, but if Bryant Gumble can get away with the latter, I’ll surely try the former. There was something truly great about these shows. It wasn’t just the groundbreaking animation, the cross-dressing, or the blatantly offensive and polemical WWII-era cartoons. No, it was the juxtaposition of great slapstick with highbrow, esoteric humour.
Indeed, much of what Looney Tunes accomplished might be called the comic opera of the 20th century, except without the preposterous non-stop singing. This is wholly appropriate, considering the famous episode lampooning The Barber of Seville. Furthermore, the medium made for one of the most difficult but spectacular marriages of aural and visual performance ever. To properly accompany on-screen action, orchestral arrangements and performances had to be perfectly choreographed and played without the benefit of today’s editing and post-production facilities. Surely, musical gems like Haydn’s “joke” string quartets made ideal bedfellows for wacky antics. And any discussion of these classics would be sorely amiss were it to omit the genius of Mel Blanc. Few in television merit this title, but the man of a thousand voices was one of them. His talent and memorable characters are still unmatched. This is not to say today’s cartoons are a wasteland; there have been many successful shows for adult audiences. But this doesn’t do the kids much good. A few bright spots persist, such as the recent revival of the Warner Brother’s Golden Age style in shows such as Tiny Toons and Animaniacs. As well, some comics have been revived tolerably by the same studio, most notably the Batman franchise.
The one artist today who even approaches the classics in combining ability with actual exposure and success would be John Kricfalusi of Ren & Stimpy fame. He is unfortunately hamstrung by a fascination with the grotesque, which, while adding to the overall charm and effect of his work, often acts as an impediment to the sublime juxtaposition which characterizes those truly excellent works whose meanings and enjoyment exist on multiple levels.
