A to Z of Animation Studios: Laika
(Or: The Stop-Motion Studio That Willingly Chose Suffering as a Career Path)
Welcome back to Animation Anarchy, where we celebrate animation history while also questioning why anyone willingly chooses stop-motion as their career. If you haven’t subscribed to our YouTube channel, do it now before Laika spends five years animating a scene of you making bad life choices in painstaking detail.
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🔥 L is for Laika
Laika is the studio that took one of the most grueling, tedious, and time-consuming animation techniques in existence and said,
“Yes, this is what we want to do for a living.”
Founded in 2005, Laika specializes in stop-motion animation, a technique that requires moving tiny puppets frame by frame over several years just to create a 90-minute film.
Imagine spending six months animating a single character blinking, only for the studio execs to say, “Hmm… let’s change that.” That’s Laika’s entire existence.
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The Stop-Motion Masterpieces™ (A.K.A. Movies That Look So Good You Forget How Much They Suffered to Make Them)
• Coraline (2009) – The movie that made an entire generation terrified of buttons. Absolutely stunning animation, incredible atmosphere, and a villain who scarred children for life.
• Paranorman (2012) – What if The Sixth Sense was animated in excruciating stop-motion detail? A beautifully crafted ghost story with some of the best zombie animation ever.
• The Boxtrolls (2014) – A weird little movie about garbage-dwelling creatures and fancy cheese-obsessed villains.
• Kubo and the Two Strings (2016) – This movie has some of the most breathtaking stop-motion sequences ever created. At this point, Laika was basically competing with itself.
• Missing Link (2019) – A charming and hilariously overlooked film featuring a Bigfoot with better social skills than most people.
Every Laika film looks so good that you almost forget that every frame took weeks of painstaking effort. And yet, they still struggle to turn a profit. Why? Because stop-motion is an act of pure insanity.
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Laika’s Unfair Fate (A.K.A. Why Their Movies Never Make Money)
• Their movies take forever to make.
• They’re up against CGI-heavy blockbusters that cost less and make more.
• Most audiences don’t fully appreciate how difficult stop-motion is.
And yet, Laika refuses to give up. Even if it means painstakingly animating a character’s hair movement for a year while Pixar just uses a physics simulator.
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🎖 Honorable Mention: Will Vinton Studios (The Real Stop-Motion Pioneers)
Now let’s talk about the studio that walked so Laika could run.
Before Laika, there was Will Vinton Studios, a company that pioneered claymation before it was cool.
What Did They Do?
• The California Raisins (1986) – Yes, the singing raisins from the ‘80s commercials. And yes, they were so popular that they got their own TV special.
• The Adventures of Mark Twain (1985) – A stop-motion film that featured one of the most unsettling animated sequences ever created: the ‘Mysterious Stranger’ scene. If you’ve seen it, you know.
• The PJs (1999-2001) – A stop-motion sitcom starring Eddie Murphy as a landlord in the projects. Somehow, this existed.
• Claymation Christmas (1987) – A Christmas special featuring the most terrifying camel designs ever animated.
The Laika Takeover (A.K.A. The Sad Truth About Will Vinton Studios)
Will Vinton pioneered modern stop-motion, but his studio eventually ran out of funding.
Enter Travis Knight, son of Nike co-founder Phil Knight, who invested in the studio and took over. Eventually, it was rebranded as Laika, and Will Vinton was pushed out of his own company.
Vinton’s influence lives on, but it’s a harsh reminder that even animation legends aren’t safe from corporate takeovers.
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Final Thoughts (A.K.A. Why You Should Subscribe Before a Stop-Motion Puppet Replaces You in Real Life)
Laika? Absolute stop-motion masters.
Will Vinton? The original claymation king.
A to Z of Animation Studios: Klasky-Csupo
(Or: The Studio That Gave Us Childhood Nostalgia and Some of the Most Unsettling Cartoon Faces Ever Animated)
Welcome back to Animation Anarchy, the only place where we celebrate animation history while also screaming into the void about why Klasky-Csupo characters always looked like they were in a state of perpetual suffering. If you haven’t subscribed to our YouTube channel, do it now before Tommy Pickles crawls into your nightmares.
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🔥 K is for Klasky-Csupo
Klasky-Csupo is responsible for some of the most iconic cartoons of the ’90s and early 2000s—and also responsible for giving us characters that looked like they were drawn during a minor earthquake.
Founded in 1982 by Arlene Klasky and Gábor Csupó, this studio had a signature art style that could be best described as:
1. Bold.
2. Ugly (but in a charming way?).
3. Borderline terrifying.
And yet… we loved them anyway.
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The Greatest Hits (A.K.A. Cartoons That Were Both Brilliant and Slightly Unhinged)
• Rugrats (1991-2004) – What if babies had existential crises while wandering around unsupervised? Absolute classic. Gave us Reptar, Cynthia, and more therapy bills than we’d like to admit.
• Aaahh!!! Real Monsters (1994-1997) – A cartoon about monsters who attended a horror school and looked like something you’d see during sleep paralysis.
• The Wild Thornberrys (1998-2004) – A show that taught us about nature, travel, and what happens when you give Tim Curry free rein to voice an animated character.
• Rocket Power (1999-2004) – X-Games: The Animated Series. Every kid wanted to be cool like Otto, but in reality, most of us were Twister.
• As Told By Ginger (2000-2006) – Klasky-Csupo’s attempt at a more serious, coming-of-age drama. If Rugrats was about baby existentialism, this show was about teen existentialism.
• Duckman (1994-1997) – A completely unhinged, adult animated sitcom featuring a foul-mouthed private detective duck voiced by Jason Alexander.
The Klasky-Csupo Art Style™ (Or: Why Did Everyone Look Like That?)
1. Eyes? Usually uneven, and slightly staring into the abyss.
2. Mouths? Far too big for comfort.
3. Heads? Just… odd shapes.
4. Everything? Looked like it was melting, yet somehow still worked.
This studio had a one-of-a-kind aesthetic that could never be mistaken for anything else. It was ugly on purpose, and we respect that.
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Why Klasky-Csupo Was Actually a Powerhouse
Even though their shows looked like a fever dream, Klasky-Csupo was:
• One of the most dominant animation studios of the ’90s.
• The original animation studio for The Simpsons (seasons 1-3) before Fox switched to another studio.
• Responsible for Nickelodeon’s golden era of cartoons.
Then, in the mid-2000s, Nickelodeon moved away from Klasky-Csupo’s shows, and the studio quietly faded from mainstream animation. But their impact? Undeniable.
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🎖 Honorable Mention: Kyoto Animation (K-On!, Violet Evergarden, and Masterful Anime Art)
Now, let’s go from melting faces to pure visual perfection.
What Kyoto Animation Does Better Than Almost Everyone
• Hyper-detailed backgrounds that look better than real life.
• Characters with so much emotion that you cry over things you didn’t even know could be sad.
• Consistently high-quality animation that puts big-budget movies to shame.
Their Masterpieces
• K-On! – The anime that single-handedly increased guitar sales in Japan. Cute girls, good vibes, 10/10 animation.
• Violet Evergarden – If you didn’t cry watching this, you might be a robot.
• A Silent Voice – A gut-punch of a movie about guilt, redemption, and emotional devastation.
• Clannad: After Story – This anime emotionally destroyed an entire generation.
• Hyouka – A show about solving small, everyday mysteries that somehow feels more intense than a crime thriller.
Kyoto Animation sets the gold standard for anime production. Their work is beyond stunning, and they treat their animators like actual human beings, which is rare in the industry.
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Final Thoughts (A.K.A. Why You Should Subscribe Before Klasky-Csupo Draws You Into Their Universe)
Klasky-Csupo? Weird, bold, and unforgettable.
Kyoto Animation? Beautiful, emotionally devastating, and untouchable in quality.
Next up? L for Laika—the stop-motion studio that makes movies so detailed you wonder how they haven’t all lost their minds.
(Spoiler: Coraline is still nightmare fuel.) 🚀
🔥 L – Laika (Coraline, Paranorman, the stop-motion kings—BUT WAIT!)
🎖 Honorable Mention: Will Vinton Studios (The real pioneers of stop-motion before Laika took over!)
A to Z of Animation Studios: Jay Ward Productions
(Or: The Studio That Proved Bad Animation Doesn’t Matter If Your Jokes Are Good Enough)
Welcome back to Animation Anarchy, where we respect animation history while also mercilessly roasting the industry’s weirdest choices. If you haven’t subscribed to our YouTube channel yet, I assume you prefer your cartoons without punchlines. Fix that before Boris and Natasha show up at your house and try to steal your furniture.
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🔥 J is for Jay Ward Productions
Before animation was smooth, beautiful, and expensive, there was Jay Ward Productions, a studio that said,
“What if our cartoons looked awful… but were also some of the funniest things ever made?”
Founded by Jay Ward, this studio was responsible for some of the most beloved, absurd, and brilliantly written cartoons of all time—despite the fact that they animated at a frame rate of about five drawings per episode.
Jay Ward’s biggest contribution to animation?
• Proving that you don’t need fancy visuals if the writing is smart enough.
• Setting the gold standard for meta-humor, satire, and fourth-wall-breaking before Deadpool was even a concept.
• Giving us characters that are still hilarious today, despite being animated with the budget of a peanut butter sandwich.
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The Greatest Hits (A.K.A. Cartoons That Were Funnier Than They Had Any Right to Be)
• Rocky & Bullwinkle – A show about a talking squirrel and a dumb moose constantly battling Cold War-era Russian spies while making some of the most brilliant satire ever written. Also featured Dudley Do-Right, Mr. Peabody & Sherman, and Fractured Fairy Tales, proving that Jay Ward ran an entire sketch comedy empire inside one cartoon.
• George of the Jungle – Imagine Tarzan, but stupider. George swung on vines directly into trees, his elephant thought it was a dog, and the theme song was better than the actual show.
• Super Chicken – A superhero who was just a chicken wearing a cape.
• Dudley Do-Right – A Canadian Mountie with the intelligence of a bag of flour, constantly foiling the evil Snidely Whiplash entirely by accident.
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The Jay Ward Formula™ (Or: Why These Shows Still Hold Up)
1. Jokes Per Second – Maximum Overdrive – You could blink and miss five jokes.
2. Characters Dumber Than a Bag of Rocks – But somehow still lovable.
3. Self-Aware Humor Before It Was Cool – Rocky and Bullwinkle mocked their own scripts, broke the fourth wall, and made fun of the show’s budget constantly.
4. Political and Pop Culture Satire Disguised as Kid’s TV – You think Scooby-Doo had jokes about Cold War espionage and corrupt capitalism? Think again.
5. Narrators Doing the Most – The narrator was basically a co-star in every show, constantly roasting the characters.
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The Problem? Jay Ward Productions Was Too Good for This World.
Despite being one of the funniest animation studios of all time, Jay Ward’s shows were never massive financial successes.
Why?
• They didn’t sell enough toys.
• Their animation budgets were microscopic.
• Networks never fully understood how to market them.
So eventually, Jay Ward faded into history. But their influence? Still massive.
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🎖 Honorable Mention: JibJab Animation Studios (Internet Animation Pioneers)
Before YouTube, before TikTok, before every social media site was filled with questionable animation memes, there was JibJab—the OG kings of viral internet animation.
What Did JibJab Do?
• Made some of the first viral animated videos.
• Mastered the “talking cutout mouth” animation style.
• Created political satire that spread faster than flu season.
Remember This Land (2004), the George W. Bush vs. John Kerry animated musical?
That was JibJab, and it broke the internet before breaking the internet was even a thing.
They basically proved that you don’t need Pixar-level animation to go viral—you just need a funny concept and the right timing.
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Final Thoughts (A.K.A. Why You Should Subscribe Before Boris and Natasha Steal Your Wallet)
Jay Ward Productions? The godfathers of absurd comedy in animation.
JibJab? The pioneers of internet animation before anyone knew what “viral content” even meant.
Next up? K for Klasky Csupo—the studio that somehow made Rugrats and the most terrifying animation style known to man.
(Spoiler: Those screaming babies haunted an entire generation.) 🚀
A to Z of Animation Studios: Illumination
(Or: The Studio That Figured Out How to Print Money Using Minions and the Tears of Artists)
Welcome back to Animation Anarchy, where we examine animation history while screaming into the void about corporate greed. If you haven’t subscribed to our YouTube channel, go do it now before a Minion shows up at your house and starts speaking in gibberish.
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🔥 I is for Illumination
Illumination isn’t just an animation studio—it’s a billion-dollar marketing machine disguised as an animation studio.
Founded in 2007 by Chris Meledandri, Illumination basically said,
“What if we made animated movies, but instead of focusing on story, heart, or artistic ambition… we just made bank?”
And then, they did.
Illumination has mastered the art of making movies that critics roll their eyes at, but the box office LOVES. Their business model? Spend as little as possible, make characters that work as meme fuel, and slap in some pop songs.
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The Minion Takeover™
• Despicable Me (2010) – The world is introduced to Gru, a supervillain with a heart of gold, and Minions, the tiny yellow creatures who would one day take over the Earth.
• Despicable Me 2, 3, 4, 97 (Probably) – The law of diminishing returns does not apply to Minions.
• Minions (2015) – A spin-off about the gibberish-speaking chaos gremlins that somehow made over $1 BILLION.
• Minions: The Rise of Gru (2022) – People wore suits to theaters to watch this. Humanity is lost.
At this point, Illumination doesn’t even need to make movies—they could just print Minions onto lunchboxes and call it a day.
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Other Illumination Films (Yes, They Exist!)
While Minions fuel their empire, Illumination has also made other movies that follow the same formula:
• The Secret Life of Pets (2016) – What if Toy Story, but dogs?
• Sing (2016) – A musical talent show movie where they spent more money on pop song licensing than animation.
• The Grinch (2018) – The one where Benedict Cumberbatch voices the least mean Grinch in Grinch history.
• The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023) – Proof that if you make a movie look just like the video game, fans will forgive everything else.
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The Illumination Formula™ (Why These Movies Make Billions)
1. Bright, simple animation that doesn’t cost much to make.
2. Pop songs inserted at random to keep your brain occupied.
3. A basic plot that can be understood by a toddler, a distracted adult, or a dog.
4. Marketability—EVERY character is designed to be sold as a toy, sticker, or Happy Meal item.
5. Minions. If the movie doesn’t have Minions, it might as well not exist.
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The Genius (And Evil) of Illumination
Say what you want about Illumination, but they cracked the code.
• They spend way less on animation than Disney or Pixar.
• They make more money per movie than most other animation studios.
• They don’t care if critics hate them because kids and parents will watch anyway.
At this point, Illumination could release a movie about a sentient sock that sings Bruno Mars songs and it would make a billion dollars.
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🎖 Honorable Mention: Indian Animation Studios (Tata Elxsi, Green Gold, etc.)
While Illumination is swimming in Minion money, Indian animation studios have been quietly growing into major players in the industry.
What They’ve Done
• Tata Elxsi – One of India’s biggest animation and VFX companies, working on everything from Hollywood films to TV ads.
• Green Gold Animation – The studio behind Chhota Bheem, the massively popular Indian kids’ series that has more spin-offs than Despicable Me.
• Maya Digital Studios – A studio that’s worked on tons of 3D animated projects and even collaborated on international films.
• Reliance Animation – A company that’s helping push Indian animation into global markets.
The Future of Indian Animation
While Indian animation has historically been underfunded and overlooked, things are changing fast. With better tech, bigger budgets, and international partnerships, it won’t be long before an Indian studio makes its own billion-dollar Minions.
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Final Thoughts (A.K.A. Why You Should Subscribe Before Minions Take Over Your Life)
Illumination? A marketing genius that turned simple movies into an empire.
Indian animation? On the rise, and ready to take over.
A to Z of Animation Studios: Hanna-Barbera
(Or: The Studio That Made 500 Cartoons With the Same Five Sound Effects and Got Away With It)
Welcome back to Animation Anarchy, where we celebrate animation history while also pointing out how many corners were cut to make it happen. If you haven’t subscribed to our YouTube channel yet, I assume you enjoy watching cheaply-animated running cycles in silence. Fix that before Hanna-Barbera slaps a laugh track onto your existence.
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🔥 H is for Hanna-Barbera
Before Cartoon Network, before Nickelodeon, before animation studios even tried to be subtle about recycling animation, there was Hanna-Barbera—the factory of cartoons that defined generations.
Founded by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, this studio basically invented the Saturday morning cartoon and then proceeded to flood the airwaves with so many cartoons that you could not escape them.
Their business model? Take a few funny voices, animate the absolute minimum possible, slap in a laugh track, and call it a show. And somehow, IT WORKED.
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The Greatest Hits (A.K.A. Cartoons You Definitely Watched Even If You Didn’t Want To)
• Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! – A group of teenagers and a talking Great Dane solve crimes while running past the same background fifty times per episode.
• The Flintstones – A prehistoric sitcom that was basically The Honeymooners with dinosaurs and somehow managed to sell cigarettes to kids.
• The Jetsons – The sci-fi version of The Flintstones, except way more depressing now that we realize we don’t have flying cars in 2025.
• Yogi Bear – A bear who steals picnic baskets and somehow never gets shot by park rangers.
• The Smurfs – A village of tiny blue communists living under the constant threat of Gargamel’s black magic.
• Wacky Races – The greatest example of animated cheating in history.
• Top Cat – A con-artist alley cat who probably inspired half of today’s crypto bros.
• Jonny Quest – The only Hanna-Barbera cartoon that actually tried to have good action animation.
The Hanna-Barbera Formula™
1. The Same Voice Actors In Everything – At one point, Mel Blanc and Don Messick were 80% of the voices in all cartoons.
2. Minimal Animation – Instead of animating characters fully, they animated only the mouths and reused as much footage as possible.
3. Canned Laughter – Because nothing says “comedy” like a laugh track after a joke that wasn’t funny.
4. Characters Running Past the Same Background Forever – If you’ve ever noticed Scooby and the gang passing the same lamp fifteen times while running from a ghost, congratulations—you understand Hanna-Barbera animation.
And yet… Hanna-Barbera was an empire. They were so successful that every single cartoon studio copied them for decades.
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🎖 Honorable Mention: Harman-Ising Productions (Early Looney Tunes Animators)
Before Hanna-Barbera was mass-producing cartoons at light speed, Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising were part of the OG animation pioneers.
What Did They Do?
• Created Bosko – The original Looney Tunes character before Bugs Bunny stole the show.
• Worked on early Merrie Melodies – The forerunner of Looney Tunes-style slapstick madness.
• Pushed early animation forward – Their work in the 1930s helped lay the groundwork for Warner Bros. and MGM’s later domination.
Without Harman-Ising, we wouldn’t have had Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, or any of the golden age of slapstick cartoons. So while Hanna-Barbera was mass-producing cartoons for TV, these guys were setting the stage for everything we love about animation today.
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Final Thoughts (A.K.A. Why You Should Subscribe Before Scooby-Doo Finds You First)
Hanna-Barbera didn’t just make cartoons—they made AN ENTIRE INDUSTRY. And Harman-Ising? They helped birth the very idea of classic animation.
Next up? I for Illumination—The studio that somehow made Minions more profitable than actual gold.
(Spoiler: There will be a lot of banana-related rage.) 🚀
A to Z of Animation Studios: Studio Ghibli
(Or: The Studio That Makes You Question Your Life Choices While Crying Over an Anthropomorphic Fire Demon)
Welcome back to Animation Anarchy, the only place where we celebrate the best animation studios while making fun of how much better they are than us. If you haven’t subscribed to our YouTube channel, I assume you have no respect for beautifully hand-crafted animation. Fix that before Miyazaki personally flies over your house on a soot sprite and shakes his head in disappointment.
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🔥 G is for Studio Ghibli
Let’s be honest—Studio Ghibli isn’t just an animation studio. It’s a lifestyle. A religion. A spiritual awakening.
Founded in 1985 by Hayao Miyazaki, Isao Takahata, and Toshio Suzuki, Studio Ghibli didn’t just make movies—they reprogrammed our emotions, made us fall in love with mundane everyday things, and taught us that capitalism is the root of all evil.
If Disney is the polished corporate overlord of animation, Ghibli is the brooding artistic genius who smokes a pack of cigarettes while angrily perfecting a single background for six years.
Miyazaki’s Empire of Beauty and Suffering
• Spirited Away – A movie about a 10-year-old girl forced into the gig economy in the most terrifying bathhouse ever imagined.
• My Neighbor Totoro – A heartwarming film about childhood, magic, and a giant forest cryptid that may or may not be a Grim Reaper.
• Howl’s Moving Castle – Proof that Miyazaki is obsessed with flying machines and that every woman deserves a messy, emotionally unstable wizard boyfriend.
• Princess Mononoke – An anti-capitalist masterpiece featuring giant wolves, cursed demon arms, and people casually losing limbs.
• Castle in the Sky – A steampunk adventure proving that every Ghibli film has at least one old man yelling about war.
• Ponyo – If The Little Mermaid had zero plot structure but was still a masterpiece anyway.
• The Wind Rises – A gorgeous, emotionally devastating biopic that basically says, “Dream big! But also, everything is pain.”
• Kiki’s Delivery Service – The most wholesome coming-of-age depression allegory ever made.
• Grave of the Fireflies – We don’t talk about it. We just cry.
The Ghibli Formula™ (That Somehow Works Every Time)
1. Beautiful food animation that ruins real-life eating forever.
2. At least one scene where someone just stares at nature for five minutes.
3. A strong-willed girl protagonist who deals with insane life events with mild confusion and sheer determination.
4. A flying machine because Miyazaki can’t help himself.
5. A villain who isn’t really a villain, just a misunderstood person making bad choices.
6. The most stunning hand-drawn animation you’ve ever seen, making you question every life decision that led you to not being a Japanese animation master.
Miyazaki’s Love-Hate Relationship with Animation
Miyazaki is famous for retiring every three years just to unretire out of sheer spite.
• He once canceled an entire CGI movie after five years of work because it “lacked heart.”
• He hates modern animation, computers, and probably you.
• He has publicly stated that anime was a mistake while continuing to make some of the greatest anime films ever.
• His work ethic is so intense that animators have literally cried in interviews.
And yet, despite all the suffering, every frame of Ghibli’s films is a work of art.
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🎖 Honorable Mention: Gainax (Evangelion and ‘90s Anime Weirdness)
Now, let’s talk about Gainax, the animation studio that took giant robots and existential crises and combined them into one of the most confusing franchises of all time.
The Evangelion Effect™
• Neon Genesis Evangelion – Imagine if a giant mecha anime was also a psychological horror film directed by a man going through severe depression.
• End of Evangelion – The sequel movie that said, “You wanted answers? Too bad. Here’s a confusing metaphor about human existence instead.”
• FLCL (Fooly Cooly) – If punk rock, puberty, and fever dreams were turned into an anime.
• Gurren Lagann – Peak anime nonsense. The only show where a robot throws another robot into space by sheer force of will.
Gainax was the ultimate chaotic energy of ‘90s anime, producing brilliant but deeply confusing shows, all while having one of the messiest behind-the-scenes business histories imaginable.
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Final Thoughts (A.K.A. Why You Should Subscribe Before a Ghibli Cat Bus Runs You Over)
Studio Ghibli is animation perfection. Gainax is anime madness. Either way, both studios changed the game forever.
Next up? H for Hanna-Barbera—the studio that somehow made 500 cartoons with the same voice actors and sound effects.
(Spoiler: Scooby-Doo will be mentioned. A lot.) 🚀
A to Z of Animation Studios: Filmation
(Or: The Studio That Proved You Could Recycle the Same Animation So Hard It Became an Art Form)
Welcome back to Animation Anarchy, where we drag the animation industry while simultaneously begging it for a job. If you haven’t subscribed to our YouTube channel, do it now before Filmation rotoscopes your soul into the same walk cycle for eternity.
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🔥 F is for Filmation
Let’s talk about Filmation, the studio that somehow animated entire shows with five drawings and a dream.
Founded in 1962, Filmation looked at the idea of fluid animation and said, “That sounds expensive.” Instead of wasting money on things like ‘frames’ or ‘quality,’ they revolutionized the industry with a strategy so cheap it deserves a tax write-off:
1. Copy. Paste. Repeat.
2. Make three minutes of new animation, then stretch it across an entire season.
3. Profit.
And somehow… IT WORKED.
What Did They Make?
If you watched cartoons in the ‘70s or ‘80s, you were a victim of Filmation’s signature cost-cutting magic.
The “Greatest Hits” (That All Looked the Same)
• He-Man and the Masters of the Universe – The cartoon that defined an entire generation of kids who didn’t question why He-Man’s transformation sequence was the exact same clip every episode. Skeletor got away every time because actually animating a fight scene would have been fiscally irresponsible.
• She-Ra: Princess of Power – Same show, but with fabulous hair and slightly more dialogue. Featured the exact same animation tricks, because why fix what’s already dirt cheap?
• Ghostbusters (The One That Wasn’t The Real One) – A show that existed purely to confuse kids into thinking it was related to the real Ghostbusters. Instead of Bill Murray, we got a gorilla named Tracy wearing a fedora.
• Bravestarr – A cowboy in space. That’s it. It looked like He-Man if He-Man worked at a rodeo.
• Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle – What if Tarzan, but he never actually moved unless he had to?
• Star Trek: The Animated Series – You love Star Trek, right? Now imagine it with no budget! This show recycled so much animation that it technically counts as a Starfleet crime.
The Filmation “Magic” (A.K.A. Budget-Slashing Sorcery)
• Endless Looping Walk Cycles – He-Man, walking the same way down the same hallways for eternity.
• Lip Sync? What’s That? – Half the time, characters talked without moving their mouths. Sometimes, they didn’t even face the camera.
• The Same Five Sound Effects, Forever – You WILL hear that stock punch sound. Over. And over. And over.
• Stock Backgrounds for Days – Is He-Man in a cave? A castle? A space prison? Doesn’t matter, it’s the same rock wall.
And yet… somehow… Filmation was loved. Maybe it was the goofy charm, the ridiculous voice acting, or the fact that they gave us the greatest Skeletor memes of all time.
Either way, they made an impact. A cheap, barely-animated impact.
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🎖 Honorable Mention: Fleischer Studios (Superman, Betty Boop, Original Rotoscoping Legends)
Now let’s talk about Fleischer Studios, the polar opposite of Filmation—where they actually animated things, and it looked good.
What Did They Do?
• Superman (1940s) – If you’ve ever wondered why Superman looks so good in motion, it’s because Fleischer actually cared about animation.
• Betty Boop – Before censorship ruined everything, Betty Boop was an icon of chaotic, jazz-infused insanity.
• Popeye – A one-eyed sailor who ate spinach and committed casual felony assault every episode. Peak animation.
• Gulliver’s Travels – Proof that Disney wasn’t the only one making feature-length animated films back in the day.
• They Literally Invented Rotoscoping – Yes, the Fleischer brothers were the ones who said, “What if we traced live-action footage?” And thus, they changed animation forever.
Fleischer was the blueprint. And then Disney ate them alive.
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Final Thoughts (A.K.A. Why You Should Subscribe Before Skeletor Finds You)
Filmation wasn’t great, but it was memorable. And Fleischer? They were legendary.
Next up? G for Ghibli—the studio that makes you feel bad for never finishing your creative projects.
(Spoiler: There will be a lot of screaming about Miyazaki.) 🚀
A to Z of Animation Studios: Elzie Segar’s Popeye Cartoons
A to Z of Animation Studios: Elzie Segar’s Popeye Cartoons
(Or: How a One-Eyed Sailor With a Spinach Addiction Punched His Way Into Animation History)
Welcome back to Animation Anarchy, where we celebrate, roast, and occasionally outright slander the greatest (and worst) animation studios in history! If you haven’t subscribed to our YouTube channel yet, you are personally responsible for the downfall of traditional animation. Fix that before I break out my Popeye impression (nobody wants that).
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🔥 E is for Elzie Segar’s Popeye Cartoons
Before superheroes, before Shrek, before the animation industry was a corporate-controlled CGI dystopia, we had Popeye.
You know him. The squinty-eyed, mumbling, pipe-smoking sailor who could punch a man into orbit after chugging a can of spinach.
But did you know that Popeye wasn’t just a comic strip character—he was also one of the first true animated icons, thanks to the Fleischer brothers, the mad geniuses behind some of the most technically brilliant animation ever created?
The Fleischer Studios Era: Popeye at His Peak
Before Disney locked down the animation industry like a cartoon mafia boss, the Fleischer Studios were out there doing things with animation that should have been illegal.
• They pioneered rotoscoping, which meant Popeye and his pals moved more fluidly than anything else on screen at the time.
• They invented the Stereoptical Process, making their cartoons look like they had actual 3D depth before computers were even a thing.
• They made Popeye a household name, turning him into one of the most recognizable cartoon characters of all time.
Popeye cartoons weren’t just funny—they were gorgeous. The level of detail, the rubbery expressions, the absurdity of a single man beating up entire navies—it was animation at its best.
Why Popeye Worked (And Why He Still Holds Up)
• Popeye was an underdog – He didn’t start fights, but he sure as heck ended them.
• Olive Oyl was the original “damsel who don’t need no saving” – Half the time, she was fighting back harder than Popeye.
• Bluto was the perfect antagonist – A lumbering jerk who existed solely to get punched into another time zone.
• Spinach was PEDs for cartoons – This man literally took performance-enhancing drugs and nobody questioned it.
The Popeye cartoons were so popular that, at one point, Popeye was more recognizable than Mickey Mouse. You heard that right. There was a time when a squinting, mumbling sailor was more famous than the most aggressively marketed mouse on the planet.
The Decline (a.k.a. The Corporate Takeover)
Then… Fleischer Studios lost control of Popeye, and the cartoons were handed over to Paramount’s Famous Studios, which proceeded to scrub away everything that made Popeye interesting and turn him into a cheaper, lazier, more corporate-friendly version of himself.
The art got stiffer. The humor got weaker. The magic was gone.
But for a time, Popeye was untouchable.
And honestly? He still holds up better than most modern cartoons.
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🎖 Honorable Mention: Eagle Rock Productions (Obscure but had a hand in indie animation)
Now, let’s talk about Eagle Rock Productions—a company that nobody remembers, yet somehow, it existed.
This was a weird little studio that specialized in indie animation before “indie animation” was even a thing people cared about.
What Did They Make?
• Somehow, they got involved in a few underground animated projects that only animation nerds remember.
• They worked on stuff that felt more like experimental films than mainstream cartoons.
• Most of their work was overshadowed by bigger studios, but they were weird, scrappy, and willing to take risks.
While nobody’s writing history books about Eagle Rock Productions, they were part of the movement that proved animation didn’t have to come from massive studios. And that? That deserves some respect.
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Final Thoughts (a.k.a. Why You Should Subscribe Before Popeye Punches You Into Next Week)
Popeye wasn’t just a cartoon character—he was an animation powerhouse that outshined Mickey Mouse for a hot minute and set the standard for action-comedy animation.
And Eagle Rock Productions? They were proof that even the small, obscure studios helped shape animation history.
Next up? E for Filmation, the studio that proved you could animate five frames per episode and still make it to air.
(Spoiler: He-Man is involved. A lot.) 🚀
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A to Z of Animation Studios: DiC Entertainment
(Or: The Studio That Made 80s Kids Think Cartoons Were Just Cheap Commercials in Disguise… Because They Were.)
Welcome back to Animation Anarchy, where we expose the animation industry’s weirdest, wildest, and most unhinged creations while actively tanking any chance of working in this industry again. If you haven’t subscribed to our YouTube channel yet, let me put it this way: DiC Entertainment made more cartoons in a year than you have brain cells left after watching them. Smash that button before I start reminiscing about Street Sharks.
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🔥 D is for DiC Entertainment
Ah yes, DiC Entertainment—the animation studio whose name sounded like a prank kids would get in trouble for saying out loud.
Founded in 1971, DiC didn’t just make cartoons—they mass-produced them like they were coming off an assembly line and threw them onto TV faster than kids could beg their parents for action figures.
This studio was the absolute king of ‘80s and ‘90s after-school cartoons—not because they were good, but because they were everywhere.
What Did They Make? Everything. Literally.
If you were a child with a TV in the ‘80s or ‘90s, DiC raised you. And not always in a good way.
• Inspector Gadget – A cyborg detective with Swiss Army knife limbs, a trench coat, and exactly one functioning brain cell. 90% of the show was his niece Penny and her dog saving his life while he somehow remained employed.
• Sonic the Hedgehog (Multiple Versions) – DiC made TWO different Sonic cartoons at the same time. One was a dark, post-apocalyptic sci-fi epic (Sonic SatAM), and the other was a weird Looney Tunes knockoff (Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog). Both of them were great, and neither of them made sense.
• Captain Planet – A superhero whose only weakness was… pollution? Spoiler: Humanity is the villain, and we are losing.
• The Real Ghostbusters – The one time DiC got their hands on a franchise and actually didn’t ruin it. This show was a banger.
• M.A.S.K. – Basically Transformers, but with humans who owned cars that did things cars definitely shouldn’t do. This entire cartoon existed to sell toys, and no one cared.
• Street Sharks – Do you love mutant sharks in jeans punching people? If so, seek professional help. But also, yes, this was a real show.
• Care Bears – DiC made the Care Bears. That’s it. That’s the whole joke.
• Dennis the Menace (The Cartoon) – Imagine Home Alone, but Dennis is the burglar, and Mr. Wilson never gets a moment’s peace.
• The Super Mario Bros. Super Show – The one where Mario rapped, and Lou Albano convinced us he was the real Mario. The cartoon itself was fine. The live-action segments? A fever dream.
• Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? – A show that was supposed to teach geography but mostly taught kids how cool red trench coats are.
DiC’s Legacy: Quantity Over Quality
Let’s be real. Most of DiC’s cartoons weren’t good. Some were hilariously bad. Others were just commercials for toys disguised as Saturday morning entertainment.
But you know what? DiC was iconic. They were the kings of “good enough” animation, and somehow, they made shows that are still burned into our nostalgia-riddled brains today.
Also, if you grew up watching these shows, you definitely remember their creepy, whispering logo at the end. DiC. If you didn’t say it out loud as a kid, you weren’t doing it right.
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🎖 Honorable Mention: DisneyToon Studios (Direct-to-Video Sequel Machine)
Before streaming services made it normal to throw mediocre sequels straight onto Disney+, we had DisneyToon Studios.
DisneyToon Studios: The Art of the Shameless Cash Grab
Founded in 1990, DisneyToon Studios specialized in what can only be described as animated corporate tax write-offs.
• Aladdin: The Return of Jafar – The movie where Genie sounds just a little bit off because Robin Williams wanted nothing to do with this.
• Aladdin and the King of Thieves – Actually… kinda good? Featuring John Rhys-Davies voicing Aladdin’s dad, because why not?
• Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas – The movie that proved the Beast kidnapped an entire orchestra along with Belle.
• Cinderella II & III – Yes, there were TWO direct-to-video Cinderella sequels. One was random fairy tale nonsense, and the other was an actual time-travel heist movie that somehow slapped.
• The Lion King II: Simba’s Pride – A Romeo and Juliet rip-off with lions. The songs went harder than they had any right to.
• The Lion King 1½ – Disney said, “Let’s make a Lion King movie, but from Timon and Pumbaa’s perspective.” It… kind of worked?
• Every single Tinker Bell movie – I don’t know who was keeping Disney Fairies™ in business, but someone was buying these DVDs, and we need to talk.
DisneyToon’s Legacy: The Good, the Bad, and the Weirdly Watchable
For every absolute disaster (Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World—seriously, why?), there were surprisingly solid sequels (The Lion King II, King of Thieves).
DisneyToon cranked out direct-to-video movies like a factory, and honestly, we ate them up. Because when you’re seven years old and your parents just want five minutes of peace, you don’t care if Aladdin’s Genie sounds off—you’re just happy there’s more Aladdin.
Eventually, Disney shut it down in 2018, finally putting the direct-to-video era to rest. But let’s be honest—Disney+ is just DisneyToon Studios with a fancier budget.
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If this post made you laugh, cry, or re-evaluate your childhood, go subscribe to the YouTube channel before Inspector Gadget accidentally sets your house on fire.
Next up? E for Elzie Segar’s Popeye Cartoons—the series that proved you don’t need good posture, two functioning eyes, or a varied diet to become an animation legend.
(Spoiler: Spinach sales have never recovered.) 🚀
A to Z of Animation Studios: Cartoon Network Studios
(Or: How One Studio Shaped Our Childhoods and Also Gave Us Caillou’s Evil Twin)
Welcome back to Animation Anarchy, where we take a deep dive into the animation industry while simultaneously ruining our own career prospects! If you haven’t subscribed to our YouTube channel, it’s literally free, unlike the therapy bill you’ll rack up from reliving some of these animated nightmares. Click it. Now. Before I start ranting about Caillou.
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🔥 C is for Cartoon Network Studios
Cartoon Network Studios isn’t just a studio—it’s a cultural institution. If you grew up watching TV and weren’t raised by wolves, you’ve seen something from Cartoon Network Studios. They’re responsible for some of the greatest animated shows of all time… and also a few that make you wonder if they were created as part of a tax write-off.
Founded in 1994, Cartoon Network Studios was where mad science met animation and somehow resulted in pure gold. For a glorious period, they were unstoppable, creating some of the weirdest, funniest, and most influential cartoons ever made.
Their Hits? Absolute Bangers.
• Dexter’s Laboratory – A show about a child genius with a secret lab who somehow never invented a lock for his door. Also gave us the greatest superhero parody ever (Dial M for Monkey).
• The Powerpuff Girls – A scientist creates three superpowered kindergarteners, and no one calls child services. The fight scenes still hold up better than 90% of modern action films.
• Courage the Cowardly Dog – A horror show for kids disguised as a comedy. If you say “Return the slab” in a dark room, you will hear crying in the distance.
• Ed, Edd n Eddy – Three scam artists in an endless suburban purgatory try to con jawbreakers out of people. If you grew up watching this show, you’re either an entrepreneur now or in federal prison.
• Johnny Bravo – A dude who got rejected by women for six seasons straight, yet somehow, he was still more charming than most rom-com leads today.
• Samurai Jack – A show that said, “What if we made a minimalist action masterpiece?” and then actually pulled it off.
• Adventure Time – A show that started as a goofy kid’s cartoon and evolved into a deeply emotional existential crisis. It made us laugh. It made us cry. It made us question reality.
• Regular Show – Two slackers refuse to do their jobs, and somehow that’s the least insane part of the show. Features a sentient gumball machine as a boss, which is pretty much how corporate America works anyway.
Their Lows? We Don’t Talk About Those.
• The Problem Solverz – A show that looked like it was animated by someone who fell asleep on a keyboard and accidentally made a cartoon.
• Mike, Lu & Og – Did anyone actually watch this? Be honest.
Cartoon Network’s Legacy
For years, Cartoon Network Studios was the gold standard. They didn’t just push boundaries—they drop-kicked them into another dimension. Their original programming was so strong that every other studio tried to copy their weirdness and failed miserably.
Then… things changed.
• Live-action shows started creeping in.
• Executives made bad decisions.
• The golden age ended.
But Cartoon Network’s legacy? Untouchable. They revolutionized animation, raised a generation, and left an undeniable mark on pop culture.
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🎖 Honorable Mention: Cinar (Now WildBrain) (Caillou and Other Childhood Fever Dreams)
Now, let’s talk about Cinar, the fever-dream factory responsible for some of the most bizarre and unintentionally terrifying children’s content ever produced.
Caillou: The Bald Menace
Listen. I don’t want to be the person who publicly slanders a four-year-old, but Caillou is the whiniest little gremlin to ever be animated.
• He’s bald, but not because of any tragic backstory—he’s just bald for no reason.
• He throws constant tantrums, teaching an entire generation of kids how to be absolute nightmares.
• His parents have the patience of actual saints, which proves they are not real humans.
This kid had zero personality, zero ambition, and negative charisma—and yet, somehow, PBS kept him on the air for TWO DECADES. That’s longer than most actual careers.
And it doesn’t stop there. Cinar gave us some of the weirdest children’s shows ever.
• Arthur – A show about an aardvark who looks nothing like an aardvark.
• Mona the Vampire – A fever dream of a show that no one remembers, yet somehow, everyone remembers.
• Zoboomafoo – A show that was equal parts educational and nightmare fuel.
Eventually, Cinar rebranded into WildBrain, which sounds like a knockoff extreme sports brand but is actually the company responsible for rebooting half of our childhoods.
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If this post didn’t make you want to subscribe to the YouTube channel, then you are beyond saving. Click subscribe before Caillou shows up at your door and throws a tantrum in your living room.
Next up? D for DreamWorks Animation, the studio that gave us both Shrek and some of the most aggressively mid animated films ever made.
(Spoiler: We will talk about “Shrek.” A lot.) 🚀
A to Z of Animation Studios: Blue Sky Studios
(Or: How a Bunch of Ice Age Mammals Became More Relevant Than Most of Hollywood’s CGI)
Welcome back to Animation Anarchy, where we roast animation studios like they’re a Thanksgiving turkey, except this time, the turkey is probably voiced by John Leguizamo. If you haven’t subscribed to our YouTube channel, it’s not too late to atone for your sins. Click that button before Scrat shows up at your house and steals your kneecaps.
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🔥 B is for Blue Sky Studios
Before Disney acquired them and sacrificed them on the altar of corporate greed, Blue Sky Studios was a scrappy little underdog that managed to turn a prehistoric squirrel into one of the most iconic characters of all time.
The Era of Ice Age Domination
Blue Sky was founded in 1987 and spent its early years doing visual effects for movies no one remembers. Then, in 2002, they dropped Ice Age, a movie about a grumpy mammoth, a sloth on something stronger than caffeine, and an apex predator with main character syndrome.
This film single-handedly made a neurotic acorn-obsessed squirrel more famous than some real-life celebrities. Scrat had better story arcs, more emotional depth, and more successful spin-offs than 90% of the live-action remakes Disney has inflicted upon us.
After Ice Age, Blue Sky Studios realized they could just keep milking this prehistoric cow for all it was worth. And boy, did they ever:
• Ice Age 2: The Meltdown – What if the first movie, but wetter?
• Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs – Because science doesn’t matter when dinosaurs are involved.
• Ice Age 4: Continental Drift – At this point, the franchise had more Fast & Furious energy than educational value.
• Ice Age 5: Collision Course – An asteroid was about to destroy Earth and the best plan involved sloths.
Non-Ice Age Movies (Yes, They Exist!)
Believe it or not, Blue Sky actually made other movies. Some of them were even… good?
• Rio – A movie about a domesticated bird having an existential crisis in Brazil. Basically, Finding Nemo, but for birds. Had way too many sequels for a movie about a species going extinct.
• Epic – Not as epic as the title suggests, but hey, they tried. This movie somehow made leaves look cooler than most Marvel action sequences.
• Ferdinand – A bull that just wants to vibe. Somehow, one of the most wholesome movies they ever made.
• Spies in Disguise – Will Smith turns into a pigeon. This is not a joke, that’s literally the plot.
Then, in 2021, Disney bought Blue Sky, gutted it, and discarded it like a half-eaten burrito. Just like that, Scrat was orphaned, and Ice Age 6 was left in the hands of people who had no idea what they were doing.
Press F to pay respects.
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🎖 Honorable Mention: Big Idea Productions (VeggieTales and Their Descent into Chaos)
Now, let’s talk about a studio that took “Christian Animation” and turned it into a 30-year-long fever dream.
Big Idea Productions, the company behind VeggieTales, started out strong, bringing us a world where vegetables could talk, sing, and occasionally get crucified in metaphorical ways.
The Golden Age of Talking Vegetables
• Larry the Cucumber and Bob the Tomato were the Christian Muppets we didn’t know we needed.
• Silly Songs with Larry was basically the original TikTok, if TikTok was run by Sunday School teachers.
• They somehow managed to make Bible stories engaging, despite starring a cast of literal vegetables.
Then, It All Fell Apart.
At some point, corporate greed and bad decisions turned this once-mighty produce kingdom into a salad of mediocrity.
• Big Idea went bankrupt in 2003. Turns out, making movies about God doesn’t protect you from financial ruin.
• Universal took over. That’s right—VeggieTales got minion-ified.
• The Netflix reboot happened. And we don’t talk about it. Ever.
• Bob and Larry lost their souls (and their original voices). The animation got weird, the writing got weird, and suddenly, our vegetable overlords were nothing more than soulless CGI husks.
VeggieTales wasn’t just a kids’ show. It was a cultural phenomenon. And then, just like Ice Age, it became a victim of the entertainment industry’s cold, dead hands.
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If this post didn’t make you immediately subscribe to our YouTube channel, then I have failed at my mission. Click the subscribe button before Larry the Cucumber shows up at your house and tries to teach you a lesson about forgiveness.
Next up in C, we either praise or destroy Cartoon Network, depending on how much nostalgia goggles are clouding my judgment.
(Spoiler: They’re clouding it a lot.) 🚀
A to Z of Animation Studios: Aardman Animations
A to Z of Animation Studios: Aardman Animations
(Or: How Claymation Made Me Question My Life Choices and Also Gave Me Nightmares About Chickens)
Welcome to Animation Anarchy, where we pretend to be experts while mostly just yelling at cartoons! If you haven’t subscribed to our YouTube channel yet, congratulations! You are personally responsible for my financial ruin. But don’t worry, you can still fix it. Click that subscribe button before you regret it as much as I regret my student loans.
🔥 A is for Aardman Animations
Aardman is responsible for some of the greatest claymation films of all time. They’re also responsible for shattering the dreams of thousands of aspiring animators who, at some point, thought, “Stop-motion looks fun!” and then realized they’d rather be set on fire than spend 36 hours making a character blink.
Founded in 1972 by Peter Lord and David Sproxton, Aardman’s early work proved two things:
1. British people are weird.
2. Stop-motion animators have either the patience of saints or severe masochistic tendencies.
Let’s talk about the madness they unleashed:
• Wallace & Gromit – A cheese-addicted sociopath and his emotionally burnt-out dog go on adventures that somehow always involve elaborate Rube Goldberg machines and near-death experiences. Gromit has no mouth, yet he screams.
• Chicken Run – The Great Escape but with chickens, which sounds dumb until you realize that the villain is a serial-killing chicken farmer who makes pies out of her victims. I watched this as a kid and have never trusted poultry since.
• Flushed Away – The only time Aardman dared to do CGI instead of stop-motion, and the entire time, it looked like the animators were desperately trying to escape their own bad decision. Features Hugh Jackman as a rat and somehow, that’s not even the weirdest part.
• Shaun the Sheep – The most expressive sheep in animation history, who manages to have more personality than every live-action Disney remake combined. This franchise made me feel emotions about barnyard animals and I’m still not okay with that.
Aardman is a testament to pure, unhinged dedication. They will spend five years animating a single film frame by frame just to make sure your childhood is permanently scarred by plasticine animals with unsettlingly realistic teeth.
🎖 Honorable Mention: Animation Collective (Kappa Mikey, Three Delivery)
Before we move on, we need to talk about Animation Collective, a studio that said,
“What if we made an anime, but with the quality of a PowerPoint presentation?”
And thus, Kappa Mikey was born—a show where one white guy gets isekai’d into a budget anime, and somehow, it’s one of the greatest things Nickelodeon ever aired. The animation quality was inconsistent at best, illegal at worst, but we all watched it anyway.
Then there’s Three Delivery, a show that no one remembers but me, and honestly, I might have imagined it. If you claim to have watched it, I need proof of life because I’m still not convinced it wasn’t just a fever dream induced by eating too much Chinese takeout.
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If this rant didn’t scare you off, subscribe to the YouTube channel where I yell about animation in high definition. Stay tuned for B, where we’ll either worship or annihilate Blue Sky Studios, depending on how salty I feel.
(Spoiler: I feel salty.)
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UPA and the Rise and Fall of Modern Art Animation Studios: When Communism, Picasso, and Cartoons Had a Weird Love Child
Once upon a time, animation was all about realism. Every character moved fluidly, looked cute, and obeyed basic physics. Then along came UPA (United Productions of America), a bunch of artsy weirdos who decided cartoons didn’t need rules.
Instead of animating like Disney, they embraced modern art—flat, bold, abstract, Picasso-esque designs that looked like they were ripped straight from a post-war propaganda poster. They hated “illusion of life” realism and wanted everything to be stylized, minimalist, and artsy as hell.
UPA changed animation forever… and then completely collapsed.
And they weren’t alone—other studios tried the same thing, and most of them are now skeletons buried in animation history.
Let’s take a glorious, judgmental look at UPA and other modern-art animation studios that burned bright, got weird, and died fast.
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1. UPA (United Productions of America) – AKA “The Communist Picassos of Animation”
What They Did:
• Brought modern art aesthetics into animation.
• Introduced flat, bold, minimalist designs (aka “the opposite of Disney”).
• Created Mr. Magoo, Gerald McBoing-Boing, and the weirdest versions of Dr. Seuss adaptations ever.
Why They Were Important:
• They rebelled against Disney’s hyper-realism.
• They changed TV animation forever. (No UPA? No Powerpuff Girls, Dexter’s Lab, or Samurai Jack.)
• They made cartoons look “grown-up” before anyone else did.
Why They Collapsed:
• McCarthyism. Yeah, really. Hollywood’s Red Scare witch hunt accused UPA of being communist sympathizers.
• Their experimental style became “cheap-looking” when TV animation took over.
• Once their main creators left, the studio imploded.
Verdict: UPA was radical, groundbreaking, and doomed from the start.
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2. Terrytoons (1930-1971) – AKA “What If Picasso Had to Animate on a Budget?”
What They Did:
• Made the most aggressively ugly cartoons in history.
• Created Mighty Mouse, Deputy Dawg, and a fever dream called “The Astronut.”
• Went full “modern art” in the 1950s under Gene Deitch.
Why They Were Important:
• Deitch’s work looked like Picasso had a migraine.
• Experimented with limited animation and weird abstraction.
• Produced one of the strangest-looking versions of Tom & Jerry.
Why They Collapsed:
• Terrible management, even worse budgets.
• Their “modern” animation style wasn’t respected.
• Nobody took them seriously, even when they tried to be artsy.
Verdict: Terrytoons tried to be Disney, failed, then tried to be avant-garde, and failed again.
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3. Zagreb Film (1953-Present, But Barely Alive) – AKA “The Most Famous Animation Studio You’ve Never Heard Of”
What They Did:
• Created mind-blowing, experimental animation out of Yugoslavia.
• Won Oscars while the rest of the world ignored them.
• Had an insane range—some shorts looked like kids’ books, others looked like nightmares.
Why They Were Important:
• They pushed animation into surrealism before it was cool.
• Genuinely ahead of their time.
• Influenced a TON of later animation styles.
Why They Collapsed:
• Yugoslavia stopped existing.
• Funding dried up.
• Nobody outside of hardcore animation nerds remembers them.
Verdict: Zagreb Film was too good for this world.
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4. Hubley Studios (1956-1977) – AKA “Artsy Animation That Nobody Watched”
What They Did:
• Created abstract, experimental shorts with wobbly lines and weird angles.
• Focused on social issues, jazz music, and surrealism.
• Refused to make anything remotely commercial.
Why They Were Important:
• They made art films while everyone else made cartoons.
• Pioneered freeform, hand-drawn animation that looked like moving paintings.
• John Hubley worked on Fantasia before deciding Disney was too mainstream.
Why They Collapsed:
• Nobody wanted “educational” avant-garde animation.
• Art-house vibes don’t pay the bills.
• They were making cartoons for museums, not kids.
Verdict: High art, but also high pretension.
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5. Klasky Csupo (1982-Present, But Dead Inside) – AKA “The Studio That Made Nickelodeon Look Ugly on Purpose”
What They Did:
• Created Rugrats, Aaahh!!! Real Monsters, Duckman, and The Wild Thornberrys.
• Pioneered grotesque, abstract character designs.
• Made cartoons look like they were drawn by a sleep-deprived art student.
Why They Were Important:
• They made Nickelodeon’s weirdest, boldest shows.
• Pushed experimental animation into the mainstream.
• Helped define 90s animation.
Why They Collapsed:
• Nickelodeon dumped them after Rugrats: All Grown Up.
• Their “ugly” animation style fell out of fashion.
• They had no backup plan.
Verdict: They made iconic shows, but also gave us Rocket Power. Balance.
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6. Filmation (1962-1989) – AKA “The Kings of Budget-Cut Animation”
What They Did:
• Created He-Man, Fat Albert, and the worst Star Trek cartoon ever.
• Perfected the art of cutting corners in animation.
• Reused the same five action scenes for entire seasons.
Why They Were Important:
• Mass-produced cartoons like a factory.
• Introduced the concept of “limited animation” that UPA pioneered.
• Made He-Man look badass (if you ignored the 12 recycled running cycles).
Why They Collapsed:
• Audiences eventually realized they were watching the same three animations on repeat.
• Their animation style became synonymous with “cheap.”
• They were too slow to adapt to the 90s animation boom.
Verdict: Gave us childhood nostalgia, but at what cost?
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Final Thoughts: The Rise and Fall of Artsy Animation Studios
UPA and its artistic descendants changed animation forever. Their bold, abstract styles influenced generations of animators—but they also proved that artsy animation is really hard to keep financially alive.
Some of these studios tried too hard to be high-art. Others were too weird to survive. And some? They got devoured by capitalism.
Now, argue with me in the comments. Which of these studios deserved better? Which ones should’ve died faster? And if you love brutally honest animation takes, check out my YouTube channel before I get blacklisted by the ghost of UPA.
