Understanding: The Television Age

The Age of Television came around after the Golden Age had ended in the later 50s/early 60s, due to the rise in popularity in television. Animations made during this time were much simpler in comparison to a lot of cartoons made during the Golden Age due to low budgets. Shorts tended to be mass produced by companies because of this, and the first major animation studio to do so was Hanna-Barbera Productions.

The first major hit by Hanna-Barbera was The Flintstones in the 1960s. The show was aired during "prime time" which meant it was family friendly. The company went on to produce many other shows similar to The Flintstones, which included The Jetsons and Top Cat, but their most successful cartoon series aired in 1970; Scooby-Doo.

At around the same time Oliver Postage created The Clangers, a British stop-motion animated children's television series. The Clangers was about a family of mouse-like creatures who live on the moon. It was a very successful series by Postgate, but wasn't his most successful in this era. In 1974 he created another stop-motion series called Bagpuss, and in 1999 it was voted the best children's television programme ever made.

An Episode of The Clangers

A vast majority of the animation during this era focused on children, and it was during this time that getting up early to watch cartoons became a popular "ritual". However there are a number of notable examples that went against this norm, one being A Christmas Carol by Richard Williams in 1971. The film was an adaptation of Charles Dickens' novel and has a visual style that was influenced greatly by the pen and ink illustrations by Milo Winter that were featured in the 1930s edition of the book. Williams never intended the film to be aimed at children, as it emphases darkness creating a bleak mood, and some considered it to be "the most frightening of the many dramatizations of the Dickens classic" and it is the only film adaptation of the story to be honored.