I just posted 1990. Please learn patience or I will not post anything.
I just posted 1990. Please learn patience or I will not post anything.
Nice!I thought just covering Animation was too short so I stretched a little with some other categories.
1991
February 6: Capcom releases Street Fighter II. The game is a hit and revitalizes the dying arcade game scene and sees the start of Tournaments for the game. Capcom planned to release many more versions of the game but nixed this idea. Instead they would release a handful of new characters and features into Street Fighter III.
February 14: Silence of the Lambs is released and will sweep the Oscars.
February 15: Dan Ackroyd's Nothing But Trouble is released. The name sums up the process of making the film. Ackroyd pitched the idea for what seemed like a disaster. the studio head saved the movie with one sentence "Ok, so long as you get John Landis to direct." Ackroyd had wanted to direct but reluctantly said yes. Landis had made many successful comedies such as the Blues Brothers, Coming to America and Animal House. If anyone could save this stinker it was him.
Ackroyd then begins to get to work on Ghostbusters III with plans to introduce the Filmation's Ghostbusters, played by John Candy and Steve Martin and special effects for Tracy the Gorilla. The current plan is the film will begin with a joke about how Bill Murray's character forgot to patent the name and the team didn't know there already was a team called the Ghostbusters, before the two team up to defeat a new enemy.
March: Neverwinter launches as the first MMORPG.
March 20: Eric Clapton's four year old son nearly falls out of their apartment window. After this event Clapton moves to a house in the suburbs(In real life this event inspired him to write the song "Tears in Heaven". The song therefore doesn't exist here).
March 22: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: Secret of the Ooze is released. Jim Henson pulled a few stringers to get fan favorites from the cartoon Bebop and Rocksteady into the movie. The plan was to introduce two original creatures if this failed.
March 26: The 63rd Academy Awards are held. Creature Comforts, a claymation short by Aardman, the studio behind Wallace and Gromit, about zoo animals talking about their life in the Zoo wins best animated short film.
March 31: Quack Pack airs. The series features grown up versions of Huey, Dewey and Louie. All using new identities. One of which is a spy named Double O Duck, one an archeologist named Calisota Duck and one a superhero named Darkwing Duck. The latter of which had a daughter named Gosalyn from an unseen mother that he is "no longer together" with. Launchpad also sticks around. All three meet up to solve the mystery of Scrooge's disappearance.
April 17: Nirvana performs Smells Like Teen Spirit for the first time live.
June: DC Comics released Armageddon 2001, an event about a Superhero turning evil and killing the world's heroes in the then future year of 2001. A time traveller becomes the superhero Waverider and uses his new power to travel back in time and look into the future of various Superheroes to find out who the traitor is. It is revealed that Captain Atom will become Monarch and the Captain seemingly sacrifices himself to destroy his future self, only for the two to be revealed to have only been teleported.
June 23: Sonic the Hedgehog debuts.
July 3: Terminator 2: Judgement Day is released and becomes a hit.
July 26: The American film studio Animal Logic is founded. You may know them from Happy Feet, Legend of the Guardians, Walking with Dinosaurs, The Lego Movie and Peter Rabbit. Time will tell how many of those films will still exist in this timeline.
August 2: Don Bluth's Rock-a-Doodle premiers. The film was originally to be made a Disney but they were unhappy with the script and Bluth took the idea with him when he left. The story is about a Rooster named Chanticlare who plays a song to make the Sun come up. He is challenged by a rival Rooster and because of their fight, Chanticlare fails to bring the sun up but it comes up anyway. Chanticlare leaves and the sun stops coming up. A plothole existed in the original script that Bluth caught and quickly added a line about how the sun missed Chanticlare singing and left. Before it wasn't explained how the sun came up that one time.
The same day Ralph Bakshi's Rover Dangerfield is released. Rodney Dangerfield conceived the idea of playing a cartoon dog version of himself in the 80's and wanted the movie to be Rated R and be made in the style of Ralph Bakshi. Warner Bros wanted a PG-13 movie but then Bakshi came to the studio looking to pitch his movie Cool's World, which he pitched as "An R-rated Roger Rabbit". Warner Bros agreed and promised to fund Cool's World if Bakshi did Rodney Dangerfield. The film is a lot better due to Bakshi writing it and the director even became friends with the star.
August 7: Sony Pictures Entertainment is formed after absorbing Columbia Pictures, leading to the creation of TriStar.
August 11: Nickelodeon debuts its first three nicktoons, now known as "The Holy Nickity". Doug, Rugrats, and Ren & Stimpy. Seeing their success, Ted Turner would buy Hannah Barbera from Universal and plan to release his own Cartoon Network. realizing he would need original shows, he sets out to find talent. He plans to play reruns of the Hannah Barbera shows until he can get new shows to replace them. After that the Hannah Barbera shows will likely be moved to their own channel.
August 12: Metallica releases their biggest hit album. Also called Metallica.
August 19-22: Mikhail Gorbachev decides to cancel his vacation. This is fortunate as he soon learns there was a plot to kidnap him based upon his planned location. Gorbachev learned that Boris Yeltsin was making an under the table deal that would have dissolved the USSR. He informs President George H.W. Bush that Yeltsin was "Quietly retired". President Bush, former leader of the CIA, was used to this being code by Soviets for "Disappear and will never be seen again." Gorbachev seemed to catch Bush's look of horror and reassured him that Yeltsin had been placed under house arrest and would get a proper trial, showing him security footage to assure him. Gorbachev proceeded with his plan for the "New Union Treaty". This allowed many states to gain independence in the new USSR, which now stood for United Socialist Sovereign Republics, to highlight the new amount of freedom the members had. Other states who wished to leave were allowed to do so.
ABC station WUHQ buys WZZM and turns it into a satellite.
September 3: The Legend of Prince Valiant is broadcast on the Family Channel, based on the comic series Prince Valiant.
Little Dracula, a British cartoon about a kid Vampire based on the book series of the same name, airs
September 7: Hammerman, a cartoon by rapper M.C. Hammer is released and is cancelled after one season.
A Cartoon series based on the British comics character Rupert Bear is released.
The first episode of Taz-Mania, a spinoff featuring the Tazmanian Devil, is released. Since the Taz-Manian devil rarely talks. The show focuses on a group of characters trying to study Taz in his natural habitat.
September 19: The Simpsons episode Star Raving Dad airs as the premiere of the first season and guest stars Michael Jackson, who is properly credited.
September 26: The Cartoon Spider! airs.
September 28: The French-Belgian claymation show Mr.Bogus airs.
October 2: The studio Nelvana released an adaptation of Hergé's comics series Tintin as The Adventures of Tintin.
October 11: Gertie the Dinosaur, one of the first animated films, is added to the National Film Registry.
October 24: The Simpsons Episode "Like Father, Like Clown" has Bart finally discover his father is Krusty the Clown and the two embrace in one of the most touching moments of the show.
October 28: The first episode of Once Upon a Time... The Americas. It is part of a French educational series each part focusing on different continents. In this case, you guessed it, America.
November 14: Michael Jackson released Black and White, which is a collaboration with Freddie Mercury and Queen, who Jackson learned was dying of AIDS.
November 22: Walt Disney released Beauty and the Beast. The film is a massive hit and is nominated for an Oscar, leading to the creation of the Best Animated Feature Film category.
Universal Pictures releases An American Tail: Fievel Goes West. The sequel had input from Don Bluth, though it was limited as he working on Rock a Doodle. It is also the last film role of Jimmy Stewart, who dies soon after. This makes his character's last seen poignant as he looks at the setting sun and comments "I don't know what's over that horizon, but I'm not scared to find out anymore, because I know that thanks to folks like you, things here will be ok."
November 24: Freddie Mercury dies of AIDS. Eric Carr of KISS also dies the same day but of Heart Cancer(both of these are long term conditions and so changing things in 1989 wouldn't have saved them).
November 30: MTV airs the first episode of the Avant Garde show Æon Flux.
Another MTV show Spike and Mike's Sick and Twisted Animation Show airs. The name comes from Spike and Mike's Twisted Animation Festival. It consists of animated shorts by various creators, allowing up and coming animators to show their stuff. One of which is Mike Judge who uses the show to introduce his two characters of Beavis and Butthead. Dan Antonucci is another who gets his start, making most of the animation. Many will joke years later that working on the show was Dan's way of "cleansing himself so he could work on the more kid friendly Ed, Edd and Eddy. Antonucci made The Brothers Grunt for MTV, which became a long runner, running longer than he expected and he didn't want to just be "The gross out guy" so he moved on. Antonucci hated long running shows, ironic given what Ed, Edd and Eddy would become.
December 6: Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country is released. The film was pitched as "What if the Wall went down in Space?" but with the attempted Coup in August in the Soviet Union, the ending is slightly different as one of Worf's ancestors, who became chancellor after the previous chancellor was murdered during Federation peace talks, becomes the new Chancellor and begins to change the Klingon Empire for the Better. A clear parallel to the situation in the USSR.
Actually, IOTL Ed, Edd n Eddy is still running on TV today, while Foster's is 3 years away from ending its TV run in '08.1995:
In a shocking twist, The Lion King wins the Best Picture Oscar, upsetting Forrest Gump.
Die Hard With A Vengeance, the third and final Die Hard movie is released. Bruce Willis would later return for Live Free or Die Hard and A Good Day To Die Hard video games.
2005:
SpongeBob Comics is released with most of the show's writing staff returning and Mr. Lawrence, AKA Plankton, as the main artist. It becomes extremely popular and is still released as of 2022. Some issues would be turned into audio comics with the SpongeBob cast returning. This jumpstarts a trend of reviving TV shows as comics instead of ordering new seasons. Foster's, Fairly OddParents, and Ed, Edd, N Eddy all receive this treatment.
2009:
The Simpsons Movie is released to celebrate the show's 20th anniversary.
I can definitely include these in at least my upcoming 1995 post and again when I hit 2005 so long as they don’t contradict the original post. I’ve actually been going back to make sure.1995:
In a shocking twist, The Lion King wins the Best Picture Oscar, upsetting Forrest Gump.
Die Hard With A Vengeance, the third and final Die Hard movie is released. Bruce Willis would later return for Live Free or Die Hard and A Good Day To Die Hard video games.
2005:
SpongeBob Comics is released with most of the show's writing staff returning and Mr. Lawrence, AKA Plankton, as the main artist. It becomes extremely popular and is still released as of 2022. Some issues would be turned into audio comics with the SpongeBob cast returning. This jumpstarts a trend of reviving TV shows as comics instead of ordering new seasons. Foster's, Fairly OddParents, and Ed, Edd, N Eddy all receive this treatment.
2009:
The Simpsons Movie is released to celebrate the show's 20th anniversary.
Right. I'll just go ahead and fix that...Actually, IOTL Ed, Edd n Eddy is still running on TV today, while Foster's is 3 years away from ending its TV run in '08.
Thanks for the shoutout! I also think the alternate Lion King ties in well with the Oscar win entry.1994
January 3: The first episode of Once Upon a Time... The Discoverers, produced by Albert Barillé, is broadcast.
January 26: The first episode of The Critic is broadcast. It will gain a cult following.
January 30: The Peanuts special You're in the Super Bowl, Charlie Brown first airs.
February 4: Ace Ventura: Pet Detective is released with Jim Carrey in the role to negative reviews but good box office. There is some controversy about the movie playing alcoholism for laughs as it's revealed that Sean Young's character, Lt. Lois Einhorn, concocted the entire plot as revenge for her father, ex-Miami Dolphin Ray Finkle. Finkle, it seems, drank himself to death after he was blamed for allowing the Miami Dolphins to lose a Super Bowl(Addition by Kaijudirector).
February 5: The first episode of Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego is broadcast.
February 25: Midnight Cowboy is rereleased. After a look over it was decided the X-Rating the film got was undeserved as it only got the rating due to the at the time fear it was promoting Homosexuality. The film is therefore knocked down to an R Rating instead.
March 1:At the 36 Grammy Awards, "And I will Always Love You" wins record of the year while "A Whole New World" wins Song of the Year.
March 5: The first episode of Duckman is broadcast. The show will gain a cult following.
March 9: The first episode of The Busy World of Richard Scarry is broadcast.
March 21: 66th Academy Awards. The Wallace and Gromit short film The Wrong Trousers by Nick Park wins the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.
March 30: Don Bluth and Gary Goldman's Thumbelina premiers.
April 1: Clifford is released(OTL this film was about Martin Short playing a ten year old boy in a comedy. Here it's an adaptation of Clifford the big Red Dog, because why not and it was released on April Fool's Day).
April 8: Kurt Corbain is checked into a mental institute when he exhibits suicidal tendencies and has his access to guns taken away.
April 15: The first episode of Space Ghost Coast to Coast is broadcast.
April 28: The 100th episode of The Simpsons airs. It is the beginning of a two parter "Who Shot Mr.Burns?"
May 8: Stephen King and George A Romero release The Stand, a film adaptation of Stephen King's book about a post apocalyptic world where the forces of good and evil do final battle against Stephen King's recurring antagonist Randall Flagg. This film will kick off a series of other films based on Stephen King works.
May 13: The Crow is released after a long production including Brandon Lee's near death onset. He is hesitant to return to the role for sequels. Since his character is dead anyway and is implied to return to the dead. A new actor and new character are chosen for sequels. In this case, Mark William Callaway, a Wrestler known as the Undertaker.
May 20: The Mask, a violent take faithful to the comic adaptation by Ralph Bakshi, appears in theatres. It mixes live action with 2D cartoons. In this case anyone who puts on the mask becomes a homicidal Toon.
May 27: A film adaptation of the Flintstones is released starring John Goodman by Universal with a script by Richard Donnor, making the film more sentimental than many expected, diving into social issues such as how the residents of Bedrock wiped out another tribe to settle there, leading to the infamous line "We participated in a Genocide Barn!" and showing Fred Flintstone having a hard time adjusting to "Modern society" after previously having been a simple Caveman who barely spoke and just smashed things with his club. The film will inspire other live action adaptations of Hannah Barbera properties.
June 10: The Three Stooges: The Legend of Curly's Gold is released as an animated film by the former Hannah Barbera, who still held the rights to make Three Stooges cartoons.
Speed is released in theatres.
June 13: A TV Series based on Little Shop of Horrors airs titled Pet Shop of Horrors is released.
June 15: The Lion King is released by Disney. Due to Disney's connection to Studio Ghibli, they reached out to Osamu Tezuka's estate and secured the rights to Kimba the White Lion due to the noted similarities between the two franchises and adapted the story instead, changing the names. The film has Kimba be born to King of the Jungle Mufasa. When Mufasa's brother Scar causes Mufasa's death, Simba is forced to run away and is kidnapped by hunters before escaping and returning home as an adult along with some animals he befriended at the Zoo he stayed at called Timon and Pumbaa, who were happy living in the Zoo in what they called "Akuna Matata" or know worries for the rest of your days. Kimba helps overthrow Scar and save the Pridelands. Disney pulled most of its team away from their planned project of Pocahontas. As a result "The A Team" worked on the Lion King.
This film pushes the release date of Treasure Planet to next year.
June 24: A miniseries called Wyatt Earp, starring Kevin Costner is released(OTL. This became a film after Costner joined the cast. Here it stayed a miniseries).
July 1: Tim Burton announces he will return one more time to complete his Batman "Trilogy" wit Michael Keaton also returning as Batman and Billy Dee Williams as Two Face. Robin Williams is cast as the Riddler.
Sam Raimi's The Shadow is released and becomes popular for its blend of Superhero and Horror elements. The film stars Liam Neeson as the Shadow. Tim Burton was such a fan of the film he nominated Sam Raimi as his successor on the Batman films(OTL Raimi tried to get the rights to both Batman and the Shadow to make his own movie. When his script for The Shadow was ignored, Raimi turned it into the original Superhero Darkman).
July 6: Forrest Gump is released, becoming Paramount's Highest Grossing Film of All Time.
July 16: Isao Takahata's Pom Poko premiers. Disney absolutely refuses to dub it due to the Taduki's which in Japanese mythology are able to inflate their testicles, something they do in the film as a defense mechanism. Disney considered writing it so that the testicles are referred to as "pouches" but there was no way around it and so Pom Poko never receives an english dub, at least by Disney.
August 3: Harrison Ford returns as Jack Ryan in Clear and Present Danger.
August 26: Natural Born Killers, a film by Quentin Tarantino,about a couple who go on a killing spree, is released. The film ends with the couple getting gunned down by Police in a homage to Bonnie and Clyde(OTL the film script was written by Tarantino, who tried and failed to get the permission to direct it. It was directed by Oliver Stone instead). The work on this film pushes back Tarantino's own film Pulp Fiction by at least one year, maybe more.
Batholomew v Neff, a drama starring John Candy and Sylvester Stallone is released. John Candy suffered a heart attack on set and was rushed to the hospital(OTL, this film was scrapped and John Candy made the box office bomb Wagons East in Mexico. A film he didn't want to make but had to as he was in debt and he died of a heart attack while there. Because of different circumstances and a different shooting schedule he has his heart attack while surrounded by people and is saved. He will take a break from acting to get recover).
September 5: The first episode of Aladdin: The Series is broadcast. Most of the voice cast returned for the show except for Jim Carrey as the Genie, he was replaced by Rob Paulsen(he impersonated Jim Carrey's Mask for the Animated Series OTL so he could do something similar here). The first episode is a two parter "The Return of Jaffar", in which Jaffar is freed and crashes Aladdin and Jasmine's wedding before being defeated.
September 10:The first episode of ReBoot, one of the first entirely CGI shows is broadcast.
Jan Švankmajer's Faust premiers. It mixes live action with stop motion and puppetry to a terrifying extent in some scenes.
September 11: The first episode of The Magic School Bus is broadcast.
September 23: The Shawshank Redemption is released. It is another Stephen King film though it is not a supernatural story.
September 24: The first episode of Fantastic Four and Iron Man are broadcast. Both are made to capitalize on the rights of Movies being released at this time. The first is the theatrical release of Roger Corman's Fantastic Four, and the second is Universal's Iron Man by Stuart Gordon, a low budget film starring Nicholas Cage in the lead role. The film features billionaire and arms dealer Tony Stark being captured while visiting China by the Mandarin, a magically powered supervillain who he builds a suit to escape from and later fight. Cuba Gooding Jr appears as James Rhodes, who is expected to play his hero alter ego War Machine in the sequel(Marvel had a ton of film plans in the 90's. What killed most of them was the company filing for bankcruptcy which happened because editor Jim Shooter was kicked out, and fell show of the money needed to buy back the company. Here he actually does buy it back and since he'd run Marvel for almost a decade before this point he knows what he's doing rather than the OTL new owners who didn't).
September 29: Asterix Conquers America, the sixth Astérix film, premiers.
September 30: Tim Burton's Ed Wood is released under Disney's Touchstone Banner.
October: Peter Parker retires as Spider-Man and allows a clone of him named Ben Reilly to take over. The clone assumes his identity, becoming Peter Parker in name as well. This results in the Spider-Man comics being split, one line focusing on the Single Peter Parker and one focusing on the retired Spider-Man living in Oregon with his wife Mary Jane with the couple having a daughter named May after Peter's aunt, who dies around this time of old age, revealing she knew her nephew was Spider-Man.
October 7: The first episode of Muffy and Itsy is broadcast. It is a cartoon about a little girl named Muffet who befriends a Spider, who is constantly trying to be killed by an exterminator.
October 12: DreamWorks Animation is founded along with DreamWorks Pictures. Katzenberg shot himself in the foot. He wanted to release a movie similar to Disney's planned release(OTL he did this a few times starting with his release of Antz against A Bug's Life). However, he made his own version of Pocahontas, thinking Disney was doing the same. He called this film Sacagawea based on another Native American figure. The film was not received well and considered racist by many. Disney wiped their foreheads and felt like they dodged a bullet.
October 21: Cartoon Network Studios is founded.
October 24: The first episode of Gargoyles airs...On Fox.
October 14: Wes Craven's New Nightmare is released, reimagining Freddy Krueger as scary again as Craven felt the sequels made him too cartoonish. Johnny Depp cameos in the film(OTL Craven was too scared to ask him but Depp admits he would have said yes).
October 19: Clerks is released and given an NC-17 rating due to all the swearing. The film ends quite shockingly with Dante being shot dead by a shoplifter. A sudden downer ending to an otherwise straight forward comedy(OTL this was the original ending). Despite this the film is a surprise hit for Miramax and Kevin Smith, helping to distract away from the then recent backlash on Harvey Weinstein's sexual assault cases.
October 28: Stargate is released.
View attachment 730707October 29: The first episode of Monsters Inc airs as part of the Disney Afternoon block(playing with time here. This is when Aaahh!! Real Monsters aired OTL which is similar to Monster's Inc in premise. Monster's Inc was conceived at Pixar around this time as well).
Early sketches for Sully, Mike and Boo. Take your pick. I personally would go bottom for Sully. Top for Mike and maybe use the three designs for Boo but make them different human characters, maybe three sisters with different personalities.
October 30: The Simpsons episode Treehouse of Horror V is first broadcast which is by far the most gruesome of the Treehouse of Horror episodes made to that point and features the special guest voice of James Earl Jones.
November 3: The German animated feature Felidae is first released. It will gain cult status later, but does worse on release due to being considered a ripoff of Spielberg's Cats.
November 15: Pinocchio and the 1933 Betty Boop cartoon Snow White are added to the National Film Registry.
November 18: Star Trek: Generations is released.The film has a tweaked plot but involves Kirk's Enterprise from the past being pulled into the future at the moment they were to die in battle with a Romulan ambush. This event being orchestrated by the Borg, the film's main antagonists.
Don Bluth's The Swan Princess premieres(OTL this film was inspired by Don Bluth's success but made by Rich productions. Here they hired Bluth, which saves him from making one of his worst films' A Troll in Central Park).
November 19: The first episode of Spider-Man airs. It also coincides with the release of James Cameron's Spider-Man, starring Leonardo DiCaprio in the lead role. The film features Spider-Man being bitten and then flirting as Spider-Man with Mary Jane. The main antagonist is Norman Osborn, but he only briefly appears as the Green Goblin in this film. Instead he has two superpowered henchman in Electro and Sandman(played by Cameron recurring actors Lance Henrickson and Michael Biehn). Osborn wants Spider-Man to join him and after learning his identity, kidnaps MJ. Spider-Man battles the two supervillains to save MJ at the World Trade Center, where he tricks them into taking each other out, Electro dying by accident when Spider-Man tries to save him but he slams against the side of a building.
As for the Animated Show itself, it is allowed to go full dark with implied death and even crosses over with Gargoyles.
November 23: The mix between live-action and animation, The Pagemaster, starring Macaulay Culkin is released. Capitalizing on the success of the Captain N, and its recent finale. The series is educational and about a child and a team of Literary characters having adventures in classic literature while trying to stop an evil villain called "Bookburner" that wants to destroy all stories. Culkin's character is joined by a team including the genius Sherlock Holmes, the strong but dumb Beowulf, the female warrior Mulan, the curious Alice and trickster Tom Sawyer. Other characters appear, usually from Public Domain books such as Gandalf, Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde, Paul Bunyan, Johnny Appleseed, Tom Sawyer
December 4: The film Sailor Moon S: The Movie premiers.
December 16: Dumb and Dumber is released starring Jim Carrey and Nicholas Cage.
December 23: Street Fighter is released. The film focuses on Ryu specifically. Ryu and Ken finish their training and set out in the world. Both joining the Street Fighter tournament. Ryu later finds that their master was murdered by the mysterious Akuma and enters the tournament. Ryu wins but scars Sagat when he loses control of his inner darkness and is tempted by Akuma, leading him to fight Ken while Guile and Chun Li try to avenge the deaths of their loved ones against Bison and seemingly succeed.
Admittedly my plan was for an earlier Treasure Planet since the guy preventing it left Disney earlier but I’m fine moving it to next yearThanks for the shoutout! I also think the alternate Lion King ties in well with the Oscar win entry.
Fair enough, I hope it leads to a TV show. TP's lore has more than enough material for one.Admittedly my plan was for an earlier Treasure Planet since the guy preventing it left Disney earlier but I’m fine moving it to next year
No. Everything's the same until 1989.Fair enough, I hope it leads to a TV show. TP's lore has more than enough material for one.
Also question for @shrekfan2020: do we have permission to jump backward in time? I was thinking about going back to the 60s-70s.