It's certainly possible (much higher chance than OTL, I'd say), but I wonder if MGM still produces/distributes this film while under Disney or if it's under a new company. It would be easier for Spielberg to direct a Bond film (maybe with Ralph Fiennes) with the former than the latter.
A Hippie in the House of Mouse (Jim Henson at Disney, 1980)
- Thread starter Geekhis Khan
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Non-Disney Animation III
Chapter 13: An Animation Renaissance, 1989-1995
From In the Shadow of the Mouse, Non-Disney Animation 1960-2000, by Joshua Ben Jordan
By 1990, the Disney Renaissance was in full swing and the other studios were scrambling to catch up. While great progress was being made on the television side, particularly from Warner Brothers, Columbia (Hanna-Barbera), and Capital Cities/ABC (Hollywood/DIC), so far only the independent studios of Bluth Animation and Bakshi-Kricfalusi were making names for themselves in feature animation. Of the three larger studios, Hollywood Animation had recently fallen on its face with the cut-rate Return of the Littles and was looking for new options. Not happy with what the DIC animators had produced (regardless of the fact that the shoestring budget and rushed production imposed by the studio were the ultimate factors in this failure), Hollywood Animation head Jeffrey Katzenberg looked instead to the relative success of Don Bluth’s All Dogs Go to Heaven and contacted Bluth.
Bluth and Katzenberg met and didn’t exactly get along, but each saw a mutual benefit in working together. Bluth and his animators would take advantage of Hollywood’s distribution infrastructure and international animation contracts and Hollywood would take advantage of Bluth’s core of talented and experienced feature animators and producers. After discussing some ideas, Bluth, Katzenberg, and Eisner settled on an animated version of The Ten Commandments, an idea that Katzenberg had hoped to pursue for a long time[1]. Though Eisner was reluctant to pursue the idea, preferring instead an animated film “inspired by” Catcher in the Rye starring a German Shepherd, Bluth and Katzenberg were both enthusiastic with it and Eisner, rapidly losing patience with animation, agreed to it as a last-ditch attempt to justify the animation department.
This, but earlier with completely handmade animation by Don Bluth
Bluth and Katzenberg put The Prince of Egypt into production in 1990, knowing that it was a sink-or-swim moment for both, with Bluth as producer and director and Katzenberg as executive producer. Coordinating the Irish, French, US, and Japanese animation sections became a serious challenge for Bluth, but with a strong core of ex-Disney and ex-Williams animators at Bluth Animation to act as on-site supervisors and team-developers, the film reels began to fill. Katzenberg took the opportunity to learn every detail about the animation process that he could, soon becoming a respected production expert even among his own animators, though his attitude (described by some as “imperious”) still led him to be referred to behind his back as “The DIC Head”, a nickname that even the Bluth animators began to use. Arguments and disagreements between Bluth and Katzenberg were frequent, but in the end the film screened to positive reviews for Christmas of 1991 and went on to make $112 million against its $29 million budget[2], justifying both the concept and the partnership.
Immediately they set about to make a second animated movie together. At first Katzenberg suggested that they do a piece set in Africa, but Eisner vetoed the idea, considering the concept too much like the Jungle Emperor Leo (a.k.a. Kimba the White Lion) series that had been running on The Disney Channel since 1987. Annoyed, Katzenberg filed away the film idea for a later day. Eisner once again suggested his “Catcher in the Rye with dogs” idea, but Bluth wasn’t interested in another “dog film” so soon after All Dogs go to Heaven. Bluth Animator and writer Gary Goldman suggested something based upon The King and I or My Fair Lady, though Bluth feared they’d be unfairly compared to the originals. Katzenberg, taking the My Fair Lady idea and running with it, wondered if a more modern take on Pygmalion would be in order, perhaps something set in the jazz age. Bluth felt that the visuals of the era would be exciting. Thus, Ritzy Gal was born.
+
= Ritzy Gal! (with a splash of The Great Gatsby)
By this time Bluth, flush with cash following The Prince of Egypt, had acquired a small number of Disney Imagination Stations and a trio of MINIBOG compilers networked into a small render farm, allowing for the addition of some digital scenes and compositing. Ritzy Gal featured a swinging soundtrack with a variety of Jazz Age influences, primarily Cole Porter but also Louis Armstrong, W.C. Handy, and Bix Beiderbecke. It told the story of a wealthy Gatsbyesque playboy and Park Avenue “bluenose” named Jake Van Der Waal (Warren Beatty), whose friend Bill James (Jason Alexander) bets him that he can’t take the Upper West Side “flapper” Molly Mulligan (Annie Potts) and pass her off as a bluenose among the galas of the Manhattan elites. Meanwhile, Jake’s would-be fiancé Anne Madison (Madeline Kahn) sees through the flapper and vows to destroy her. Despite the Pygmalion plot and jazz age setting, at its heart Ritzy Gal was, at the urging of Katzenberg, a Cinderella story[3]. It would release in 1993.
Warner Animation, meanwhile, was quickly getting back in the game, all part of a larger push to make Warner and DC products competitive with Disney and Marvel on the small screen and big alike. The long-awaited return of the Looney Tunes to the small screen had been a smashing success, with the Tiny Toons and The New Adventures of Bugsy & Daffy becoming major hits. These cartoons were working synergistically with the new Warner Brothers Movie World theme parks, which under the direction of C.V. “Woody” Wood, up until his passing in 1992, were emerging out of the chrysalis of the older Six Flags theme parks into immersive experiences on par with Disney and Universal. Similar results were happening with the DC heroes, with Batman a success on both the big screen and small. The Brad Bird-helmed Batman hit animated series spun off a Justice League cartoon which, in turn, led to Superman and Wonder Woman series, the latter receiving many scripts from up-and-coming scriptwriter and Spider-Man & X-Men animated series scribe Joss Whedon, who rather than stay strictly loyal to Disney was making a name for himself as a freelance writer. These series made big splashes on network TV and helped propel viewership on WB’s Nickelodeon, ultimately leading to the launch of the all-animated Neptune Chanel[4] in 1994.
This as a feature, essentially (Image source “comicvine.com”)
But Warner Brothers Animation wasn’t content to stay on the small screen, and in 1992 released the first feature-length Looney Tunes film that wasn’t a composite of older shorts. Looney Tunes: March of the Martian Maroons was an original story, written and storyboarded by Joe Dante who was hired at the advice of Chuck Jones. It was a simple three-act story where Bugs, Daffy, Porky, Elmer, Yosemite Sam, and the rest have to put aside their differences in order to fight back a Martian invasion led by Marvin the Martian, whose diabolical plan is to conquer Earth, drive out the “natives” and redevelop the planet into a “galactic time-share”[5]. The three-act structure was by design a slapdash framework for justifying the long string of silly, madcap gags and set pieces, but the execution was good enough (and the anticipation strong enough) that the film would be a big hit, giving Disney’s Shrek! a run for its money that summer.
Coming in 1994
Looney Tunes: March of the Martian Maroons was both a bold attempt to stake a claim on the world of feature animation, and a labor of love for its writer and animators, who just a few years earlier were certain that WB Animation would be disbanded. Like Bluth, WB Animation had acquired some Disney Imagination Stations and MINIBOGs along with some of the competing new Apple Gala graphics stations and Silicon Graphics stations. As such, the film would be a mix of hand drawn and computer animation. Its success would spawn two films: the fully animated Tiny Toons: Tasmanian Troubles released in 1993 and the hybrid animation & live action Space Slam, starring Michael Jordan, both released in 1994[6] The latter was a sort-of-sequel to March of the Martian Maroons, albeit one that mixed in the “real world” as a hybrid animation product.
Columbia and its Hanna-Barbera subsidiary, meanwhile, stuck with television, as did Triad’s Filmation, at least at first. Columbia’s Cartoon TV, rebranded as Cartoon City[7] in 1991, was now facing competition not only from WB’s Neptune, but also from Triad’s new Fox Family Channel and Disney’s new Disney Toon Town channel, both channels on basic cable. The former was a mix of live action and animated family programming and the latter a place for new, classic, and syndicated animation.
Columbia’s new Tom & Jerry, Flintstones and Jetsons animated series were maintaining a fair viewership, though the new Yo Yogi series failed to catch on. The new Scooby Doo reboot on the other hand was proving a hit with a wide range of audiences. This led Columbia Chairman/CEO Ted Turner to greenlight the feature length animated Scooby Doo: Mystery at Mossy Manor, distributed through Columbia Pictures, which performed reasonably well at the box office, justifying the investment. Turner was at first unwilling to invest in digital animation equipment, which he assumed would be a passing fad, but once the cost and quality control benefits were made apparent to him, he allowed a limited number of DIS stations and a single MINIBOG to be acquired as a test rig.
Columbia’s classic HB characters were bringing in a steady profit, but there was a push for original programming with new characters. This led to some successes like Super School, a show about teenage superheroes and supervillains at a special high school, but also failures like The Rebels of Rallah, a science fiction series that was lambasted both for being a shameless Star Wars rip-off and for allegedly promoting a Lost Cause narrative, since the allusions to the American Civil War were less than subtle. Super School would not only lead to a couple of spin-off shows, including the popular Villainy University, but would “inspire” Warner Brothers to resurrect the Teen Titans as an animated series, resurrecting Robin as a bankable character, albeit one openly influenced by Brandon Lee’s film version of Night Wing, for example being hyper-competent and of mixed Asian heritage.
Universal, meanwhile, was thinking big when it came to animation…really big. They’d previously partnered with Toho and UPA for 1988’s Godzilla: Lord of Fire. King Kong, which they were pushing as a tie-in to the new Kongfrontation attraction at Universal Studios Florida, was a natural follow-on IP to pursue for animation. They thus made a deal with Toho and UPA to not just animate King Kong, but add Godzilla and the rest of the Toho kaiju to the roster, resulting in the hit NBC animated series Monster Mayhem with Kong and Godzilla, though it would be known as “with Gojira and Kongu” in Japan. The series became a hit with audiences young and old with the possibility of all sorts of kaiju matchups: Godzilla vs. Kong, Kong vs. King Ghidorah, Mothra vs. Mecha-Godzilla, you name it! It became a father-and-son favorite across many demographics.
(Image source “tor.com”)
For Triad, however, the only animated hit out of their Filmation subsidiary was Star Trek: Excelsior (which ran for 6 amazing seasons) and its three-season spinoff Captain Kraal, which followed a crew of Klingons who had temporarily made common cause with the USS Excelsior in season 2 of that series. For other new animation Triad looked outside of its IP. They made a licensing deal with Jay Ward Productions for Rocky & Bullwinkle, but Filmation’s animators were busy with the existing series, so Triad looked for outside companies. They interviewed a few small studios, most of which lacked the necessary experience, but were impressed by the talent and enthusiasm of one studio: Bakshi-Kricfalusi.
“Bat-Shit” Studios was an odd company to consider for what was ostensibly a children’s show, but with the box office failure of Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas, the studio was hard pressed for work. Plus, Kricfalusi in particular was hyper-enthusiastic to work on Rocky & Bullwinkle, being a fan himself, and produced some test footage that amazed the Filmation leadership. Bakshi-Kricfalusi was hired. However, when word got out that the studio behind such adult cartoons as Fritz the Cat and Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas was rebooting Rocky & Bullwinkle, there were protests, particularly from the American Family Association, which labelled Bakshi a “pornographer”.
Rather than sink the partnership, Filmation and Bakshi made a deal whereby Bakshi-Kricfalusi would hide their participation behind a new label: Fun Unlimited, or Fun Unlimited Cartoons, either never-spoken acronym serving as stealthy wink to the studio’s adult reputation. Once Triad announced the “new” partnership with “Fun Unlimited”, never actually proclaiming the deal with Bakshi-Kricfalusi “cancelled”, the outrage died out, at least until an all-new outrage replaced it.
Kricfalusi’s fluid, detailed, and elastic animation style complemented Rocky & Bullwinkle well. Similarly, his willingness to slip in adult humor, in particular sociopolitical satire (but not gross, sexy, or filthy stuff; that would come in later productions, of course), captured the rebellious spirit of the original cartoon while updating the series for the 1990s post-Cold War audience. Boris and Natasha were now retired (making occasional cameos) after Fearless Leader got deposed from Pottsylvania in a nod to the end of the Cold War. Now Frostbite Falls’ new antagonist was Duane N. Sayne, a beret-wearing third world dictator from Burnitalia, and his incompetent Three-Stooges-like sidekicks Hashem, Mashem, and Bashem, with the blowhard US military establishment that opposed them shown to be as pompously self-important as they had been in the original cartoons. In an allusion to the original series’ mid-century origins, Kricfalusi added in tons of visual cues and tropes from the era, including fake commercials for ridiculous products vaguely reminiscent of real ‘50s/’60s products such as “Log” (an actual log), the “Captain Chair Lamp” action figure (“we swear that it’s not a doll!!”), and “Mr. Pincushion”, who screamed in pain with each inserted needle.
The Continuing Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle drew only a middling viewership that skewed older, but it gained lots of attention from the Emmys and Golden Globes and Annies over its short two-season run, so Triad asked Fun Unlimited to produce something original. Bakshi took the opportunity to launch his old high school idea of Junk City, a world where all of the discarded things come to life[8]. The show followed the human girl Debbie (Tress MacNeille) and her struggles against her former doll Ms. Muffet, now Muffet the Merciless (Judith Barsi), who is attempting to conquer Junk City. It would play for three seasons (1991-1993) and see sporadic viewership, but was considered a very influential cartoon within the animation community and which inspired a lot of upcoming animators with its willingness to mix cute with horror and the beautiful with the ugly.
Sort of like this…
Kricfalusi, meanwhile, jumped at the chance to continue to push the television boundaries in what would become his most (in)famous original series, Hoerk & Gatty, airing from 1992-1996. The show followed the inane and insane adventures of a male toy poodle named Hoerk with a repressed inferiority complex and severe rage issues, and his companion/abuse magnet Gatty, a spacy and effeminate cat of ambiguous gender and sexuality. The names of the characters are rumored to be based upon the names of writers Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz, with whom Bakshi and Kricfalusi had worked on Howard the Duck. Hoerk & Gatty gained notoriety for pushing the limits on what could be played on a cartoon with an underage target audience and was filled with jokes about body hygiene and gross-out humor, often with shockingly disgusting visuals. The parental outcry merely drove even greater interest in the show, particularly among teens and pre-teens, turning it into a breakout hit. Like Rocky & Bullwinkle, it was filled with mid-century references and social satire, such as when Hoerk and Gatty became rubber nipple salesmen in one episode, selling the ridiculous products to a pipe-smoking ‘50s suburban husband for a variety of ludicrous home uses. It also created new spoof commercials, often for new & improved versions of the same insane products from Rocky & Bullwinkle, suggesting that the two shows shared a universe.
(Image source “animationresources.com”)
And while Kricfalusi worked on TV animation, his partner Bakshi also pursued an R-rated hybrid animation/live action film called Cool World, based on a screenplay by Michael Grais. Like Who Framed Roger Rabbit, it would exist in a universe where animated characters and humans shared the world, only here the adult themes and social justice issues hinted at in Roger Rabbit would be made explicit, with animated “Doodles” treated as second-class citizens by the human “Noids”. It would feature actual sex rather than “pattycake”, nudity, LGBTQ relationships, drug use, and bloody murder. However, finding an executive producer and distributer would prove a challenge with all three of Triad’s labels pushing for a more child friendly film. Other US studios gave Bakshi the same treatment. “They wanted another fucking ‘Roger Rabbit’,” recalled Bakshi, “and I was peddling an R-rated noir horror film about the dangers of bigotry.” Eventually he’d get funding from the French production company Pathé with the ACC-dominated Tri-Star agreeing to distribute in the US.
This as an R-Rated hybrid film, not a Roger Rabbit rip-off
Meanwhile, the small studio of Wayward Entertainment would partner with Klasky-Csupó and Matt Groening of The Bunyans fame to develop a new, more family friendly animated show that none the less was fun for adults. Rugrats followed the inner lives of very young children as they navigated the world of daycare and their seemingly oblivious parents. Groening would serve as the show runner and Vanessa Coffey the producer. The then-husband-and-wife duo of Gábor Csupó and Arlene Klasky, along with Paul Germain, had originally had the idea in 1989. Wayward’s Vanessa Coffey loved the idea and helped pitch the show to Nickelodeon, where it became the flagship of the Nick, Jr., spinoff.
Rugrats followed the internal lives of several 3-to-5-year-old[9] children who are experiencing the world and other people for the first time. Compared to The Bunyans it was a light, imaginative show meant for kids but appreciable for their parents, encouraging families to watch it together. Rugrats gained a legendary status on its own, and was wildly popular with its target audience, becoming a cultural touchstone for a generation. A later sequel with the cast now grown up would appear in the 2010s.
The success of The Bunyans and Rugrats led Klasky-Csupó and Wayward to approach Ted Turner and Brandon Tartikoff about the possibility for a prime-time animated sitcom. Groening had a vague idea for a show based roughly on (and named after) his own family growing up in the 1960s and Coffey saw the potential for something “more wholesome than The Bunyans, but edgier than Rugrats”. Tartikoff seemed ambivalent during the pitch until Groening mentioned the father working at a nuclear power plant. Knowing that Turner was a recently, and enthusiastically, converted environmentalist following his recent marriage to Jane Fonda, Tartikoff advised them to lean in on the environmental aspect.
Not quite this (and has shades of The Oblongs and the Season 8 episode “You Only Move Twice”)
The result was Nuclear Family, the story of the Simpson family of Evergreen Terrace in the suburbs of Springfield (the State left deliberately ambiguous for the entire run of the show). Groening pushed for the wholesome name “Springfield Stories”, but Tartikoff pushed him into the name Nuclear Family, which Groening disliked, but grudgingly grew to accept. Unlike the surrealistic naturalism of The Bunyans, Nuclear Family was, for want of a better word, demented, a cartoon sitcom that was aware it was a cartoon and could play by the rules of one, involving exaggerated characters, cartoony plot devices and characters occasionally breaking the fourth wall. It was essentially a slightly surreal Dom-Com. Father Homer was a lovable oaf who worked for the sinister Montgomery Burns in the local nuclear power plant. Wife Marge was an overworked housewife struggling to maintain an impossible Better Homes and Gardens based household and slowly going insane.
However, to reflect the younger target audience, the focus was on their children: eldest child and only son Bart (10), a junior member of the Ambitious Screwups club, was forever making self-serving schemes that tended to self-destruct, either due to his own lack of foresight, some unintended consequence...or a foul-up on the part of his sidekick. Said sidekick was middle child and eldest daughter Lisa (8), an intelligent-but-socially-naïve child whose meek personality, sweetness and innocent adoration of her big brother led to her being dragged along in his schemes. Youngest daughter Maggie (4), was a spoiled, tyrannical brat, who was their parents' favorite...and knew how to use that to push her older siblings around. While named for Groening’s own family, the actual characters were, he assured all who would listen, nothing like their namesakes.
The standout non-Bart character was, of course, C. Montgomery Burns, a corporate supervillain, somebody who did horrific things and, somehow, maintained a grandfatherly public image that everyone seemed to buy… before mellowing into a sarcastic, semi-loveable old misanthrope with a heart of gold, about the time he became a more prominent character, getting whole episodes to himself. This reflected changes in Bart, Lisa and Maggie's characters – Bart became less cruel and self-interested, Lisa grew a spine, and Maggie became less bratty.
The show would take on overtly environmental themes as Mr. Burns’ business empire continued to pollute and mutate and destroy the world around it, and despite the schemes and activism of Bart, who is seen as “a looney”, he continues to get away with it thanks to good public relations (“everyone loves Monty!”) and the protections of the thoroughly bribed Mayor Quimby. As the show progressed, Burns would be slowly revealed to be a literal supervillain and the head of the SPECTRE-like Scorpio organization, a worldwide crime syndicate that Homer, in his naiveté, has been supporting[10]. Ironically, it would also reveal him as “not a bad guy when you got to know him”, creating dramatic and ironic tension between the two extremes.
Fans remain divided on whether the “Burns as a supervillain” angle was intended from the beginning, or a product of the show’s natural evolution, and the producers aren't saying. Nuclear Family would run for an incredible 14 years on CBS, complete with a theatrical movie, before finally being retired in a dimension-hopping last episode.
With continued successes stemming from the ongoing partnership, Wayward Entertainment and Klasky-Csupó would formally merge, keeping the name Wayward but reorganizing into an equitable profit-sharing partnership arrangement. The arrangement let the companies streamline processes and reduce paperwork and overhead and allowed for the production, animation, and administrative teams to better work together. While the company would grow modestly, for example hiring talented writer David X. Cohen in 1994, they would deliberately stay small and independent. They would remain frequent partners with Gracie Films, Nickelodeon, Columbia, and (most critically) Matt Groening’s later Bongo Productions.
The Canadian Nelvana company, meanwhile, was continuing their Dr. Who animated series, which now followed the divisive 8th Doctor. However, the sudden canonization of many of the fan-made “continuing adventures” plays featuring the earlier Doctors led them to develop the Tales of Doctors Past cartoon series, often featuring voice work by the actual actors who played the earlier Doctors and Companions (Sylvester McCoy would famously voice the First Doctor in place of the late William Hartnell). The Tales, as they were called, became surprisingly popular as even adult fans began to tune in to once again experience their old favorite Doctors. This in turn led to a partnership with Time-Atlantic to produce animated feature films, resulting in 1993’s now legendary special 60th anniversary animated crossover Paging All Doctors, where all eight Doctors must team up to stop a diabolical plan by the many incarnations of The Master, with the day ultimately saved by the recently introduced 9th Doctor, with the very specific circumstances of his Regeneration holding the key to saving all of Space-Time[11].
Nelvana had found success in the late 1980s with animated TV series based upon Babar the Elephant, The Bernstein Bears, and Clifford the Big Red Dog. Nelvana also developed a popular TV series based upon the Magic School Bus stories. A short-lived series based upon the Cadillacs and Dinosaurs comics series (a.k.a. Xenozoic Tales) aired in the early 1990s, but didn’t perform to expectations. However, it would acquire a cult following when played on Cartoon Central in syndication.
And then there was Aardman, a small studio out of England that specialized in stop-motion animation, principally Claymation. They’d first made a name for themselves in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s with a small series of silly and surreal little sketches based around the character of Morph, eventually leading to the TV series The Amazing Adventures of Morph, which ran on BBC from 1980-1981 and saw some airtime on The Disney Channel in syndication from 1984-1987. Aardman also gained international notice for their surreal music video for Peter Gabriel’s’ “Sledge Hammer” in 1986. However, 1991 would be their breakout year with Creature Comforts and A Grand Day Out. The former would win the Oscar for Best Animated Short, one of the few losses in that category for Disney in the era, and also beat out the latter Aardman production, which was also nominated. However, it would be A Grand Day Out that would be the best remembered of the two for introducing the characters of Wallace and Gromit.
Wallace and Gromit were the product of animator Nick Park, who’d first conceived of the characters in 1982 while in college and later developed them for Aardman as a side project. Gromit’s name was derived from the grommet, a piece of hardware Park’s brother, an electrician, often spoke about. Wallace was originally a postman named “Jerry”, a name that Park admitted “didn’t work”, until an encounter with a reference to a Scottish Rebel named William Wallace while in Glasgow led to the change[12]. The popular short spawned two more award-winning shorts, The Wrong Trousers (1993) and A Close Shave (1995). And rather than be bitter about repeatedly losing awards to the small studio, Disney Creative Chief Jim Henson agreed to distribute the shorts in the US though Buena Vista[13], where they sold well.
In fact, Park’s little “side project” had become so popular that the design: close-set eyes and a wide, expressive mouth, soon became the unofficial “Aardman look” and carried over into future productions whether Park was involved in them or not. Disney, Columbia, and Hollywood Animation all separately approached Aardman about a feature length Wallace and Gromit cartoon, but Park was not yet ready to develop such a project, so the Aardman team began brainstorming for new feature ideas, and debating about with whom they should work.
[1] Katzenberg reportedly pursued this idea at Disney in our timeline, but was constantly rejected by Eisner, possibly because Disney liked to avoid overtly religious projects. Katzenberg eventually took the idea with him to Dreamworks, where Spielberg in particular urged him to pursue it.
[2] Roughly analogous, accounting for inflation, to the 1998 Dreamworks feature in our timeline.
[3] The original Bluth My Fair Lady idea in our timeline eventually evolved into Anastasia while Katzenberg ultimately took the Pygmalion concept and applied it to a dark screenplay called 3000 about a drug-addicted prostitute being hired by a wealthy Wall Street man, resulting in Pretty Woman. 3000, of course, became Three Grand in this timeline, a dark tale of use and abuse in American society.
[4] The name is derived from the “Nicartoons” working title, which the board felt sounded too much like “nicotine”. This evolved to NickToon and then Neptune.
[5] In a bit of a meta-joke referencing War of the Worlds, Marvin complains the whole time he is on Earth about the “nasty cold” he’s picked up. Ultimately, between Bugs and the gang’s opposition and the “constant, irritating nasal congestion” he calls off the invasion of Earth and decides to “take on Pluto instead”, with what’s obviously Disneyland in his literal sights.
[6] It seems inevitable that Michael Jordan will become a superstar in this timeline too (nothing to butterfly that) and it seems likely that Jordan and WB would team up for commercials as they did in our timeline, thus it seems likely that some form of Space Jam will come up.
[7] Also known as Columbia Cartoon City. Their logo will become a series of stacked C’s that look like a skyscraper. Disney will consider and ultimately decide not to pursue a lawsuit based on the “Town” vs. “City” dynamic.
[8] Hat tip to @nick_crenshaw82 for digging up this old idea, which became the ill-fated Christmas in Tattertown pilot in our timeline.
[9] At the advice of Groening. More on this later.
[10] Hat tip to @Nathanoraptor, @GrahamB, and @Plateosaurus for this insane idea. GrahamB even provided this fitting piece of orphan dialog:
[The guys are drinking at Moe's. Mr. Burns is on the television over the bar.]
Lenny: Hey look, the boss in on the news again!
Homer: Ooh, what's he up to this time?
Lenny: Looks like he's escalating that whole deal with illegal whaling off Chile.
Karl: Hey good on him, whaling's a dying industry these days.
Moe: You know I used to do some whaling back in high school.
Karl: Oh yeah, how'd that turn out?
Moe: Eh, it was fine. Turns out the pay was better as a double agent for Interpol.
[11] Coming soon! Hat tip to @Daibhid C for reminding me of the anniversary!
[12] A chance encounter on a bus with a large dog named Wallace led to the change in our timeline (“a very northern name to give a dog”). Instead, he reaches the name a different way in this timeline. I kicked around ideas for a butterflied name for “Jerry”, such as Horace and Willis and Wilbur, but none of them seemed right. Maybe I’m stuck in OTL-bias. Call it laziness or unoriginality or serendipity or fate if you want…I have no regrets either way!
[13] After living for years in England Jim had developed a fondness for British humor. He’d undoubtedly have loved Wallace & Gromit.
From In the Shadow of the Mouse, Non-Disney Animation 1960-2000, by Joshua Ben Jordan
By 1990, the Disney Renaissance was in full swing and the other studios were scrambling to catch up. While great progress was being made on the television side, particularly from Warner Brothers, Columbia (Hanna-Barbera), and Capital Cities/ABC (Hollywood/DIC), so far only the independent studios of Bluth Animation and Bakshi-Kricfalusi were making names for themselves in feature animation. Of the three larger studios, Hollywood Animation had recently fallen on its face with the cut-rate Return of the Littles and was looking for new options. Not happy with what the DIC animators had produced (regardless of the fact that the shoestring budget and rushed production imposed by the studio were the ultimate factors in this failure), Hollywood Animation head Jeffrey Katzenberg looked instead to the relative success of Don Bluth’s All Dogs Go to Heaven and contacted Bluth.
Bluth and Katzenberg met and didn’t exactly get along, but each saw a mutual benefit in working together. Bluth and his animators would take advantage of Hollywood’s distribution infrastructure and international animation contracts and Hollywood would take advantage of Bluth’s core of talented and experienced feature animators and producers. After discussing some ideas, Bluth, Katzenberg, and Eisner settled on an animated version of The Ten Commandments, an idea that Katzenberg had hoped to pursue for a long time[1]. Though Eisner was reluctant to pursue the idea, preferring instead an animated film “inspired by” Catcher in the Rye starring a German Shepherd, Bluth and Katzenberg were both enthusiastic with it and Eisner, rapidly losing patience with animation, agreed to it as a last-ditch attempt to justify the animation department.
This, but earlier with completely handmade animation by Don Bluth
Bluth and Katzenberg put The Prince of Egypt into production in 1990, knowing that it was a sink-or-swim moment for both, with Bluth as producer and director and Katzenberg as executive producer. Coordinating the Irish, French, US, and Japanese animation sections became a serious challenge for Bluth, but with a strong core of ex-Disney and ex-Williams animators at Bluth Animation to act as on-site supervisors and team-developers, the film reels began to fill. Katzenberg took the opportunity to learn every detail about the animation process that he could, soon becoming a respected production expert even among his own animators, though his attitude (described by some as “imperious”) still led him to be referred to behind his back as “The DIC Head”, a nickname that even the Bluth animators began to use. Arguments and disagreements between Bluth and Katzenberg were frequent, but in the end the film screened to positive reviews for Christmas of 1991 and went on to make $112 million against its $29 million budget[2], justifying both the concept and the partnership.
Immediately they set about to make a second animated movie together. At first Katzenberg suggested that they do a piece set in Africa, but Eisner vetoed the idea, considering the concept too much like the Jungle Emperor Leo (a.k.a. Kimba the White Lion) series that had been running on The Disney Channel since 1987. Annoyed, Katzenberg filed away the film idea for a later day. Eisner once again suggested his “Catcher in the Rye with dogs” idea, but Bluth wasn’t interested in another “dog film” so soon after All Dogs go to Heaven. Bluth Animator and writer Gary Goldman suggested something based upon The King and I or My Fair Lady, though Bluth feared they’d be unfairly compared to the originals. Katzenberg, taking the My Fair Lady idea and running with it, wondered if a more modern take on Pygmalion would be in order, perhaps something set in the jazz age. Bluth felt that the visuals of the era would be exciting. Thus, Ritzy Gal was born.
= Ritzy Gal! (with a splash of The Great Gatsby)
By this time Bluth, flush with cash following The Prince of Egypt, had acquired a small number of Disney Imagination Stations and a trio of MINIBOG compilers networked into a small render farm, allowing for the addition of some digital scenes and compositing. Ritzy Gal featured a swinging soundtrack with a variety of Jazz Age influences, primarily Cole Porter but also Louis Armstrong, W.C. Handy, and Bix Beiderbecke. It told the story of a wealthy Gatsbyesque playboy and Park Avenue “bluenose” named Jake Van Der Waal (Warren Beatty), whose friend Bill James (Jason Alexander) bets him that he can’t take the Upper West Side “flapper” Molly Mulligan (Annie Potts) and pass her off as a bluenose among the galas of the Manhattan elites. Meanwhile, Jake’s would-be fiancé Anne Madison (Madeline Kahn) sees through the flapper and vows to destroy her. Despite the Pygmalion plot and jazz age setting, at its heart Ritzy Gal was, at the urging of Katzenberg, a Cinderella story[3]. It would release in 1993.
Warner Animation, meanwhile, was quickly getting back in the game, all part of a larger push to make Warner and DC products competitive with Disney and Marvel on the small screen and big alike. The long-awaited return of the Looney Tunes to the small screen had been a smashing success, with the Tiny Toons and The New Adventures of Bugsy & Daffy becoming major hits. These cartoons were working synergistically with the new Warner Brothers Movie World theme parks, which under the direction of C.V. “Woody” Wood, up until his passing in 1992, were emerging out of the chrysalis of the older Six Flags theme parks into immersive experiences on par with Disney and Universal. Similar results were happening with the DC heroes, with Batman a success on both the big screen and small. The Brad Bird-helmed Batman hit animated series spun off a Justice League cartoon which, in turn, led to Superman and Wonder Woman series, the latter receiving many scripts from up-and-coming scriptwriter and Spider-Man & X-Men animated series scribe Joss Whedon, who rather than stay strictly loyal to Disney was making a name for himself as a freelance writer. These series made big splashes on network TV and helped propel viewership on WB’s Nickelodeon, ultimately leading to the launch of the all-animated Neptune Chanel[4] in 1994.
This as a feature, essentially (Image source “comicvine.com”)
But Warner Brothers Animation wasn’t content to stay on the small screen, and in 1992 released the first feature-length Looney Tunes film that wasn’t a composite of older shorts. Looney Tunes: March of the Martian Maroons was an original story, written and storyboarded by Joe Dante who was hired at the advice of Chuck Jones. It was a simple three-act story where Bugs, Daffy, Porky, Elmer, Yosemite Sam, and the rest have to put aside their differences in order to fight back a Martian invasion led by Marvin the Martian, whose diabolical plan is to conquer Earth, drive out the “natives” and redevelop the planet into a “galactic time-share”[5]. The three-act structure was by design a slapdash framework for justifying the long string of silly, madcap gags and set pieces, but the execution was good enough (and the anticipation strong enough) that the film would be a big hit, giving Disney’s Shrek! a run for its money that summer.
Coming in 1994
Looney Tunes: March of the Martian Maroons was both a bold attempt to stake a claim on the world of feature animation, and a labor of love for its writer and animators, who just a few years earlier were certain that WB Animation would be disbanded. Like Bluth, WB Animation had acquired some Disney Imagination Stations and MINIBOGs along with some of the competing new Apple Gala graphics stations and Silicon Graphics stations. As such, the film would be a mix of hand drawn and computer animation. Its success would spawn two films: the fully animated Tiny Toons: Tasmanian Troubles released in 1993 and the hybrid animation & live action Space Slam, starring Michael Jordan, both released in 1994[6] The latter was a sort-of-sequel to March of the Martian Maroons, albeit one that mixed in the “real world” as a hybrid animation product.
Columbia and its Hanna-Barbera subsidiary, meanwhile, stuck with television, as did Triad’s Filmation, at least at first. Columbia’s Cartoon TV, rebranded as Cartoon City[7] in 1991, was now facing competition not only from WB’s Neptune, but also from Triad’s new Fox Family Channel and Disney’s new Disney Toon Town channel, both channels on basic cable. The former was a mix of live action and animated family programming and the latter a place for new, classic, and syndicated animation.
Columbia’s new Tom & Jerry, Flintstones and Jetsons animated series were maintaining a fair viewership, though the new Yo Yogi series failed to catch on. The new Scooby Doo reboot on the other hand was proving a hit with a wide range of audiences. This led Columbia Chairman/CEO Ted Turner to greenlight the feature length animated Scooby Doo: Mystery at Mossy Manor, distributed through Columbia Pictures, which performed reasonably well at the box office, justifying the investment. Turner was at first unwilling to invest in digital animation equipment, which he assumed would be a passing fad, but once the cost and quality control benefits were made apparent to him, he allowed a limited number of DIS stations and a single MINIBOG to be acquired as a test rig.
Columbia’s classic HB characters were bringing in a steady profit, but there was a push for original programming with new characters. This led to some successes like Super School, a show about teenage superheroes and supervillains at a special high school, but also failures like The Rebels of Rallah, a science fiction series that was lambasted both for being a shameless Star Wars rip-off and for allegedly promoting a Lost Cause narrative, since the allusions to the American Civil War were less than subtle. Super School would not only lead to a couple of spin-off shows, including the popular Villainy University, but would “inspire” Warner Brothers to resurrect the Teen Titans as an animated series, resurrecting Robin as a bankable character, albeit one openly influenced by Brandon Lee’s film version of Night Wing, for example being hyper-competent and of mixed Asian heritage.
Universal, meanwhile, was thinking big when it came to animation…really big. They’d previously partnered with Toho and UPA for 1988’s Godzilla: Lord of Fire. King Kong, which they were pushing as a tie-in to the new Kongfrontation attraction at Universal Studios Florida, was a natural follow-on IP to pursue for animation. They thus made a deal with Toho and UPA to not just animate King Kong, but add Godzilla and the rest of the Toho kaiju to the roster, resulting in the hit NBC animated series Monster Mayhem with Kong and Godzilla, though it would be known as “with Gojira and Kongu” in Japan. The series became a hit with audiences young and old with the possibility of all sorts of kaiju matchups: Godzilla vs. Kong, Kong vs. King Ghidorah, Mothra vs. Mecha-Godzilla, you name it! It became a father-and-son favorite across many demographics.
(Image source “tor.com”)
For Triad, however, the only animated hit out of their Filmation subsidiary was Star Trek: Excelsior (which ran for 6 amazing seasons) and its three-season spinoff Captain Kraal, which followed a crew of Klingons who had temporarily made common cause with the USS Excelsior in season 2 of that series. For other new animation Triad looked outside of its IP. They made a licensing deal with Jay Ward Productions for Rocky & Bullwinkle, but Filmation’s animators were busy with the existing series, so Triad looked for outside companies. They interviewed a few small studios, most of which lacked the necessary experience, but were impressed by the talent and enthusiasm of one studio: Bakshi-Kricfalusi.
“Bat-Shit” Studios was an odd company to consider for what was ostensibly a children’s show, but with the box office failure of Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas, the studio was hard pressed for work. Plus, Kricfalusi in particular was hyper-enthusiastic to work on Rocky & Bullwinkle, being a fan himself, and produced some test footage that amazed the Filmation leadership. Bakshi-Kricfalusi was hired. However, when word got out that the studio behind such adult cartoons as Fritz the Cat and Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas was rebooting Rocky & Bullwinkle, there were protests, particularly from the American Family Association, which labelled Bakshi a “pornographer”.
Rather than sink the partnership, Filmation and Bakshi made a deal whereby Bakshi-Kricfalusi would hide their participation behind a new label: Fun Unlimited, or Fun Unlimited Cartoons, either never-spoken acronym serving as stealthy wink to the studio’s adult reputation. Once Triad announced the “new” partnership with “Fun Unlimited”, never actually proclaiming the deal with Bakshi-Kricfalusi “cancelled”, the outrage died out, at least until an all-new outrage replaced it.
Kricfalusi’s fluid, detailed, and elastic animation style complemented Rocky & Bullwinkle well. Similarly, his willingness to slip in adult humor, in particular sociopolitical satire (but not gross, sexy, or filthy stuff; that would come in later productions, of course), captured the rebellious spirit of the original cartoon while updating the series for the 1990s post-Cold War audience. Boris and Natasha were now retired (making occasional cameos) after Fearless Leader got deposed from Pottsylvania in a nod to the end of the Cold War. Now Frostbite Falls’ new antagonist was Duane N. Sayne, a beret-wearing third world dictator from Burnitalia, and his incompetent Three-Stooges-like sidekicks Hashem, Mashem, and Bashem, with the blowhard US military establishment that opposed them shown to be as pompously self-important as they had been in the original cartoons. In an allusion to the original series’ mid-century origins, Kricfalusi added in tons of visual cues and tropes from the era, including fake commercials for ridiculous products vaguely reminiscent of real ‘50s/’60s products such as “Log” (an actual log), the “Captain Chair Lamp” action figure (“we swear that it’s not a doll!!”), and “Mr. Pincushion”, who screamed in pain with each inserted needle.
The Continuing Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle drew only a middling viewership that skewed older, but it gained lots of attention from the Emmys and Golden Globes and Annies over its short two-season run, so Triad asked Fun Unlimited to produce something original. Bakshi took the opportunity to launch his old high school idea of Junk City, a world where all of the discarded things come to life[8]. The show followed the human girl Debbie (Tress MacNeille) and her struggles against her former doll Ms. Muffet, now Muffet the Merciless (Judith Barsi), who is attempting to conquer Junk City. It would play for three seasons (1991-1993) and see sporadic viewership, but was considered a very influential cartoon within the animation community and which inspired a lot of upcoming animators with its willingness to mix cute with horror and the beautiful with the ugly.
Sort of like this…
Kricfalusi, meanwhile, jumped at the chance to continue to push the television boundaries in what would become his most (in)famous original series, Hoerk & Gatty, airing from 1992-1996. The show followed the inane and insane adventures of a male toy poodle named Hoerk with a repressed inferiority complex and severe rage issues, and his companion/abuse magnet Gatty, a spacy and effeminate cat of ambiguous gender and sexuality. The names of the characters are rumored to be based upon the names of writers Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz, with whom Bakshi and Kricfalusi had worked on Howard the Duck. Hoerk & Gatty gained notoriety for pushing the limits on what could be played on a cartoon with an underage target audience and was filled with jokes about body hygiene and gross-out humor, often with shockingly disgusting visuals. The parental outcry merely drove even greater interest in the show, particularly among teens and pre-teens, turning it into a breakout hit. Like Rocky & Bullwinkle, it was filled with mid-century references and social satire, such as when Hoerk and Gatty became rubber nipple salesmen in one episode, selling the ridiculous products to a pipe-smoking ‘50s suburban husband for a variety of ludicrous home uses. It also created new spoof commercials, often for new & improved versions of the same insane products from Rocky & Bullwinkle, suggesting that the two shows shared a universe.
(Image source “animationresources.com”)
And while Kricfalusi worked on TV animation, his partner Bakshi also pursued an R-rated hybrid animation/live action film called Cool World, based on a screenplay by Michael Grais. Like Who Framed Roger Rabbit, it would exist in a universe where animated characters and humans shared the world, only here the adult themes and social justice issues hinted at in Roger Rabbit would be made explicit, with animated “Doodles” treated as second-class citizens by the human “Noids”. It would feature actual sex rather than “pattycake”, nudity, LGBTQ relationships, drug use, and bloody murder. However, finding an executive producer and distributer would prove a challenge with all three of Triad’s labels pushing for a more child friendly film. Other US studios gave Bakshi the same treatment. “They wanted another fucking ‘Roger Rabbit’,” recalled Bakshi, “and I was peddling an R-rated noir horror film about the dangers of bigotry.” Eventually he’d get funding from the French production company Pathé with the ACC-dominated Tri-Star agreeing to distribute in the US.
This as an R-Rated hybrid film, not a Roger Rabbit rip-off
Meanwhile, the small studio of Wayward Entertainment would partner with Klasky-Csupó and Matt Groening of The Bunyans fame to develop a new, more family friendly animated show that none the less was fun for adults. Rugrats followed the inner lives of very young children as they navigated the world of daycare and their seemingly oblivious parents. Groening would serve as the show runner and Vanessa Coffey the producer. The then-husband-and-wife duo of Gábor Csupó and Arlene Klasky, along with Paul Germain, had originally had the idea in 1989. Wayward’s Vanessa Coffey loved the idea and helped pitch the show to Nickelodeon, where it became the flagship of the Nick, Jr., spinoff.
Rugrats followed the internal lives of several 3-to-5-year-old[9] children who are experiencing the world and other people for the first time. Compared to The Bunyans it was a light, imaginative show meant for kids but appreciable for their parents, encouraging families to watch it together. Rugrats gained a legendary status on its own, and was wildly popular with its target audience, becoming a cultural touchstone for a generation. A later sequel with the cast now grown up would appear in the 2010s.
The success of The Bunyans and Rugrats led Klasky-Csupó and Wayward to approach Ted Turner and Brandon Tartikoff about the possibility for a prime-time animated sitcom. Groening had a vague idea for a show based roughly on (and named after) his own family growing up in the 1960s and Coffey saw the potential for something “more wholesome than The Bunyans, but edgier than Rugrats”. Tartikoff seemed ambivalent during the pitch until Groening mentioned the father working at a nuclear power plant. Knowing that Turner was a recently, and enthusiastically, converted environmentalist following his recent marriage to Jane Fonda, Tartikoff advised them to lean in on the environmental aspect.
Not quite this (and has shades of The Oblongs and the Season 8 episode “You Only Move Twice”)
The result was Nuclear Family, the story of the Simpson family of Evergreen Terrace in the suburbs of Springfield (the State left deliberately ambiguous for the entire run of the show). Groening pushed for the wholesome name “Springfield Stories”, but Tartikoff pushed him into the name Nuclear Family, which Groening disliked, but grudgingly grew to accept. Unlike the surrealistic naturalism of The Bunyans, Nuclear Family was, for want of a better word, demented, a cartoon sitcom that was aware it was a cartoon and could play by the rules of one, involving exaggerated characters, cartoony plot devices and characters occasionally breaking the fourth wall. It was essentially a slightly surreal Dom-Com. Father Homer was a lovable oaf who worked for the sinister Montgomery Burns in the local nuclear power plant. Wife Marge was an overworked housewife struggling to maintain an impossible Better Homes and Gardens based household and slowly going insane.
However, to reflect the younger target audience, the focus was on their children: eldest child and only son Bart (10), a junior member of the Ambitious Screwups club, was forever making self-serving schemes that tended to self-destruct, either due to his own lack of foresight, some unintended consequence...or a foul-up on the part of his sidekick. Said sidekick was middle child and eldest daughter Lisa (8), an intelligent-but-socially-naïve child whose meek personality, sweetness and innocent adoration of her big brother led to her being dragged along in his schemes. Youngest daughter Maggie (4), was a spoiled, tyrannical brat, who was their parents' favorite...and knew how to use that to push her older siblings around. While named for Groening’s own family, the actual characters were, he assured all who would listen, nothing like their namesakes.
The standout non-Bart character was, of course, C. Montgomery Burns, a corporate supervillain, somebody who did horrific things and, somehow, maintained a grandfatherly public image that everyone seemed to buy… before mellowing into a sarcastic, semi-loveable old misanthrope with a heart of gold, about the time he became a more prominent character, getting whole episodes to himself. This reflected changes in Bart, Lisa and Maggie's characters – Bart became less cruel and self-interested, Lisa grew a spine, and Maggie became less bratty.
The show would take on overtly environmental themes as Mr. Burns’ business empire continued to pollute and mutate and destroy the world around it, and despite the schemes and activism of Bart, who is seen as “a looney”, he continues to get away with it thanks to good public relations (“everyone loves Monty!”) and the protections of the thoroughly bribed Mayor Quimby. As the show progressed, Burns would be slowly revealed to be a literal supervillain and the head of the SPECTRE-like Scorpio organization, a worldwide crime syndicate that Homer, in his naiveté, has been supporting[10]. Ironically, it would also reveal him as “not a bad guy when you got to know him”, creating dramatic and ironic tension between the two extremes.
Fans remain divided on whether the “Burns as a supervillain” angle was intended from the beginning, or a product of the show’s natural evolution, and the producers aren't saying. Nuclear Family would run for an incredible 14 years on CBS, complete with a theatrical movie, before finally being retired in a dimension-hopping last episode.
With continued successes stemming from the ongoing partnership, Wayward Entertainment and Klasky-Csupó would formally merge, keeping the name Wayward but reorganizing into an equitable profit-sharing partnership arrangement. The arrangement let the companies streamline processes and reduce paperwork and overhead and allowed for the production, animation, and administrative teams to better work together. While the company would grow modestly, for example hiring talented writer David X. Cohen in 1994, they would deliberately stay small and independent. They would remain frequent partners with Gracie Films, Nickelodeon, Columbia, and (most critically) Matt Groening’s later Bongo Productions.
The Canadian Nelvana company, meanwhile, was continuing their Dr. Who animated series, which now followed the divisive 8th Doctor. However, the sudden canonization of many of the fan-made “continuing adventures” plays featuring the earlier Doctors led them to develop the Tales of Doctors Past cartoon series, often featuring voice work by the actual actors who played the earlier Doctors and Companions (Sylvester McCoy would famously voice the First Doctor in place of the late William Hartnell). The Tales, as they were called, became surprisingly popular as even adult fans began to tune in to once again experience their old favorite Doctors. This in turn led to a partnership with Time-Atlantic to produce animated feature films, resulting in 1993’s now legendary special 60th anniversary animated crossover Paging All Doctors, where all eight Doctors must team up to stop a diabolical plan by the many incarnations of The Master, with the day ultimately saved by the recently introduced 9th Doctor, with the very specific circumstances of his Regeneration holding the key to saving all of Space-Time[11].
Nelvana had found success in the late 1980s with animated TV series based upon Babar the Elephant, The Bernstein Bears, and Clifford the Big Red Dog. Nelvana also developed a popular TV series based upon the Magic School Bus stories. A short-lived series based upon the Cadillacs and Dinosaurs comics series (a.k.a. Xenozoic Tales) aired in the early 1990s, but didn’t perform to expectations. However, it would acquire a cult following when played on Cartoon Central in syndication.
And then there was Aardman, a small studio out of England that specialized in stop-motion animation, principally Claymation. They’d first made a name for themselves in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s with a small series of silly and surreal little sketches based around the character of Morph, eventually leading to the TV series The Amazing Adventures of Morph, which ran on BBC from 1980-1981 and saw some airtime on The Disney Channel in syndication from 1984-1987. Aardman also gained international notice for their surreal music video for Peter Gabriel’s’ “Sledge Hammer” in 1986. However, 1991 would be their breakout year with Creature Comforts and A Grand Day Out. The former would win the Oscar for Best Animated Short, one of the few losses in that category for Disney in the era, and also beat out the latter Aardman production, which was also nominated. However, it would be A Grand Day Out that would be the best remembered of the two for introducing the characters of Wallace and Gromit.
Wallace and Gromit were the product of animator Nick Park, who’d first conceived of the characters in 1982 while in college and later developed them for Aardman as a side project. Gromit’s name was derived from the grommet, a piece of hardware Park’s brother, an electrician, often spoke about. Wallace was originally a postman named “Jerry”, a name that Park admitted “didn’t work”, until an encounter with a reference to a Scottish Rebel named William Wallace while in Glasgow led to the change[12]. The popular short spawned two more award-winning shorts, The Wrong Trousers (1993) and A Close Shave (1995). And rather than be bitter about repeatedly losing awards to the small studio, Disney Creative Chief Jim Henson agreed to distribute the shorts in the US though Buena Vista[13], where they sold well.
In fact, Park’s little “side project” had become so popular that the design: close-set eyes and a wide, expressive mouth, soon became the unofficial “Aardman look” and carried over into future productions whether Park was involved in them or not. Disney, Columbia, and Hollywood Animation all separately approached Aardman about a feature length Wallace and Gromit cartoon, but Park was not yet ready to develop such a project, so the Aardman team began brainstorming for new feature ideas, and debating about with whom they should work.
[1] Katzenberg reportedly pursued this idea at Disney in our timeline, but was constantly rejected by Eisner, possibly because Disney liked to avoid overtly religious projects. Katzenberg eventually took the idea with him to Dreamworks, where Spielberg in particular urged him to pursue it.
[2] Roughly analogous, accounting for inflation, to the 1998 Dreamworks feature in our timeline.
[3] The original Bluth My Fair Lady idea in our timeline eventually evolved into Anastasia while Katzenberg ultimately took the Pygmalion concept and applied it to a dark screenplay called 3000 about a drug-addicted prostitute being hired by a wealthy Wall Street man, resulting in Pretty Woman. 3000, of course, became Three Grand in this timeline, a dark tale of use and abuse in American society.
[4] The name is derived from the “Nicartoons” working title, which the board felt sounded too much like “nicotine”. This evolved to NickToon and then Neptune.
[5] In a bit of a meta-joke referencing War of the Worlds, Marvin complains the whole time he is on Earth about the “nasty cold” he’s picked up. Ultimately, between Bugs and the gang’s opposition and the “constant, irritating nasal congestion” he calls off the invasion of Earth and decides to “take on Pluto instead”, with what’s obviously Disneyland in his literal sights.
[6] It seems inevitable that Michael Jordan will become a superstar in this timeline too (nothing to butterfly that) and it seems likely that Jordan and WB would team up for commercials as they did in our timeline, thus it seems likely that some form of Space Jam will come up.
[7] Also known as Columbia Cartoon City. Their logo will become a series of stacked C’s that look like a skyscraper. Disney will consider and ultimately decide not to pursue a lawsuit based on the “Town” vs. “City” dynamic.
[8] Hat tip to @nick_crenshaw82 for digging up this old idea, which became the ill-fated Christmas in Tattertown pilot in our timeline.
[9] At the advice of Groening. More on this later.
[10] Hat tip to @Nathanoraptor, @GrahamB, and @Plateosaurus for this insane idea. GrahamB even provided this fitting piece of orphan dialog:
[The guys are drinking at Moe's. Mr. Burns is on the television over the bar.]
Lenny: Hey look, the boss in on the news again!
Homer: Ooh, what's he up to this time?
Lenny: Looks like he's escalating that whole deal with illegal whaling off Chile.
Karl: Hey good on him, whaling's a dying industry these days.
Moe: You know I used to do some whaling back in high school.
Karl: Oh yeah, how'd that turn out?
Moe: Eh, it was fine. Turns out the pay was better as a double agent for Interpol.
[11] Coming soon! Hat tip to @Daibhid C for reminding me of the anniversary!
[12] A chance encounter on a bus with a large dog named Wallace led to the change in our timeline (“a very northern name to give a dog”). Instead, he reaches the name a different way in this timeline. I kicked around ideas for a butterflied name for “Jerry”, such as Horace and Willis and Wilbur, but none of them seemed right. Maybe I’m stuck in OTL-bias. Call it laziness or unoriginality or serendipity or fate if you want…I have no regrets either way!
[13] After living for years in England Jim had developed a fondness for British humor. He’d undoubtedly have loved Wallace & Gromit.
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Man, what an update! There's a lot to chew on here, from an earlier Bluth-led Prince of Egypt, Cartoon TV dumping that awful name finally for something neater, more programming over there (though the lack of Pirates of Dark Water being mentioned saddens me, some things can't be preserved!), a Looney Tunes movie alongside Space Jam, Wayward Entertainment merging with Klasky-Csupó, and animating TTL's Rugrats and Simpsons, Bat-Shit Studios batting 100 after the failure of Las Vegas, Aardman making their appearance, and Nelvana handling an animated Doctor Who series, goodness gracious!
What a time to be alive!
What a time to be alive!
I'm intrigued by Nuclear Family - especially with Maggie's characterization; she sounds a lot like Angelica Pickles IOTL, especially with the "less bratty overtime" character development. And speaking of Rugrats, is Groening's suggestion to (slightly) age up the cast related to the idea that you can only go so far with literal babies as main characters? When you consider the lengths the OTL writers would go to for the basic idea to stay fresh, thus creating the common complaint of the parents being literal idiots (among other things), it's understandable.
Great to see a lot of the weird changes that have happened here, a lot of them sound really interesting. And of course, Wallace and Gromit's survival is a massive relief (I do hope Peter Sallis remains as Wallace, but that's just my own personal preference) and that Jim Henson really liked them is a really fun idea to think of.
It also aggravated a lot of people who felt that Vader lost a lot of mystique and credibility (along with the execution being silly); though in fairness that was inevitable when you’re telling an origin story. There’s nonetheless room to argue that even the idea could have been better handled (TCW definitely helped by giving us Anakin and Padme in further contexts of their relationship, plus better dialogue and letting them be in situations where it wasn’t playing ip the melodrama.
Pretty sure even Ahsoka’s actress said that it was deliberate. It worked, too; it makes you appreciate her more than if she’d just been likeable from the word “go”.
It also helped Anakin by giving him a foil; Ahsoka was a distinct relationship from Obi-Wan and Padme, and her presence helped to highlight his growing maturity whilst juxtaposed with his ever-present darker traits… Hell, Season 5 did so much more to justify his distrust and enmity for the Jedi in a still-misguided, but understandable way.
Same here.
While killing off characters can be stupid if done poorly, it’s also necessary to know where it’s more important, why it happens, and how it drives the plot forward.
If Hali is the Ahsoka of TTL, she’s surely set to remain an important player in the narrative.
Hmm, they could get an actor who actually keeps the beard (as the original plan was to have Kimble start clean-shaven and grow it out to disguise himself better, but Ford couldn’t stand having facial hair so they reversed it).
How often does any Bond foe survive? Besides Blofield, which was a book-feature of his (and sadly he didn’t get to play out his role due to legal rights), and Jaws came back once to get a redemption story… and Mr. White in SPECTRE I suppose. But most are one-off who are destined to die, as the slate is cleaned for the next movie.
It might be nice to have a one-off Bond villain survive and just be incarcerated forever; if there are any, blame my limited interest in keeping track of the franchise devoutly.
You must hate us so… Wait, this is only their second entry!?
*enters foetal position, muttering inanely to himself*
Weirdly enough (probably because of the shared name Lionel(, this The Railway Series mention actually reminded me of a 1990s British animated series with a similar concept to it — only it had sentient aircraft instead.
Huh… I mean, not that it’s not crossed my mind now and again, but I never connected the similarities to TRW/TTTE before, or thought of it while here. Funny, that.
Cool thoughts; it’s also worth noting that a toyline developed before its series can have changes in the series itself (for an OTL example lookat Beast Wars, some character models were altered from their original toyline designs).
Yes, but they’re not uniquely memorable like in WFRR? (though if we lose the Super Mario Bros. movie I’ll be relieved). Even so, I realise I may be coming on forceful and I’ll tone it down somewhat; I’d be keen to see what you do with him later.
Sure, just saying I’d like her to get an SW role that’s worthy of her… hmm, d’you think she’d be a good Mara Jade if a Sequel Trilogy appears in the 2000s; she’d be about the right age for it. Or just another supporting character would work; just not something like freaking Holdo, while letting her still be an Ascended Fangirl ITTL. 🥺
Heh. Everyone loves Mad Molly… not as much as she loves the Muppets, granted, but we can’t all be perfect.😁
S’long as it doesn’t interfere with (or be the cause of him losing) his role as the wretched Amon Goeth in Schindler’s List (a role which as it turns out, inspired the depiction of Judge Claude Frollo in OTL!THOND); if anything else causes him to lose that role I’ll be sad (as he’s iconic in that and I can’t picture anyone else there), but not resentful.I'll be honest with you. The switch to someone like that would have to happen in the 90s for the concept to work. The early 90s was the perfect time for ''Camp Cold War'' Bond to die. And if people ever get tired of a gritty, sociopathic portrayal, they can always adapt Midsummer Night's Doom for levity in 99 with Robbie Williams' Millenium as the main theme. If it doesn't kill the franchise it will, at least, take it down a possibly more lighthearted, typically early 00s route somewhere in 2003. Anyway, I've gone off the idea of Grant being Bond. I prefer @nick_crenshaw82 's Ralph Fiennes idea. The man is perfect for that kind of mold. I mean, look at him!
It would also be nice for Fiennes to play a more heroic individual, even if he’s still hard-nosed and gritty about it. Might even give his career a unique life ITTL… on the Bond note, whatever has Pierce Brosnan been up to? Besides actually getting to finish Remington Steele in a manner that doesn’t involve a Post-Script Season that’s subpar, by this point he’s probably doing something or other else.
Either way he sounds like a properly-implemented Big Bad to succeed Palpatine (or whatever his name is ITTL), and like he doesn’t outstay his welcome or such; others might feature in a potential Sequel Trilogy, but not everyone in the animated series SHOULD survive for that.
Agreed there.
I'm hoping that Bruce Timm was involved with the production design on Justice League, and maybe Superman. I do have one question regarding the line-up. Is it similar enough to OTL's? I could see the producers choosing John Stewart over Hal Jordan or Guy Gardner for diversity's sake and while Shayera Thal was active as Hawkwoman in the comics at the time, may I suggest Black Canary instead? My reasoning is that DC retconned Dinah as a League founder Post-Crisis, and it would give the producers reason to include Green Arrow for a guest appearance at later time.
Makes sense as fans identified Nightwing with the Titans at the time than they did Batman. I'm guessing the line-up would be similar enough to the OTL animated series (Nightwing, Starfire, Cyborg, Changeling [Beast Boy], and Raven.)
I'm curious as to whether Triad/Sega will commission an Astro the Armadillo animated series to capitalize on the character's popularity. If Filmation's too busy and there are no other available American studios, they can turn to the Land of the Rising Sun and if that is the case, may I suggest Toei Animation who was involved in the intro to OTL Sonic CD? (Though Pierrot, who animated the 1996 OVA is another possibility) The $64,000 question is what approach they want to take: a more serious take ala Sonic SaAM, a zany Tex Avery style like Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, or a fusion of both like the aforementioned Sonic OVA.
Some beneficial side effect of such a partnership is that Triad could possibly have access to Toei's library to dub for the American market, which would be less expensive than creating a show from scratch. Given that Toei animated the 90s Sailor Moon anime and the Dragon Ball series, there is a lot of money to made to ride the coming anime wave.
I know the consensus is Sean Bean or Ralph Fiennes, but I can also see Jason Isaacs or Hugh Grant playing Bond or even Kenneth Branagh.
Maybe add Kid Flash and Wonder Girl to the lineup to make it even more like the Perez-Wolfman comics and further tie it to the burgeoning DCAU.
The Prince of Egypt sounds like a messy production. Glad it made a decent amount of cash and saved all those animators jobs!
Ritzy Gal- I bet that soundtrack rocks, and probably sells the movie as much as the cast or story. Probably one I'd have seen.
Glad Warner Animation is still in the game. Are their films and shows made 'in house' like Disney or farmed out the animation houses abroad @Geekhis Khan ?
Neptune Chanel - all animation, all of the time heh?
Looney Tunes: March of the Martian Maroons - reads like madcap fun, but probably ITTL me would have seen it on disc or TV rather than pay cinema prices for it.
Space Slam, starring Michael Jordan - waiting for more details of this. You can bet I will 'stay tuned.'
Scooby Doo reboot - no Scrappy one hopes?
Super School- this actually sounds kinda cool. Do any of the characters break out and survive the show? Does Columba try to link this school with the other superheroes it has under Hanna-Barbara?
Teen Titans - details in another update hopefully?
Monster Mayhem with Kong and Godzilla - sounds like great fun, esp animated, but man is that an unwieldy title!
"Star Trek: Excelsior (which ran for 6 amazing seasons) and its three-season spin-off Captain Kraal, which followed a crew of Klingons" - immediate purchase for ITTL me as soon as its out on disc. I can have a D-Hopper so I can get my copies too please?
The Continuing Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle - I wonder if this will be seen as an 'mature/adult' cartoon later considering those sort of jokes and satire?
Junk City- made by FU does sound like exactly like a more mature cartoon with its horror themes. Did it go out later for adults or aim at a teen/student audience?
Hoerk & Gatty- ah, there is the kids/student level show. I suspect it wouldn't be one ITTL me would watch considering I didn't watch its OTL version.
Cool World- bet this does well in European markets.
Rugrats sucess is going to keep Wayland able to push out lots of other product. I hope it ran in 'real time' meaning the kid characters grew up and where replaced with new cast members?
Nuclear Family- while 14 years for an animated show is amazing, I see it did not continue forever, unlike certain shows. Presumably it did not use 'real time' due its self-aware nature. Did it become the show to get a cameo on for celeb's and bands like Simpsons has OTL?
Dr. Who- awesome that the series is still running. Are Nelvana using any of the CHERNBOG or similar machines for their work?
Tales of Doctors Past- sounds kinda cool. McCoy as Doctor #1 is a nice touch. That hint about the regen of 8 to 9 is a fun teaser!
Cadillacs and Dinosaurs- now that's an title I never expected to hear from.
Creature Comforts and A Grand Day Out etc- go Aardman! Wallace & Gromit! Glad Jim Henson is helping you get even bigger in America.
Really hope there is a place for a new Battle of the Planets adaption somewhere in the animation line-up?
Good chapter there!
Ritzy Gal- I bet that soundtrack rocks, and probably sells the movie as much as the cast or story. Probably one I'd have seen.
Glad Warner Animation is still in the game. Are their films and shows made 'in house' like Disney or farmed out the animation houses abroad @Geekhis Khan ?
Neptune Chanel - all animation, all of the time heh?
Looney Tunes: March of the Martian Maroons - reads like madcap fun, but probably ITTL me would have seen it on disc or TV rather than pay cinema prices for it.
Space Slam, starring Michael Jordan - waiting for more details of this. You can bet I will 'stay tuned.'
Scooby Doo reboot - no Scrappy one hopes?
Super School- this actually sounds kinda cool. Do any of the characters break out and survive the show? Does Columba try to link this school with the other superheroes it has under Hanna-Barbara?
Teen Titans - details in another update hopefully?
Monster Mayhem with Kong and Godzilla - sounds like great fun, esp animated, but man is that an unwieldy title!
"Star Trek: Excelsior (which ran for 6 amazing seasons) and its three-season spin-off Captain Kraal, which followed a crew of Klingons" - immediate purchase for ITTL me as soon as its out on disc. I can have a D-Hopper so I can get my copies too please?
The Continuing Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle - I wonder if this will be seen as an 'mature/adult' cartoon later considering those sort of jokes and satire?
Junk City- made by FU does sound like exactly like a more mature cartoon with its horror themes. Did it go out later for adults or aim at a teen/student audience?
Hoerk & Gatty- ah, there is the kids/student level show. I suspect it wouldn't be one ITTL me would watch considering I didn't watch its OTL version.
Cool World- bet this does well in European markets.
Rugrats sucess is going to keep Wayland able to push out lots of other product. I hope it ran in 'real time' meaning the kid characters grew up and where replaced with new cast members?
Nuclear Family- while 14 years for an animated show is amazing, I see it did not continue forever, unlike certain shows. Presumably it did not use 'real time' due its self-aware nature. Did it become the show to get a cameo on for celeb's and bands like Simpsons has OTL?
Dr. Who- awesome that the series is still running. Are Nelvana using any of the CHERNBOG or similar machines for their work?
Tales of Doctors Past- sounds kinda cool. McCoy as Doctor #1 is a nice touch. That hint about the regen of 8 to 9 is a fun teaser!
Cadillacs and Dinosaurs- now that's an title I never expected to hear from.
Creature Comforts and A Grand Day Out etc- go Aardman! Wallace & Gromit! Glad Jim Henson is helping you get even bigger in America.
Really hope there is a place for a new Battle of the Planets adaption somewhere in the animation line-up?
Good chapter there!
Space Slam with Michael Jordan a few years earlier means no R Kelly (YAY) and no I Believe I Can Fly (nay, hate the guy, still love the song because it's a classic REGARDLESS of who sang it and wrote it)
That is true, so that's why Lucasfilm is probably going to be very choosy on which main supporting character dies in the future Sequel Trilogy. Assuming that Halix becomes even more important or becomes part of the new protagonist trio in the Sequels (with Jacen and Jaina), then it does mean she has a likelier chance of being alive.
I sure hope so, since going down this path means we could have a very enriching and fun character on our hands, perhaps even becoming the moral anchor that Jacen needed to stay within the light.
Speaking of Hali, I found a great concept of a female Twi'lek Jedi that could stand in for her. What do you think?
Female jedi twi'lek by mistermat05 on DeviantArt
www.deviantart.com
Kurt Russell might actually get the opportunity to play Alan Grant over Harrison Ford or Sam Neill in Disney's Jurassic Park since they're willing to pay top dollar for him and have him do a beard look.
It's likely that she could play Mara Jade since the Sequels are going to be around the time of OTL. Also, I don't know why you're even bringing up Holdo in this alternate canon, unless you want Geekhis to create a character like her, looking down on Luke or Jacen. 🤣
Nah, the post clearly states that he dies by the end of the Thrawn Trilogy, so it's very likely that Thrawn becomes the ultimate big bad of the Sequel Trilogy or even the entire era itself (unless we get a SW Legacy situation with a Darth Krayt-like figure).
Probably not, as even with the earlier introduction and proliferation of anime, it's still too early for its popularity to really take off or its impact to set in stone among the mainstream for that to happen.
Wow, this is another massive post, so yeah, it's a lot to take in, but man is there so much good content to go around!
Well here goes...
- Bluth and Katzenberg: I guess this was bound to happen, but man am I glad that it finally did with Bluth's studio joining forces with former DIC animators in Hollywood Animation. Plus we got to see Prince of Egypt actually be made ITTL? Love it!
- The DIC Head: I see what you did there Geekhis! He arguably deserves that title, though he could be less of a "DIC Head" as time passes...or maybe not. Who knows?
- Ritzy Gal: Interesting to see Anastasia take on a new form here with this Jazz-age piece, but I am a bit saddened that he does not do Anastasia anymore, since I do love the story of the Romanovs, so maybe he'll do it for the future as a straightforward tragedy piece?
- Nickelodeon Neptune: A shame that the TL has abandoned the NickToons moniker, as I have fond memories of shows coming out of the network, but maybe WB could add some aesthetic pizzazz to the channel (maybe a blue slime planet) because I gotta admit, I personally think the Neptune name is fairly bland.
- Sidenote: If Nickelodeon does make Toonami, the existence of Neptune means we're probably going to have a nautical theme to the programming block...
- Space Jam: Surprised that it even got made amidst the butterflies but hooray I guess? Seems like 90s peeps will have some major nostalgia for that movie ITTL just like in OTL, but we'll see if Warner Bros makes a reboot/sequel.
- Cartoon City: Unlike Damian, I'm not fond of the rename, since I do prefer Cartoon TV, but I can stomach it better than NickToons -> Neptune. Regardless, I hope that we'll get a similar level of success for CC as it was for CN.
- The Rebels of Rallah: Yikes, I don't understand why adding Confederate themes/romanticization was needed for a series like this. Did Ted Turner forget that people are a lot more observant with such content?
- Monster Mayhem: Nice to see a Kaiju cartoon make it here in the United States thanks to Universal. No doubt that it will be a cornerstone 90s cartoon with that description!
- Bakshi-Kricfalusi: It's fascinating to see them transition from mostly adult animation to kids cartoons (with some exceptions) but all of their shows seem to be doing exceptionally well, even if it's for niche audiences. Rocky & Bullwinkle and Hoerk & Gatty are the highlights for me.
- Rugrats: Again, very nice to see this made, and one where it enjoys the same critical acclaim and popularity that its OTL counterpart as. Plus, All Grown Up! by the 2010s? I'd actually think it would be quite fitting since they can tackle teenager issues with greater nuance and diversity, perhaps as a sort of continuation of shows like Degrassi.
- Nuclear Family: Wow, so even with The Bunyans, The Simpsons still get made? Huh. Funny how that works.
- Nelvana: Really excited to see all of those shows be mentioned, as they formed a great part of my childhood when I was just watching PBS. Excited to see them show up somewhere in my ITTL counterpart's life.
- Aardman: I wonder where his shows will go. I reckon that Shawn the Sheep should go towards The Disney Channel.
Probably not, since it is a reboot of what is presumably the original cast. Still, he's probably going to show up *somewhere* in the new continuity...
YES. MAKE THIS!
On Nintendo's side, I wonder if Disney could make an animated show about either Zelda or Mario, with the former developing the impetus towards that coveted Ghibli movie while the latter could ride off the coattails of what's presumably a successful Mario movie.
I've been listening to the phenomenal Revolutions podcast's run of the Russian Revolution(s) for the second time now I am convinced TTL's version of HBO ought to make a series about Alex and Nicky. It's a simple enough story: a loving husband and wife are brought to ruin by their own failings (notably willful ignorance of the facts and inability to accept advice they don't want to hear) and perennial wrong choices. A tragedy worthy of a Greek opera that contrasts strongly with the genuinely loving home life they had with their kids.
It needs to be a series though as it's two decades of events and far too large for a single film.
Alternately, it makes a fine foundation for a daytime drama series in the vein of Dallas by changing the Romanovs to a wealthy family in your nation of choice. A tragic Schitt's Creek as it were, only everyone dies at the end.
Might be best to wait until Hali actually has a personality before giving her artwork; that said, it's a good image, but I don't think it's "Ahsoka" enough.Speaking of Hali, I found a great concept of a female Twi'lek Jedi that could stand in for her. What do you think?
Female jedi twi'lek by mistermat05 on DeviantArt
Well given how much is in there I refrained from commenting all at once... but here goes nothing!
- Glad PoE got made, I loved it (even if I'm a staunch atheist), though there's no doubt a different cast is assembled here (no Val as Moses for instance).
- Ritzy Gal looks and sounds nice, and presumably won't bastardise history like Anastasia did. Though from the premise alone, I feel like there;s nothing in it live action couldn't do, and I hope there's some fantastical elements in there animation can do.
- The Justice League, Wonder Woman, and Superman series all sound like we'd be discussing them all week. I guess for the second, the Marston Estate got a deal with WWB (or other way around)
- Looney Tunes: March of the Martian Maroons sounds pleasant enough, but i'm glad 90's kids got their Space Jam in some way. Hey maybe for the sequel, the gang do wrestling, or join Tony Hawk for Skate Jam (real concept)
- Cartoon City looks great especially Super School and Villain U, and young me would be all over Scooby Doo. Rebels of Rallah, though? Not in my book. Its gonna age like milk, especially if there's a race the rebels are very bigoted against. But then again, OTL Ted did give us Gods and Generals, so no surprise. Only way it could be redeemed is if we got follow-up revealing it was all propaganda and we leaernt the real story. Or, we get an entry where it and other analysed for their cultural context!
- Rocy and Bullwinkle sounds amazing! The Burnitalia bit could age badly in regards to muslims, though.
- FU Cartoons is hilarious. Maybe they insist its pronounced like "Fool" or "Fouke" to get away with it?
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Oh, it'll age like a fine back-ally dumpster. We'll see if it's as bad as Carbombya from the 80s Transformers that had cast members quit in protest.
Knowing the franchise though, maybe they'll mock it and themselves for it.
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