1920s - 1960s: The Golden & Silver Ages
Fleischer Studios
Fleischer Studios was the primary competitor to Walt Disney Studios during the Great Depression, up until the latter's release of Snow White in 1937. Characters in their repertoire included Betty Boop and Popeye the Sailor Man, and their Superman series exhibited animation that is still considered phenomenal to this day. The demand for full-length cartoons led to the rapid development of both Gulliver's Travels and Mr. Bug Goes To Town, both released alongside Disney's "golden age" films. The studio's acquisition by Paramount following a period of financial troubles was the deathblow to such productions, and Famous Studios (known for Casper the Friendly Ghost and other characters) was built upon its ashes. The original Fleischer company, however, is still fondly remembered by those nostalgic for the style of those first-wave cartoons.
United Productions Of America
United Productions of America (commonly called UPA) was crafted by former upper-echelon Disney artists, after the 1941 strike that led to a mass exodus from the studio. After struggling to find their unique identity in the 40s through wartime training films and theatrical shorts (there was not much business in features at this time, for understandable reasons), their breakout success came in the form of Mr. Magoo, Dick Tracy, and Gerald McBoing Boing. The success of these series set them up as the trendsetters in design for the animation industry as a whole throughout the 50s and the 60s, which started a stylistic choice separating them from the realism of Disney and ultimately became a cost-cutting measure for the studios at Warner Bros, MGM, and Hanna-Barbera. However, they only managed to produce two features themselves before shuttering in 1970, those being 1001 Arabian Nights (starring Mr. Magoo) and Gay Purr-ee, written by the inspirational Chuck Jones who would also direct The Phantom Tollbooth.
Other Features
The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926) is often cited as the true first feature-length animated film, in contrast to Disney's claim with Snow White. The latter was the first in full sound and color, however, while Prince Achmed is a silent film animated in silhouette with paper cutouts. Neither aspect takes away from the film's overall quality or innovation, and though other features were being produced as early as the first World War, many of these are considered "lost films" while Lotte Reiniger's work is preserved in a restored format to this day. If anything, it deserves a place among other experimental films made during Germany's Expressionist era, including The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Nosferatu, and Metropolis.
Animal Farm (1954) is widely considered the first "official" animated feature produced and released in Britain, though it was nominally financed by the United States' CIA as part of its cultural war with the USSR. Not quite as satisfactory as the George Orwell novel it is based on (especially considering the forced change to the ending to make it appear more optimistic than cynical), but it's certainly preferable to other, less faithful adaptations in later years.
Yellow Submarine (1968), directed by George Dunning, did little to improve the already massive popularity of the Beatles at the time. It did help to renew interest in animation as a medium for serious film rather than just children's fare, as was the common notion at the time. It also shined a spotlight back on often overlooked Disney classics such as Fantasia and Alice In Wonderland, particularly for their more "psychedelic" sequences.
1970s - 1980s: Small Studios
MGM Animation & Nelvana Ltd.
Full disclosure: only Rock & Rule was produced by Canadian studio Nelvana; it was
distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The others are in-house productions of MGM.
Initially known for the classic Tom and Jerry shorts, MGM tried their hand at animated features with The Phantom Tollbooth (1968), directed by the venerable Chuck Jones. It would be the first (and last) animated film released by MGM, as it ultimately led to the closing of the company's animation department. This division would not be resurrected again until the 1990s, whereupon it produced original works such as Babes In Toyland, an anthropomorphic Tom Sawyer, and direct-to-video sequels to Don Bluth movies. Judging by their covers, these are all probably terrible.
In contrast, Rock & Rule has the greatest film poster of all time. Of all time.
Rankin / Bass Productions
If Rankin/Bass Productions is known for anything out of the countless films, television specials, and cartoon series they've created, it is both the stop-motion Christmas movies of the 60s and 70s, and the traditionally-animated Tolkien films released long before Peter Jackson signed a deal with New Line Cinema. The latter are included here, as well as other 2D films that have fallen to the wayside over time. Honestly though, not only would The Last Unicorn be the only one somewhat familiar to modern audiences, it is also the only I have seen besides The Hobbit and The Return Of The King. I can't really say much for the others, other than I wish they were played every year during the holidays instead of the infernal Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer.
Nepenthe Productions
Martin Rosen was the director/producer/writer of Watership Down (1978) and The Plague Dogs (1982), both of which are based on novels written by Richard Adams. Both of these films also happen to be infamous as two of the most traumatizing movies originally intended for children, as it was still the common perception that animated movies (especially those featuring cute, talking animals) were strictly family-friendly. Rather than go the political or urban route of Ralph Bakshi, or the violence and sex of Heavy Metal, this pair of films features generous helpings of blood and gore. Though they are hailed by fans for the depth of their stories or the treatment of the source material, it will be a long time before there isn't someone who looks back on these films and blogs about how disturbed they were as a child to have watched them.
Hanna-Barbera Productions
In the time between Disney's two periods of cultural supremacy, there was the "Dark Ages" of animation when the rule rule for cartoons was to produce them as quickly and efficiently as possible. Of all the small studios that run amok in this era, Hanna-Barbera was king, and it flooded the market with countless series, shorts, and films, as well as the numerous characters that populated them. It was an off-shoot of its direct predecessor MGM, and founded by the very men who created Tom & Jerry themselves. Rising to prominence in the 1960s, it would dominate the animation landscape throughout the 70s with series such as the Flintstones, Scooby-Doo, and the Smurfs, until petering out in the 80s during the decline in relevancy of the "Saturday morning cartoon" formula. Media mogul Ted Turner would buy them out in the next decade, and use their catalog as the basis for his new children's program: Cartoon Network. And the rest is history...
The majority of the films produced by Hanna-Barbera were based on these trademarked characters, such as the Top Cat and Tom & Jerry movies which I included for my own childhood memory's sake. A few, however, were either adaptations of novels (Charlotte's Web and Heidi's Song) or original concepts by the studio itself, including Rock Odyssey which I have never seen or heard of, and Once Upon A Forest which came and went quickly in the early 90s. I can't really argue for the quality of any of these movies, nor can I say that any of them are as classic as other studios' output. Overall, it was not a time in animation I was particularly fond of; neither for the excess of marketable mascot characters or the simplified method in which they were given life on screen. I was always much more interested in the resurgence in "real" animation towards the end of the 20th century.
Hyperion Pictures
The 1970s were a period of transition for the animation world: many of the "old guard" or directors and artists had either retired or passed away within the previous decade, including Walt Disney himself. This necessitated a changing of the so-called guard and the recruitment of a whole new generation of animators, some of whom were taught and trained by the Nine Old Men themselves at CalArts. This included Disney veterans such as Don Bluth, Glen Keane, Andreas Deja,
Tim Burton...and John Lasseter.
Lasseter was among the first in the industry to propose a film animated completely by computers, and he did so with The Brave Little Toaster story as his prototype. His pitch to the studio executives was not warmly received however, considering its significant reach and expense, and he was promptly fired while the project was handed over to the company's newest subsidiary: Hyperion Pictures. The aforementioned picture would therefore be animated traditionally, while the claim to "first" full CGI feature would be given to Toy Story by Pixar, a company founded by Lasseter.
A Brave Little Toaster would remain largely forgotten save by animation chroniclers and those affected by the film's sparse moments of intensity, and the follow-ups Rover Dangerfield and Bebe's Kids would suffer the same fate as well. Like many of the larger studios that followed them throughout the "Renaissance" period of the 90s, they would not return to the business after such costly failures.
