OUAN05 - Understanding - History of British Animation

Watership Down, 1978

The history for British animation spans over a century, starting in what is referred to as the 'first wave'. The first wave started around the 1930s, whereas in the USA, animation was already commercially established. In the UK, this was the time when the industry was starting to be recognised and Government Public Information films allowed for a greater experimentation than in other animation industries around the world, especially in the US. During the 1950s the popularisation of children's television was a shift in the demographic orientation of animation in the direction of children and children's television programmes, this also paved the way for the animation industry as a whole and opened up new potential for the industry. Also, the influential and groundbreaking animated feature, 'Animal Farm' was released in 1954 exhibited for its explicitly political content and adult tone, future UK animated features would continue to maintain a dark toner, much darker than most US productions.

In the year 1950 itself, new puppet based children's programmes would emerge. These would include; 'Andy Pandy' and 'The Flowerpot Men' which would later become almost staples of British children's animation. Another example of this was the character, 'Noddy', derived from a children's book and has appeared in a number of animated interpretations as a children's television series since in various forms such as stop motion and even CGI. The BBC also contributed heavily to the development of the animation industry, with a considerable amount of investment in resources and personnel geared towards children's media which would again open new avenues and expand the at the time small industry in entertainment for children because it was so new. This was inclusive of animation and in particular, stop motion animation which was derived from the same skill-set as the puppetry used to create previous children's television shows. Some of the shows that came about during the first wave in this period came from model maker, Peter Firmin and writer Oliver Postgate who would go on to create several animation works for children using the stop motion technique such as 'Pingwings', 'Pogles Wood' and 'Clangers'. It is also during this period that links between children's animation and literature can be formed. With this, ties can be seen with social realist cinema, documentaries and theatrical comedy. The transition from puppetry to stop motion also demonstrates an eastern European influence, such as that of Czech animator, 'Jiri Trnka'.

Later than this, in the late 70s, 'Watership Down' was released. Adapted from the children's novel of the same name, it was successful whilst maintaining the darker themes and tone, similar to that of the previously mentioned, 'Animal Farm'.

From this point onwards British animation entered the second wave. There was a growing diversity in artistic approaches during this time with the emergence of channel four and its pushing of the boundaries of the issues and themes it tackled on screen including the representation of ethnicity and sexuality. A lot of the animation that was shown by channel four during this early stage proved to be almost too experimental for the mainstream audience, however it yielded success globally nonetheless. An example of a successful channel four animation that also proved to be financially a success would be, 'The Snowman' which is still a christmas favourite now. It was around this time that the company 'Aardman' also started to break into the mainstream with series such as 'Creature Comforts' and 'Wallace & Gromit' which were all directed by Nick Park. Stop motion would continue to have a presence with series such as 'Postman Pat' and 'Thomas the Tank Engine' which also featured sections of stop motion animation.

The third wave of British animation is considered to have started in the late 90s and is still continuing today. The rise of new Labour would mean a softening of left wing dissidence in alternative comedy and experimentation, this has more of an effect on industries than I personally realised, before looking into it further. The emergence of SKY television allowed more access to a wide variety of programmes and animation particularly in the area of children's television with the Disney Channel emerging in 1995 followed by Cartoon Network in 1999.

It was during this time that animation was being offered to a much wider variety of audiences during the late 90s and early 00s. The Simpsons and a little later on, South Park would provide the foundations of a whole industry of adult orientated animation, featuring adult humour. This had an effect on the British industry too with series emerging aimed at adults, most notably; 'Pond Life', 'Stressed Eric', 'Bob & Margaret', 'Monkey Dust', 'Modern Toss', 'I Am Not an Animal' and 'Popetown'. Some of these animations were notoriously controversial, especially Popetown which was never run by the channel that commissioned it, BBC3. Other series featured darker or more adult themes such as beastiality, murder, suicide and paedophilia.