This is the final part of a three-part analysis/lazy history lesson on cartoon programmes that have been spawned off of popular feature films. Click here to read part one, in which we discussed the inception of the format and the quality going into the 90s. Or click here to read part two, in which the cartoons got a lot better in general. Ready? Let’s go…
We got stars directin’ our fate
The New Millennium
It was the year 2000! Robbie Williams’ hit song was already two years old and I ushered in the new year crying at a family party. But things were doing better on TV. In fact, things had never been better. Disney showed no signs of stopping the method that had made them a household name again! Tarzan had proven to be another huge hit in 1999 and the studio was experimenting with different animation styles (including CGI) over the coming year with the likes of Dinosaur and The Emperor’s New Groove. There’s no WAY those films would underperform at the box-office and start a downward trend that got made new president Bob Iger shit his undies.
They were blissfully unaware of what the future held so stuck to the formula. The Legend of Tarzan followed the further adventure of Tarzan and Jane as they got in and then back out again of trouble within the jungle. Whilst the film it followed wasn’t afraid to get dark (remember when Kerchak was lynched by vines?), The Legend of Tarzan kept things bright, breezy, and above all, child friendly. This notion of toning down aspects of violence was a lingering threat in the early noughties, and is something we haven’t seen the last of…
As was standard fare, The Legend of Tarzan was closed by a direct-to-video feature-length special called Tarzan & Jane which was really just three episodes of the show strung together. Yet, after the finales of some of their other Disney Channel programming, they needed to mine another IP for show ideas. Luckily, they had one of the best back-catalogues ever. And PIXAR in their back pocket.
Buzz Lightyear of Star Command was a 2D traditionally-animated spinoff of Toy Story. It was the fictitious show-within-the-film that Buzz Lightyear comes from, and therefore was allowed to be something completely different. In this case, a grand space epic adventure akin to Star Wars and the like. The pilot, a straight-to-video feature-length special, even features Woody and the gang in PIXAR-animated segments as they watched the first episode of the show. It was an event at the time, and I couldn’t open to the video case quick enough. Whilst Patrick Warburton voiced Buzz across the series, Tim Allen actually returned to voice the space ranger for the opening film, which gave it that little bit of extra quality.
Star Command worked so well because of its tenuous link to the source material. Evil emperor Zurg (voiced wonderfully by Wayne Knight) was such a commanding presence that as long as he went toe-to-toe with Buzz every now and then the show was free to dip its toe into any science fiction trope it wanted. It even managed to spawn a videogame, which younger me could never complete and always found slightly terrifying.
After the success of Star Command, Disney looked for another franchise. 2002’s Lilo & Stitch was an unexpected success at the box-office (they put more of their eggs in the Treasure Planet basket that year, which is a brilliant movie but unfortunately bombed hard). Lilo & Stitch told the story of Stitch (or ‘experiment 626’) – an alien created by mad scientist Dr. Jumba Jookiba, who finds a home on Hawaii with young Lilo after she adopts him as her dog. A direct-to-video feature-length pilot (those again) entitled Stitch! The Movie was released to usher in the animated series.
The series focuses on the other 625 of Jumba’s experiments scattering across Hawaii, which the duo and their friends have to find new homes for. Most cartoon premises often had a self-imposed time limit on them, in order to maintain an end goal in case of premature cancellation. It ran for two seasons and 65 episodes, and often had crossovers with numerous other Disney cartoons at the time including American Dragon: Jake Long, The Proud Family, Recess and Kim Possible. Those episodes were…weird. Especially the Recess one. All of this culminated in the standard practice of yet another direct-to-video finale entitled Leroy & Stitch which capped the series off rather nicely forever…y’know, until the live-action reboot comes out.
Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes!
Violence is bad and relics from the 90s
In the aftermath of 9/11, various productions that had already been filmed/animated had to be changed and altered. There are dozens of examples, many of which are now fascinating to see. The original Spider-Man’s teaser trailer, for example. The deleted original finale to Men in Black 2. Lilo & Stitch originally ended with Stitch and co. hijacking a Boeing 747 and flying through Honolulu to rescue Lilo. This was changed to the mountain-chase scene in the final film today, inside Jumba’s spaceship instead of a Boeing. Not only that, but the argument of cartoon violence became overshadowed by real-world violence.
It was impossible to avoid news coverage, and children were awash with scenes of trauma the likes of which they’d never seen. This resulted in a strange metamorphosis, piggybacking off the campaign to end cartoon violence, and soon the cartoons themselves took on a lighter note just for the sake of distracting viewers from real-world atrocities. The 24-hour news cycle now meant everyone was more aware of the real-world repercussions. It’s a sombre note, I know. But one that’s important when going forward. Let’s brighten things up a bit.
Meanwhile elsewhere in Hollywood everyone was still busy over the fact that Steven Sommers’ The Mummy was released and ended up being the best film ever made. With its Indiana Jones-type adventure and The Mummy Returns in production, it made sense for the show to be turned into a cartoon. Unfortunately, my best friend Brendan Fraser didn’t return to voice Rick O’Connell, but that’s okay because more emphasis was put on his son Alex, and the family’s battle with Imhotep. In the series, the O’Connells are racing against the mummy god to find all the sacred scrolls of Egypt, that will grant the winner eternal power. It’s fairly standard cartoon synopsis stuff, and the show’s second season even went in on some medjai mythology too.
The film of course, leant slightly into the horrific imagery of the genre, and of course the show couldn’t do the same. It did manage to have its moments however, and even snuck in the scarab beetles for some formidable foes. Universal Cartoon Studios (the guys behind the Back to the Future series and the wonderful Earthworm Jim) did what they could with the animation, but it was a transformative period where stylistic choices were seen as damaging to the marketing potential of a show. Because of its genesis before some terrible events, many of these shows in this period feel like leftovers from the 90s, with the same style and aesthetic. It’s as if they were doomed from the start.
In the now-modern age of technological advancements and the progression of representation, the idea of R-rated exploits being changed to suit a young audience were deemed ridiculous and damaging to their innocent little minds. The Mummy was a kind of threshold, a PG-13 (15, here in the UK, though later changed to a 12) cut-off point that many franchises aspired to be. Maximum profit margin and dollar signs in the eyes.
But these sensibilities were from a bygone era. Simple adaptations of blockbuster films needed some updating. It also didn’t help that you could tell when a product was manufactured from a mile away. I have a soft spot for Ivan Reitman’s Evolution – an alien spiritual successor to Ghostbusters. The film was a commercial disappointment, barely making its budget back. However, in the months that followed an animated series was released. Whoopsie, looks like someone thought they were going to be more popular than they were…
Granted, it was actually pretty cool. Some quick-evolving alien menaces were always threatening to destroy Earth, and the (heavily altered) team from the film was dispatched to put a stop to things. The strangest changes however were to Sean William Scott’s character Wayne Grey. After being the first human exposed to alien DNA, he develops a sympathetic mutation which allows him to transform depending on whatever alien he interacts with. A shapeshifter, basically. Oh, and they also had an alien dog that looked like the emoji logo of the film. #Branding
2001’s Osmosis Jones is a 50/50 film. The animated segments that follow a maverick white blood cell cop inside an middle-aged man’s body fighting against anthrax with the help of a cold pill named Drix are a marvel of creativity and animation. Tom Sito and Piet Kroon deserved better. In fact, the animated world they built was so good it lead to Ozzy & Drix, an animated series as the two of them are transferred to a teenage boy’s body via mosquito and ensure to keep him healthy during puberty.
The budgetary restraints meant that the animation could never match the source material, but Ozzy & Drix went for a traditional cop procedural drama, with a noir-esque setup between the two ‘cops’ that was hard to resist. Notice the progressively brighter colour palette too, Ozzy & Drix was one of the last series for a few years to feature pure black as a common tone. And besides, another animation technique was quickly beginning to take over…
‘Ok Computer, render this’
CGI and the Nickelodeon Effect
John A. Davis pitched Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius to Nickelodeon in the late 90s, and the network were so impressed that they talked about the possibility of both a series and a feature film. Davis convinced them to release the film first, in the opposite of what their opposition – Disney were doing at the time. The film was backed by an extensive marketing campaign and was a success, spawning The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius the following year. By reusing the CGI assets from the theatrical release, they were able to keep the animation quality at a steady pace throughout the series. Of course, this was also the early noughties on a TV budget, so the fluidity of animation was rigid at best and the animation hasn’t particularly aged well.
That didn’t particularly matter when the show was so funny. Jimmy Neutron proved to be a huge hit for the network thanks to smart writing and offbeat characters, and spawned hundreds of pieces of merchandise from clothing to videogames and even multiple spinoffs with The Fairly Odd Parents. A spinoff of the series – Planet Sheen – didn’t go down so well later on.
Nevertheless, the prominence of computer generated imagery was something the network wanted to keep trying. Luckily advancements in the technology meant that the animation quality itself improved rather quickly (though at the same time that meant shows became outdated at a faster rate). Nickelodeon repeated the Jimmy Neutron formula a few years later with another CGI theatrical release, Barnyard in 2006. Focusing on the members of a farm who keep their socialising and party-lifestyle secret from all humans. Despite negative reviews it was commercially successful, and lead to Back at the Barnyard airing on Nickelodeon for two seasons soon after.
By this point in my life, I had begun to step away from the likes of Nickelodeon, Disney Channel and my beloved Cartoon Network. My angst-ridden teens were beginning to show, and I longed for the darker stuff in-keeping with my 90s attitude. From here on the shows I’ll be talking about I’ve mostly just skimmed during their original runs and caught up on whilst researching for this project, so these thoughts are from adult me’s perspective unless said otherwise.
The Madagascar film series teamed up with Nickelodeon in order to produce a spinoff series entitled The Peguins of Madagascar about…well, the penguins of Madagascar. Taking place in an alternate timeline from the film series, the show followed the paranoid and clinical operations of the quartet of quippers with flippers (thank you) as they attempted to keep things running smoothly at Central Park Zoo. Characters from Madagascar including King Julien and Maurice are also residents of the zoo…somehow. But that’s not important. What is important is that the show was executive produced by the team behind Buzz Lightyear of Star Command and featured a heavy dose of pretty solid CGI slapstick.
The series was a commercial success and later spawned a theatrically released film, as well as another spinoff All Hail King Julien over on Netflix. But that series was crafted after the end of Nickelodeon’s contract with Dreamworks animation studios. After the box-office disappointment of Rise of the Guardians (brilliant film) in 2012, Dreamworks struggled to stay afloat outside of sequels, and began to invest more money into its television output. This resulted in a wealth of animated series and lead us nicely into…
The Dreamworks Effect
A Mutation of ‘The Nickelodeon Effect’
Whilst Disney went into despair theatrically throughout the mid-noughties, Dreamworks thrived. After the success of the Shrek franchise they followed it up with a string of hits including Shark Tale, Kung-Fu Panda and How to Train Your Dragon whilst the likes of Bolt are barely ever brought up in conversation. However, as soon as the 2010s hit, this effect seemed to dissipate. Original productions were cut in favour of sequels and the studio began to become stagnant. The only thing that could stop this would be my very own pitch for Shrek 5 which you can read by clicking right here. Plug plug plug sell sell sell.
Anyway, the success of Penguins inspired Dreamworks to adapt Kung-Fu Panda for the small screen. It had already experienced minor success with themed television specials based on their properties, shorts like Shrek the Halls and Merry Madagascar did the job of an animated series in condensed fashion. Kung-Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness is set after the events of the first film and follows Po’s journey to becoming a Kung-Fu master. Strangely, Lucy Liu and James Hong return from the original voice cast, but the rest are replaced with the traditional soundalikes. Jack Black does provide a pretty sweet theme song though. A sequel series over on Amazon Prime debuted a year ago, entitled The Paws of Destiny, showing the continued strength of the story. Sadly there is no version in English online with the visuals of the show, so have a taste of the French version instead!
The studio then repeated the process after inking a new exclusive deal with Netflix, starting with Dreamworks’ Dragons based off the How to Train Your Dragon series and the novel by Cressida Cowell. The increased production budget thanks to Netflix actually resulted in almost the entire voice cast returning across the show’s 118(!) episodes, which fill in the gap between the first and second films. The show was a resounding success, and actually succeeds along with Legends of Awesomeness to be two franchise extensions that can be held up alongside their source material. The switch to Netfix worked! But Nickelodeon was still attached for one more series.
Thus, Monsters Vs. Aliens was mined for material. The 2009 film was a modest success, though the four-year gap between it and the series meant that it failed to capitalise on recognition. Whilst the concept was strong and the characters were zany enough to entertain its target audience, MVA never really took off and was cancelled soon after due to low ratings.
It didn’t help that the animation quality was noticeably different too. In the huge streaming boom of the 2010s, kids now had access to what they wanted to watch rather than what was scheduled. The demand for something eye-catching rose, and Netflix’s budget allowed them to splash some cash towards Dreamworks. With the kid-friendly Netflix in full-display, the company needed content and Dreamworks was ready to invest. The 2D-animated Turbo Fast, Trolls: The Beat Goes On, Dawn of The Croods and Home: Adventures with Tip and Oh all took residence on the streaming service and provided simple yet well-meaning entertainment for the younger generation.
Again, I’d like to emphasise the fact that at this point I’m a late teenager/early adult and the shows in question were no longer for me. I still took great interest in animated theatrical releases by the same studios but they’re television output seemed strangely lifeless. The Adventures of Puss in Boots managed to capture the spirit of the source material whilst not talking down to children. The condensed CGI animation is more along the lines of Dragons and the show has even experimented with different formats (including an interactive episode). Of course, the cast didn’t return but that didn’t stop the show from being a resounding success.
The company couldn’t be stopped. The Boss Baby: Back in Business unfortunately skips the more interesting conceptual ideas from the source material in favour of meandering silliness. 2002’s traditionally animated Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron was given a CGI revamp at Netflix to great success however, so much so that another feature film has been confirmed based on the series. Spirit: Riding Free is a breakaway from the more ponderous beauty of the Oscar-nominated original, and instead puts both feet firmly into the ‘horse girl’ territory (something Netflix has apparently mastered, seriously have you seen how many horse shows/films they make?! I fully suggest Free Reign though).
It’s not that Dreamworks’ output was bad by any means, in fact their quality had risen significantly. The main issue is that most film adaptations now were being aimed towards a younger demographic. Kids of around ten are already graduating to the likes of live-action superhero dramas, and thus, was this the end of the cartoon? Pfft. No. Not by a long shot. But before we get into that let’s take a look at some oddities…
Wait…what?
Misplaced Enthusiasm
The Stuart Little films were a strange family oddity based on the book by E.B. White. After the first one proved to be a massive hit the actually amazing sequel performed to modest success. If you’ve ever wondered why Stuart Little 3: Call of the Wild went down the animated route, maybe the 2003 animated series has something to do with it?
This was one of the final series produced by Adelaide Productions, those masters from the 90s responsible for some of the best cartoons ever. It was produced simultaneously with their CGI Spider-Man: The New Animated Series however, and the poor viewership for both projects meant they were each cancelled after a single season. It’s a shame too, as the Stuart Little series had a lot of promise with a nice art style – it was miles better than the third film instalment. The most baffling thing about it is that Hugh Laurie himself continued to voice Frederick Little, in a surprising piece of loyalty. If he needed the money he needn’t have worried, as House started the very next year.
One of Disney’s last attempts to salvage a franchise before the 2010s came from an unexpected source – The Emperor’s New Groove. Whilst the film itself had been a commercial disappointment, strong word-of-mouth and home sales got an animated series in the works after a successful straight-to-video film Kronk’s New Groove. That’s right, we’re talking about The Emperor’s New School. In the series, Emperor Kuzco realises that he must first graduate from Kuzco Academy in order to take control of the land again whilst Yzma and Kronk take on roles at the school too in order to prevent that. And you know what? It kind of worked…
The entire cast returned apart from David Spade and John Goodman, the series kept the 4th wall-breaking sense of humour and fleeting one-liners that worked so well in the original, and the physical comedy of Kronk never failed to make me laugh. Whilst it’s nowhere near as charming as the film, it received an unfair amount of criticism for failing to include any real educational value despite being set in a school. I think every kid watching thanked them for bypassing that.
More recently, the Disney Channel has adapted Big Hero 6 – itself an adaptation of another MARVEL comic series, into an animated series. However, where the film was crafted with CG, the series takes on a traditional 2D approach which lends itself to the original comic format. Most of the cast returned as the team of friends who save San Fransokyo from peril each week, but for me personally there’s now little to distinguish it from the sheer wealth of other superhero content that’s constantly available.
But while we’re on the subject of changing art styles, Sony Pictures Animation hastily put together an animated prequel series of their hit film Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. Once again by changing the 3D animation to a 2D simplistic style, much of the illusion of the primary film is lost. Not to mention the fact that it follows flourishing mad scientist Flint Lockwood and Sam Sparks together through college, despite the fact that the two of them met as adults within the film. The animation style makes up for it however, and although it’s nowhere near as charming and hilarious as the first film it’s still a welcome change which ran for *checks notes* over 100 episodes?! What?!
Bringing things back to the present, Netflix and Robert Rodriguez also released an animated spinoff of the Spy Kids franchise entitled Mission Critical. Set between the first two films, it follows Juni and Carmen Cortez (but not really) as they train within the OSS spy service and fight against S.W.A.M.P (Sinister Wrongdoers Against Mankind's Preservation). It’s about as weird as it sounds. I’m assuming Rodriguez’s input was minimal too, because every ounce of character has been flushed out of the Spy Kids name.
With the acronyms and gadgets on paper Mission Critical works as a fun romp that harkens back to the likes of GI Joe or M.A.S.K, yet instead the creepy uncanny valley-inducing CGI makes the whole thing feel like the old Action Man cartoon series from the late 90s/early 00s. It’s also remarkably ‘safe’ for kids, with little to no action or even hints at jokes for those who are older. I don’t know why I’m being so negative about this one in particular but watching even an episode and a half of it just rubbed me the wrong way.
this time I’ve stuck mainly to shows aimed at kids because they take up the majority of these adaptations. I believe MTV’s adaptation of Friday and Mel Brooks’ Spaceballs are two of the only adult ones I’ve deliberately not spoken about. There is one curiosity though, from a very specific time period, that utterly fascinates me. In the early 2010s a revamped interest in adult animation seemed to take hold of many networks. Channel 4 produced late-night sitcoms like Full English and Fox created the child of Jonah Hill in the form of Allen Gregory. Both of these are shows that would heavily lean towards Family Guy comparisons in their advertising – that’s the kind of thing we’re talking about here. Even by the 2010s, Family Guy had started to become stagnant. Its need to offend rather than induce laughter created a slough of vitriolic, mean-spirited animated comedies that thought they could justify being adult by swearing and showing sex all the time.
After the critical pandering Allen Gregory received, Fox turned to a small film with a cult following – Napoleon Dynamite. The entire cast returned and a great deal of publicity followed the return of the emotionless dweeb audiences had come to love. The animation format allowed the surreal and disjointed comedy to become zanier, though many were split as to whether this helped the material or not. Despite opening strongly, the series was cancelled after just six episodes and has pretty much been wiped from existence ever since.
Cream of the Crop
A Duo for the Ages
There are two other adaptations I wanted to single out before signing off. Two that I don’t think fit in any of the categories so far. Genndy Tartakovsky was a pivotal part of my childhood. He created Dexter’s Laboratory and Samurai Jack, and also worked on The Powerpuff Girls and Batman: The Animated Series. The man knows his stuff, and his affinity for animation and movement in particular comes across in everything he’s done. Hell, the Hotel Transylvania films are better than they have any right to be (the animated series can’t keep the same energy, unfortunately). In 2003 amidst the gap between Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones and Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, Tartakovsky was given the chance to produce an animated series about what happened during the clone wars.
Creatively titled Star Wars: Clone Wars, the series was similar in style to his work on Samurai Jack. It took major influence from Japanese cinema, most notably samurai films, and applied this quiet and self-assured confidence to George Lucas’ galaxy far far away. The result was arguably the best Star Wars content for quite some time. 20 1-3 minute shorts were created and aired on Cartoon Network amidst ad breaks, a baffling strategy that could ruin the entire experience if you caught any in the wrong order. But it didn’t matter. These short films (because that’s what they were) all had meticulous world-building and awesome fight scenes jam-packed with some of the best lightsaber duels and gunfights ever. Of course, there was no title sequence, so I’ll just leave you with one of the episodes.
Mace Windu wishes he was that awesome all the time. Clone Wars was one of my first experiences with experimentation on television. Whole episodes (the final 5 episodes were 12 minutes each) were sometimes silent, or chose to portray most events only in silhouette, it was bold television before its golden age. There’s a lot of love for it already so I’m not exactly trying to make a hard sell, but this was during a period where the Star Wars brand was still synonymous with quality for me (shut up I like the prequels). Therefore, Clone Wars felt like an event that I wanted to be a part of. It felt like a necessary extension of the story. It’s just a shame none of it’s technically canon now…
It was hard for an animated adaptation to stand out in 2012 for reasons I’ll get onto shortly. Amidst the flurry of standard continuations and reboots, very few shows were actually willing to expand on the world of the source material in a way that felt true artistically. Disney XD showed their potential with Tron Uprising, created by Charlie Bean, that expanded upon the years inside the grid between Tron and Tron Legacy. Inspired by Star Wars: Clone Wars, the series wanted to stand out visually, and a unique blend of 2D and CGI was crafted to create depth and detail simultaneously. The colour palette of the show was bold and black oriented, allowing the neon glow to illuminate characters properly. In it, Elijah Wood plays Beck, a mechanic who is trained by Tron in order to lead an uprising against the villainous Clu in a fight for control of the grid – the game world they all live inside. Long story short? It was awesome. But as is the case with most awesome things the show failed to find an audience and was cancelled due to poor ratings after just 19 episodes. As it stands the show is still a bold miniseries and deserves the cult following it’s gained. In many ways Disney XD took notice of the positive critical reception and started to produce more cartoons with quality writing such as the recent revival of Ducktales.
Final Thoughts
As I’ve got older and lost awareness of the weird cartoon landscape, my cynicism seems to have taken control. The capitalism of these adaptations never bothered me when I was younger because why would they? I was a kid. Chances are if I was born a decade later I’d have an inherent nostalgia for Dreamworks’ output and Disney’s later content too.
On the other hand, I’d like to suggest another reason for the dwindling of cartoon adaptations. In the late 00s/early 2010s something rather magical happened. There was a sudden uprising of quality family animated series. Original ones too. The likes of Adventure Time, Gravity Falls and even My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic meant that a series didn’t need to piggyback off the success of something else to exceed. Against all known laws of cynicism quality was now more important. Producers and executives realised kids were smarter than they thought and could handle deeper themes like Don Bluth’s always said. Instead of one shining series standing out every now and then (like Avatar: The Last Airbender for example) there seemed to be a handful at once with more on the way.
Therefore, it feels like a sacrifice when film adaptations are the ones so creatively bankrupt. Rather than shoehorning in an unknown sibling or stretching a concept to suit a series format, stories have to come organically in order to work. I personally hated the idea of Fast & Furious: Spy Racers but when I settled down to watch an episode…it kind of worked in a way that I had wanted the Spy Kids series to. It’s a little strange how the two of them have swapped places but hey I can go with it.
Long story short, adaptations are drying up because original cartoons are having a renaissance. I don’t know how long this period is going to last, but personally I hope it’s soon. Family cartoons aren’t just for kids, they’re for the passionate devourers of stories that don’t care about medium. They’re about the animation enthusiasts anxious to see their beloved artform put to good use. They’re for everyone, and that’s the way it should be.
Welcome to the World of Tomorrow!
The Future?
Aside from Dreamworks continuing their current output, there’s very few new adaptations in the works. But the team have one project that I’m extraordinarily excited for. I’ve been too hard of Dreamworks. Whilst simultaneously producing all their continuations they’ve also been one of the best producers of original series by teaming up with my other best friend Guillermo Del Toro for Trollhunters, 3Below and the oncoming Wizards shows. Then they won me back completely the moment this was released…
WOO! Yeah! That’s right baby we gettin’ a Jurassic World series! Camp Cretaceous will follow six teenagers at an adventure camp on Isla Nubar at the time when everything goes fuckup. There’ll be raptors, T-Rex’s and all your favourites most likely trying to get a taste of them, and I can’t bloody wait. All I know so far is that writer Zack Stentz is on the writing team, and that’s all I really need to know. It’s a Jurassic Park animated series…how has this not ever been a thing before? (though in hindsight I now really also want a 2D Adelaide Productions-style series but hey, I’m greedy).
As for what else? Who knows? TV’s golden age has allowed it to carry the same amount of power as cinema, and maybe the tides are starting to turn? After all, there’s plenty of shows that were given the big-screen treatment too…no, I’m not going to do another three-part exploration of those.
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this or have any writing opportunities (including the team over at Netflix for Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous) feel free to get in contact over at george@gmorris.co.uk
You can also find me on Twitter over at @ManicMorris where I mostly…well…I just tweet, mostly about humorous observations that make me seem funnier than I actually am.
BYE.
#WeirdHistoryOfFilmsThatBecameCartoons #Animation #Shows #TV #Television #Millennium #PartOne #PartTwo #PartThree #GeorgeMorris #Screenwriter #Writer #BlogPost #Freelance #Nineties #TwoThousands #Noughties #Tens #RobbieWilliams #Tarzan #Disney #WaltDisney #EmperorsNewGroove #Dinosaur #BobIger #TheLegendOfTarzan #DisneyChannel #Adaptation #Transfer #TarzanAndJane #PIXAR #BuzzLightyearOfStarCommand #ToyStory #StarWars #TimAllen #PatrickWarburton #WayneKnight #EmperorZurg #Spinoff #LiloAndStitch #TreasurePlanet #StitchTheMovie #AmericanDragon #JakeLong #TheProudFamily #Recess #KimPossible #SpiderMan #MenInBlack2 #CartoonViolence #StevenSommers #TheMummy #TheMummyReturns #BrendanFraser #UniversalCartoonStudios #BackToTheFuture #EarthwormJim #IvanReitman #Evolution #Ghostbusters #SeanWilliamScott #OsmosisJones #TomSito #PietKroon #OzzyAndDrix #JohnADavis #JimmyNeutronBoyGenius #Nickelodeon #TheFairlyOddParents #PlanetSheen #Barnyard #BackAtTheBarnyard #CartoonNetwork #Madagascar #PenguinsOfMadagascar #Dreamworks #AllHailKingJulien #Netflix #RiseOfTheGuardians #Shrek #SharkTale #KungFuPanda #HowToTrainYourDragon #Shrek5Pitch #ShrekTheHalls #MerryMadagascar #KungFuPandaLegendsOfAwesomeness #LucyLiu #JamesHong #JackBlack #ThePawsOfDestiny #DreamworksDragons #CressidaCowell #MonstersVsAliens #TurboFast #TrollsTheBeatGoesOn #DawnOfTheCroods #HomeAdventuresOfTipAndOh #TheAdventuresOfPussInBoots #TheBossBaby
#BackInBusiness #SpiritStallionOfTheCimarron #SpiritRidingFree #FreeReign #StuartLittle #AdelaideProductions #SpiderManTheNewAnimatedSeries #HughLaurie #KronksNewGroove #TheEmperorsNewSchool #BigHero6 #SonyPicturesAnimation #CloudyWithAChanceOfMeatballs #RobertRodriguez #SpyKids #MissionCritical #GIJoe #MASK #ActionMan #Friday #MelBrooks #Spaceballs #FullEnglish #JonahHill #AllenGregory #FamilyGuy #NapoleonDynamite #GenndyTartakovsky #DextersLaboratory #SamuraiJack #ThePowerpuffGirls #BatmanTheAnimatedSeries #StarWarsEpisode2 #AttackOfTheClone #Episode3 #RevengeOfTheSith #HotelTransylvania #CloneWars #GeorgeLucas #MaceWindu #DisneyXD #Tron #TronLegacy #TronUprising #CharlieBean #ElijahWood #Ducktales #AdventureTime #GravityFalls #MyLittlePony #FriendshipIsMagic #DonBluth #AvatarTheLastAirbender #FastAndFurious #SpyRacers #GuillermoDelToro #Trollhunters #ThreeBelow #Wizards #JurassicPark #JurassicWorld #CampCretaceous #ZackStentz #ManicMorris #HireMe #Please #IWouldLoveToHelpMakeStuff