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'Akira'. 'Beauty and the Beast'. 'Ghost in the Shell'. 'Toy Story'. 'Batman - The Animated Series'. 'The Simpson'. Fine pieces of animation that are benchmarks for the medium and story telling. (Yes, for those who don't get it yet, animation is just a MEDIUM, i.e. a WAY of telling a story, like using a novel, TV, or radio.) Thing is, these tend to dominate EVERYTHING. What else is out there? Oh, so many possibilities. And yes, these are mostly episodic pieces. It seems like if you do cinematic animation, either the work is OUTSTANDING ('The Lion King', 'Princess Mononoke') or it's dreck. (Anyone remember 'The King and I'? Didn't think so.) Anyway, here are a few things that are amazing pieces of work but may have slipped your notice.
1. 'Talespin'. Ok, this sounds like a STUPID premise; take the characters from 'The Jungle Book', drop them into a '40s world called Cape Suzette (This gets better) and let them have adventures like Indiana Jones accept with a plane. For any old TV fans, 'Tales of the Gold Monkey' is popping in your head... and you're probably ready to hurl. BUT... this series was amazingly GOOD. The stories ranged from silly fluff to amazing adventures with giant beetles, fighter planes, and sky-pirates. Baloo was an amazing cross of Homer Simpson and Han Solo as the pilot of the Sea Duck, Shere Khan was OUTSTANDING as a Luthor-esque mogul who controls Cape Suzette. The remaining cast from Louise onward was just great to watch.
2. 'The Iron Giant'. CGI rules!!!!!!!!!! Well, not quite in this case. As 'Final Fantasy' proved, amazing CGI doesn't make up for a limp story. Case in point 'Iron Giant'. This was set in the '50s as a child discovers a mysterious robot, the Iron Giant, which has the heart of an innocent child. Naturally things go nuts as the military thinks the thing is invading the country and our young hero, Hogarth, has to try and keep IG from obliterating everything in the same of survival.
3. 'Might Orbots'. Sometimes timing is everything, and unfortunately this short-lived series was ahead of it's time by a few years. When this ABC 'toon premiered most of the US had no idea what anime was. Sigh. This was set in the far future and featured six miss-fit 'bots and their nerdy leader who merged to form Might Orbots and to take on the gigantic evil creations of Umbra. Not super original, but what do you expect for Saturday morning? Just the same, the animation was VERY cool for network TV.
4. 'Freakazoid'. From the same folks who brought us 'The Animaniacs' and 'Tiny Toon Adventures' came this hysterical superhero parody with a rogues gallery Batman would envy. The Lobe! Arms Akimbo! And Ricardo Montalban as Freakzoid's nemesis Gutierezz!