Ever since their creation, cartoons have been a favourite American pastime. Perhaps one of the first American geniuses was the late Walt Disney (1901-1966) who with the help of Ub Iwerks (1901-1971) made a name for himself with a plucky little mouse named Micky.

We can all remember sitting in the living room on the floor and roll around laughing, as Wyle E. Coyote would accidentally pilot his ACME brand rocket into a cliff, and narrowly miss catching the Roadrunner yet again. But that would never have been there without Warner Brothers animation director Charles Martin 'Chuck' Jones (1912-2002). To this day, most of us still laugh when we see Bugs Bunny's plane plummet towards the ground, only to see it stop inches before impact, to which Bugs says "hmmmm... outta gas" and walks away unharmed. Or another was young Elmer Fudd chasing Bugs of a cliff. Bugs tells him that he should fall because of gravity. Elmer, responds un-uh- our class doesn't study gravity until next year. Then Elmer walks back to safety in complete violation of the Laws of Cartoon Physics.

Mid-Twentieth Century

In 1937 William Hanna(1910-2001) teamed up with Joseph Barbera(1911-2006) To form Hanna Barbera producing many well known cartoons over the next fifty years including Tom and Jerry, the Flintstones, Yogi Bear, the Smurfs and the Jetsons.

During World war II many of the cartoons were incredibly political. It's amazing to see how, for instance, the cartoonists were clearly poking fun at the Nazis. This included Paul Terry(1877-1971) who in 1942 introduced us to Mighty Mouse. After the war he introduced two wisecracking magpies Heckle and Jeckle. These cockeyed birds continued to amuse us in the fifties. Another Character Hanna Barbera gave us during that decade was Huckleberry Hound.

The sixties gave us the Flintstones and Yogi Bear. We all laughed when Fred tried to put out a sabre toothed cat but got put out himself instead and ended up yelling WIL-MAAAA!!! Or Yogi in his eternal quest for picnic baskets, trying to prove himself 'smarter than the average bear'.

In 1969 and running through the 70s we watched Scooby Doo and his ensemble outwit a string of unlikely villains, but Scooby would never go into danger without first asking for a scooby snack.

Late Twentieth Century

First appearing as a comic book the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles by Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman became a cartoon in 1989. This must've been a real interesting one to come up with. Who wouldn't love a bunch of humanoid turtles with a hunger for pizza and training in martial arts? Of course, the show was poorly animated, had very little plot, and the voices often got mixed up, but a seven-year-old didn't notice these flaws. The Turtles all seemed so quick-witted, too. They would constantly make hilarious wisecracks that now, years later, I realize aren't so wise after all. One's sense of humour changes over the years. When you're seven, "You said a mouthful" can result in a good five-minutes of laughter - complete with rolling on the floor and grabbing your sides. Recently, while up at insane hours with some friends, we watched an old episode, which, due to the poor animation, became funny on a whole new level.

The late 80's-early 90's also gave birth to a child prodigy Lisa Simpson and her brother Bart. The Simpsons by Matt Groening might as well be a sitcom, but since it's a cartoon, nobody cares about the episodes tying in with each other. This, of course, spawned similar shows, all of which were enjoyed on Sunday nights on Fox, such as King of the Hill, The Critic, and Futurama. Some of the quotes from these shows will live on forever in our hearts, such as Homer's "It takes two to lie, Marge; One to lie, and one to listen" or Fry's "It's like there's a party in my mouth, and everyone's throwing up! This also set off a bit of a revolution in cartoons, showing that you could make a guest appearance on them, and still be cool, if not cooler than before. Sure, it started small, with low brow celebrities like Jon Luvitz... but with the increased popularity the Simpsons has gained, they managed to get former US President George Bush Sr. on for an episode. Now tell me Cartoons aren't legitimate theatre.

The mid-90s gave way for a type of new, more teenager/young adult targeted cartoons, such as Rocko's Modern Life, Ren and Stimpy,Cow and Chicken, 2 Stupid Dogs, Dexter's Lab, and Duckman. Recently, we've seen a few new cartoons continuing this type of mature, yet extremely juvenile, and sometimes gross style, with shows such as Invader Zim and Spongebob Squarepants or Family Guy. These cartoons were all very bizarre, and usually made very little sense. One episode of Ren and Stimpy featured them becoming Fire-dogs by painting themselves white with black spots. Oddly enough, all of the clips used to make up the opening sequence for the show were taken from this single episode. Though these shows have had some pretty clever lines, such as Ren and Stimpy's "Happy Happy, Joy Joy" song, and Rocko's friend Heffer's creation of a new colour, "Breen", these cartoons revolved mainly around disgusting animation.

Early Twenty-First Century.

In more recent years, we've been seeing a new type of cartoons, Adult Swim Cartoon Network. Great lines include the time Space Ghost stood up to yell "Nobody sleeps with MY grandmother", or Captain Murphy's cry of "Your Lymph nodes are as big as cats!" There are so many classic moments, such as the time Brak sang his Beet song, or when Meatwad said, "You didn't lock that door, it was out in the yard!" Whoever came up with the idea of completely pointless cartoons that keep the viewer laughing the whole time should get some sort of award for his true genius. The especially clever part about this is the animation. Space Ghost, The Brak Show, Sealab 2021, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law, all feature very little new animation. They usually just revolve around modifying old animation to give it a new twist.

Another fairly new idea is that of strictly online cartoons. These range from stick-figure action clips such a Xiao Xiao, to comedy series, including College University, and Strongbad. There are even some new episodes of The Critic made for the Internet. There are many advantages to online-cartoons, such as not having to pitch it to some Network CEO fat cat, and complete freedom of speech and expression. Since people aren't trying to make money with an online cartoon, they can do whatever they want with it. Another advantage to online cartoons is that they can be extremely interactive. There are cartoons where the viewer is given a choice of endings and other events, or they can send in suggestions to the creator. The best example of this would be Strongbad. Strongbad is a cartoon from homestarrunner.com in which the potentially evil, yet oddly loveable Strongbad answers emails from readers.
Meanwhile on American TV much of the cartoons came from the Cable networks. Networks like Qubo showed things like 3-2-1 Penguins! (Classic Media)or
Adventures from the Book of Virtues. Meanwhile, the Cartoon Network had things like Cartoon Planet or Pokemon.

The Future

Who knows what cartoon genius will arise in the future, but perhaps they will say they would not have made it without the groundwork laid by the pioneers in the field referenced above.