After World War Two there was a gigantic baby boom ( from 1946 to 1964) so it should be of no surprise that the Sixties were a boom time for animation. The Baby Boomers’ parents, themselves born in a baby boom after World War 1, were the audience for the original Golden Age of Animation, the Age of Mickey Mouse. As perviously mentioned, the Seventies were a dry time as the children of the 60s became teenagers and young adults and thus became uninterested in the things of their childhood. They had moved beyond, beyond to the “adult” animation of Ralph Bakshi. Bakshi’s films were the only game in town during the Seventies when Disney was at its most dire, refusing to cater to the “dirty hippies” they perceived their former audience had become. Even though there was an adult animation audience for Bakshi’s films, there still wasn’t the markets for ancillary products that are animation’s true bread and butter. By the early 1980s animated films seemed a relic from a bygone era. So what possibly could have caused a “Second Golden Age of Animation”? Another baby boom, another huge proliferation of cartoon fans and nagging little consumers of any piece of garbage with a familiar cartoon face on it.
Certainly the Internet boom of the 90s which flooded the market with cheap “Flash” animators which drove the price down but also the quality and then was followed by the Internet Crash which destroyed whatever animation investment money that was still available helped bring the Second Golden Age to an end. But the real culprit is simply the kids of the 80s have grown up forcing investors to look elsewhere for opportunity. In other words, to follow the wave. The original Baby Boomers are now in their fifties and sixties so money is being invested in health care, insurance and high price luxury items. The second tier boomers are now in their twenties so we’re seeing a lot more advertisements for cars, trucks and fashion. As they enter the “child bearing years” the housing market will probably boom and with it the sluggish economy will once again seem to rebound.
It is wrongly assumed that people live their lives around the ups and downs of the economy. People fall in love, get married and have kids, or, fall in love and have kids, or, have kids, because of hormones, biological clocks, peer pressure and other reasons which largely ignore the national economy. Nature trumps the economy, the economy will naturally be forced to follow the needs of human nature. We are now entering into a time of a new baby boom, the time of my future grandchildren. I look forward not only to their arrival but also to the arrival of a New Golden Age of Animation.
Certainly the Internet boom of the 90s which flooded the market with cheap “Flash” animators which drove the price down but also the quality and then was followed by the Internet Crash which destroyed whatever animation investment money that was still available helped bring the Second Golden Age to an end. But the real culprit is simply the kids of the 80s have grown up forcing investors to look elsewhere for opportunity. In other words, to follow the wave. The original Baby Boomers are now in their fifties and sixties so money is being invested in health care, insurance and high price luxury items. The second tier boomers are now in their twenties so we’re seeing a lot more advertisements for cars, trucks and fashion. As they enter the “child bearing years” the housing market will probably boom and with it the sluggish economy will once again seem to rebound.
It is wrongly assumed that people live their lives around the ups and downs of the economy. People fall in love, get married and have kids, or, fall in love and have kids, or, have kids, because of hormones, biological clocks, peer pressure and other reasons which largely ignore the national economy. Nature trumps the economy, the economy will naturally be forced to follow the needs of human nature. We are now entering into a time of a new baby boom, the time of my future grandchildren. I look forward not only to their arrival but also to the arrival of a New Golden Age of Animation.
Friday Funnies
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