A History of Animation

1960 – 1969 · 11 events

The 1960s

Animation colonized the television schedule on two continents while, in university laboratories, an entirely new production method quietly began.

What changed in this period

The decade opens with an animated sitcom in prime time, aimed at the whole household rather than the Saturday morning audience. It succeeded, and network television became the primary employer of animators in the United States for the next thirty years.

Japan industrialized even faster. A weekly half-hour series adapted from a comic strip established a production model — extreme economy of drawing, expressive held frames, serialized storytelling with genuine dramatic stakes — that made television animation a mass medium there and eventually a major export.

Photographic reproduction replaced hand-inking on cels, cutting a labor-intensive step and, as a side effect, leaving the animators' pencil line visible on screen for the first time. The look of an entire era followed from a copying machine.

Meanwhile, an interactive drawing system demonstrated on a laboratory display proved that images could be created and manipulated directly by computer. Almost nobody in the animation industry noticed. It would take twenty-five years for those two histories to converge.

The record

Every documented event, 1960 – 1969

Listed in order, with context, technique, sources and related events shown in full.

  • 1960

    Annecy establishes the animation festival circuit

    A festival devoted entirely to animation began in the French Alps, giving short and independent work a dedicated international venue outside the commercial distribution system.

    France Multiple techniques Public exhibition
    Artist or studio
    Annecy International Animation Film Festival
    Country or region
    France

    Historical context

    Animated shorts were losing theatrical outlets as television absorbed the market, leaving artists without a way to reach audiences or each other.

    Why it mattered

    It built the infrastructure of the independent animation world: screenings, awards, a market and, above all, contact between animators working in isolation across different countries.

    What followed

    Festival recognition became the principal validation for non-commercial animation, and the circuit that grew around Annecy still determines which independent films reach international attention.

    Sources consulted

    Related events

  • 1960 September 30, 1960 Full record

    The Flintstones premieres in prime time

    A half-hour animated situation comedy about a suburban family in a stone-age setting aired in evening prime time with a laugh track, sponsors and an adult audience in mind.

    United States Limited animation Television series
    Artist or studio
    Hanna-Barbera Productions for the American Broadcasting Company
    Country or region
    United States

    Historical context

    Animation on television had been aimed at children in daytime slots. This series was built on the structure of a live-action sitcom instead.

    Why it mattered

    It proved that animation could hold an adult prime-time audience and run for multiple seasons, redefining what the medium was commercially permitted to be.

    What followed

    It is the direct precedent for every prime-time animated comedy that followed, and its economic model made half-hour animated series a permanent television category.

    Sources consulted

    Related events

  • 1961 January 25, 1961

    Xerography replaces hand inking

    A modified photocopying process transferred animators' pencil drawings directly onto cels, eliminating hand inking and making a feature with dozens of spotted dogs economically feasible.

    United States Xerography Technique and tools
    Artist or studio
    Ub Iwerks, Walt Disney Studios
    Country or region
    United States

    Historical context

    Feature production costs had risen sharply, and the studio needed a way to reduce the most labor-intensive stage of the pipeline.

    Why it mattered

    It cut cost substantially and, as a side effect, left the animator's own line visible on screen — the first time audiences saw the drawing rather than a traced ink outline.

    What followed

    The scratchy xerographic line defined the studio's look for two decades and legitimized visible drawing as a stylistic choice, an idea that returned digitally in the twenty-first century.

    Sources consulted

    Related events

  • 1962 September 23, 1962

    The Jetsons broadcasts in color

    A future-set companion to the studio's stone-age comedy became the first program broadcast in color on its network, though most households still watched it in black and white.

    United States Limited animation Television series
    Artist or studio
    Hanna-Barbera Productions for the American Broadcasting Company
    Country or region
    United States

    Historical context

    Color broadcasting was expanding slowly and unevenly, and animation was well suited to demonstrating it because color could be controlled exactly at the production stage.

    Why it mattered

    It positioned animation as a showcase technology for color television, and its design vocabulary shaped popular imagery of the future for decades.

    What followed

    Animated series became standard color programming ahead of much live-action television, and the studio's futurist design language influenced advertising, architecture illustration and product styling.

    Sources consulted

    Related events

  • 1963 January 1, 1963 Full record

    Astro Boy launches weekly television anime

    A weekly half-hour series adapted from Tezuka's comic established a production system capable of delivering serialized animated drama on a broadcast schedule and a very small budget.

    Japan Limited animation Television series
    Artist or studio
    Osamu Tezuka, Mushi Production, broadcast by Fuji Television
    Country or region
    Japan

    Historical context

    Tezuka accepted a low per-episode license fee, betting that merchandising would cover the shortfall — a decision that shaped the industry's economics for decades.

    Why it mattered

    It created the technical and narrative grammar of television anime: held frames, expressive stillness, limited but purposeful movement, and continuing stories with real consequences.

    What followed

    Weekly serialized animation became the dominant form in Japan and eventually a major cultural export, while the low licence-fee model created lasting pressures on animator pay.

    Sources consulted

    Related events

  • 1963

    Sketchpad demonstrates interactive computer graphics

    A doctoral project allowed a user to draw directly on a display with a light pen, creating geometric objects with constraints that the system maintained as the drawing was manipulated.

    United States 2D computer animation Technique and tools
    Artist or studio
    Ivan Sutherland, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
    Country or region
    United States

    Historical context

    Computers of the period were batch-processing machines. The idea that a person could work with a picture interactively, in real time, was close to unprecedented.

    Why it mattered

    It founded interactive computer graphics and introduced object hierarchies, constraints and reusable instances — concepts that underlie every animation package in use today.

    What followed

    Computer-aided design, graphical interfaces and eventually digital animation all descend from this work, though it took more than twenty years to reach commercial animation production.

    Sources consulted

    Related events

  • 1964 December 6, 1964

    Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer establishes the stop-motion special

    An hour-long puppet-animated holiday special, produced in Japan for an American network, became an annually repeated broadcast event.

    United States Stop motion Television special
    Artist or studio
    Rankin/Bass Productions, animation by MOM Production in Tokyo
    Country or region
    United States

    Historical context

    The production was among the earliest large-scale animation outsourcing arrangements between American producers and Japanese studios.

    Why it mattered

    It created the animated television special as a recurring cultural ritual and demonstrated that stop motion could be produced at broadcast scale through international co-production.

    What followed

    Annual rebroadcast turned specials into durable properties, and offshore production became standard practice in American television animation.

    Sources consulted

    Related events

  • 1965 December 9, 1965

    A Charlie Brown Christmas breaks television convention

    A special using real children's voices, a jazz score, no laugh track and a deliberately unhurried pace drew an enormous audience despite network doubts about all three choices.

    United States Limited animation Television special
    Artist or studio
    Bill Melendez and Lee Mendelson, from the comic strip by Charles M. Schulz
    Country or region
    United States

    Historical context

    Network executives expected a conventional children's cartoon and were reportedly unhappy with the finished program before it aired.

    Why it mattered

    It proved that television animation could be quiet, melancholy and stylistically distinctive while still reaching a mass audience.

    What followed

    Its restraint influenced a long line of character-driven television animation, and it established the annual special as a form capable of genuine artistic ambition.

    Sources consulted

    Related events

  • 1968 July 17, 1968

    Yellow Submarine brings graphic design to the animated feature

    A feature built from pop art, Art Nouveau revival, collage and psychedelic color rejected studio naturalism entirely in favor of illustration and graphic design.

    United Kingdom Cel animation Feature film
    Artist or studio
    George Dunning, TVC London, art direction by Heinz Edelmann
    Country or region
    United Kingdom

    Historical context

    The film was made quickly by a London commercials studio with a large freelance crew, using strong art direction to unify diverse contributions.

    Why it mattered

    It demonstrated that a feature could be carried by design and music rather than by character acting, and it connected animation to contemporary visual culture.

    What followed

    It licensed a generation of designers to work in animation and remains a reference point for graphically driven features and music-led animated projects.

    Sources consulted

    Related events

  • 1968 July 21, 1968

    Horus, Prince of the Sun raises the ambition of Japanese features

    A feature with a morally complex heroine, collective rather than individual heroism and unusually detailed layout work overran its schedule and underperformed commercially.

    Japan Cel animation Feature film
    Artist or studio
    Isao Takahata with Hayao Miyazaki and Yasuo Otsuka, Toei Doga
    Country or region
    Japan

    Historical context

    The production involved extensive staff collaboration and internal disagreement with studio management about scope and cost.

    Why it mattered

    It marked the point at which Japanese animated features began pursuing thematic seriousness, and it brought together the collaborators who would later found one of the world's most respected studios.

    What followed

    Its commercial failure pushed its principal artists toward television and then toward independent production, a path that led directly to the features of the 1980s and beyond.

    Sources consulted

    Related events

  • 1969 September 13, 1969

    Saturday morning becomes an animation marketplace

    Networks consolidated original animated programming into a single weekend morning block aimed at children, sold to advertisers as a guaranteed audience.

    United States Limited animation Television series
    Artist or studio
    American broadcast networks and Hanna-Barbera Productions
    Country or region
    United States

    Historical context

    Pressure from parent groups had pushed animation out of prime time, while advertisers were eager to reach children directly.

    Why it mattered

    It concentrated most American animation employment into a format defined by tight budgets, standards restrictions and merchandising obligations for the next twenty years.

    What followed

    Regulatory limits on children's advertising and the growth of cable eventually dismantled the block, but its production practices shaped a generation of animators.

    Sources consulted

    Related events

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