A History of Animation

1970 – 1979 · 11 events

The 1970s

Animation fragmented productively: personal films, feature-length work for adults, national schools reaching maturity, and the first computer-generated images in commercial cinema.

What changed in this period

Public funding bodies, film schools and festivals created space for animators working alone or in small groups. Their films were short, formally adventurous and frequently uninterested in entertainment, and they built the festival circuit that still sustains the art form's experimental wing.

Feature animation aimed at adults appeared in several countries at once, treating the medium as a vehicle for satire, science fiction and political allegory rather than family entertainment.

Japanese television animation matured beyond children's programming, developing serialized drama with moral ambiguity and consequences, and cultivating an audience that would not age out of the medium.

In laboratories at American universities, researchers modeled surfaces from polygons, worked out how to shade them convincingly and rendered the first computer-generated sequences to appear in theatrical features. The images were crude. The method was not.

The record

Every documented event, 1970 – 1979

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

  • 1972 April 12, 1972

    Fritz the Cat opens the adult animated feature in America

    An X-rated satirical feature about student politics and urban life in the 1960s was made independently on a low budget and became commercially successful.

    United States Cel animation Feature film
    Artist or studio
    Ralph Bakshi, from the comic by Robert Crumb
    Country or region
    United States

    Historical context

    Bakshi came from television animation and argued that the medium had been artificially confined to children's material by distributors rather than by audiences.

    Why it mattered

    It established that animated features could be made for adults in the United States, with contemporary subject matter and no expectation of family suitability.

    What followed

    A cycle of adult animated features followed through the 1970s and 1980s, and the argument it opened resurfaced in adult animated television from the 1990s onward.

    Sources consulted

    Related events

  • 1972

    A Computer Animated Hand renders a moving human form

    A plaster cast of a hand was marked into polygons, measured by hand, digitized and rendered as a smoothly shaded moving surface, alongside comparable work on a human face.

    United States 3D computer animation Technique and tools
    Artist or studio
    Edwin Catmull and Fred Parke, University of Utah
    Country or region
    United States

    Historical context

    The Utah graphics program was developing the foundations of surface rendering, including texture mapping, subdivision surfaces and hidden-surface removal.

    Why it mattered

    It is the first computer-generated animation of an organic human form, and it demonstrated that shaded three-dimensional surfaces could be made to move convincingly.

    What followed

    The techniques developed here entered commercial cinema within four years, and their authors went on to build the research groups that produced the first computer-animated feature.

    Sources consulted

    Related events

  • 1973 November 21, 1973

    Westworld puts computer-processed imagery on the big screen

    Sequences representing an android's vision were produced by digitally processing scanned live-action frames into coarse colored blocks, requiring hours of computation per frame.

    United States 2D computer animation Feature film
    Artist or studio
    John Whitney Jr. and Information International Incorporated, MGM
    Country or region
    United States

    Historical context

    Digital image processing was a specialist research field; the work was contracted out to one of the few companies with suitable equipment.

    Why it mattered

    It is the first feature film to include imagery generated by digital computation, and it made the computer a legitimate line item in a production budget.

    What followed

    It opened a commercial route for computer graphics research, leading directly to the three-dimensional work that appeared in features three years later.

    Sources consulted

    Related events

  • 1974

    Hunger uses computer-assisted keyframe interpolation

    A film about consumption and starvation was made with software that interpolated between hand-drawn key positions, producing a continuous metamorphosis of line drawings.

    Canada 2D computer animation Short film
    Artist or studio
    Peter Foldes with Nestor Burtnyk and Marceli Wein, National Film Board of Canada
    Country or region
    Canada

    Historical context

    The interpolation system was developed by researchers at the National Research Council of Canada and made available to an artist rather than an engineer.

    Why it mattered

    It is among the first computer-assisted animated films to receive major recognition, earning an Academy Award nomination and a Cannes jury prize.

    What followed

    In-betweening by computation became a standard production tool, and the collaboration model between research institutions and artists was widely imitated.

    Sources consulted

    Related events

  • 1974

    The New York Institute of Technology assembles a graphics laboratory

    A privately funded laboratory recruited leading graphics researchers and equipped them generously, with the stated goal of producing a computer-animated feature film.

    United States 2D computer animation Studio and institution
    Artist or studio
    Computer Graphics Laboratory, New York Institute of Technology
    Country or region
    United States

    Historical context

    The lab operated outside both the film industry and conventional academic funding, giving its researchers unusual freedom and equipment.

    Why it mattered

    It produced foundational work on digital paint systems, alpha compositing, image storage and animation software, and gathered the people who would later staff the major computer animation studios.

    What followed

    Its researchers moved on to found or lead the graphics groups behind the first computer-animated feature and the effects industry that grew alongside it.

    Sources consulted

    Related events

  • 1974 October 6, 1974

    Space Battleship Yamato builds an older anime audience

    A serialized science-fiction drama with a continuous plot, a countdown structure and mortal stakes found its audience through reruns and a theatrical compilation rather than first broadcast.

    Japan Limited animation Television series
    Artist or studio
    Office Academy and Yoshinobu Nishizaki, broadcast in Japan
    Country or region
    Japan

    Historical context

    Television anime had been aimed largely at children; this series assumed an audience willing to follow a season-long narrative.

    Why it mattered

    It created the older, self-identifying anime audience and demonstrated that fan demand could revive a commercially disappointing series.

    What followed

    Serialized dramatic anime, theatrical compilation releases and an organized fan culture all follow from its unusual afterlife.

    Sources consulted

    Related events

  • 1976 August 13, 1976

    Futureworld screens the first 3D computer-generated imagery in a feature

    The animated hand and face produced at the University of Utah four years earlier appeared in a commercially released feature as displays inside a laboratory set.

    United States 3D computer animation Feature film
    Artist or studio
    Edwin Catmull and Fred Parke, with American International Pictures
    Country or region
    United States

    Historical context

    The sequences were existing research renders repurposed for the film rather than material generated for the production.

    Why it mattered

    It is the first appearance of three-dimensional computer-generated animation in a theatrical feature, moving the technique from laboratory to cinema.

    What followed

    Studios began commissioning original computer graphics rather than borrowing research output, creating the first commercial market for the technique.

    Sources consulted

    Related events

  • 1977 May 25, 1977

    Vector graphics reach a blockbuster audience

    A wireframe briefing animation of a trench approach, produced on a research system, appeared in one of the most widely seen films of the decade.

    United States 2D computer animation Feature film
    Artist or studio
    Larry Cuba for Lucasfilm
    Country or region
    United States

    Historical context

    The sequence was made on academic equipment and delivered as a self-contained animated insert within a live-action production.

    Why it mattered

    It exposed an enormous audience to computer-generated imagery and helped make the technique culturally legible as a signifier of advanced technology.

    What followed

    The commercial success of the film funded a dedicated computer division at the production company two years later, which became the most consequential graphics group of the 1980s.

    Sources consulted

    Related events

  • 1978 October 19, 1978

    Watership Down treats animation as serious British drama

    An adaptation of a novel about rabbits fleeing a doomed warren used watercolor-influenced backgrounds and unflinching depictions of violence in a film marketed to general audiences.

    United Kingdom Cel animation Feature film
    Artist or studio
    Martin Rosen, Nepenthe Productions
    Country or region
    United Kingdom

    Historical context

    British animation had produced little feature work; the film was financed independently and animated by a crew assembled for the project.

    Why it mattered

    It demonstrated that animated features could handle mortality and fear without softening, and it complicated assumptions about animation and age suitability.

    What followed

    It became a reference for European features unwilling to be classified as children's entertainment, and its reputation has grown steadily since release.

    Sources consulted

    Related events

  • 1979 April 7, 1979

    Mobile Suit Gundam reframes the giant robot series

    A television series treated its war machines as mass-produced military equipment inside a political conflict with casualties on both sides, rather than as heroic super-robots.

    Japan Limited animation Television series
    Artist or studio
    Yoshiyuki Tomino, Sunrise
    Country or region
    Japan

    Historical context

    The series was cut short on first broadcast because of weak ratings, then revived by model kit sales and theatrical compilations.

    Why it mattered

    It introduced sustained political and moral complexity to a commercial animation genre and made merchandising and narrative ambition compatible.

    What followed

    The realistic-mecha approach became a durable genre, and the franchise model it created — long-running continuity supported by model kits — reshaped anime financing.

    Sources consulted

    Related events

  • 1979

    A film company builds a computer graphics division

    A major production company hired the leading computer graphics researchers of the period to develop digital editing, sound and image synthesis tools for filmmaking.

    United States 3D computer animation Studio and institution
    Artist or studio
    Lucasfilm Computer Division, led by Edwin Catmull
    Country or region
    United States

    Historical context

    The group was formed with unusually long research horizons for a commercial company, and worked on problems with no immediate production application.

    Why it mattered

    It placed advanced graphics research inside a film business for the first time, producing motion blur, particle systems and rendering methods that became industry standards.

    What followed

    The group's animation team was sold in 1986 and became an independent company whose first feature transformed the industry a decade later.

    Sources consulted

    Related events

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