Tag: tv

5 Things I Learned from Cartoon Pitch Bibles

Lately I’ve been interested in the “foundational texts” of cartoons, so much so that I’ve compiled a list of just about every one I could find online. In reading a bunch, I’ve learned some fascinating things about them—and about creative work in general. Like…

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Every Cartoon Pitch and Writer’s Bible on Archive.org

Here’s a collection of every document I could find on the website that I am reasonably sure was actually used to pitch, or write episodes for, a network-produced animated series. If you find another document, comment below!

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Can’t Make Kid’s Programs Like This Anymore (…And Probably Shouldn’t!)

Quick: name something you can’t put on your TV network for six-year-olds in the United States. “Guns and excessive violence?” That’s old news. “Racism?” Uh, we hope that’s old news. Here are two categories I propose: “things that are nightmarish” and “things that are really gross.”

Let that sink in. Two categories that dominated children’s TV in the 90s and left a long shadow seem to be fading away.

(Also, if you are a kid, please don’t read this, or my PG-13 blog in general.)

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The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus (1985): The OTHER Santa Origin Story

Part 4 of the Christmas Movie Watchstravaganza

Almost Christmas
Dolly Parton’s Christmas on the Square
It’s a Wonderful Life
The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus
The Polar Express

“There is no religion. Friars are bad. Buddha is bad. There are no gods, there is no cycle of rebirth. The only church is the Church of Santa Claus.” So sayeth the Rankin/Bass Santa origin myth we didn’t exactly need.

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Hide No More: The Masquerade Trope in Fantasy Fiction (And How Elatsoe Kills It)

When people recommended the young adult novel Elatsoe to me, it was never as a quirky take on a fantasy world. That’s what it is, though: a modern America with spirit summoners, vicious vampires, and fairy children as its typical citizens. Magic is a known factor that makes travel convenient, complicates crime scenes, causes fantastical global warming.

Rather, the book was introduced to me as a story about grief, healing, and ghosts that features a Native lead. This is also a true statement about what Elatsoe is. What interests me about the discrepancy is how people don’t see a need to mention the setting, bizarre though it may be. Seemingly nobody is saying, “Brace yourselves, because this story has kind of an unusual world…”

That must be because the setting’s not so weird after all. Not since approximately 2005.

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