From Humble Beginnings: Before They Were (Animated) Stars

A funny thing happened to cartoons in the 90s. While once relegated exclusively for the mindless enjoyment of children, in the 1990s a new breed of animated series emerged with decidedly adult content. TV producers took the basic premise of the animated series and morphed it into a viable means of conveying grown-up themes and humor. These weren't your mother's cartoons. Or perhaps more accurately, they were.

Adult-geared cartoons flourished, and many of these series had long and fruitful runs far outstripping their initial potential. In fact, some of these shows continue to churn out new episodes today, though their adherence to original standards is ultimately questionable. Mind you, what we are about to delve into is a brief smattering of 90s adult cartoons and is by no means intended to represent the full canon. It does, however, represent part of the spark of the novel idea.

Nowadays, blocks of grown-up-geared cartoons air frequently on FOX or Cartoon Network's Adult Swim; if anything, the concept has gotten a smidgen tired. Back in the mid-to-late 90s, however, the concept was but a twinkle in the animators' eyes. The idea was just beginning to bud, and the craftsmanship was at best on the shoddy side. The underlying goal, however, was solid: to bring entertainment to an older audience using animation. Depending on your age at the time of their release. you may have enjoyed or misunderstood these cartoons. Either way, I think we can all agree that a lot has changed since their initial episodes.




The Simpsons

The Simpsons premiered on the Tracey Ullman Show in 1987, though its format was far from the smoothly drawn HD-TV Simpsons of today. The Simpsons began as a series of one-minute shorts focusing on a decidedly dysfunctional family.

Observe, the 16th short from the Tracey Ullman Show:



Sure, it's mildly amusing, but it's hard to believe that this meager offering evolved into a monstrous franchise spanning over 20 years. Obviously the Simpsons had a long way to go before achieving its immense popularity. Incredibly, all of the main character's original voice actors continue to perform their same roles. How's that for job security?




South Park

Though nowhere near as long-running as The Simpsons, South Park still boasts cartoon longevity running on its 13th season. When it premiered on Comedy Central in 1997, it was received as crude, juvenile, foul-mouthed, and dark. Critics noted the sharp contrast between the cute, innocent appearance of the characters and the filth that emanated from their poorly animated mouths. South Park was the first weekly TV series to receive the TV-MA rating, indicating it's intention of reaching mature audiences only. Depending on your definition of mature, this maturity was definitely open to interpretation.

In 1992, Matt Stone and Trey Parker produced the first ever South Park Short, The Spirit of Christmas: Jesus vs. Frosty. The film was presented at a student student film screening at their then-place of higher learning, University of Colorado. Though very, very rudimentary, the characters are shockingly similar to their current forms. They even have a "Oh my God! You killed Kenny!" sequence, only the Kenny in question later becomes the episodic Cartman.


Spirit of Christmas: Jesus vs. Frosty:


In 1995, with a slightly bigger budget, Stone and Parker produced a second Christmas short at the personal request of a FOX executive. It soon became one of the first viral videos, eventually catching the attention of Comedy central and prompting the initial discussion of the series.

The Spirit of Christmas, 1995 version: Jesus vs. Santa:


The actual pilot episode (shown below in its entirety, if you're into that kind of thing) is entitled "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe." Cute, right? Though many of us would hardly bat an eye over this today, at the time of its release it was pretty envelope-pushing.


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Family Guy

I'm sure I'll be burned at the proverbial stake for my heathenry, but I am ready to admit that I have lost interest in the new Family Guy episodes as of late. Pardon me for not worshiping at the feet of the great MacFarlane, but I don't find it particularly funny anymore. It's gotten so gimmicky, it's forgotten its initial, truer, lighter gimmickiness. Okay, so maybe that's a bit confusing, but I promise there is some sort of sense buried in that statement somewhere. After all, I used to be a pretty dedicated fan during the DVD era.

Family Guy is a series that has been through innumerable phases and reformulations. In fact, the animated short that eventually became the series was not Family Guy at all but rather The Life of Larry. Life of Larry featured a slovenly middle-aged man named Larry, his wife Lois (I think we can all see where this is going), his son Milt, and his talking dog Steve. If you watch the short below, you'll see that the animation and character style is distinctly different, but the jokes do get recycled into later Family Guy episodes. I guess some jokes are just too good to waste.


Life of Larry (1995):

I will admit I find it pretty funny when Seth MacFarlane says, "Oh, hi there. You scared the crap out of me."

MacFarlane created a second Larry short, Larry and Steve, for Cartoon Network a year or so later:



The Family Guy pilot came a few years later (see clip below). If you're a fan, you may recognize it as a more crappily-animated version (with a few differences) of the 1999 premiere episode, Death Has a Shadow. As you can probably gather, the characters and flow differ pretty significantly from the current version:









Futurama

From the creators of the Simpsons, Futurama was a satirical science-fiction cartoon focusing on the life of Fry, a nebbishy pizza delivery guy who falls into a cryogenic freezer in 1999 only to be revived in the year 3000. Let me just clarify that Fry deserves our utmost 90s respect as he is voiced by Billy West, the man who brought us Doug Funnie, Roger Klotz, Stimpy, and the voices of Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd in Space Jam. Now that's a 90s resume right there.

Fry and his distant relative Professor Farnsworth (along their robot, alien, and mutant misfit friends) start a shipping company called Planet Express. Over 2000 years, Fry evolved from delivery guy to...delivery guy. What a journey. The pilot is very set-up heavy as the premise of the show is fairly complicated, but if you stuck with it for awhile there were certainly payoffs. Now is probably also a good time to mention that Comedy Central recently ordered 26 new episodes of Futurama set to air in 2010. Set your phone calendar alarms, people, this is going to be big.

Clip from Space Pilot 3000, the Futurama pilot episode:






Daria

I know, I know, Daria was aimed at teens more than adults, but as my favorite cartoon ever I've made the executive decision to place it on this master list. I was in middle school and high school during Daria's run and just toeing the waters of sarcasm, so Daria really spoke to me on an "it's okay to be irreverent, rude, and brutally honest" kind of way. In short, Daria was my kind of girl, though significantly ballsier and more anti-social.

Or rather, in long. In the full-length episodes, we get a well-rounded picture of Daria with all of her character traits and flaws. In the pilot short, however, we get just an eensy taste of the sarcasm to come. As the Daria character premiered on Beavis and Butthead, the pilot short represented the transition from secondary character to star of the show. The show's creator's wanted to pitch the Daria series as completely separate from the juvenile lowbrow humor of B&B and thus sought to emphasize Daria's more biting wit and intelligence in the short. It's by no means as fleshed-out as the actual series (both literally and figuratively, as the pilot was done with crude animation in black and white), but you can gather the general idea:




The 90s showed us that animation geared toward more mature (age-wise) audiences was both a viable and worthwhile enterprise. You have to admire the enduring nature of these series: South Park and The Simpsons are still on the air, and Futurama and Family Guy both did so well in DVD sales and syndication that they were revived from the depths of cancellation hell. Now if only Viacom would see fit to release the Daria* DVDs, all would be right in the 90s cartoon world.


Hint: You can, however, watch the episodes online here. Just between you and me.

Magic Nursery Dolls

Disclaimer: To all of you male readers out there, I promise there will be some chest-thumpingly testosterone-filled posts coming up soon. I assure you, it's not all baby dolls and flounce here at Children of the 90s. Some brusque masculinity will be coming right up, pronto.

Magically, the Puppy Surprise post from a few days back garnered so much unprompted discussion of Magic Nursery Babies that I felt compelled to further examine their existence in their very own full-length post. See? You spoke, I listened. It's fun how it works like that. Unless I don't like your idea, that is. Luckily, though, this one is a winner. Bravo, readers. Bravo.

In toy production as in warfare, your most important strategy is the element of surprise. If the surprise can involve some scale of sorcery, well, then all the better. Children's awe and amazement is fairly easy to obtain: simply present to them something that defies their expectations, and wait for the temper tantrums begging parental spending to begin.

In 1990, the Mattel Corporation had a few such magic tricks up its sleeve with which to woo both children and toy retailers alike. Behold, from a 1990 New York Times article on the great unveil of Magic Nursery Babies at a retailer toy fair:

"With a wave of her silver wand, a fairy princess wearing a sparkling pink gown and tiara opened the mirrored portal known as the Magic Door. Inside was the Magic Nursery, a room decorated in spare-no-expense style, with soft lighting, plush pink carpeting and white lace."

In the center of the room stood a group of about a dozen middle-age men, all dressed in dark business suits. Like a religious sect reciting ancient prayers, they were chanting in a deep, solemn tone.

''Love is magic,'' they said in unison. ''Love is magic. Love is magic.''

[. . .]The group in the Magic Nursery was watching a demonstration of Mattel Toys' Magic Nursery doll, one of more than 6,000 new toys on display. As the men obeyed a saleswoman's command to keep up their chant, they stared at a baby doll's dressing gown that had been immersed in a bowl of water. Suddenly, the gown vanished, leaving behind a waterproof bag containing a frilly dress for the doll. The retailers erupted with ''oohs'' and ''aahs,'' responses that hovering Mattel executives hoped would translate into signatures on order forms."

While usually I enjoy speculating on what tipping point of craziness put ridiculous 90s toys on the shelves, in this case I don't have to. This is an actual account of the initial Magic Nursery Baby demonstration. Let me be the first to say, this is absolutely insane. There, I said it. Middle-aged men in business suits chanting cultishly, "Love is magic" is above and beyond any absurd toy pitches I could have dreamed up. I admit, the trick is pretty impressive, but the chanting errs on the side of totally and irrepressibly creepy.

"Love is magic," was the mantra of the Magic Nursery Babies. According to Mattel lore, if you chanted this mysterious incantation while swirling your doll's dressing gown in water, you could conjure an informative packet containing valuable and pertinent information about your latest doll acquistion. Oh, and an outfit! Mainly an outfit. See for yourself:

I especially love the little girl who hugs the baby doll maniacally, exclaiming, "I'm your magic nursery mommy!" Her level of enthusiasm troubles me. Also, does anyone else as an adult get a little creeped out when they say, "Let's find out!" and begin undressing it? I do sort of like the implication that the only thing differentiating a boy or girl baby is hair and a dress, though.

Just imagine, in the late 80s teams of researches and scientists slaved laboriously over Bunsen burners and graduated cylinders. They worked tirelessly to formulate the chemical reactions necessary to bring us these Magic Nursery Babies. The country's best and brightest weren't all tied up researching vaccines and medical treatments; some were churning out dissoluble baby doll dressing gowns. While their peers were out there, day after day, bettering mankind, these guys really wanted to focus more on doll cheeks that responded to kisses. You know. For the kids.

I will be the first to concede that the trick is undeniably impressive. How do they do it? Where are they hiding this mysterious packet, and how does this sinkful of water unlock this mystery? The details are pretty hazy, but the response was clear. Children loved them. They could not get enough. Better yet for Mattel, kids had no inkling as to whether their doll was to be a boy or a girl. Hence 50% of the time, the kids wouldn't get what they wanted. Even if, say, only 30% of parents are complete suckers, it's still a 30% increase in return customers to appease screaming children.

The baby's gender was not the only surprise the Magic Nursery had in store for us. Additionally, we all had a one-in-thirty-six chance of our baby being a twin. Let me repeat that. A one-in-thirty-six-chance. Those are terrible, terrible odds. Either way, we were all fairly certain that when push came to shove, we'd probably be getting a twin. Unfortunately for our parents, most of us were very wrong.




Also, the twin thing was pretty anticlimactic. Your dissolving dressing gown's resultant packet would proclaim your baby twinned, and you could fill out a form and send it into the manufacturer, wait 8-10 business days from point of receipt, and eventually receive a second doll by mail. Children, by nature, are not especially patient creatures. By the time that twin gets there, it's pretty likely they'll already have abandoned its brother or sister in favor of a new toy.

Mattel must have known our enchantment with these babies (under the "Love is Magic" spell) wouldn't last forever, and quickly shoved into production other Magic Nursery Prototypes:



Magic Nursery Pets were pretty much the same thing, only with animals and a condensed TV commercial time slot. I imagine these were slightly confusing to children, though, as they imply that the only thing differentiating one animal from another is its ears. Somewhere down the road, one of these Magic Nursery Pet-owning kids will be in a biology lesson on evolution, raise her hand and ask bewilderedly, "But what about the ear pulling? Where does that factor in?"

Later incarnations brought forth a new slew of tricks: babies with eyes that open or close when ice cubes or warm water was applied, twins or triplets that could be bought as sets, "my first haircut", a choice of newborn or toddler dolls. Even with the newer models, these dolls were essentially one-trick ponies. The most exciting part happened when the doll was first opened, meaning everything from that point on was sort of a letdown. Either way, that one magical moment of swirling the dress in water and chanting, "Love is Magic", was pretty impressive, whether to a child or room full of middle-aged businessmen.

Mrs. Doubtfire

Sometimes, we have to give credit where credit is due. Some feats are so trying with such apparently insurmountable obstacles that their ultimate achievers deserve the utmost in respect and recognition. Thus was the case of transforming the hairiest man in the world into a moderately convincing elderly British woman. In the words of one of Robin Williams' on-screen transformers, "The man has a five o'clock shadow at 8:30 am." These makeup people and professional arm waxers certainly deserve their due.

Mrs. Doubtfire, based on the 1993 novel Madame Doubtfire, was an ambitious undertaking. Sure, audiences had eaten up Tootsie a decade before and publicly declared their love for movies starring cross-dressing men, but you know what they say: it's a hell of a lot easier to turn Dustin Hoffman into a woman than it is with Robin Williams. Though the two movies invite obvious comparisons, Mrs. Doubtfire separated itself in a major way by marketing to children. Sure, a man in drag is funny, but a man in drag to children is hilarious. Well played, director Chris Columbus. Well played indeed.






The movie is one for which audiences were willing and eager to suspend their disbelief and allow themselves to get caught up in the touchy-feely heartwarmingness of it all. We can all recognize that the plot is absurd and unrealistic, but that's why it's a movie. There's no "based on a true story" anywhere about it. It's based on a fictional story. It doesn't have to be real. It just has to be entertaining.

Cresting the wave of popularity of William's voice acting successes in animated films such as Aladdin and Fern Gully, Mrs. Doubtfire's opening scene depicts Williams (as Daniel Hillard) doing in-studio voice-over work for an animated short. Though his performance as a opera-singing caged bird is near-inspired, he clashes with the creative director and leaves the set, thus severing ties with gainful employment.

Largely unaffected by this minor hiccup, Daniel defies his wife's wishes and throws his son (played by Matthew Lawrence) a crazy 12th birthday bash, complete with full zoo and other reckless means of child enjoyment. Daniel's wife Miranda (Sally Fields) comes home to find the house a mob scene, with everyone jumping around to that House of Pain song. Tired of being the bad-cop to Daniel's super-fun cop, Miranda asks for a divorce. Due to his flaky employment and lack of steady income, the judge allows Daniel the miniature visitation time slot of Saturday evenings. Needless to say, Daniel is pretty bummed.

Lucky for us viewers, this sad sack-ness doesn't last for long and antics quickly escalate into insane debauchery. Daniel learns that his ex-wife is seeking a housekeeper and is insulted that he can't be trusted to care for his kids. Instead of handling this in a rational, adult way, Daniel goes for the crazy, voice-talent approach. He intercepts Miranda's newspaper ad and changes the phone number to ward off legitimate inquiries from qualified housekeepers, and proceeds to call Miranda numerous times with different frustrating-inducing traits. Eventually he calls in as the soothingly sweet and highly qualified Mrs. Doubtfire, pilfering the name from a newspaper headline ("Police Doubt Fire Was Accidental").

What happens next can only be described as a clinically, almost criminally insane quest for Daniel to disguise himself as a sweet old lady. In an extremely convenient plot point, Daniel's brother is actually some form of special-effects make-up guru who is just perfect for this job. Although he probably should have considered disguise options before committing to an interview, Daniel hastily retreats to his brother's home and asks, "Can you make me a woman?" His brother is more than happy to oblige, and also happy to waste mountains of time and expensive resources making him look like Barbara Streisand and other near-misses, purportedly for our pure entertainment value. They even through in some Fiddler on the Roof in a sequence where Williams appears dressed exactly like my grandmother in a rainstorm.

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His brother just happens to have all of the necessary accouterments on hand, right down to the jeweled Victorian brooch. Euphoric high fiving, hip-bumping, and chaotic dancing ensue, and Daniel's brother and his partner declare Daniel fit to convince his ex-wife and children that he's a 70-something English nanny full of worldly wisdom, nutritious cooking expertise, and disciplinary goodness.

Of course, requisite hilarity ensues in typical 90s montage fashion. All sorts of what-can-go-wrong-will-go-wrong situations unfold, such as the hilarious prosthetic-breasts-aflame-in-cooking-gone-awry moment. Unfortunately for Daniel, Miranda becomes smitten with her hunky co-worker (Pierce Brosnan). Sure, it's rough on him, but just try to tell me you could platonically share office space with James Bond without asking him to be the father of your children. Just try!

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Daniel's son walks in on him in the bathroom, and is justifiably frightened to find that their sweet old lady housekeeper is actually a man. With his cover blown, Daniel 'fesses up to his son and older daughter and implores them to maintain the secret. Meanwhile, Daniel shows some on-air promise while goofing around at his crappy TV studio film-reel filing gig and his boss invites him to dinner to discuss potential opportunities. By pure cinematic coincidence, Miranda asks Mrs. Doubtfire to join the family and her beau at the exact same restaurant at the exact same time. I think we can all see where this is headed.

Obviously, instead of doing the grown-up thing and either a) lying to someone to change the conflicting plans or b) telling the truth, Daniel opts for elusive option c) attempt to change back and forth and eat two dinners as two different people at the same time. Obviously it goes amok, and Daniel's cover is blown as his disguise comes unglued and he is exposed as the father of all frauds. Or frauds of all fathers. Take your pick.

Daniel pleads his case in family court, but to no avail. In a singular sane moment of clarity, the judge revokes Daniel's custody and allows him only supervised visitation. Daniel is devastated, but somehow manages to pick up the broken shards of his life and relegate his creative energy into a new show, Aunt Euphegenia's House, starring himself as Mrs. Doubtfire. Miranda sees the show and in typical movie fashion, immediately reconsiders and allows joint visitation. It just goes to show you: if you're crazy enough to housekeep your children in drag but entertaining enough to bring that character to TV, everything will work out just fine. Really.

If that description was too long and unwieldy for your tastes, don't you worry your pretty little head about it. Someone (not me) put together this handy condensed version of the film. For your viewing and summarizing pleasure, Mrs. Doubtfire in under a minute flat:




Oh, and don't forget to tune in to the next installment of our multi-part series on mid-90s cross-dressing themed movies starring Robin Williams when we examine The Birdcage. What can I say? These were his drag queen years.