This article is missing information about Flash animations in middle-to-late 2010s, Adobe Flash end-of-life and ultimate fate of Flash animations. Please expand the article to include this information. Further details may exist on the talk page.(April 2022)
Simple animation in Flash MX: a square moving across the screen in a motion tween, one of the basic functions of Flash; onion skinning is used to show the apparent motion of the square
Adobe Flash animation (formerly Macromedia Flash animation and FutureSplash animation) is an animation that is created with the Adobe Animate (formerly Flash Professional[1]) platform or similar animation software and often distributed in the SWF file format. The term Adobe Flash animation refers to both the file format and the medium in which the animation is produced. Adobe Flash animation has enjoyed mainstream popularity since the mid-2000s, with many Adobe Flash-animated television series, television commercials, and award-winning online shorts being produced since then.
In the late 1990s, when bandwidth was still at 56 kbit/s for most Internet users, many Adobe Flash animation artists employed limited animation or cutout animation when creating projects intended for web distribution. This allowed artists to release shorts and interactive experiences well under 1MB, which could stream both audio and high-end animation.
Adobe Flash is able to integrate bitmaps and other raster-based art, as well as video, though most Adobe Flash films are created using only vector-based drawings, which often result in a somewhat clean graphic appearance. Some hallmarks of poorly produced Adobe Flash animation are jerky natural movements (seen in walk-cycles and gestures), auto-tweened character movements, lip-sync without interpolation and abrupt changes from front to profile view.
Adobe Flash animations are typically distributed by way of the World Wide Web, in which case they are often referred to as Internet cartoons, online cartoons, or web cartoons. Web Adobe Flash animations may be interactive and are often created in a series. An Adobe Flash animation is distinguished from a Webcomic, which is a comic strip distributed via the Web, rather than an animated cartoon.
The first prominent use of the Adobe Flash animation format was by The Ren & Stimpy Show creator John Kricfalusi. On October 15, 1997, he launched The Goddamn George Liquor Program, the first cartoon series produced specifically for the Internet.[2] The series starred George Liquor (a fictional character rumored to have ended Kricfalusi's employment on Ren & Stimpy) and his dim-witted nephew Jimmy The Idiot Boy. Later, Kricfalusi produced more animated projects with Adobe Flash Professional, including several online shorts for Icebox.com, television commercials, and a music video. Soon after that, web cartoons began appearing on the Internet with more regularity.
On February 26, 1999, in a major milestone for Adobe Flash animation, the popular web series WhirlGirl became the first regularly scheduled Adobe Flash animated web series when it premiered on the premium cable channel Showtime in an unprecedented telecast and simultaneous release on the Showtime website.[3][4] Created by David B. Williams and produced by Visionary Media, the studio he founded, WhirlGirl follows the adventures of a young super-heroine fighting for freedom in a future ruled by an all-powerful "mediatech empire". The series originally launched in the spring of 1997 as a web comic with limited animation and sound.[5] After gaining online syndication partners including Lycos.com and WebTV, the series first adopted Adobe Flash animation in July 1998.[6] Following her Showtime debut, the titular heroine appeared in over 50 Adobe Flash webisodes on the Showtime website[7] and starred in a million-dollar multimedia Showtime marketing campaign.[8]
About the same time, Joe Cartoon launched the interactive animation "Frog in a Blender" to become one of the first true "viral hits" on the Internet,.[9]
The Von Ghouls went live in November 1999, featuring the first music group with cartoon episodes online including original songs, in the vein of Saturday morning cartoons of the 1970s. A number of popular portal sites featured Adobe Flash animation during the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, including MondoMedia, Icebox, CampChaos, MediaTrip, Bogbeast and AtomFilms. Stan Lee, the late founder of Marvel Comics, launched an animated comics site.
The Internet also saw the proliferation of many websites devoted entirely to Flash cartoons. Some of the shows from that period made the transition to traditional media, including Queer Duck, Gary the Rat, Happy Tree Friends, and the politically-minded JibJab shorts. Occasionally, the trend has been reversed: after being canceled from both ABC and Fox, Atom Films and Flinch Studio created net-only episodes of The Critic in 2000–2001. In another instance, Adobe Flash almost made the transition to the big screen. In 2001, production began on what would have been the first Adobe Flash-animated feature film, the ill-fated Lil' Pimp, which also began life as an Internet series. As potentially controversial as its subject matter was,[citation needed] it had a relatively large budget, a number of well-known actors (including William Shatner, the late Bernie Mac, and Lil' Kim), a full crew, and a running time of nearly 80 minutes. Although Sony Pictures decided not to release the film, it was eventually released on DVD by Lionsgate.
In 2000, another major milestone occurred in the world of animation when the first broadcast-quality Adobe Flash animation aired on television. Dice Raw's music video "Thin Line between Raw and Jiggy" appeared on the big screen at Resfest 2000, on television via BET, and the Web on sites such as Sputnik7.com, Shockwave.com, Heavy.com and was also included with the CD. Its creation became one of media history's first convergent entertainment productions.[10] Todd Wahnish, who would later go on to create Marvel Entertainment's "All Winners Squad", pioneered the early conversion of traditional hand-drawn techniques into vector-based animation seen in the video. The video triggered a flood of Adobe Flash-based television animation.[citation needed]
Several recording companies experimented with releasing animated music videos to promote their artists' releases online, including Madonna, Beastie Boys and Tenacious D; however, none became the hit that allowed for the expansion of Flash animated music videos. Adam Sandler and Tim Burton, among others, released original Internet-only animated works, but were not able to devise successful financial models and the trend dissipated, largely as a result of a lack of viable micropayment systems.
Many animation film festivals responded to the popularity of Adobe Flash animation by adding separate categories in competition for "web cartoons" or "Internet cartoons". Additionally, several exclusively web-based Adobe Flash competitions have been established[which?]. It is speculated[by whom?] that only the category "made for Internet" will survive, as competitions at animation film festivals are typically arranged in categories defined by film length and distribution channel, rather than by animation techniques or tools used to create it.
Adobe Flash Professional was renamed to Adobe Animate in 2016 to both more accurately reflect its market position then, since over a third of all content created in Animate uses HTML5, and prevent confusion between Adobe Flash Professional and Adobe Flash Player since they are completely different products. Adobe will continue to support Adobe Animate even after Flash Player's end-of-life deadline by 2020, hence all animations produced in Animate will survive Flash Player's death. The only change is that after 2020, animators will instead share their animations in either video, HTML5, or WebGL format. On June 16, 2020, as part of Adobe's 'Evolving Brand Identity', Adobe Animate unveiled a complete redesign of its logo in which for the first time in almost 20 years, the main color was changed from Red to Purple, ending any association of Flash entirely.
Distribution
While the creation of animation using Adobe Animate can be much easier and less expensive than traditional animation techniques, the amount of time, money, and skill required to produce a project using the software depends on the chosen content and style. Internet distribution is considerably easier and less expensive than television broadcasting. Many Adobe Flash animations are created by individual, independent artists, and many that are first distributed on the web became popular enough to be broadcast on television, particularly on such networks as MTV and G4.
Professional studios
Adobe Flash animation production is enjoying considerable popularity in major animation studios around the world, as animators take advantage of the software's ability to organize a large number of assets (such as characters, scenes, movements, and props) for later re-use. Because Adobe Animate files are in vector file format, they can be used to transfer animation to 35mm film without any compromise in image quality. In 2003, Big Idea Entertainment used Animate (back when it was called Flash) to make Larryboy: The Cartoon Adventures. This feature is used by several independent animators worldwide, including Phil Nibbelink, who saw his 77-minute feature film Romeo & Juliet: Sealed with a Kiss released in theaters in 2006, and Nina Paley, who released Sita Sings the Blues in 2008. For Disneyland's 50 Magical Years film featuring Live action Steve Martin interacting with Donald Duck, the hand drawn animation of Donald Duck was cleaned up and colored in Flash. The Drawn Together Movie: The Movie!, a straight-to-DVD feature of the animated series Drawn Together, produced by Comedy Central and released in April 2010, discarded the series' traditional animation and used Flash animation instead.
Creating Flash animations using other software
There are a number of other software packages available that can create output in the .swf format.[11] Among these are Vyond, Toon Boom, Xara Photo & Graphic Designer, Serif DrawPlus, Toufee, Express Animator, CelAction 2D and Moho. These front-ends often provide additional support for creating cartoons, especially with tools more tailored to traditionally trained animators, as well as additional rigging for characters, which can speed up character animation considerably.
↑ Renamed Hub Network in 2013, and later Discovery Family from October 13, 2014, onward.
Related Research Articles
Looney Tunes is an American media franchise produced and distributed by Warner Bros. The franchise began as a series of animated short films that originally ran from 1930 to 1969, alongside the related series Merrie Melodies, during the golden age of American animation. Following a revival in the late 1970s, new shorts were released as recently as 2014. The two series introduced a large cast of characters, including Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and Porky Pig. The term Looney Tunes has since been expanded to also refer to the characters themselves.
Disney's House of Mouse is an American animated television series produced by Walt Disney Television Animation that originally aired on ABC and Toon Disney from January 13, 2001, to October 24, 2003, with 52 episodes and 22 newly produced cartoon shorts made for the series. The show focuses on Mickey Mouse and his friends running a cartoon theater dinner club in the fictional setting of ToonTown, catering to many characters from Disney cartoons and animated movies while showcasing a variety of their cartoon shorts. The series is named after a common nickname or epithet for the Walt Disney Company.
Modern animation in the United States from the late 1980s to 2004 is frequently referred to as the renaissance age of American animation. During this period, many large American entertainment companies reformed and reinvigorated their animation departments, following the dark age, and the United States had an influence on global and worldwide animation.
An animated series is a set of animated television works with a common title, usually related to one another. These episodes should typically share the same main heroes, some different secondary characters and a basic theme. Series can have either a finite number of episodes like a miniseries, a definite end, or be open-ended, without a predetermined number of episodes. They can be broadcast on television, shown in movie theatres, released on the internet or direct-to-video. Like other creative works, animated series can be of a wide variety of genres and can also have different target audiences: both males and females, both children and adults.
Spümcø, Inc. was an American animation studio that was active from 1989 to 2005 and based in Los Angeles, California. The studio was best known for working on the first two seasons of The Ren & Stimpy Show for Nickelodeon and for various commercials. The studio won several awards, including an Annie Award for Best Animated Short Subject for the music video of the song "I Miss You" by Björk.
Michael John Kricfalusi, known professionally as John K., is a Canadian illustrator, blogger, and former animator and voice actor. He is the creator of the animated television series The Ren & Stimpy Show, which was highly influential on televised animation during the 1990s. From 1989 to 1992, he was heavily involved with the first two seasons of the show in virtually every aspect of its production, including providing the voice of Ren Höek and other characters. In 2009, he won the Inkpot Award.
The Nicktoons Film Festival was an annual event that was created by producer Fred Seibert and produced for its first three years by his Frederator Studios.
Warner Bros. Animation Inc. is an American animation studio which is part of the Warner Bros. Television Group, a division of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which is a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery and serves as the animation division and label of Warner Bros.
The Goddamn George Liquor Program is a 1997 Adobe Flash animated cartoon series created by John Kricfalusi and starring the animated character George Liquor. It was originally developed as a web-based cartoon by Microsoft's then-new MSN, in partnership with Spümcø studio. After failing to receive approval for publishing from Microsoft, all properties were released to Spümcø, and the web-based cartoon was spun out directly by the Spümcø studio. Michael Pataki reprised his role as Liquor from The Ren & Stimpy Show. Spümcø produced eight one-minute shorts. The budget for each episode was $25,000.
George Liquor is a cartoon character created by John Kricfalusi. Liquor is most famous for his appearances on The Ren & Stimpy Show. He is considered Kricfalusi's signature character and was a mascot for Kricfalusi's defunct animation studio, Spümcø. Kricfalusi portrayed George Liquor as a patriotic, outspoken, politically conservative blowhard. Kricfalusi described Liquor as his favorite character to animate.
Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures is an American animated television series. It is a revival of the Mighty Mouse cartoon character. Produced by Bakshi-Hyde Ventures and Terrytoons, the show aired on CBS on Saturday mornings from fall 1987 through the 1988–89 season. It was briefly rerun on Saturday mornings on Fox Kids in November and December 1992.
Stephen Worth is an American producer of animation.
The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse and Heckle & Jeckle is a 1979–1980 television series featuring newly produced Mighty Mouse and Heckle & Jeckle cartoons. The series was produced by Filmation, and aired from 1979 to 1980 on CBS with 96 episodes produced. It was the second Mighty Mouse cartoon series, following the original Mighty Mouse Playhouse from 1955 to 1967, and followed by Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures, which aired from 1987 to 1988.
Weekend Pussy Hunt was an Internet-only film noir cartoon series created by John Kricfalusi, starring Dirty Dog and Cigarettes the Cat. The series was initially developed for MSN, which billed it as "the world's first interactive web-based cartoon" and slated it for release in June 1997, but MSN stopped the production before the cartoon was finished. In 1999 the series began airing on Icebox.com, after the release of Spümcø's own web-based Flash cartoon, The Goddamn George Liquor Program. The first scene was animated prior to Flash's acquisition by Macromedia, when the software was still called FutureSplash Animator.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to animation:
This is a listing of all theatrical animated shorts released by Warner Bros. under the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies banners between 1970 and the present. It also lists shorts originally planned for theatrical release and other shorts that were not feature films, television series, or television specials.
Adobe Animate is a multimedia authoring and computer animation program developed by Adobe.
WhirlGirl debuted in 1997 as an online sci-fi series about a reluctant superheroine battling an evil "mediatech" empire in 2077 Southern California. The title character—dubbed "a real revolutionary for a virtual age"—balanced freedom-fighting with realistic personal concerns like dating and having friends.
Alan Becker is an American online animator, YouTuber and artist, best known for creating the Animator vs. Animation web series and the spin-off Animation vs. franchise, in particular the web series Animation vs. Minecraft Shorts.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
