Britannica
Sources used in this answer
Why did commercial motion-picture animation decline during the 1960s?
Created from Britannica articles
using AI.
AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.
Animation
Scene from the 2024 science fiction animated film The Wild Robot, directed by Chris Sanders.
Commercial motion-picture animation experienced a significant decline during the 1960s due to several converging factors in the film and television industries:
- Migration to Television: Cartoons primarily aimed at children shifted away from theaters and toward television, which became the primary medium for animated content.1
- Changes in Exhibition: Movie theaters stopped including traditional cartoon shorts as part of their standard exhibition programming, removing a key venue for the medium.1
- Studio Cutbacks: Hollywood studios reduced their investment in animation production, contributing to a slump in the industry.1
- Rising Costs: The high expense of producing full-figure, feature-length animation made the medium increasingly difficult to sustain commercially during this period.2
These shifts relegated much of the medium to children's television until the 1980s, when the Walt Disney Company and other producers began to revive the animated feature through new musical formats and the eventual adoption of computer animation technology, which helped reduce production expenses.12