The 50 Greatest Cartoons: As Selected by 1,000 Animation Professionals

This lovely book is a clear product of the animation renaissance, when a film like 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit', a series like 'Ren & Stimpy' and a television program like BBC's'Stay Tooned!' raised the interest in classic cartoons, their history and their makers. It's of course a matter of debate whether this book really features the 50 greatest cartoons (an appendix shows some other fine contenders that just didn't make it), but these are certainly 50 fine films.Unfortunately, the selection only includes cel animated films (and the pre-cel film 'Gertie the Dinosaur'), and thus does include 'The Man Who Planted Trees' (a film that is very far removed from the term 'cartoon'), but not the very cartoony Academy Award winner 'Creature Comforts', because that short is a stop motion film. Surprisingly, some more modern shorts have been able to make the list, like NFB's 'The Big Snit' and 'The Cat Came Back'. Another surprise is that four of the top five cartoons are by Chuck Jones.All shorts get a synopsis, a review and some background information. Moreover, the book is richly illustrated, and certainly inviting to watch the shorts themselves. The book's big error, however, is that the shorts are ranked 1 to 50, instead of vice versa. To me, a list like this should be a countdown, but it isn't. Anyway, that shouldn't hold any animated cartoon lover from buying this book.

It was a real pleasure to read this. It was, of course, wonderful to revisit some of my old favorites like "One Froggy Evening" and "What's Opera, Doc?". But I had just as much fun reading about and discovering cartoons that were new to me, like "Gertie the Dinosaur". Great insightful commentary on all the cartoons reviewed, as well as on cartooning in general. Highly recommended.

Good

Excellent and colorful reference book. Great Fun.

A wonderful collection of some of the greatest cartoons ever made.

Good book

Pros: Great selections (and runner ups), saw (and/or own) most of themCons: Must update to 100 (1900-present) or make sequel (including CGI and stop motion)

This book was a really nice book as it listed several great cartoon that i should watch in my lifetime. Some of these i knew would be in the book such as whats opera doc and one froggy evening, i mean no list of the greatest cartoons would be complete without those shorts. Aditinally the pictures are pretty high quality for 1994 standers, but that could be because i got them a new version. I really like the cover too. Seeing all of these characters in a nightclub was pretty nice. However i noticed one mistake, on the stage on the front, there is red from red hot riding hood, however on the back, there is red again, this time in the classic style of red riding hood. HOW! Despite all of these good things there are some downsides to this book, mainly the list itself. First of all, there were mainly looney tunes and merrilie melodys, and well i am a big fan of these series, i admit that seeing less variety is pretty upsetting. There were less things of other studios than the looney tunes. To give you a idea of how many things in comparison to looney turns. There were 17 looney tunes, and only one tom and jerry on the list. Secondly, some of their choices were baffling. An example would be bambi meets godzilla, at number 38. To give you a brief summary, its basically less than 2 minutes and the first 50 seconds are a cheaply drawn bambi eating grass while the credits are rolling. He lookis up and he is immediately crushed by godzilla. The end. Now is the cartoon that good. Hell no. All you can get is a little chuckle. Yet this was ranked at number 38 surpassing The Dover Boys, Book revue, little red riding rabbit, rooty toot toot, and peace on earth. Sure it is a bit funny but could it really surpass a cartoon that was a academy award winner (The cat concerento). Another problem is that the list is listed 1 to 50 instead of vice versa. Many lists do this and i wish this list did that because it wouldnt be 100% obvious that What opera doc and one froggy evening were in the spots. I actually made a list of all the cartoon that were not included on the list, keep in mind that all of these cartoon were made before 1994 and they were all cel animated. So here are all of the cartoons that were not included in the list (some were included in the runner ups section) NOTE:THIS DOES NOT INCLUDE ALL OF THE SHORTSBaseball bugs (1946)The big snooze (1946)Horton hatches the egg (1942) Plane Crazy (1928) A wild hare (1940) A Tale of 2 kittens (1942) Tweetie pie (1947) Dizzy dishes (1930) Puss gets the boot (1940) The milky way (1940) (Kitty Kornered) (1946) Baby Bottleneck (1946) The shoting of dan magoo (1945) Symptony in slang (1951) Magic mastaro (1952) The wise little hen (1934) Rabbit fire (1951)However, despite all of the problems ive listed, i still like the book. Wanna know why well its because this book is basically a retrospective on animation. I dont usually take the list and just take the book as a retrospective. The presentation is nice and the book is pretty good. The list has problems but hey at least the book is entertaining. Im rating this book a 7/10. Although the book has problems. Its presentation and its pictures makes up for it.