Who is the Most Hated Person in the History of the Animation Industry?

TMC1982

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*Peggy Charren - Peggy Charren spearheaded a major movement (via her watchdog group Action for Children's Television or ACT) to censor cartoons during the 1970s and 1980s. In essence, she was pretty much telling and bullying networks that animated shows couldn't show violence and "anti-social behavior". In the end this left with really no other option for viewers to only watch "pro-social" cartoons that fits into her parameters. In return, Peggy Charren's biggest legacy was probably that of the Children's Television Act of 1990. The Children's Television Act of 1990 was further strengthened in about 1996 via the three hours of education mandate on broadcast networks. Ironically, it really is the only reason Saturday morning cartoons still exist among over-the-air broadcasters, since all the profitable cartoons and kids shows have long since moved to cable (i.e. Cartoon Network, NickToons, Toon Disney, etc.).

*Alfred Kahn - Alfred Kahn is the CEO of 4Kids Entertainment. Kahn has basically been criticized by traditional anime fans, who believe that his "Americanization" and censorship of anime licensed by 4Kids tarnishes their original format.

*Fred Calvert - Fred Calvert is the man who was chosen to finish "The Thief and the Cobbler" (or "Arabian Knight" as it was theatrically released as in the United States in 1995) after Richard Williams was fired from his 20+ year pet project.

*Jamie Kellner - Wrestling fans hate Jamie Kellner because he ordered the cancellation of WCW programming on TBS/TNT. Eric Bischoff and his group of investors were on the verge of purchasing WCW from Time Warner. But when Kellner had the shows cancelled, this gave Vince McMahon the opportunity to purchase his competition and have a virtual monopoly on the North American pro wrestling market. Anyway, Jamie Kelner was also the WB executive who made sweeping changes, which led to the cancellation/retinkering of certain beloved Silver Age WB shows (i.e. "Animaniacs", "Freakazoid!", "Road Rovers", "Histeria!", "The Legend of Calamity Jane", and "Pinky and the Brain"). Kellner has been maligned for allegedly ignoring such shows' popularity among older demographics, among whom the programs often got higher ratings than in the 2-11 demographic (a la "Pokemon") at which Kids' WB! was primarily aimed.

*Bob Camp - Bob Camp is the guy who took over from John K./Spumco on the production of "Ren and Stimpy" when Nickelodeon fired John K. When Camp and his Games Animation production company took over, I think that fans felt that the show became too reliant on cheap gross out jokes. Ironically, when Spumco revived "Ren and Stimpy" on the "Adult Party Cartoon" on SpikeTV, those episodes were even more hated by the fans than the Games produced episodes.

*Michael Eisner - Eisner gained a reputation during his time as the CEO of the Disney Company for allegedly micromanaging the Disney animators out of their jobs, literally forcing Pixar away, killing a lot of the "Disney Afternoon" style shows by only letting them run a maximum of 65 episodes, and churring out straight-to-DVD/video "cheap-quels" to films such as "The Little Mermaid", "The Lion King", "Aladdin", "Cinderella", "Peter Pan", etc.

*Glen Kennedy - Kennedy's animation studio worked on "Tiny Toon Adventures", "A Pup Named Scooby Doo", and many "Disney Afternoon" shows. Animation fans have criticized Kennedy for his apparent knack of sloppiness (e.g. often lumpy, bouncy, and stretchy movements) on the shows he and his company worked on when compared to StarToons (who also worked on "Tiny Toons").

*Mike Scully - Mike Scully was the show runner for "The Simpsons" from 1997-2001. During the time he was the show runner or exectutive producer, there was an seemingly increased usage of celebrity guest voices, more reliance on slapstick and lowbrow humor, and the characters became more one-dimensional. In addition, many episodes during this period centered around Homer, who was seemingly portrayed as being very mean-spirited.

*Carl Macek - Macek was the producer and story editor of "Robotech" (which was originally made up of three unrelated anime). Fans of anime have criticized Macek (who has been dubbed "The Antichrist" on usernet forums) for changing the dialogue in order to remove what he called "ethnic gestures". Also, Macek has been heavily criticized for the major, and some fans argue, pointless changes to the dubbing of "Aura Battler Dunbine".

*Leon Schlesinger - Schlesinger's independent animation studio would eventually become Warner Bros. Cartoons. Schlesigner had a reputation for being a very hard-nosed business man. His animators worked in a dilapidated studio, and he briefly shut down the studio in 1941 and 1942 when unionized employees demanded a pay raise. Also, animators who worked with him also found him conceited and somewhat foppish, wearing too much cologne and dressing like a dandy.

*Fred Quimby - Quimby was the producer in charge of the old Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio. Quimby was very unliked by those who worked with him. He apparently had no sense of humor to call upon (ironic considering that his studio produced the "Tom and Jerry" cartoons). He also apparently knew nothing about animation, as cartoons were a strange thing to him. Quimby was also known to turn down requests for bigger budgets, raises and special dispensations of funds.

*Paul Terry - Paul Terry was the founder of the Terrytoons animation studio, who produced the "Mighty Mouse" and "Heckle and Jeckle" cartoons among others. Through much of its history, the studio was considered one of the lowest quality houses in the field. Terry was extremely conservative at producing cartoons. So to that end, Terrytoons had the lowest budgets and it was among the slowest to adapt to new technologies such as sound (in about 1930) and Technicolor (in 1942), while its graphic style remained remarkably static for decades. Terrytoons' rather inflexable release schedule allowed them to provide a new cartoon every other week, regardless of the cost to the quality of the films.

*Don Bluth

*Clarence Muse - Arguably a race-paranoid black Disney animator, who after being discharged by Disney, took out his disgruntled-employee frustrations by running to the NAACP and claiming that a certain 1940s Disney animated features at the time were "racist".

*John K.

*William Hanna and Joseph Barbera - Hanna-Barbera were pioneers of limited TV animation pioneers. In other words, they were repeating backgrounds, where only the lips, arms, and legs of the characters move. They also seemed to produce little more but copies of "Scooby Doo" in the 1970s.

*Lou Scheimer - While running Filmation Studios, Scheimer seemed to have a knack for adapting good established ideas with constantlly re-used animation movements and character designs.

*Mark Fowler - Serving as FCC chairman in the 1980s, he allowed weekday toy-based TV cartoon shows to premiere (the last being the 1970s "Hot Wheels" show) beginning with "He-Man".

*Andy Heyward - While overseeing DiC, Heyward helped produced a lot of 1980s-era TV shows that arguably, featured lots of overacting Canadian voice talent and cheap Japanese animation.

*Frederik Du Chau - Du Chau directed the live-action movie version of "Underdog" and "Quest for Camelot".

*Jeffrey Katzenberg

*Walt Disney (when he was still living)

*Eddie Selzer - Selzer replaced Leon Schlesinger when Leon retired, Selzer by most accounts, didn't have much of a sense of humor, vision, or imagination. And had he had his way, we likely wouldn't have characters like Taz or Pepe le Pew (he simply thought that they weren't funny), and we wouldn't have the Bugs Bunny classic, Bully for Bugs (the one where Bugs forgets to take the left turn at Albuquerque and ends up in the middle of a bull fight).

*Ralph Bakshi - Bakshi as been accused of abusing rotoscoping and criticized for leaving his adaption of "Lord of the Rings" without a proper ending.
 
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strawberryjuice

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don't know if this counts, but..

Butch Hartman: Not in the buissness that I know of, but by the fanbase. I think people had some hatred when he let the quality of FOP die when working on DP. There was also another reason hes been hated,which some of you may know about but I'm not going to get into that.
 
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Leviathan

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I'm fairly certain this is a rehash of another thread.

Lumping in animation people from the Golden Age (i.e. Fred Quimby) with more modern people seems flawed, and for God's sake, it was the completion bond company that yanked The Thief and the Cobbler from Richard Williams, not Calvert.

The only people on your list who deserve to be are Peggy Charren, Alfred Kahn, Jamie Kellner, and maybe Michael Eisner.

 

DarthGonzo

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I'm guessing it's because he was alleged to be an anti-Semetic, I suppose.

Which I don't even think is true. This thread doesn't sit well with me. There's too much venom around here about fictional characters without having to create a hate thread about real people.

Fred Quimby, Walt Disney, Bill and Joe, Don Bluth? Really now. On what grounds?
 

Silverstar

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Which I don't even think is true. This thread doesn't sit well with me. There's too much venom around here about fictional characters without having to create a hate thread about real people.

Fred Quimby, Walt Disney, Bill and Joe, Don Bluth? Really now. On what grounds?

I have to agree. What's so despicable about these guys, anyway? They all gave us endless hours of entertainment. Is that so wrong?
 

Racattack!Force

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*Fred Quimby - Quimby was the producer in charge of the old Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio. Quimby was very unliked by those who worked with him. He apparently had no sense of humor to call upon (ironic considering that his studio produced the "Tom and Jerry" cartoons). He also apparently knew nothing about animation, as cartoons were a strange thing to him. Quimby was also known to turn down requests for bigger budgets, raises and special dispensations of funds.

*Don Bluth

*William Hanna and Joseph Barbera - Hanna-Barbera were pioneers of limited TV animation pioneers. In other words, they were repeating backgrounds, where only the lips, arms, and legs of the characters
move. They also seemed to produce little more but copies of "Scooby Doo" in the 1970s.

*Walt Disney (when he was still living)
Apparently for those reasons. :shrug:
 

J. B. Warner

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One thing I'll say about Leon Schlesinger - he may have been a businessman first and foremost, but at least he gave his employees complete artistic freedom over their films. That's something you hardly ever see in the animation industry anymore. Compare that to his successor, Eddie Selzer, who poked his nose into every unit's door and tried to tell them what to do (and what not to do) with their cartoons. Of course, the directors never listened to what he said, and it often resulted in some of the best cartoons the Warner studio ever made - by ignoring his input, the crew made stars out of Sylvester and Tweety, Pepe le Pew, and the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote, and if it wasn't for Selzer specifically telling Chuck Jones that "bullfights aren't funny", we wouldn't have "Bully for Bugs".
 

judyindisguise

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I'm fairly certain this is a rehash of another thread.

Lumping in animation people from the Golden Age (i.e. Fred Quimby) with more modern people seems flawed, and for God's sake, it was the completion bond company that yanked The Thief and the Cobbler from Richard Williams, not Calvert.

The only people on your list who deserve to be are Peggy Charren, Alfred Kahn, Jamie Kellner, and maybe Michael Eisner.

I agree. I mean, Walt Disney? He could be a tough critic, but I had the opportunity to talk to one of the Nine Old Men once (can't remember which one, sorry, because this happened during an assembly at my school when I was a kid), and he pretty much debunked all the negative rumors out there about Uncle Walt. Including that he was an anti-Semite, tight-fisted etc. I do remember him saying that Walt pushed his animators not because he wanted to make more money but because he knew they were capable of doing great things. I've never forgotten that.
 

Dudley

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The only reason Walt Disney should be on that list is because he hated union workers.
The anti-semitic thing, everyone's saying different things on if that's true or not.
 

judyindisguise

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The only reason Walt Disney should be on that list is because he hated union workers.
The anti-semitic thing, everyone's saying different things on if that's true or not.

Yeah, Walt took the infamous strike at his studio too personally. Partially because he practically pampered his workers. In my book "Hollywood Cartoons", one of the animators that worked at the studio talked about the studio's air conditioning (extremely rare in those days), the recreational areas, and the fact that an animator could order anything at any time of day, and a white-coated waiter would deliver the order to the animator's room. Jeez, I wish MY job was that cushy! :p
 

Classic Speedy

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TMC1982 said:
*Bob Camp - Bob Camp is the guy who took over from John K./Spumco on the production of "Ren and Stimpy" when Nickelodeon fired John K. When Camp and his Games Animation production company took over, I think that fans felt that the show became too reliant on cheap gross out jokes. Ironically, when Spumco revived "Ren and Stimpy" on the "Adult Party Cartoon" on SpikeTV, those episodes were even more hated by the fans than the Games produced episodes.
Bob Camp is a great artist. Any visit to his blog will show that. It's unfortunate that he got a lot of flack for sticking around on R&S after Spumco was fired, as he was arguably one of the key factors in keeping R&S with the same 'look' that it had from the first two seasons, at least for a little while. (when I say 'look', I mean trying to come up with new expressions for each situation instead of model sheet traces, not to mention squash and stretch)
*Glen Kennedy - Kennedy's animation studio worked on "Tiny Toon Adventures", "A Pup Named Scooby Doo", and many "Disney Afternoon" shows. Animation fans have criticized Kennedy for his apparent knack of sloppiness (e.g. often lumpy, bouncy, and stretchy movements) on the shows he and his company worked on when compared to StarToons (who also worked on "Tiny Toons").
I don't hate Glen Kennedy. If anything, I've come to appreciate his work more over the years. He's a fantastic animator with an exceptional rate of drawing (Jonny Mack once said how fast he could animate, as well as Willy Ashworth, another Kennedy animator), and while some of his traits were annoying, like the needless dancing and purposeless movement in early TTA episodes, I appreciate that he tried to bring the bouncy squash-and-stretch from many of Bob Clampett's WB cartoons. I mean, have you ever seen "Tales of Worm Paranoia"? Good stuff.

It should also be pointed out that the downright bad animation seen from KC in the later half of season 1 (production order-wise) is mainly due to the majority of KC moving onto Darkwing Duck, leaving only a few to animate on TTA itself. That's why the results look like they do, and had to be filled in by other studios, mainly Wang.
*Mike Scully - Mike Scully was the show runner for "The Simpsons" from 1997-2001. During the time he was the show runner or exectutive producer, there was an seemingly increased usage of celebrity guest voices, more reliance on slapstick and lowbrow humor, and the characters became more one-dimensional. In addition, many episodes during this period centered around Homer, who was seemingly portrayed as being very mean-spirited.
Again, I don't hate him. Some of the episodes during his tenure were bad, no question about it (though mostly relegated to seasons 11 and 12), but he also showran many funny episodes and pretty much every script he wrote before showrunning was fantastic.
Only time I really hate John is when he badmouths Friz Freleng.
*William Hanna and Joseph Barbera - Hanna-Barbera were pioneers of limited TV animation pioneers. In other words, they were repeating backgrounds, where only the lips, arms, and legs of the characters
move. They also seemed to produce little more but copies of "Scooby Doo" in the 1970s.
By 1958, movie revenues were dwindling thanks to TV, so H&B wanted to get a head start in the new medium. But since TV has a smaller budget than features, H&B -had- to work with less money. Whether they liked it or not, it was a necessity to find ways to work in the restrictive new environment. And to be perfectly fair, H&B probably weren't the 'pioneers'. Limited animation can be seen as far back as Chuck Jones's' "The Dover Boys" (which was excellent).
*Eddie Seltzer - Seltzer replaced Leon Schlesinger when Leon retired, Seltzer by most accounts, didn't have much of a sense of humor, vision, or imagination. And had he had his way, we likely wouldn't have characters like Taz or Pepe le Pew (he simply thought that they weren't funny), and we wouldn't have the Bugs Bunny classic, Bully for Bugs (the one where Bugs forgets to take the left turn at Albuquerque and ends up in the middle of a bull fight).
I said this in another thread, and J.B. already kinda said it, but with authority there, the Termite Terrace had something to rebel against, and it gave us some genuinely good cartoons from the late '40s to the late '50s because of it. Plus, he could've been a jerk and kept the animation studio closed for good in 1953 when it was briefly shut down due to questions about 3D movies, but I'm pretty sure he was integral in opening it back up.
*Ralph Bakshi - Bakshi as been accused of abusing rotoscoping and criticized for leaving his adaption of "Lord of the Rings" without a proper ending.
He also made Fritz the Cat, Heavy Traffic and Coonskin, three fantastic animated films which really take advantage of the cartoon medium.
 

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