Cartoon Characters of Televisions

 
The term cartoon derived from Italiancartone and Dutch: karton meaning words describing strong, heavy paper or pasteboard.a cartoon is an illustration or series of illustrations, usually humorous in intent. This usage dates from 1843, when Punch magazine applied the term to satirical drawings in its pages,particularly sketches by John Leech.

Children of 1980s had seen some famous cartoons and cartoon characters like spider man, super man, bat man. All these famous cartoon characters later had their stand into Hollywood movies because of their massive popularity among children. Children of 1980s turned adult in 1990s for which target market, in pure marketing language, was those children of 1980s who turned at least teenagers in 1990s and onward.

As cartoon characters turn to movie characters, the opposite picture is also found. Back in 1970s incredible hulk was a famous American drama serial and later it was popularized into cartoon as a cartoon character where hulk appeared no less than a super hero. Cartoon has also been made with the blending of cartoon and non-cartoon characters where we see incredible hulk fighting with spider man. Color television was not that much available in early 1980s. So, spider man was of single attire or dress and now cartoons portray the same spider man in different dresses and modes for the blessings of color TV and 3-dimensional technology used in cartoons.

Is cartoon always silly? Hollywood Animation movies like Avatar proved that higher budget can be allocated for cartoon type animation movies. Besides, the movie serials on spider man was highly appreciated even in Asian cinema halls and movie theatres. Back in 1980s who thought that a time would come when adult people would like to go to cinema hall to enjoy cartoon-type movies or cartoon characters in movies? So, taste change in course of time and marketers smell it for better investment. In 1980s "The A team " was a popular American drama serial where there was a character call Mr. T. This particular character got its place into cartoons for huge popularity."The A team " was a popular American drama serial that later a Hollywood movie was made on the same name.

Editorial cartoons are found almost exclusively in news publications and news websites.In Bangladesh editorial cartoon characters like "Tokai" hada iconic brand value that represented street urchins. However, we were not able to make television cartoon on it because of lack of technological support at that time. Cartoon characters like Meena tried to educate our generations which was probably first step to move with cartoon characters in Bangladesh. Cartoonists who earned names in the 1970s and the 1980s are Ronobi and ShishirBhattarcharya who were noted for their cartooning. The most noted magazine Unmad, the Bengali for Mad, in May 1978; the magazine still runs to print every month although it had its prime time in the mid-1980s, with its focus being mainly on society.

Some cartoons had become popular because of songs and some cartoon characters had become prominent, if not popular, from children nursery rhymes like "Humpty Dumpty" from "Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall" or "little star" from "twinkle twinkle little star" or say "black sheep" from "Ba Ba Black Sheep have you any wool". Cartoon character Tarzan derived from English movie in the name of Tarzan. Tarzan got popularized in many parts of the world as a symbol of freedom in wilderness or forest.

Cartoons for children within age bracket 1 to 3 need not that much meaningful. But children feel the need to enjoy cartoons along with their growth in age. Like you cannot satisfy children of, say 7 year-old with a cartoon liked by children of 2-year old. In spite of being not adult, taste may differ for different cartoons from one child to other on the basis of age, geography and demography. Again, linguistic behavioral psychology of children is also interesting for television cartoons. In spite of English not being the mother tongue, most children feel comfortable with cartoons in English as is proved in Bangladesh case study.

Even Indian children like to watch English cartoon instead of English TV cartoons dubbed into hindi. Hindi cartoons like Dorimons are not that much appealing to Indian children compared to American cartoons in English. Children watch TV cartoons for enjoyment, not to learn culture for which language is not a barrier for children to enjoy cartoons. Children start to enjoy cartoon on TV even when they cannot utter their own mother tongue properly and still they enjoy better than family gatherings. Why dubbed cartoon failed? You can make a dubbing cartoon from English to Hindi or Bangla, but you cannot convert the culture and thematic context. However, a dubbed movie may have more audience than a dubbed cartoon since children, as TV cartoons main target audience, enjoy the motion, fun, jest, laughter from a cartoon instead of theme.

Prior to development and expansion of television in 1960s, cartoon versions were used for advertisement, product selling and branding to greater extent as drawing. At that time cartoon was a marketing or business tool to communicate with customers regarding products and services. If the world ever falls back or reverse to  non-technological era say 18th or 19th century, again cartoon will occupy the place of television advertisements and publicity. Mentionable that cartoon characters like Micky Mouse are now universal beyond any legal patent; they have now brand value for which their images are used from school bags to pencil boxes and tell me where they are not used.Children  in 1970s and 1980s, say, like to read story books, detectives in leisure time; but children  of 21st century like to watch televisions more than doing reading. As such, Takhur Mar Ghuli, Thakur DadarGhuli, GoparBhar were some interesting story books for children of 1970s and 1980s to read which have all been converted into TV cartoons to catch children of 21st century by different business enterprises.

Is portraying culture important in cartoons? Not necessarily. Because children start watch TV cartoons prior to become aware of their own culture. Asian children watching American cartoons never raise any question on cultural issue and they are not supposed to do so being merely children. But ethics matter in cartoon. Female cartoon characters putting on bikini and bras can promote demoralization in the subconscious mind of the children. Even the most open society may not have difference in opinion on it.Though children enjoy watching TV cartoons with conscious mind, their subconscious mind is as much present as adults for which continuous promotion of nudity or immorality is bound to impact at one stage on children mind.For this reason, state televisions of conservative countries are selective in broadcasting cartoons in many cases.