From the creator of gritty real-life dramas like Hill Street Blues and L.A. Law, the idea seemed downright goofy. Steven Bochco's proposal was to do a TV series set in the White House, in which the affairs of government are seen through the eyes of mice, bugs and other critters roaming around the place. A cartoon, of all things. Network executives, Bochco recalls, greeted his suggestion with all the warmth that Sylvester used to display toward Tweety Pie. "They said, 'What, are you crazy? Take a bus.' "
Until recently, the same reaction would have greeted anybody with a notion of resurrecting the nearly moribund art of animation. Feature films as lavishly animated as Walt Disney classics like Fantasia and Pinocchio? That sort of craftsmanship seemed as antiquated as hand-stitched lace curtains. Cartoon shorts before the main feature in movie theaters? Too expensive -- and anyway, they would only slow down the parade of customers filing in and out of the multiplex. Animation in prime time? Went out with The Flintstones.
But these axioms have suddenly vanished in a puff of Road Runner smoke. Hollywood is in the midst of an animation boom. Bochco's series, five years after he suggested it, is being developed by ABC for 1991. At least three other animated shows are in the works for prime time, each hoping to duplicate the success of the Fox network's surprise hit The Simpsons. In theaters, the big box-office numbers rolled up by such films as The Little Mermaid and Who Framed Roger Rabbit have inspired a burst of activity. This summer has already seen a movie version of The Jetsons and a rerelease of Disney's The Jungle Book. Opening this weekend is DuckTales: The Movie, based on Disney's hit TV cartoon series. Due out later this year: The Rescuers Down Under, also from Disney, and Rock-A-Doodle, an adaptation of a Chaucer tale from animator Don Bluth (An American Tail).
On daytime TV, where crudely animated action toys have long dominated the scene, the level of competition -- and quality -- has never been higher. Steven Spielberg and Warner Bros. have joined forces to produce Tiny Toon Adventures, featuring kiddie counterparts of famous Looney Tunes characters like Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. The weekday series, debuting in September, is animated in the witty, wildly elastic style of such cartoon pioneers as Bob Clampett and Tex Avery. Disney is adding two more cartoon shows to an afternoon lineup that already includes DuckTales and Chip 'n' Dale's Rescue Rangers, TV's two highest-rated (and best-animated) syndicated children's shows. The Fox network is entering the fray with Peter Pan and the Pirates, the first of a planned two-hour cartoon block of its own.
Even the long-neglected theatrical short is making a comeback. Disney has resurrected Roger Rabbit in two cartoon shorts (the latest, Roller Coaster Rabbit, is being shown this summer with Dick Tracy). Warner Bros. is about to release its first new Bugs Bunny cartoon in 26 years, and Disney is readying a Mickey Mouse featurette for later this year. Meanwhile, the American Multi- Cinema theater chain has begun showing old Looney Tunes shorts in all 1,700 of its movie houses. "For the past two decades I thought of animation as a desert," says Spielberg. "Suddenly what was a mirage has become an oasis."