The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons, Third Edition [Paperback]

Jeff Lenburg (Author), Chris Bailey (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 2008

From the silent shorts of the 1920s and '30s to the classic Disney features of the '40s, and from the Saturday morning television shows of the '70s and '80s to the computer-generated blockbusters of today, animation remains widely popular with viewers of all ages. With the current surge of interest in anime, the continued success of the Cartoon Network™, and the steady flow of animated movies, animation plays an important role in today's pop culture.

The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons, Third Edition remains the definitive source on this entertaining subject. This edition of the "ultimate cartoon fan bible" adds copious amounts of new material, bringing the book up to date and broadening the scope of its coverage. Arranged in an A-to-Z format and separated into five major sections--Silent Cartoon Series, Theatrical Sound Cartoon Series, Full-Length Animated Features, Television Cartoon Series, and Animated Television Specials--this comprehensive encyclopedia includes an extensive historical overview of animation, complete information about Academy and Emmy award winners, and a chronology of animation milestones. Coverage of increasingly popular anime has been added and expanded.
Entries include:

• Cinderella
• Cowboy Bebop
• Dora the Explorer
• Family Guy
• Finding Nemo
• The Flintstones
• King of the Hill
• Pokémon
• Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!
• The Simpsons
• South Park
• SpongeBob SquarePants
• Toy Story
• The Wild Thornberrys
• and more.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

This title will bring back memories of Saturday mornings spent watching cartoons. It is organized into seven chapters covering “Silent Cartoon Series,” “Theatrical Sound Cartoon Series,” “Full-Length Animated Features,” “Animated Television Specials,” “Television Cartoon Series,” “Awards and Honors,“ and “Milestones of Animation.” It also includes a bibliography and an index. The index will be useful if the readers are not certain which category the cartoon they are looking for falls into. The volume encompasses every animated cartoon exhibited theatrically or broadcast on television on more than 60 networks. The second edition (1999) ranged from 1911 to 1998, while this third edition extends coverage from 1897 to 2007. Entries provide the title of the cartoon and a description, with broadcast dates and network and a list of voices for the characters. U.S. release dates are used if a cartoon was also released overseas. Some of the entries have illustrations. There are other cartoon reference sources, such as Hollywood Cartoons: American Animation in Its Golden Age (1999) and Who’s Who in Animated Cartoons (2006), but this title’s unequaled coverage in scope and time will make it popular with cartoon buffs. “Designed as the ultimate cartoon fan’s guide,” it will find heaviest use in the library’s circulating collection. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

About the Author

Jeff Lenburg is an acclaimed author, celebrity biographer, entertainment historian, and writer/producer. He has written nearly 20 books, including the Who's Who in Animated Cartoons, and several of them have been nominated for awards, including the American Library Association's "Best Non-Fiction Award" and the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association's Gold Medallion Book Award for "Best Autobiography/Biography." Lenburg is a nationally acknowledged expert on animated cartoons and has spent nearly three decades researching and writing about animation. He lives in Arizona.

Foreword author Chris Bailey is best known for his work as an animator and supervising animator on several blockbuster full-length animated features for Walt Disney Studios, including The Little Mermaid, The Lion King, and Hercules. In 1995 he made his directing debut for the studio's Academy Award-nominated Mickey Mouse cartoon short, "Runaway Brain," and in 2002 he was nominated for an Emmy Award for executive producing and directing the popular Disney animated television series, Kim Possible. He also served as CG animated supervisor on such live-action films as Deep Rising and Mighty Joe Young and as an animation director for many other features, including Garfield, X2, and Fat Albert. In 2001 Bailey won widespread acclaim independently producing and directing the 3D animated short, "Major Damage," based on his own original comic book story and character.

Product Details

• Paperback: 752 pages
• Publisher: Checkmark Books; 3rd edition (October 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0816066000
• ISBN-13: 978-0816066001
• Product Dimensions: 10.7 x 8.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,020,071 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jeff Lenburg is an award-winning author of 30 popular non-fiction and fiction books that have have been nominated for several awards, including the American Library Association's 'Best Non-Fiction Award' and the Evangelical Christian Publisher Association's 'Gold Medallion Award' for 'Best Autobiography/Biography.'

As a teenager, Jeff began interviewing many famous Hollywood personalities and became a frequent contributor to many leading and respected film journals and magazines that published his freelance work.

Jeff's most recently published titles include his forthcoming guide to a career in film, television and games animation, "Career Opportunities in Animation" (Ferguson Publishing); his revised second edition of his acclaimed writing and research reference, "The Facts On File Guide to Research"; his third of edition of so-called "Bible" on the history of more than 3,100 animated cartoons, "The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons" (Facts On File); and his first critically-acclaimed mystery novel, "Scared to Death: A Lori Matrix Hollywood Mystery" (iUniverse).

One of the nation's premier celebrity biographers, Jeff has penned such best-selling biographies as "All The Gold In California and Other Places, People & Things" (Thomas Nelson Publishers), the autobiography of Grammy award-winning singer-songwriter Larry Gatlin; "Peekaboo: The Story of Veronica Lake" (St. Martin's Press); "Dudley Moore: An Informal Biography" (Delilah Books); "Dustin Hoffman: Hollywood's Antihero" (St. Martin's Press); "Steve Martin: An Unauthorized Biography" (St. Martin's Press), and numerous others. He also co-wrote with radio/TV legend Gary Owens the long-awaited autobiographical 'how-to,' "How to Make a Million Dollars With Your Voice (Or Lose Your Tonsils Trying)"(McGraw Hill).

An acknowledged authority on cartoon animation, Jeff has spent three decades preserving its history. He has penned seven books about this lively art: the first-ever "Who's Who in Animated Cartoons: An International Guide to Film and Television's Award-Winning and Legendary Animators" (Applause); three editions of "The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons" (Facts On File), the most comprehensive history on animated cartoons ever produced; "The Great Cartoon Directors" (DaCapo Press); and two editions of "The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoon Series" (Arlington House Publishers), the first reference book on animated cartoons ever produced.

In 1991, in recognition of his contributions to the world of animation, Jeff was inducted into Hollywood's 'Cartoon Legends Walk of Fame' along with cartoon icons William Hanna, Joseph Barbera, Friz Freleng, June Foray and Don Messick.

Jeff is also a leading expert on the Three Stooges comedy team. A close friend of Stooges Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Joe Besser and Joe DeRita (and the only author-historian to have known them), he has co-written two books about this wacky comedy trio: "The Three Stooges Scrapbook'(Citadel Press), the official, authorized history, and "Once A Stooge, Always A Stooge" (Roundtable Publishing), the autobiography of Three Stooges member Joe Besser. In 1983, along with radio-TV legend Gary Owens and his twin brother Greg, he spearheaded a nationwide write-in campaign that earned the Stooges their long overdue star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

A long-time baseball enthusiast, Jeff is also the author of the critically acclaimed, definitive history of baseball's mid-summer classic, "Baseball's All-Star Game: A Game-by-Game Guide" (McFarland & Company).

Likewise Jeff has interviewed dozens of other major personalities, world figures and headline-makers, including baseball Hall of Famers George Brett and Nolan Ryan, tennis champ Chris Evert, former First Lady Betty Ford, media magnate Walter Annenberg (founder of "TV Guide"), and former New York policeman Frank Serpico.

A popular media figure, Jeff has appeared on more than 100 major radio and television programs worldwide, including "BBC Live," NBC's "Today Show," "Entertainment Tonight," CNN's "Showbiz Today," and E!'s "Mysteries & Scandals." He makes his home near Phoenix, Arizona, with his wife Debby.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lenburg has really outdone himself, March 1, 2009

By 

Eric Potts - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons, Third Edition (Paperback)

"The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons, Third Edition" is the best cartoon reference guide hands down! I should know. I own every book Jeff Lenburg has every written on the subject. This one is by far his best and his most thorough. It's updated and expanded. Check out a copy of Lenburg's first "Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoon Series" published in 1981 and you will see what I mean! Animation and grown leaps and bounds since Lenburg wrote his first tome and he has kept in step with it. This edition includes sections on Silent Cartoon Series, Theatrical Sound Cartoon Series, Full-Length Animated Features, Television Cartoon Series, and Animated Television Specials. It is complete. To Jeff Lenburg, I say bravo. Thank you for dedicating so much of your life to this painstaking research so that we, fans of cartoons, can have this ultimate resource.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Great Rescource, But Riddled with Errors, September 29, 2011

By 

Kevin L. McDonnell - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons, Third Edition (Paperback)

This is my son's review.

This book is extraordinary for quick glancing, but fails as a serious animation resource. Take the "Arthur" entry, for example:

-Jenna, a minor cat character, is listed, but Buster and D.W. are nowhere to be found.
-The Brain is listed as a gourmand, is interested in science, math, and history, not food.
-Muffy is said to have a heart a of gold, which I guess is true, but she's always been rather greedy, so it's half and half.
-Fern is listed as a musician, when in actuality she is a writer and a poet.
-When this book was published, George's name was Nordgren;however, in season 12, it was changed to Ludgren.
-The "Arthur: It's Only Rock and Roll" special was not a send up of "It's a Hard Day's Night", except in a short chase sequence.
-The Arthur Thanksgiving special was just a collection of "Arthur" and "Postcards from Buster" episodes.
-Finally, Buster's last name is misspelled twice, first as "Bunny", then as "Baxty". His correct last name is "Baxter".

Other errors include:

-Saying that Popeye's name was Ham Gravy, and that he had been a part of the cast of "Thimble Theater" since the very beginning.
-Stating that "Sheep in the Big City" originally aired on Adult Swim.
-Mentioning that Scrat was part of the "Ice Age" gang, when, although he was in the same movie, had separate escapades from the gang.
-Failing to list "Animal Crackers", a show based on the same-named comic strip that I happen to like.
-In "I Go Pogo", his name is just "Deacon Mushrat", not "The Deacon Mushrat". The same thing goes for "Schoolhouse Rock", which is listed here as "A Schoolhouse Rock".
-Calling Rocko the wallaby "Sparky", and saying his cow friend Heffer is his pet.
-Except for two fist season 1 episodes, there were never three segments in "Pinky and The Brain"'s half-hours.
-Stating that Pinky and The Brain, Slappy the Squirrel, Mindy and Buttons, and Rita and Runt were featured as recurring characters on "Tiny Toon Adventures", when in actuality they all debuted on "Animaniacs".

These are just some of many errors. And yet...this book is quite fascinating. Maybe it's just the breadth of the coverage that's astounding. It seem that Jeff Lenburg is interested in this subject, but doesn't know much about it, leading to much guessing. This book should belong on any animation lover's bookshelf. But, be warned. Not everything is correct. I love this book very much, but it is painfully obvious that Mr. Lenburg needs to start hitting the books, instead of IMBD pop culture trivia websites.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Book review, August 2, 2010

By 

Beaker 63 (Portland, Oregon United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons, Third Edition (Paperback)

This a great book for people that love animated cartoons. While I am not an expert in the field, I felt that I got my moneys worth with all of the information about the cartoons that I enjoyed as a kid and am enjoying now it my senior years. I would highly recommend this for someone that wants to know more about the cartoon series that they grew up with.