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Not Just Cartoons: Nicktoons!
More than five hundred illustrations, images, drawings, and sketches offer a colorful overview of all thirty-one of Nickelodeon's innovative cartoons, with a collection of unique cells, storyboards, early prototypes, and anecdotes from the creators of every show. 25,000 first printing.
276 pages, Hardcover
First published October 29, 2007
50 people want to read
About the author
Jerry Beck
73 books25 followersJerry Beck (born February 9, 1955 in New York City) is an American animation historian, author, blogger, and video producer. The author or editor of several books on classic American animation and classic character, including The 50 Greatest Cartoons (1994), The Animated Movie Guide (2005), Not Just Cartoons: Nicktoons! (2007), The Flintstones: The Official Guide to the Cartoon Classic (2011), The Hanna-Barbera Treasury: Rare Art Mementos from your Favorite Cartoon Classics (2007), The SpongeBob SquarePants Experience: A Deep Dive into the World of Bikini Bottom (2013), Pink Panther: The Ultimate Guide (2005), and Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies: A Complete Illustrated Guide to the Warner Bros. Cartoons (with Will Friedwald, 1989). He is also an authority on the making of modern films, with his books detailing the art of Mr. Peabody and Sherman, DreamWorks' Madagascar, and Bee Movie. Beck is also an entertainment industry consultant for TV and home entertainment productions and releases related to classic cartoons and operates the blog "Cartoon Research." He appears frequently as a documentary subject and audio commentator on releases of A&E's Cartoons Go To War as well as DVD collections of Looney Tunes, Popeye the Sailor, and Woody Woodpecker cartoons, on which he serves a consultant and curator.
Early in his career, Beck collaborated with film historian Leonard Maltin on his book Of Mice and Magic (1980), organized animation festivals in Los Angeles, and was instrumental in founding the international publication Animation Magazine. In the 1990s, Beck taught course on the art of animation at UCLA, NYU, and The School of Visual Arts. In 1993, he became a founding member of the Cartoon Network advisory board and he currently serves as president of the ASIFA-Hollywood board. He co-produced or was a consultant on many home entertainment compilations of Looney Tunes, MGM Cartoons, Disney Home Video, Betty Boop, and others. In 1989, he co-founded Streamline Pictures and first brought such anime as Akira, Vampire Hunter D, and Miyazaki's Laputa: Castle in the Sky to the United States. He himself compiled collections of cartoons of Warner Bros., Woody Woodpecker, and the Fleischer Studios. As Vice President of Nickelodeon Movies, he helped develop The Rugrats Movie (1998) and Mighty Mouse.
In 2006, Beck created and produced an animated pilot for Frederator Studios and Nickelodeon. That cartoon, "Hornswiggle", aired on Nicktoons Network in 2008 as part of the Random! Cartoons series. Currently, he is teaching animation history at Woodbury University in Burbank, California.
In 2004, Beck and fellow animation historian and writer Amid Amidi co-founded another blog, Cartoon Brew, which focused primarily on current animation productions and news. Beck sold his co-ownership in Cartoon Brew in February 2013 and started an Indiewire blog, Animation Scoop, for reports on current animation while continuing to write about classic animation at Cartoon Research.
Early in his career, Beck collaborated with film historian Leonard Maltin on his book Of Mice and Magic (1980), organized animation festivals in Los Angeles, and was instrumental in founding the international publication Animation Magazine. In the 1990s, Beck taught course on the art of animation at UCLA, NYU, and The School of Visual Arts. In 1993, he became a founding member of the Cartoon Network advisory board and he currently serves as president of the ASIFA-Hollywood board. He co-produced or was a consultant on many home entertainment compilations of Looney Tunes, MGM Cartoons, Disney Home Video, Betty Boop, and others. In 1989, he co-founded Streamline Pictures and first brought such anime as Akira, Vampire Hunter D, and Miyazaki's Laputa: Castle in the Sky to the United States. He himself compiled collections of cartoons of Warner Bros., Woody Woodpecker, and the Fleischer Studios. As Vice President of Nickelodeon Movies, he helped develop The Rugrats Movie (1998) and Mighty Mouse.
In 2006, Beck created and produced an animated pilot for Frederator Studios and Nickelodeon. That cartoon, "Hornswiggle", aired on Nicktoons Network in 2008 as part of the Random! Cartoons series. Currently, he is teaching animation history at Woodbury University in Burbank, California.
In 2004, Beck and fellow animation historian and writer Amid Amidi co-founded another blog, Cartoon Brew, which focused primarily on current animation productions and news. Beck sold his co-ownership in Cartoon Brew in February 2013 and started an Indiewire blog, Animation Scoop, for reports on current animation while continuing to write about classic animation at Cartoon Research.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 4, 2014
I had rather mixed feelings regarding this volume, which celebrates the Nickelodeon-produced cartoons branded 'Nicktoons,' on TV screens since 1991.
The concept is appealing, but I do not feel it is very well realised here. The design, loud and colourful, is fun (if a little juvenile), though the thick plastic cover full of 'slime' hardens after a while, making the cover rather lumpish and ugly. The contents page would also be of little use to anyone who is not intimately familiar with every last show, as it uses pictures of the characters with no text.
The big problem with the book is its uneven coverage of the shows. While some, such as SpongeBob and Hey Arnold!, are given many pages of interesting commentary and imagery, others, such as Rocket Power and As Told by Ginger, get just four pages with minimal information. It is frustrating to find double-page spreads featuring little more than blown-up promo images instead of concept sketches, or half a page of vague comments from the makers of a show which you would have liked to know more about.
At the back of the book, amongst the credits, I found a partial explanation: apparently, KlaskyCsupo, the duo who created many of the more popular cartoons for the studio, declined to participate in the project. This results in a serious lack of depth in the entries for all of their shows with the exception of the Rugrats. As a personal fan of their work, this was something I wish I'd known before spending so much on the volume.
The book was produced in 2007 and so does not mention any of their newer shows. It is already out of print and so is quite pricy - therefore, I would recommend it only to the most extreme fans of the Nicktoons. If you do not like or know almost all of them, you might be disappointed at the lack of attention some shows receive.
The concept is appealing, but I do not feel it is very well realised here. The design, loud and colourful, is fun (if a little juvenile), though the thick plastic cover full of 'slime' hardens after a while, making the cover rather lumpish and ugly. The contents page would also be of little use to anyone who is not intimately familiar with every last show, as it uses pictures of the characters with no text.
The big problem with the book is its uneven coverage of the shows. While some, such as SpongeBob and Hey Arnold!, are given many pages of interesting commentary and imagery, others, such as Rocket Power and As Told by Ginger, get just four pages with minimal information. It is frustrating to find double-page spreads featuring little more than blown-up promo images instead of concept sketches, or half a page of vague comments from the makers of a show which you would have liked to know more about.
At the back of the book, amongst the credits, I found a partial explanation: apparently, KlaskyCsupo, the duo who created many of the more popular cartoons for the studio, declined to participate in the project. This results in a serious lack of depth in the entries for all of their shows with the exception of the Rugrats. As a personal fan of their work, this was something I wish I'd known before spending so much on the volume.
The book was produced in 2007 and so does not mention any of their newer shows. It is already out of print and so is quite pricy - therefore, I would recommend it only to the most extreme fans of the Nicktoons. If you do not like or know almost all of them, you might be disappointed at the lack of attention some shows receive.
June 25, 2019
This is a richly illustrated coffee table book celebrating some of the greatest cartoon series of the cartoon renaissance and after, like Ren & Stimpy, Spongebob Squarepants, and The Fairly Odd Parents. Each series gets one page consisting of interviews with the creators, conducted by Jerry Beck, and these pages are by far the most interesting one of the entire book. In fact, they make one regret that this book doesn't dive deeper into Nickelodeon's cartoon history, its origins and development. In that respect the history of the cartoon renaissance has still to be written (and, of course, should include cartoons from Cartoon Network). 'Nicktoons!' is a joyous book, and certainly pleasant to browse through, but in the end it's too shallow for the more than casual animation lover, making it a rather frustrating product. I ended it with a longing to what the book could and should have been.
December 16, 2010
I love this book so much, because it has all my favorite childhood cartoons in it! This is a Classic treasure!
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews