The animated cartoon came to be in the early decades of the twentieth century as a natural outgrowth of filmed moving pictures. The motion picture industry gave birth to the animated cartoon not long after the hostilities of the "war to end all wars" ceased and as a new era of optimism and prosperity was upon the world. Bestowing apparent movement to what had hitherto been drawings on a piece of paper, became a valued component to entertainment as people flocked to movie houses, and cartoon animation studios began to coalesce in the structures of Hollywood, the most revered one of all being Walt Disney Studios. Walt Disney Studios with its lavish, movie-length opuses defined by elegant, exceedingly smooth and flowing, and quite cinematic-looking cartoon animation, soon settling upon lovable, well-meaning but klutzy, recurring characters who would also "star" in short films for distribution to movie theatres for showing before the feature-length (i.e ninety to a hundred and twenty or more minutes-long) main presentation. Other cartoon production houses concentrated their talents solely on making cartoon shorts, and laboured tirelessly in search of their own cartoon personalities, and diverged from Disney by going beyond the pratfalls of its regular characters, and delving into character-upon-character slapstick, often violent slapstick, and eventually seizing upon the idea of no-holds-barred conflicts between characters on such existential matters as sustenance, outwitting the hunting sportsman, or survival in the defeating of predators, and sometimes personal vainglory or desires for an abundance of wealth in the form of cash or real estate.
No longer constrained by what was possible within the live-action field of film-making, animated cartoons would be an excellent medium for artistic expression. They did not require that talking characters 
be human, or for characters' experiences to be set within realistic surroundings. They could use their limitless latitude for situation, to offer observations or ruminations about a host of phenomena of an intellectually stimulating nature. Or to present anthropomorphised animal characters facing many a predicament in which they must employ the human traits given to them, to overcome an antagonist or to endure against all odds, and who sometimes must contend with personal psychological problems imposed upon them by human traits.
As black-and-white film was superseded by colour cinematography, the animated cartoon expanded its range in what it could depict for its viewer. Colour, in its depth and variability, was usually extravagantly and exquisitely rendered, in the film frames of animated cartoons. Much, much more so than was the norm in live action. In cartoons, there could be a grey, white, and Mailbu peach bunny garbed in a bright yellow Vaudevillian suit, a butter-yellow and tiger-orange canary chased by a black and white cat with a cherry-red nose, a coyote with fur of Earth-tone brown moving about a gold-brown desert in pursuit of a Road Runner of grey-blue and purple plumage and yellow-orange legs, a pink panther, a blue aardvark, a Gendarme in the Parisian Surete colours of red, blue, and white, and a blue and brown hound by name of Huckleberry. And such characters could be found in locations of any colour or mix of colours.
The cartoons of Warner Brothers were most especially unrestrained in what they endeavoured to convey. In the years of World War II, they, however, opted to focus their cartoons on the war effort, and in caricaturing and lampooning the enemy, whether they be set in war-torn Europe or in an American home or hinterland (the latter two of these had been the usual location for cartoon action since the inception of characters such as those of Warner Brothers). Post-World War II, the cartoon directors at Warner Brothers brought their characters out of the generic woodland, domestic, or battlefield milieus wherein they had been placed. And those post-World War II efforts were arguably the pinnacle years for the Warner Brothers cartoon studio. Members of its talent pool would later be found doing work for other cartoon production facilities, and influence the output of those to some impressive degree. Many of the cartoon animators, writers, and layout artists found their way to DePatie-Freleng Enterprises, which was in the business of making cartoon shorts for movie theatres and, later, compilation for television. Some made their way to productions made expressly for television, like the 
works of Hanna-Barbera, or Grantray-Lawrence and Ralph Bakshi's Spiderman or Bakshi's seasons of Rocket Robin Hood, or the television specials of Peanuts.
The contribution of the animated cartoon to imaginative entertainment in the twentieth century, was enormous. Not even the sky was a limit. Time was not a limit; history could be spanned. Literature not always in accordance with norms of real life, was at the disposal of the cartoon. Ideas of Romantic writers and centuries-old legends and folklore could be accessed, and depicted with some modern touches. And in parameters as wide-open as this, abstract impressionism would flourish in cartoons such as those of Warner Brothers. Designs of backgrounds often suggested a modern Victoriana, a fusing of the elegance of the 1800s (in the U.S., the Gilded Age) with mid-twentieth century progress in architecture, conveyance, and convenience. Modernity routinely looked lovely, cultured, attractive. And yet, there was sometimes a sense of foreboding about modernity. That it was imposing itself perhaps too much on nature and on nature's denizens. And the displays of modern Victoriana were rather often juxtaposed with regressive, violent behaviours. Modern Victoriana was at once beautiful, yet somehow menacing in its encroachment upon the nature-craving psyche of man. And as it could lead to a fracturing in the human spirit, with duality in demeanor resulting, the menace might be 
manifest in sudden outbursts of animosity or destructive mania. And from this, recurrent invokings of "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" were to be expected. Dr. Jekyll using his Hyde transformations as a means of release from the inhibitions that modernity has required him to hone into an exaggerated meekness. Society has not fostered a coopting of "the shadow" into a personally psychologically improving, or world-advancing undertaking, instead stifling "the shadow" and giving to it a monstrous, menacing manifestation as "the other".
In the cartoons of Warner Brothers and other cartoon studios, heroism is found in modestly situated characters with honest hopes of personal independence and/or of freedom from the onset of unrelenting predators using all-too-modern contrivances, and wishing for self-actualisation if only they could be left alone to prosper as they wish to, within the parameters of what their cartoon world has defined. Or moral characters obligated to defeat the machinations of some greedy or marauding villain seeking wealth or self-gratification in an evil pursuit. Modernity may be an antagonistic quantity in these instances, in the employ of whoever it is that is instigating aggression. With the hero tending to use ingenuity with old-fashioned methodology, to prevail. To keep his humble existence, or safeguard it from an interloper.
Background city buildings were sometimes depicted as blending together, signifying the effect of urbanisation crowding people and forcing edifices closer and closer together, making things difficult to distinguish from one another. Suggesting, perhaps, that the same was true for urbanised people. That individuality was under constraint in the crowding of modern civilisation. Whilst devil-red robotised factories were putting out processed foods for mass consumption, as technology encroaches upon nature, robbing nature of its wholesome innocence. Modern society, though quite appealing in its amenities and the grace with which Victoriana was mated with it, was problematical for the needs of the human spirit. The need to be individual and to have some bond with the natural world. If that bond cannot be found in benign ways, the craving for it would come forth malignantly.
Also, there was a sense of modern society being unable to adjust its mindset to accept unusual notions, like a singing frog, or a tiny elephant, suggesting a narrowing of the scope of human consideration of the non-parochial possibility. Likely fuelled by directives of conformity felt all the more in the crowded cities.
Together with these descriptors of the mid-twentieth century human condition (and its effect on anthropomorphised animal characters) were pretentious professorial types of hoity-toity men condescending to talk of forces of nature and denizens of the animal kingdom.
"Hyde and Hare" and the Huckleberry Hound cartoon, "Piccadilly Dilly", both allude to the problem that Dr. Jekyll has in resisting drinking the potion to become Hyde. Hanna-Barbera works made for television often referenced "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde". The Flintstones had many an invoking of it, one Flintstones episode having Fred changing into an ape after the ingesting of a gone-awry experimental pharmaceutical, Barney remarking that Fred has reversed the process of evolution. And human frailty and vices of numerous kinds, comprised the antagonistic quantity in episodes of Hanna-Barbera's Yogi's Gang. Each episode of Yogi's Gang found Yogi and company on their flying ark encountering the embodiment of a particular human failing, and being troubled by a manifesting of human weakness in human friends of theirs, or in them themselves. Their flying ark was their vehicle in their search for what they deemed "the perfect place". A place where the spiritually problematic yields of human progress were nowhere to be seen. Human vices, ditto.
The television age of the animated cartoon brought with it some new additions to the mix of concept and nuance. Animated cartoon television shows could be bold in what they opted to convey. The elements of the Earth could be forces to be controlled, as by the 
Mighty Thor and the peoples of his father's kingdom in the Mighty Thor episodes of The Marvel Superheroes. Spiderman would venture to many far-fetched lands, some where certain of nature's denizens had an unexpected sentience. Unexpected because in all locations on Earth within the scope of knowledge of Earth's inhabitants, such things normally lack sentience. Earth, or some other planet, may also be portrayed as a holistic gestalt of entities. Or an entity unto itself, made ill by radiation from alien "planet bombs", as in Star Blazers, the heroes of that Japanese space opus on a mission to restore Earth to the green and growing beauty that it once was. In his dying minute, Captain Avatar in Star Blazers would affectionately speak to Earth as though it were a sentient being.
The television specials of Peanuts sometimes portrayed elements of Earth as having sentience. A kite-eating tree, for instance. Or a vine grabbing and tripping Snoopy, as in the television special, It's Arbor Day, Charlie Brown. Peanuts also dabbled in commentary on modern society. The commercialisation of Christmas and other holidays in modern North America, was a recurring subject in the television specials of Peanuts, Charlie Brown being a particularly affected, and non-plussed or plaintive observer of such. In Peanuts, old-fashioned ideas were enduring in the minds of in some ways sophisticated but otherwise naive children, who communicate in coherent English among themselves, as needlessly complex adult life is represented by the modern, or even ultra-modern, structures to which the characters need to dauntingly go, and gibberish adult voices. An enduring propensity for fantasy in a modern world beset with regimented, rote learning and imposition of endless cycles of perpetuating-of-individuality-stifling, oppressive diktats on how to succeed in modern life, was a regular facet of the experiences of Charlie Brown and his cohorts. Modernity in Peanuts definitely was given a rather less than thoroughly appreciative regard. A modern scientific apparatus could be seen as having a potentially sickening effect, as seen with Snoopy and Woodstock at a science exhibit in It's a Mystery, Charlie Brown.
Settings in the Peanuts television specials had an elegance in their look, together with a keen adherence to modern design. Not unlike what was seen in the backgrounds to the Pink Panther cartoon shorts. Whereas Inspector cartoons had grotesque representations of criminality amidst abstract Gaullic buildings, infrastructure, museum-bound artistry, and attire. There was beauty also in evidence in the cartoons of the Inspector, backgrounds alluding to France of the nineteenth century. French Belle Epoque rather than Victorian. French with an abstract look that would be at home among paintings in the Louvre. Elegant, but also with an occasionally rather less than pristine appearance. A distinct show of deterioration. Symbolic, perhaps, of the effects of criminality, of evil, upon society. Apt this, given that criminality, evil, is what the Inspector is tasked to fight. Also, there is encroaching moss in the brick, suggesting insufficient upkeep. And modernity being not quite successful at keeping nature from creeping into its infrastructure.
The Inspector was a functionary of modern France, routinely at odds with the requirements of life in the city, and craving a quiet life in the country. His sidekick, Sergeant Deux-Deux, would often state his desire to go home and relax. Deux-Deux was an understated character whose eyes were rarely wide open. Mild-mannered. Submissive. The writers and directors of the Inspector cartoons could not resist having Deux-Deux ingest a Jekyll-and-Hyde concoction to invoke a monster out of him. As they did in the cartoon, "Sicque! Sicque! Sicque!", with Deux-Deux transforming from the effects of a bubbling, yellow liquid in a mad scientist's beaker.
And a Pink Panther of origins not urban and modern but endeavouring to adapt to the ways of the twentieth century human society, frequently failing to fully do so, and wreaking havoc upon himself or a little man, as a result. Such was the premise for most of the Pink Panther cartoons in The Pink Panther Show.
A curiosity also for both the cartoons of the Panther and the Inspector, was for a character to hiccup or belch before some body-altering process was about to begin. This was the case in Sergeant Deux-Deux's aforementioned transformations, and in what befell the Panther after he swallowed flashbulbs in the cartoon, "Smile Pretty, Say Pink", and in the Pink Panther's changes of colour in cartoon "Pink Punch".
Transformations were routine in the episodes of 1960s television's The Marvel Superheroes involving the Incredible Hulk. Initially, the metamorphoses of Dr. Bruce Banner to Hulk occurred at sunset, but the decision was soon made to have Banner's emotional state determine his change into the Hulk, aroused anger or duress due to stress usually being the triggers for such. Of some interest to the pensive viewer is when exactly Banner's consciousness of his surroundings and actions stops and the Hulk personality has its self-aware emergence. In some circumstances, Banner is able to slow his transformation, somehow. And in others, the transformation is rapid. Is it rapid at the times when he is less resistant? Or perhaps unconsciously wishing the transformation? And in the 1982 iteration in cartoon animation of the Incredible Hulk, Banner when transforming out of anger or intense frustration, stays the Hulk longer than he does when stress causes the metamorphosis. He also frequently knows when the transformation is starting, while he is urged by his young sidekick, Rick Jones, to "fight it". When, exactly, does the evolved mind completely lapse into a torpor while the primitive mind is manifesting?
The changeability of people and environments was a recurrent subject of animated cartoons of the twentieth century. And could provoke thought of the process of changes and the causations.
The Flintstones, with modernity expressed in Stone Age trappings, was a clever visiting of the notion of modernity versus atavism utilised in the Warner Brothers cartoons. By melding the modern and the primitive in the "modern Stone Age family" concept. Fred Flintstone is a Stone Age man, to be sure. Wearing animal skins and walking on bare feet. But he does not throw spears, slaughter animals for meat, and live in a cave. He has a house intelligently fabricated out of rock formations, and he buys groceries at a store with money earned at a job. He and his friend, Barney, do as modern men do. Join clubs at lodges. Bowl. Play cards. Watch "the fights" on a sort of television with a tree-twiggy arial. Modernity is not as evidently problematical for the people of Bedrock in The Flintstones as it is for truly modern (i.e. twentieth century) characters in cartoons of Warner Brothers, maybe because they are not as far removed from man's primitive beginnings. And therefore, condescension may not be as spiritually degrading or wicked. The ape into which Fred transforms is not Mr. Hyde evil. Rather, merely a playful simian that angers as much as Fred would. And not with an evil relish in executing its violence.
Spiderman and Rocket Robin departing completely from surface-inhabited, present-day Earth, bringing a viewer to locales utterly abstract in their otherworldliness, is cartoon animation expressing the human imagination at its most extreme. Leaving the everyday and going into other dimensions or to very alien worlds in outer space, is a vehicle for such concepts as a "living planet", one with an holistic sentience manipulating the living things of its biosphere to attack a visitor, or an entered-into-by-portal place wherein plants have overcome animals to be the hegemonic quantity, or a frightening dimension in which all horrors are possible. The villains often showing the physical manifestation of their evil in the green complexion of their skin. And cartoon animation can depict a "space opera" of multi-galactic scope, with heroes seeking to restore their mother planet to life-sustaining quality, following an intrepid venture across the cosmos.
Heroism can emerge victorious, against such odds as whole planets being hostile to the hero's quest, or military force spread across many planets. And sometimes, in the most dire moments, evil can appear to prevail. For awhile. Cartoon animation has the capacity for bringing to television or movie theatre screen evil in its ugliest forms, being vanquished by good, in the person of the hero. Whether that hero be a cartoon bunny, a pink feline, a French lawman, super-powered being, anthropomorphised animals in an ark, or spacefarers at the controls of an actual seagoing ship made spaceflight-capable. In scenarios such as those in which these characters are pitted in battle against an antagonist, the Jungian aim of absorption of "the shadow" into a spiritually advancing endeavour, may occur.
The complexity of the human spirit and condition, is highlighted in cartoons of the twentieth century. There is no simplicity in putting man into the surroundings of high technology and industry, when man does have his primitive origins and deep-seated desires to reconnect with such origins. Modernity poses its challenges to the human spirit. The dichotomy of man, and of the animals who may be imbued with human qualities, can be seen in numerous oeuvres of the animated cartoon. Man may aspire to evolve, through technological progress, into an existence where there is only refinement, only nobility. Such aspiration is laudable, but only if it is balanced with a some substantial degree of modesty. Modesty in outlook. Modesty in how the tensions with primitive urges, may be eased. There can be the innocence of a learning child, together with the wisdom of the man who acknowledges that the world is complex and that some things may be unknowable. Regression to the primitive is possible, and the evil invoked with that, can be devastating to a character. There is no easy answer to managing the baser nature of man (and humanised animal). Only an honest, humble pledge to do one's best. To aspire to becoming one of those men going to the cosmos on missions of mercy and/or expanded perspectives and knowledge for humble advancement. While acknowledging the darker side of the human condition. Acknowledging it but seeking to improve upon it from within the psyche rather than from without.
Such ideas are what may be perceived in the gorgeously colourful, often mirthful body of work that is the animated cartoons of the twentieth century, crafted with the hands and the pencils and paintbrushes of men and women of decades when imagination was as unconstrained and as fruitful as could it would ever be. Alas, all good things do come to an end. As the twentieth century drew to a close, techniques for the production of cartoon animation, did change. Computer-generated images became the norm, and characters and backgrounds were constrained by what shapes were possible in a computer screen's rendering. Cartoon animation looked overly streamlined, overly polished, and no longer had a designed-by-hand and an impressionistic look to it. At the same time, cartoon animation pioneers had retired or died, and gone were their sensibilities on the nature of man or anthropormorphised animal and the human or anthropormorphised animal world. Happily, for some viewers of imaginative entertainment, live-action science fiction/fantasy had proliferated on cinema and television screens in the twentieth century's later decades, and the ideas and production designs in works of that genre, did provide aesthetically impressive "eye candy" all their own, in addition to archetypes of interest, and either deliberate or unintended notions about humanity and the universe.
