Loonie Toons: The Animation Industry in Canada, 1973-2004
Forthcoming from McGill-Queens University Press, 2028
Loonie Toons explores the industrial and aesthetic history of the Canadian animation industry in the 1970s, 80s and 90s, with an emphasis on a variety of notable production studios including Nelvana, International Rocketship, Delaney & Friends, Disney Canada, and CINAR. Commercial televisual programming and advertising produced in Canada has filled global airwaves for decades. Looking beyond artisanal animation production supported by public funding structures like the National Film Board of Canada (NFB), the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), and Arts Councils, Loonie Toons unpacks a long overdue history of the production conditions and international reach of commercial animation produced in Canada. Based on original archival research and interviews with animation professionals, the book’s central intervention in media history is to establish the factors shaping Canada’s rich traditional animation industry before the transition to digital in the early 2000s.
