Whatever happened to Title Cards?

P

pupucashu

New member
Sometimes I look back at theatrical cartoons from the 40s and 50s and some shows from the 90s, and there's some really beautiful work done in title cards. There doesn't seem to be much nowadays, and it seems to be becoming a lost art.

I watch most cartoons today, and it seems that there's either a tendency to use generic cards or no title card at all. Have artists just gotten lazy, or is it just the way they want the cartoons to be seen as? I find it rather strange that something that was once so prominent is barely used nowadays. And the few cartoons that do use title cards nowadays usually feature very uninspired artwork.

Cartoons that featured some great title card work include:

Garfield & Friends: This is probably my favorite modern cartoon regarding title cards. They never followed a pattern (aside from the show logo), which was great, because every episode featured some very colorful art. Most times the characters would be seen interacting with the lettering, meaning the whole card was drawn as one picture.

Tiny Toons / Animaniacs / Freakazoid / P&TB: The WB series all had great artwork, sometimes very generic but most of the times it had some great drawings. It was very similar on all shows, but very colorful and varied.

Ren & Stimpy / CatDog / Rocko's Modern Life / Angry Beavers / Fairly Oddparents / Danny Phantom: The only Nicktoons with good title cards, although AB followed a very rigid pattern. They were all very colorful and pleasing to look at.

Batman: TAS: The evidence that cartoons didn't have to be comedy to feature title cards. The dark tones and feeling these cards had fitted the show perfectly.

I'll post more later. Your thoughts?
 
BIlly and Mandy still do it, and a couple of the more "wacky" cartoons as well, but they're not as artsy and abstract as the earlier ones used to be.
 
Yeah, the title card is quickly becoming a lost art. Even the most simple of title cards, like on the original TMNT cartoon, were cool.

The last season of JLU could really benefitted from using a 'Challenge of the Supefriends' style title card.
 
It's not so much title cards per se that I miss, what bugs me is the current trend of so many cartoons (mostly prime time ones) of not broadcasting their titles at all. What's the reason for this? I get that most prime time animated shows don't want to be lumped with kids' cartoons and they wish to come off as more sophisticated, but come on. What's so wrong with superimposing the episode's title on the screen at the beginning of each episode? It would make keeping track of these shows a heck of a lot easier.
 
Spongbob, Avatar, and FOP do title cards but for the most part title cards are only for shows that have the time to use them. Invader Zim or Camp Lazlo don't use title cards much beacause they needed the full 11 minets to tell the story of their episode (even if they needed it or not). In most caises it's a art directional concept that's used when needed.

There are some show I wish would use title cards like Simpsons and Family Guy. There are many times I find myself explaining the episode in long detail rather then just giving the title of it, but for the most part there isn't a place in the episode that gives you the name of it. Venture Bros has neat title cards at the end of the episode, but it's most a screen cap from the episode with some fancy graphics over them.

Then there is Lucy and the Daughter of the devil were they seem to do a different title song every episode. I love what Kids Next Door did with the titles. It's almost like they had two titles to the episode.
 
Family Guy sometimes does simple ones, for the episodes revolving around Brian and Stewie.

I think Camp Lazlo does title cards too but I dont have cable anymore, so I may be wrong.
 
Yeah, the title card is becoming a "lost art," as some of you said.

I think it started around the mid-1960s. Walter Lantz had some beautiful title cards in the beginning. But starting the aforementioned time, they got lazy and their titles consisted the title written in yellow lettering placed in a blue background.

You can see what I mean here.
 
Personally, I don't understand why title cards are hardly used anymore, either. If you look back, one of the hardest things to do when writing a story or even an essay was giving it a good, captivating title. When I look at the titles of today's cartoons, they usually are good, captivating titles. Thus, I don't see why the creators of today's cartoons don't want to show off their creativity by making a good title card, or at least having the title superimposed onto the screen at the beginning of the show. Just doesn't make any sense...
 
Current trend? The prime-time episodes of Flintstones and Jetsons never did this. And aside from a very few exceptions the Simpsons never did it and still don't. All these shows (along with King of the Hill, The Critic, Family Guy, Futurama and American Dad) don't have title cards. It's a prime time thing for sure. Not really much of a surprise.

I still think the best of the more recent title cards were from Rocko's Modern Life. Those were always incredibly fun. Same with Ren and Stimpy. I also kinda liked the titles from the older Disney animated series (Gummi Bears through Darkwing Duck). They were simple, but I felt the strong white, black shadowed letters were always pretty classy.

As far as the classic stuff is concerned, I always felt that MGM had the best title cards.
 
Sorry to double post...



Oh I love it when they do those. Very old school.



Camp Lazlo doesn't use title cards. The episodes just begin and the title and credits appear. Nothing fancy.
 
Actually, a few shows nowadays do have title cards.

The Replacements has that title card sequence that resembles the opening. Tom and Jerry Tales has a classic Title card look to it. Viva Pinata has some easliy produced ones taking stills and plopping them in the middle of a title card. I think Skunk Fu has one too, but I don't have the patience to watch the show. Serious cartoons seldom have title cards, outside of the Fox episodes of Batman TAS. I think for Kid's WB they had superimposed titles. Pinky and the Brain had title cards on and off, but you can tell the ones they used the cards for were the longer, prime time episodes (though some of the shorter title carded mini-episodes were run in prime time). And about half the animes I know (the Japanese versions, of course) have some sort of title card (One Piece does, though it's usually a background in motion with the title coming on to it).
 
I actually kinda like the Danny Phantom cards.
Ironically, I think some of Zim's titles are made to benefit from the text-at-the-bottom-of-the-screen style. They just work.
 
Danny Phantom has some of my favorite title cards because they look like comic-book covers (which is obviously what Butch Hartman was going for)
 
I think that most CN shows (with the exception of Camp Lazlo) have title cards. Some are good (Ed Edd n Eddy) and some show zero creativity (My Gym Partner's a Monkey).
 
OK, this example of today's title cards half counts: The card on all Futurama episodes where it says Futurama and then it has a catchy little phrase that pops up at the bottom. Although the card doesn't actually have a title in it, I definetly think it's still worth mentioning as a modern example.
 
Personally, I always thought of Mucha Lucha and El Tigre as trying to kiss the collective rear-ends of the new "it" demographic: Hispanics and Latinos. While I'm all for cartoons and shows that try to present a different culture or etnnicity, some are just too ethnic.

As for title cards: I don't think anything will ever beat the 60's era cartoons from MGM and WB.
 
Well, I think the lack of title cards is only something that's common in half hour shows. Almost all of the 15/10 minute cartoons have some sort of title card, probably so you know they're separate stories like in those Simpsons episodes. I don't really think they've gone anywhere.
 
Back
Top