Independent animation is a term used to describe animated short cartoons and feature films produced outside the professional Hollywood animation industry. Animation is the technique in which each frame of a film or movie is produced individually, whether generated as a computer graphic, or by photographing a drawn image, or by repeatedly making small changes to a model unit (see claymation and stop motion), and then photographing the result with a... ...

Because animation is very time-consuming and expensive to produce, the vast majority of animated productions are made by professional studios. When the Hollywood animation industry entered a decline during the 1960s (see Hollywood Animation: The TV Era), a small but steady number of independent animation producers kept the art of animation alive. They produced a number of experimental films that pushed the boundaries of the medium, experimenting in ways that Hanna-Barbera and Disney didn't dare to consider. A number of independent animation producers went on to produce mainstream animation, and they became successful in their own right. The 1960s, or The Sixties, in its most obvious sense refers to the decade between 1960 and 1969, but the expression has taken on a wider meaning over the past twenty years. ... The 1950s to the 1980s The quality of animation from the major Hollywood studios began to decline in the 1950s, though this decline was gradual. ... Cartoon Network Studios, formerly known as Hanna-Barbera Cartoons, Inc. ... The Walt Disney Company (most commonly known as Disney) (NYSE: DIS) is one of the largest media and entertainment corporations in the world. ...

Many independent animation short films are largely unknown; they are rarely seen outside of independent "art house" movie theaters. Collections of independent films have been gathered for theatrical viewing, and video release, under such titles as the Tournee of Animation and Spike and Mike's Sick and Twisted Animation Festival.

The rise of the Internet in the 1990s and 2000s saw an exponential increase in the production of independent animation. Personal computer power increased to the point where it was possible for a single person to produce an animated cartoon on a home computer, using software such as Macromedia Flash or Autodesk, and distribute these short films over the World Wide Web. Independently produced Internet cartoons flourished as the popularity of the Web grew, and a number of strange, often hilarious short cartoons were produced for the Web. // Events and trends The 1990s are generally classified as having moved slightly away from the more conservative 1980s, but otherwise retaining the same mindset. ... This article is about the year 2000. ... Macromedia Flash MX 2004 Macromedia Flash, or simply Flash, refers to both a multimedia authoring program and the Macromedia Flash Player, written and distributed by Macromedia (and recently purchased by Adobe), that utilizes vector and raster graphics, program code and bidirectional streaming video and audio. ... Graphic representation of the World Wide Web around Wikipedia The World Wide Web (WWW, W3, or simply Web) is an information space in which the items of interest, referred to as resources, are identified by global identifiers called Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs). ...

In the late 1990s, an independent animated short film called The Spirit of Christmas was produced for under $2,000 by two artists, Matt Stone and Trey Parker. This film was widely distributed on the Internet as a pirated cartoon, and its phenomenal popularity gave rise to the popular TV animated series South Park. The Spirit of Christmas was the 1995 animated short film that launched South Park. ... Matt Stone. ... Trey Parker Randolph Severn Trey Parker III (born October 19, 1969) is one of the creators of the television series South Park. ... An animated series or cartoon series is a television series produced by means of animation. ... South Park is a comedy animated series created by Matt Stone and Trey Parker. ...

1960s

• The Critic by Mel Brooks
• Bambi Meets Godzilla by Marv Newland

1970s

• Closed Mondays by Will Vinton

1980s

• A Grand Day Out by Nick Park
• Luxo Jr. by Pixar
• Your Face by Bill Plympton

1990s

• Tin Toy by Pixar

2000s

• Homestar Runner by The Brothers Chaps