The dark ages of animation

A long time ago I came to the conclusion that the 60s, (especially the) 70s, and I'll include parts of the 80s were the Dark Ages for animation.  The animation quality was just utter garbage on nearly everything, even the interesting psychedelic or nostalgic stuff.  Completely uninspired manufactured trash, and especially the Saturday morning cartoons, though I certainly didn't know any better at the time; I watched just about everything that was a cartoon back then.  But even then I did at least recognize the difference execution.  It's really hard to miss, compare those old Bugs Bunny cartoons from the 40s and 50s to the stiff short-cut low-quality animation of the 70s, it's a world of difference.  Go and compare the Tom and Jerry cartoons from the same eras and you'll see the abysmal decline in quality of which I speak. I'm not only talking about the animation, I'm also talking about the cartooning and the humour as well.  Luckily there was a big bump in quality afterwards thanks to Japanime.  A couple of more recent stylistic changes, starting with the new Batman cartoons in the 90s, started an acceptable trend.  At least it seems they make up for the lack of animation smoothness and cartooning with mood and feel, which at least is something.  Tiny Toons was also a noble effort.

Anyhow, also from the 70s I recall some movies that came out also animated.  In particular a number of animated films from one Ralph Bakshi.  For the longest time I asked myself what the big deal about him was.  I might have been a little dazzled at the time for the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings but again it was because I was a kid and didn't know any better.  I find just about everything he did, Wizards, etc. nearly unwatchable.  At best something you might watch in a festival showcase if they were trimmed down to 5 minutes.  And yet, he's a celebrity.  It must be a zeitgeist thing, like the psychedelia of the times.  Fritz the Cat stays in my head because of its shock value. Kind of like Bob Dylan being proclaimed a genius despite my lack of enthusiasm for his songs, singing skill, and elocution.  However, I recently stumbled across his site and perused some of the concept art for Lord of the Rings and I at least have some respect for him as an artist, just not an animator.

It's not hard to contemplate how the decade that gave us the Star Wars Christmas Special was an all around dark age of TV in general.  But to be fair I should say that one striking exception to this animation judgement were the felt-stop-motion-animated  holiday shows made around that era, e.g. this and this.Those were endearing and I've never seen anything made since that were like them.