This paper examines children's movies from the present (ParaNorman 2012) to children's movies from the past (Space Jam 1998).

1. Cindy T. Cabrera
COM 410: Children In Media
Professor Hobbs
September 25, 2012
Informal Writing #3: Children’s Media: Present Meets Past
Although media technology seems to be progressing at an uncontrollable speed,
resemblances between older media artifacts and newer media artifacts have a tendency to
be recurring. Similarities between the old and the new are not casual coincidences, in fact
resemblances can make media success more promising. However, creators always have to add a
unique twist or upgrade to make their product more appealing to the masses. These concepts can
easily be applied to the unfolding of children’s media throughout the last decade. To specifically
exemplify the concept of new children’s media having similarities from the past while still being
modern and innovative, this paper will examine the animation techniques of the 2012 PG rated
film ParaNorman and compare and contrast it to the 1996 PG rated film Space Jam.
The plot of the 1996 film Space Jam involves superstar basketball player Michael Jordan
as the protagonist who helps the animated characters of Looney Tunes in a basketball game
against alien invaders to determine their freedom. The alien invaders known as the Nerdlucks
are sent by their boss Swackhammer to Earth with the order of kidnapping the Looney Tunes
crew to become the newest attraction of his amusement park Moron Mountain. The Looney
Tunes are confident that they will win their freedom back because the Nerdlucks are small puny
creatures. However, on the day of the tournament, the Nerdlucks manage to become known

2. as the Monstars after having stolen the talents and skills of professional NBA athletes. Bugs
Bunny of the Looney Tunes crew decides to recruit the assistance of Michael Jordan to win the
game. Jordan and the Tunes triumph which leads him to return to basketball and end his short
unsuccessful baseball career.
Space Jam was a success with young audiences and adults as well. The movie was one
of the most popular animated movies of the 1990’s due to the film’s exotic hybrid of actors,
artists, animation and computers. The combination of live human performers along with cartoon
characters created a buzz for children. The movie was produced through Warner Bros. Feature
Animation and according to the Warner Bros. website, it was the first movie in history to use
such a large amount of visual effects by using traditional cartoon animation, live action and three
dimensional computer graphics.
On the topic of cleverly animated children’s films, ParaNorman has strong similarities to
Space Jam. ParaNorman’s plot involves an 11-year-old boy named Norman who is an outcast
because people think it is weird that he claims to have the ability to speak to spirits and therefore
constantly gets bullied at school. Not only is he an outcast in school but his family also thinks
he is a “freak” because he always claims to be converse with his deceased grandmother. After
Norman’s crazy estranged uncle tells him about an important annual ritual that Norman must
do to protect the town from a 300-year-old curse, he finds himself using his abilities to speak to
the dead in a more beneficial way. Oddly enough, the main obstacles Norman faces to prevent
the catastrophic curse from happening are the unsympathetic conformist townspeople of Blithe
Hollow.
The animation in ParaNorman involves hand-crafted puppets of every character in the
movie and the technical contributions of a three dimensional color printer which ultimately

3. resulted in a stop-motion film. Basically, the stop-motion animation technique involves
individually photographed frames of a physically manipulated object and playing the series of
frames continuously to make the object appear to be in motion. According to Laika’s website,
the animation studio that was involved with the production, more than 300 people were involved
in bringing the characters of the film to life. Since every puppet was hand produced, Laika says a
close eye will notice that there are no straight lines in the entire film!
Both films are similar in the sense that they use animation techniques to grab the
attention of their young audience. Whether it was sixteen years ago or today, the film industry
for children acknowledges the positive investment with the overall risk of producing a film that
blends animated techniques with direct human manipulation. In both films, including the two
opposing creative techniques involved more time, more money and an increased level of effort
and according to the Internet Movie Database, both films had an estimated budget of around
eighty-million dollars. The similarity of the budgets was very astonishing to me because I
assumed an animated film produced in the 1990’s would be far more expensive than an animated
film produced today because the technology from before was not as advanced and much harder
to manage/obtain in comparison to today. However, the over-sized budget for ParaNorman is
probably credited to hiring a distinguished animation studio such as Leika, who also produced
the children’s hit film Coraline.
The way in which the films differ is in the quality of the animation. ParaNorman clearly
trumps the animation in Space Jam and it is noticeable in the life-like facial expressions seen
on the zombies in ParaNorman. Joe Neumaier of the New York Daily News raves that the
animation in ParaNorman has “evocative visual details that are indeed haunting...”. On the
other hand, John J. Pucclo a critic of the online movie guide Rotten Tomatoes complains that the

4. animation in Space Jam was “...a mess: the attempts to blend 2- and 3-D animation with live-
action and computer-generated images produce scenes that are fuzzier than the storyline.”
Perhaps the time dedicated to both films is the most important difference. Critics on the
Internet Movie Database argue that the rush to get Space Jam into theatres is what decreased
quality production for viewers. Although no reasoning behind the time constraints of the
production of the film is listed, I believe the producers and directors were eager to release the
movie while Michael Jordan was still relevant and while Looney Tunes was still a sensation
in children’s media during the ‘90s. Although the plot was above mediocre, critics felt it was
a desperate attempt for Warner Bros. to try and succeed the Disney Corporation. On the other
hand, BoxOffice.com says creators of ParaNorman took sixteen years to develop the writing and
two and half years for production. This time cushion allowed for the producers and the creative
team to create a plot that would be successful in any time period (the revelation that true villains
are intolerance and anger rather than zombies and monsters) and to experiment with successfully
developed cutting-edge technology such as the three-dimensional color printers.
My conclusion is that it was common for animated children's movies of the past to make
technology and trends the headlining feature in their films while children’s animated movies
of today have a more detailed agenda. Today’s animated children’s movies make a greater use
of technological developments to help penetrate subject matter in society and not just arouse
laughter and excitement. The success and advancement of today’s films could be due to the
greater amount of access and knowledge we now have to technology or it could simply be that
we have more important issues to address in today’s society. Our success could be credited to
the increase of awareness and the better understanding we have of how media affects young
children.

5. Space Jam (1996) ParaNorman (2012)
Work Cited
Online:
"Behind the Jam." Behind the Jam. Warner Bro., n.d. Web. 25 Sept. 2012. <http://
www2.warnerbros.com/spacejam/movie/cmp/behind/techframes.html>.
IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 24 Sept. 2012. <http://www.imdb.com/>.
Kang, Inkoo. "Boxoffice.com - Tracking Movies Online." ParaNorman's Chris
Butler and Sam Fell on Creating Kiddie Horror That Shuns Tim Burton â Inside
Movies Since 1920. BOXOFFICE.COM, 16 Aug. 2012. Web. 25 Sept. 2012. <http:/
/www.boxoffice.com/articles/2012-08-paranormans-chris-butler-and-sam-fell-on-
creating-kiddie-horror-that-shuns-tim-burton>.
"LAIKA Films." LAIKA Films. LAIKA FILMS PRODUCTION, n.d. Web. 24 Sept.
2012. <http://www.laika.com/films.php>.
"Movies." Movies. Flixster, n.d. Web. 24 Sept. 2012. <http://www.rottentomatoes.com/>.
Neumaier, Joe. "Movie Review: 'ParaNorman'" New York Daily News. N.p., 16 Aug.
2012. Web. 29 Sept. 2012. <http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv-movies/
movie-review-paranorman-stars-article-1.1137722>.

6. "ParaNorman Is a Perfect Date Movie for Former High School Outcasts." Io9. Io9 -
Science, Science Fiction and the Future, n.d. Web. 29 Sept. 2012. <http://io9.com/
5935541/paranorman-is-a-perfect-date-movie-for-former-high-school-outcasts>.