Looking back at the best cartoons of the 1950s needs to take into account the era. With the ravages of World War Two somewhat receding and film production and attendance stabilising, animated feature films made a notable return to the big screen in the 1950s. It was the decade that arguably sparked an ever-increasing range of animation production internationally over the coming decades.
Fantasy and animation often dovetailed with vigour and the Disney Animation Studio in Los Angeles arguably asserted its centrality to the medium, and it success would set Disney's 12 principles of animation that are followed today. Of the Disney animated films of the 1950s, animation director Shaun Magher notes that, “The Disney films made in the ‘50s created a bedrock for all others to follow”.
