Archiving Animation with Home Media - The Final Statistical Analysis - Part 1

Of the three major channels, I was weaned on Nickelodeon, dabbled with Disney, and fell in love with animation thanks to Cartoon Network. While a lot of the Nicktoons I grew up with have been released on home media, a lot of cartoons from Cartoon Network seemed absent. I wanted to find out just how many cartoons from CN had never been released on home media and so I did what anyone would do with a task of analyzing an accumulated 50+ years of animation history - I sat on the idea for years. That is, until this year, with all the goings on in the world and my own creative frustrations wouldn’t allow me to linger on the idea any longer. Twenty-six blog posts later and we find ourselves at the end of this analytical journey. In time, it will no longer be accurate, as new series and home media releases and announcements occur on the regular. In fact, just last week Disney had their Investor Day meeting and announced a bunch of upcoming animated series including Zootopia+, Baymax, Tiana, and Moana based on Zootopia, Big Hero Six, The Princess and the Frog, and Moana, respectfully, in addition to new series, Iwájú, and plenty more.

This project, from the start, was only ever meant to serve two purposes; to serve as a snapshot in time when the industry as a whole had slowed down due to current events (and ironically, animation is one of the few industries to flourish during the pandemic) as well as highlight how many historically important and significant productions have been essentially locked out of preservation and distribution. Yes, there is streaming available, where a majority of the shows highlighted in this project can be viewed, but streaming rights are always in flux. Now that the online streaming game has splintered an even more hotly contested market, one that reflects the competition seen on cable television in days gone by, it has become even more essential that if a certain show has had an impact, whether personal, cultural or professionally, acquisition of physical media is the only means to ensure continued access in the future. Even with streaming’s availability, broadband access is still a premium in parts of the United States. 

All the data used in the following graphs come straight from the aforementioned 26 blog posts analyzing each channel’s animation productions. 

Let’s get to it. 

First up, how many series has the big three released in their existences? 

While the sheer amount of series created is fairly close in number, if we expand out to analyze just how many seasons have been produced in total, I think we see a more interesting result:

Now, the statistic I was most looking forward to; the overall count of seasons released on home media. This does not include any seasons that only had some episodes released, it’s all or nothing:

Now, each channel as a percentage:

Movies based on each channel’s series compared to the amount released:

Interestingly, this is the only area all three channels have been similar is the percentage of movies released on home media. And by similar, I mean exactly the same:

The age old complaint that “nothing is new anymore” has been a lazy argument I’ve heard for most of my life. The following graph shows how many series from each network is based on another Intellectual Property:

That’s a lot of statistics! Next time, the final post on this project; I’ll jump into the amount of awards handed to each channel from five prestigious organizations as well as my top 10 series that should be on home media, that simply aren’t.