Total Television

In 1959, Buck Biggers, Chester "Chet" Stove, Joe Harris, and Treadwell D. Covington founded Total Television. Their goal was to create cartoon characters that encouraged kids to buy General Mills breakfast cereals and other products. Their animation series were produced from 1959-1969 using the "limited animation" technique, where minimal movements were synchronized with voice actor performances. Total Television produced: The King and Odie (1960–1963) The Hunter (1960–1963) Commander McBragg (1963–1966) Go Go Gophers (1966–1969) Klondike Kat (1963–1966) Tennessee Tuxedo and His Tales (1963–1966) The Beagles (1966–1969) The Sing A Long Family (1964–1967) Tooter Turtle (1960–1963) Twinkles the Elephant (1960–1963) Underdog (1964–1967) Gene Hattree (1964–1966) Cauliflower Cabby (1964) The Colossal Show (1964) Discover how Total Television evolved through rare production artwork and storyboards, as well as reminiscences from Total Television's founders. "Mark Arnold is the guy who the other authorities on comic books and animated cartoons turn to when they're stumped for an obscure tidbit of pop cultural information; he always delivers the goods." - Scott Shaw, cartoonist

La couverture indique : "Alan Nadel's new book reminds us that most of the images on early TV were decidedly Caucasian and directed at predominantly white audiences. Television did not invent whiteness for America, but it did reinforce it as the norm - particularly during the Cold War years. Nadel now shows just how instrumental it was in constructing a narrow, conservative, and very white vision of America." "During this era, prime-time TV was dominated by "adult Westerns," with heroes like The Rebel's Johnny Yuma reincarnating Southern values and Bonanza's Cartwright family reinforcing the notion of white patriarchy - programs that, Nadel shows, bristled with Cold War messages even as they spoke to the nation's mythology. America had become visually reconfigured as a vast Ponderosa, crisscrossed by concrete highways designed to carry suburban white drivers beyond the moral challenge of racism, racial poverty, and increasingly vocal civil rights demands."

CD-ROM includes live action video, photos, trivia game, interactive TV history timeline, and a searchable database.

Scholars analyze the emergence of youth culture in music and powerful trends in gender and ethnic-racial representation, sexuality, substance use, and violence in the media in this text. It shows the evolution of teen portrayal, the potential consequences, and the ways policy-makers and parents can respond.