Animated feature-length films have carved a niche in American culture as a viable and enduring art form. Whether the story concerned the X-rated adventures of Fritz the Cat or the G-rated fairy tales offered up over the course of 60 years by Disney animation, animated films have offered a glimpse into another world that often could not be shown by any other filmmaking means.

Animated feature films comprise what is perhaps the most flexible twentieth-century entertainment medium. From its very beginnings, animation offered possibilities undreamt of with conventional film. Ink and paint on paper (and later cels, for transfer to film) offered a much wider palette than the strict physical realism imposed by the motion picture camera. Animators could create other worlds, superhuman abilities, bizarre creatures, and impossible effects with the stroke of a pen. All of this was possible with televised animation or animated shorts, but...