Web Animation is simply
animation on the World Wide Web. Actual shows are relatively uncommon compared to
webcomics, but the medium itself is pervasive in the form of commercial advertising.
Aside from
machinima and
fanime, Web cartoons are generally in
Flash, as is some advertising. Animated GIFs are even easier to make and don't require special plug-ins, so they're used by much web advertising and by many forum avatars. However, some such advertising uses dynamic HTML, which just changes the position of an image on a webpage. Animated SVG (scalable vector graphics) is a new technology still in development.
The content of Web Animation often varies greatly from animation seen on television. Media classifications usually aren't a problem and the length of the work can be anything. In addition, Web Animation is also available worldwide.
Two good places to start looking for web animations are
Newgrounds and
Albino Blacksheep
, which are also two of the oldest sites to host Flash animations on the web (Newgrounds claims even to be the first site with an automated portal submission system). Note that these sites (Newgrounds in particular) have animations that are extremely
NSFW.
A fairly new and rare form of (already new)
Web Animation is commercial, professionally-made web shows. It's currently one of the newest medium of
New Media.
The earliest commercial web show has barely aged for
one decade. As of this time, only animation studios from Japan have been investing in this business model, finding various distribution channels in many streaming and video networks.
Most of the tropes used in Web Animation are from
Western Animation or
Anime. However, there are some others that are specific to Web Animation.
Web Animation Tropes:
Notable Shows:
- Adventure Friends
- Adventures of the Puffincat
- After Hours
- An Akatsukis Life
- Animator Vs Animation
- asdfmovies
- Awesome Series by Egoraptor, which consists of affectionate parodies of video games. It became popular enough to be in MTV's The G-Hole.
- Baman Piderman, by the same guy who brought you Happy Tree Friends.
- Banana-nana-Ninja!: A ninja banana pulls a sword out of his head and cuts down humans who want to eat him, and faces a variety of foes and challenges as he tries to convince the public not to eat food.
- Baron Von Brunk
- BIONICLE
- Blamimation
- Blockhead follows the adventure of the titular Psychopathic Manchild as he proceeds to wreak havoc all around him while his Conscience tries to tell him otherwise.
- Beached Az
- Big Bunny
- Blamimation, a Kris Straub and Scott Kurtz co-venture on Penny Arcade TV
- Bonus Stage was a Two Gamers on a Couch series set in a Crapsack Planet Eris, but ended abruptly with a Downer Ending when the creator lost interest.
- Bowser\'s Kingdom
- The Brackenwood series, by former Disney animator Adam Phillips, can be found on their homepage and on Newsground. Notable for having Disney-like (and possibly better) quality animation and drawings.
- Bradley And Gary
- Brain POP: Commercial edutainment series about a boy and his robot that's actually pretty funny.
- Broken Saints: is a partly animated Flash "cinematic novel" or "animated comic".
- Bunny Kill
- Burnt Face Man
- BUTTON
- The CCC series.
- Castle Begins as a series about random zombie slashing, then becomes the most awesome stick animation on the web ever.
- Cat Face
- Charlie the Unicorn
- Cherry Weapon
- The Cloak
- Chibi Avatar
- Childrinrskary: A web animation that manages to blur the line between "Scariest thing you'll see in your life!" and "So cute!"
- The Clock Crew
- Clock Suckers
- The Codex
- Colin Mochrie vs. Jesus H. Christ
- Color Guardians: A spoof of magical girl fanime with the simplest animation you've ever seen.
- Crouching Tolchuk Hidden Meatloaf begins a generic Kung Fu flash movie, then undergoes the an epic example of Cerebus Syndrome, evolving into a bizarre and rather epic quest for Planet Earth to escape the terrestrial womb.
- Cyriak
- Dead Fantasy
- Decline Of Video Gaming
- Deep Fried Live! is what Good Eats would be like if Alton Brown were an accident-prone cartoon octopus living on Planet Eris. Sadly defunct, but the archives are still up.
- The Demented Cartoon Movie
- Dick Figures
- Dog, Buddha, Elvis
- Dot Dot Dot
- Dramatic Hearts
- Draw With Me
- Dr Tran
- Doraleous And Associates
- Doll Face: A chilling video about beauty and robots.
- Ducktalez
- Enthalpy
- Edds World
- Eternal Negima
- Fairy Foxes
- FF7: About Random Battles, a parody and mockumentary of a narrator teaching Cloud and co. about random battles.
- The Flash Tub
- Fred The Monkey
- Forehead Shavecut
- Four Swords Misadventures
- Funny Horsie
- Game Dogs
- Girlchan In Paradise
- Goodbye Kitty
- Gotham Girls
- Guest From The Future 2
- Half Full
- Haloid
- Happy Harry
- Happy Tree Friends
- Homestar Runner: Is it what the Internet was invented for? Some say yes.
- How It Should Have Ended
- How To Kill A Mockingbird
- Hv HMUGEN
- International Moron Patrol
- Invention Pioneers Of Note
- Jib Jab
- Kawaii Battle Stars
- The Keeki And Cookie Show
- Kiwi
- Kingdumb Hearts
- Kings of Power: 4 Billion%: kinda.
- Klump And Krusha: An Affectionate Parody of Donkey Kong Country that's not so much animated as put together using MS Paint and Windows Movie Maker.
- Lady Lumps VS Boy Bumps: An experiment in just how funny it is to see someone get hit in the groin for the 300th time.
- Large Bagel
- The Lazer Collection: BLAAAAH!
- The Lebrons: An African-American series aimed at children. For an Internet series however, the animation is as perfect as a television cartoon.
- The Legend Of ABLB: Granted, the animation is very limited.
- Legendary Frog: A longtime animator, creator of FF7: About Random Battles, among other better known projects such as the "One Ring to Rule Them All" series.
- Leo And Satan
- Llamas With Hats
- Madness Combat: Perhaps the most noted Newgrounds series.
- Mastermind, the chronicles of a Dr. Evil-like Diabolical Mastermind who wishes to conquer the world. From the same creator as Blockhead, above.
- Making Fiends: Started Web First.
- Mega Man Dies At The End
- The Meth Minute 39
- Michael Quest
- Microsoft Sam Reads Funny Windows Errors
- Moay Mew Mew: An "affectionate" parody of the growing number of Tokyo Mew Mew fanimes.
- Mori No Ando
- Mortal Kombat Vs Street Fighter
- My Jungle Book Your Year
- Nameless
- Napster Bad
- Neko Sugar Girls: A animated show on YouTube, and possibly Stealth Parody of American anime fans.
- Neurotically Yours
- Ninjai The Little Ninja
- The Nunu Bot Show
- Octocat Adventure
- Perfect Kirby
- Phoenix Wrong: A collection of Ace Attorney animutations first started by Newgrounds user AshfordPride.
- Pico stars in several flashes all over Newgrounds.
- Pucca started out as a Web Animation series, Pucca Funny Love.
- Po Gon Yu To
- PONY.MOV
- Pulp Phantom, a mashup of Star Wars and Pulp Fiction.
- Quest Of Laizen
- The Raiden Saga: High-concept Urban Fantasy machinima.
- Rats On Cocaine, which is about... rats on cocaine.
- The Real Legend, a parody of The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
- Red vs. Blue: A popular machinima series based on the Halo games.
- Retarded Animal Babies
- The Return Of Ganondorf, a parody of The Legend of Zelda. Ganondorf has reformed and changed his evil ways, but Link is determined to prove Ganondorf's still evil.
- Salad Fingers
- Seth Mac Farlanes Cavalcade Of Cartoon Comedy
- Shut Up Cartoons: An all-animation channel on YouTube created by Smosh.
- Siblings
- Simon\'s Cat: The destructive pet of artist/animator.
- SSS Warrior Cats: An animated adaptation of Warrior Cats.
- The Strangerhood. Something's wrong with these guys. They appeared in somewhere in the world and have lost their memories (most of them). Made using the Sims 2 game. Note: It's better than it sounds. Made by Rooster Teeth.
- Sonic For Hire
- Sonic Shorts
- Sonic Uncut: A trilogy of short films parodying Sonic the Hedgehog.
- Space Goose is a science-fiction parody about a goose in space whose nemesis is an evil donkey named Dr. Donkey.
- Space Ninja
- Spoilsbury Toast Boy
- Spy & Pyro
- Squid And Frog
- The Spider Cliff Mysteries is an "interactive, animated webcomic series."
- Star Trek Specter: A CGI Star Trek fan film.
- Super Freakin Parody Rangers is a spoof of the original Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, which pokes fun at and lampshades the various inconsistencies of the shows, such as continuity issues and overt merchandising.
- Super Mario Bros Z: The Super Mario Bros. and Sonic the Hedgehog team up in a scenario inspired by Dragon Ball.
- Tales Of The Past: One of the most popular World of Warcraft Machinima Fan Film series out there; a trilogy that is now complete.
- There she is!!: A series about the love between a Bunny and a Cat and how they deal with the prejudices involved.
- Tiny Fuppets
- Toho Kingdom Toons
- Tokyo Crystal Mew
- TOME (aka TTA)
- "The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny"
- Ultimate Muscle Roller Legend
- Unforgotten Realms: The story of Sir Schmoopy of Awesometon, dual-nunchuck weilding sorcerer, and his quest to save his dying grandmother, in a homebrewed role-playing game.
- Wacky Game Jokez 4 Kidz
- Waterman
- Weebl & Bob
- Welcome to Sumwhere: Six teenage boys deal with strange, comedic events in the very weird town of Sumwhere.
- The Wings Of Rean
- What Its Like To Be A God
- Xiao Xiao
- Xin
- Xombie
- Youtube Poop
- Zero Punctuation: Lightning-paced videogame reviews, accompanied by weird page made from photo shot and simple drawings of people.
- Zone-Archive: NSFW hentai parodies of various cartoons and anime series.
Notable commercial web shows:
