ABSTRACT
Animated series such as The Simpsons and South Park have improved significantly through the use of computerised animation and enhancement. This has been most evident in the speed of production and the realism of the representation of character portrayal and settings, but has also intensified the impact of the modal and compositional functions of meaning-making in TV cartoons. The work of the Russian Formalist theorists in the 1920s introduce the important concepts of "the foregrounding of functions" and "the dominant" of a whole artistic work. The quirky characters, both children and adults, the strong sense of community and the self-referentiality of the narrative, which have become trade-marks of the series, were all there in embryo, however. Play with sub-frames and destruction of the space between screen and audience exploits the compositional potential of the digitalised audio-visual medium and enriches with purely visual jokes the humour of the story-line.
