LogFAQs > #986115965

I've got a pretty good answer for this. Learned this both through my mass media class and through being a creative myself.

The answer is Disney.

It's Disney's fault because the animators were starting to get rightfully upset over how they were being treated. Rather than treat them better, Disney decided it was easier and cheaper to just switch to 3D -- and that's how Toy Story was born. Creatives are always taken advantage of in business because business knows that they're passionate about their work and are willing to take some hardship if it means sharing that passion. But there becomes a point where it's too much. Then creatives get let go, they lose the rights to their own work, the network takes over their show, and the company saves money at the cost of that work's integrity. Disney also single-handedly ruined copyright law in this country for similar reasons. They fucking suck.

2D animation now mostly persists through indie work or for personal emjoyment. The 2D works you see on TV nowadays are mostly puppets (characters and their body parts are drawn in every angle needed and pieced together and animated for the scene), so basically nothing is animated frame by frame anymore and you can really catch the stiffness if you look for it. Characters also face just the one direction or have a consistent head shape to accomodate for ease of use as a puppet. Family guy is the posterchild for this. It's faster and cheaper than classic 2D animation.

However, classic 2D animation persists in other countries. American corporations just ruin everything, including the things we use to express ourselves or to escape our reality.