This is actually a pretty ahistoric take, so a few corrections and elaborations.

Calarts was founded by Disney, it was always intended to train animators for the industry and taught a very specific style and very specific techniques in order to train animators for their (presumed) jobs at Disney. That has always been the case with the school, but because it’s the school that Disney founded it acquired a strong rep, and because they are (or possibly were? I’ve heard mixed things) highly selective, and because their graduates would basically be guaranteed jobs upon graduation, it attracted a slew of artists who would go on to studios other than Disney.

I feel like what makes calarts and the calarts so much worse now has to do with the fact that almost no shows on the air come from people who aren’t calarts grads. Like you mentioned the 90′s and among the biggest shows to come out of that decade were Ren and Stimpy, Rugrats, Hey Arnold, and The Simpsons, none of whom’s creators went to calarts. In fact, while I can’t find information on where Arlene Klasky, Gábor Csupó and Paul Germain graduated from, among the other three creators only one of them, Ren and Stimpy creator John Kricfalusi, went to an art school with a focus on animation.

That meant that when Tartakovsky, McCracken, and Gutierrez were working, they were competing with shows that came from people who did not go to the same school, who had completely different art styles and had completely different backgrounds. I’ve also heard that it’s not just show runners who are all from calarts; the typical crew working in any given well known studio also tend to be from calarts more often than not. This means that not only do showrunners come from the same school with the same training, so do most other artists and writers contributing to their show. I can’t say for certain, but it’s very likely  Tartakovsky, McCracken, and Gutierrez had far more people working on their shows who did not come from calarts than their modern counterparts, which also meant getting different input and influences from different schools.

The problem isn’t just the calarts style or that they train their artists to be employees first and artists second, it’s that animation as an industry has become so insilar that there’s very little outside influence

(As a sidenote; It’s actually kind of funny that you brought up Rebecca Sugar because, while many many calarts grads imitate her style, she’s one of the few animators out there who created a show who did not graduate from calarts.)

ah thank u so much for this input!! and yeah lol i’m aware rebecca sugar went to sva i intended the post to mean i’ve noticed that her style is being copied often

as an SVA animation student watching people turn into employees before artists, i think corrupt educational institutions plays a big part in it, but theres something fundamentally challenging about teaching Animation in a college context.

i can only speak for SVA, but here youre expected to turn out a film every 1-2 semesters. You start your senior thesis late in your junior year and then crunch the entire summer–>graduation.

combine that with hefty humanities credits (which are very very important, mind you), theres virtually no time to explore yourself as an artist. And considering how much of being a good animator is just…. well, animating nonstop, its an unrealistic workload.

SVA isnt half as disciplined as CalArts and kids still live in hell. ofc it depends on your professor, but you also cant deny how hands-on animation inherently is. You can rave about Richard Williams for 10hrs but wont learn a fraction of the amount as setting up a scene in 45 min.

Consequently, most SVA animation students have no or very rusty technical skill. And without technical skill, you’re not gonna develop your own style; youre gonna copy styles from masters who already did the dirty work.

A couple of professors at SVA Animation have acknowledged the lack of individuality and innovation in student films and are working their asses off to encourage students to trust themselves, their intuition, and their studies, but its lost in a sea of “im just trying not to have a mental breakdown here/fail this class/have time to eat”.

TL;DR: teaching animation and making 4+ films in 4 years inherently promotes training employees rather than nurturing artists.