Jimmy Barrera/Footnotes on Writing a Good Cartoon

In 2001, Carwardine Parks queue-tape director Jimmy Barrera wrote some footnotes on how to write a good cartoon, after his death, other directors, like Eito Carwardine and even animators like Matt Groening and Mike Judge would occasionally follow those footnotes.

List of Footnotes

 * 1) The hero must be a character you must want to root for/win at the end of the cartoon, having a hero act overly cruel, even compared to the villain, will dimmish the quality of your cartoon.
 * 2) The villain must be sympathetic, you must give your villain a proper motive rather than committing heinous crimes against humanity "for the sake of it".
 * 3) Overly cartoonish faces, like the "Dreamworks Face", the "Audacity Grin" and/or other faces no one in real life would make in any situation should be kept to a minimum, unless you are intentionally imitating Tex Avery.
 * 4) Do not make all of your gags in the cartoon relate to feces, urine, death, preachy sociopolitical viewpoints or other dark/controversial subject matter.
 * 5) Do not make your animation style ugly to the eye or painful to people with epilepsy, dyslexia, or other pre existing conditions, as it would decrease the notion for your audience to watch your cartoon.
 * 6) Try not to treat your audience like idiots, don't overly explain every little detail because some people "won't get it", not explaining would encourage rewatching once they figure it out in their head.
 * 7) Do not actively encourage your audience to follow one of the Seven Deadly Sins (Greed, Lust, Pride, Wrath, etc.), unless the cartoon is a social commentary or the cartoon is supposed to have a villain/anti-hero protagonist.
 * 8) Do not treat your female protagonist as simply a sex object or a trophy. Some of the most famous examples of "sexy female cartoon heroes" (e.g. Hello Nurse, Jessica Rabbit) have other tropes being used besides being eye candy for the male demographic.
 * 9) If your artstyle looks like something you'd find at an elementary school poster about "stranger danger", then chances are, anyone above the age of ten would avoid your cartoon.
 * 10) Do not try to copy someone else's cartoon directly, borrowing elements (e.g. having a clumsy dad along the lines of Homer Simpson) is fine, but don't rip it off.
 * 11) Do not use racial, ethnic, gay, transsexual, sexist, or any other offensive stereotype gags in place of actual jokes or comedy, unless your series is supposed to be sociopolitical.
 * 12) Do not make your character a crybaby or whine a whole lot as their main personality, unless they get comeuppance. "Caillou" is a good example as to how annoying a character like that is.
 * 13) Overusing "pop cultural" references is a bad idea, it works for parody on occasion, but entire shows based around references are bad, unless they are adaptations of satire magazines like MAD or Cracked.

Trivia

 * Dustin Barrera, Jimmy Barrera's son published an updated version of the notes in 2021, with some changes;
 * "Transsexual" was replaced with "Transgender", due to updated notions on LGBT friendly terms.
 * The mention of Caillou specifically referred to the earlier seasons’ version this time around, due to the title character getting less bratty over the years.