Welcome to Genre Savvy, a look at unique animation genres that I'd like to give unique names to. To start with, we're looking at Pink Cadillac shows.
Description
Pink Cadillac shows are stylized animations picking all the best elements of Post World War 20th Century pop culture, anything from 50s diners to skating to beach towns to Beverly Hills. As most of these came from the 80s the so called "Pink Cadillac" comes from the Cadillac Eldorado, a 50s icon looking rather fitting in pink in the 80s Aesthetic.
The main characteristic of this genre is rooted in making the world seem perfect with problems resolved in 20 minutes.
Origins
The earliest examples of these shows start with late 60s cartoon the Archie Show which in it's original form has changed very little; Hanna Barbara and the film Grease further cemented the elements along with Happy Days leading up to the 80s and very briefly in the 90s where this genre was at it's most prominent.
Blueprint
The easiest setting is High School often following a group of trope heavy characters.
For Males: Perfect built jock, Fonzy clone, Short nerd, the fat guy, the skater boys, Obnoxious bully and the crazy one.
For Females: Perfect blonde, her best friend, bookworm, bitchy rival and the one girl who acts normal.
For Adults: Eccentric Teachers, neurotic parents, over stuffy authority figures and anyone you can identify as Pop or Mom without being your parent.
Other Settings: The Diner, surfside towns in California or Florida, Beverly Hills, concerts or if not set in school, Urban jungles where everyone is streetwise.
Examples
Two big offenders are Galaxy High and Gravedale High, despite the space and monster themes, much of the cast takes from the character list. Hero High is also unashamed of taking on all these character tropes.
Girls cartoons get hit pretty hard with this with the likes of JEM, Maxie's World and the notoriously bad Beverly Hills Teens. Fashion dolls easily lend themselves to this style so it comes as no surprise that they have so many, surprisingly not Barbie, missed an audience there.
Some of the more unique takes on it come from the likes of Denver the Last Dinosaur and Rude Dawg and the Dweebs, the latter being made from a surfwear brand and the fact that he does drive a Pink Cadillac. The last examples that take an even stranger form is the Q*bert cartoon which is very blatant for it's inspiration.
What Happened After?
The genre died out in the mid 90s helped by shows like Doug and Hey Arnold taking the usual bland story telling and giving it a modern update effectively killing the genre for the better. Totally Spies and Winx Club along with numerous girls cartoons still use some elements but are modern enough to get away with it and those shows along with Miraculous Ladybug are action shows first, pity DC Super Hero Girls didn't get the memo.
While it's no longer a cartoon staple, it became a juggernaut genre for kiddy sitcoms starting with Saved by the Bell leading up to 90% of Nickelodeon and Disney Channel and somehow becoming a worse genre throughout the last 20 years evolving from Pink Cadillac to Bland School Sitcom.
How does Anime Compare?
Anime's take on it is mostly Shojo, 80s Shojo to be exact.
The trend setters of Fashion Lala, Creamy Mami, Minky Momo and Sweet Mint are often problem solving with magic shows, the fact that some become idols only add to the aesthetic; while much of the content can be seen as bland, it can be excused by employing some more serious elements that don't make the protagonists too Mary Sue.
Sailor Moon would kill off the 80s magical girl in favour of the Magical warrior and it wasn't until the 2000s that we had it comeback in the idol obsession that is shojo anime today in a genre I dub "Everyone is an Idol"
School anime don't follow this as much as Pink Cadillac uses tons of Americana but it has a different problem that has become just as notorious as Isekai. Tune in next time as I look at "There's a School for That"
