What's the difference between cartoons and animation?

I think the answer might be considered subjective and has a lot of overlapping gray areas, much like what one prefers to call a http://www.popvssoda.com/ or what one chooses to call a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janitor. TL;DR: In my opinion, an animated cartoon at its core is a 1) hand-drawn 2) short film 3) created for entertaining young children. Animation is the process of making a series of frame-by-frame still images, when played sequentially, produces an animated motion picture. The medium used to produce those images could be anything, from hand-drawn cartoons, stop-motion puppets, computer graphics, to sand drawings on glass. The term cartoon is overly generalized to encompass everything from editorial/satirical cartoons, comic strips, children's animated programs and feature films. Because of it I don't use the term anymore. Here's how the dictionary defines cartoon: a simple drawing showing the features of its subjects in a humorously exaggerated way, esp. a satirical one in a newspaper or magazine. a motion picture using animation techniques to photograph a sequence of drawings rather than real people or objects. When I think of the word cartoon, I think of the first definition, which defines editorial cartoons such as this: We're not interested in that, so let's set those aside and just focus on the second definition, emphasizing the part about the "sequence of drawings". An animated cartoon involves flat, hand-drawn artwork. Most people would agree that the Warner Brothers' hand-drawn short film http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hair-Raising_Hare fits the classic definition of a cartoon: Is the computer-generated short film Oktapodi from the Gobelins school a cartoon?  If you ask me personally, I will say no, because it does not fit neither mine nor the dictionary definition of it being hand-drawn. If someone were to mention Walt Disney's classic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleeping_Beauty_(1959_film), I would call this an animated movie. It doesn't fit my own definition of a cartoon because of its long, 76-minute running time. It does fit the dictionary definition of a cartoon, so if you want to call it that, fine by me. Some of the confusion clouding the popular definition of cartoon may arise out of its association in American culture with animated films created for children's consumption. I refer to the "cartoons are for kids" mentality. A parent would assume that just because a film is animated, therefore it must be ok for their toddler to watch. Marjane Satrapi's Oscar-nominated http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persepolis_(film), like Sleeping Beauty, is a hand-drawn animated film that fits the definition of a cartoon, but would your kid want to sit through this film about a girl growing up during the Iranian Revolution?  If adults make up the target audience, would you still consider this a cartoon, or would you prefer to call this an animated film? For another approach to finding the answer, perhaps we could look to the people who create the works. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think people who still consider themselves cartoonists these days create editorial cartoons or comic strips. They may prefer to call themselves illustrators though. At animation studios such as where I currently work, the folks whose job it is to make things move, call themselves animators. Nobody here refers to themselves as cartoonists, and nobody here calls our finished product a cartoon.

Craig´s answer explains it well. I think the differenciation is just historical, and it just comes from the need to categorize things. In the end cartoons are a form of animation, but then you could get into defining what is a cartoon? and what exactly is animation? Originally animation came from putting sequences of images together to created the illusion of movement. Take the zoetrope: Naturally people started to put drawings together. People were already creating worlds and exagerating reality in still drawings, one they had the capability of "moving" those drawings they were able to go crazy and push some limits, like impossible physics, impossible creatures, hilarious situations that in reality you couldn´t possibly do... and all of this was entertaining. We call all of those moving pictures "cartoons" (apparently the word comes from Italian "cartone" which means strong, heavy paper, like card board. In Spanish we also call that "cartón"). But then new techniques and technologies started to come up, like stop motion and pixelation (stop motion with real life actors), so "animation" started to be redefined. Then you had CGI, and things changed completely, you could make 3D cartoons, or fake live action, and it all came from essentially the same process, and it was still all animation. I know I still haven´t answered your question, but I really don´t have a concrete answer because in the end I don´t think it matters. I would say that a cartoon is a form of animation that exagerates reality in some way. Animation is a technique used to create and/or alter the illusion of life and movement. That could answer the question in a way, but look at this scene: It is mostly made inside a computer and is exagerating reality a lot, so maybe it is a cartoon, but it´s not considered one. If you apply "toon" shaders to those same characters, it might turn into a cartoon in the classical sense of the term. In the end animation is just a technique, it´s not a genre as they propose it in the Academy Awards, you can make thrillers, super hero movies, westerns, comedies, all with animation, we are just used to certain types of stories and styles done with it. Cartoons might be part of a genre that uses animation, but again, there is no formal definition since they are constantly evolving. Let me give you one last example, from a friend of mine, that crosses the line between what´s animation, live action, cartoons, etc. Everything that you see in this video was originally either a photograph or live action footage. He shot it all on camera, then cut out frames from the videos and applied a bunch of filters to each frame, then put it all together again, it was pretty much all automated and the result, in my opinion, is animation. And if you ask me, or a lot of people, this is a cartoon that came from live action and went through an animation process. Is this animation? I had to change my definition from just "creating" the illusion of life and movement to "creating and/or altering" the illusion of life and movement, because in this case there was already life an movement, just just modified it to create a different style, world and emotion with it. Avalon Run (Trailer) - Murat Tursan (You can watch the entire film in his youtube channel.) In the end it doesn´t matter, but we will keep trying to define these things, and those definition will keep changing as we keep creating stuff. So, as for today, I will stay with these definitions: Cartoon: Form of animation that exagerates reality in some way. Animation: A technique used to create and/or alter the illusion of life and movement. I apologize for all the redundance, I was explaning this to myself as I was writing. I hope it helps :)

There's no formal difference. They are subtle shadings of the same thing, most of the time. Any technique that mimics motion on the screen is technically animation. A cartoon can also be a still image, usually hand-drawn. Cartoons can also refer to hand-drawn, usually comical short animations. Bugs Bunny, Buzz Lightyear, and Gollum are all animated characters. Most people would agree that Bugs appeared in cartoons and that Gollum didn't. But they were all animation. Some, putting on airs, might try to draw arbitrary lines as if cartoons weren't "serious" and "animated films" are. My response: Whatever. If it moves, it's animation. If you feel like calling it a cartoon, go right ahead. As Andrew Stanton pointed out during the wrap party, even feature length "animated films" can be regarded a different way. He told us, "It's just a fucking cartoon!"

Cartoons are essentially two-dimensional, non-realistic drawings often caricatured or stylized. Animation, on the other hand refers to Creating an Illusion of motion, no matter what the style is. From Flintstones to Avatar movie, where anything from drawn images, clay objects, still images, and 3d graphics are made to look like they're moving and alive, it's Animation. The confusion arises because 2-d Animated cartoons (The likes of Flintstones and Phineas & Ferb) are popularly referred to as just "Cartoons".

look an animation is simply moving of any object or character and cartoon on the fist hand is an exaggerated form of a character.....cartoon is something that is later animated . its an element in the movie if we talk about animation movie n cartoon movie cartoon movie shows an pre exixting cartoon animated and the cartoon is shown in an cartoon way i.e highly exaggerated animation movie can be said is similar....we can say that cartoon movie is a type of animated movie....but remember animated movie is just a movie made entirely on animation i hope this help