Cartoon drawings more of an art form than may realize. Over the past half a century, cartoons have gone from barely simplistic drawings, all the way to highly detailed works of art. What started as something as a form of children's entertainment has become something that anybody of any age can enjoy.
While Walt Disney really brought cartoons to the mainstream it made them viewable for other people, they really did not due until the 90's. The 1990s brought a whole new wave of cartoons from all over the world. American animation itself matured through outsourcing and technological advances, though in the late 90s American cartoon drawings to a lot of influence from Japanese animation. While the art style of Japanese cartoons, also known as anime, did not really become emulated until the mid-2000s, the art direction was very much influenced sorry the 90s. Also, animation techniques were also mimicked by American animators.
However, there is a big difference between drawings and animation. What animation is, is a collection of cartoon drawings all drawn in sync to create a scene. So in essence, animation is collective of drawings. Cartoons in the old days were all done by hand. Each frame in any animated feature was done by hand, including the outlines, the final drawings, and the color. This is a very difficult task, it took quite a long time in order to finish even a 30 minute television show. Starting in the late 90s and early 2000, computer animation really took hold. Using computer software, animators could then take away half the work they had to do before and produce animated features at a faster rate. It's also much cheaper to animate on the computer that I hand, as you do not need individual cells or ink.
