Thank you for visiting The Big Cartoon DataBase Blog Site.
This project started because we were bored. And, we wanted an easy way to look up information about cartoons, a dedicated cartoon filmography and in depth episode guide. While IMdb is very good for movies, and has some cartoon information, it did not seem to us to be enough. So, we decided to make something that did suit our needs, The Big Cartoon DataBase (and lots of long nights) ensued.
First and foremost, this is a labor of love. No one gets paid a dime for doing this filmography— in fact, we loose money monthly just running the darn thing. But it is something we enjoy, and so we will keep doing it, updating and adding every chance we get. While the project started as a couple of guys in Salt Lake City with too much time on their hands, we are very indebted to those others- who, like us, love cartoons- and have given freely of their time, hard work and research to help make The Big Cartoon DataBase what it is today.
BCDB started as an Access database on my work computer. I had a list of all the Disney feature cartoons (people often ask me what the “official” list is, so I kept my own copy). Then I found a filmography of about 5000 cartoons that Nobuo Mochizuki maintains at Shizuoka University Library in Japan. Nobuo was very kind and sent us his source, and we had enough info to get started. Since then, information, cartoon history and episode guides has come from all over the world- Australia, United Kingdom, France, Japan— even Russia. Support has come from fans and professionals alike, and we could not be more gratefully for all the support.
We have done our best to validate the information in the filmography. But sometimes that can be hard to do, especially for older cartoons. Please consider any errors in the database ours. However, if you notice errors, it is possible to send an error report for an individual cartoon right from its page. We want to do our best to make this the most informative, correct resource possible!
But information by itself is not useful if you cannot present it in an easy to use (and easy to maintain) fashion. We needed scalability, speed, security, speed, configurability and speed. We found all this (and more!) at Gossamer Threads with Links SQL. While built as a “Links” database, àla Yahoo, it provided the basis for what we turned into BCDB. And the support has been tremendous- Alex is always available to help in emergencies. And the online support groups- most notably Pugdog and Paul- have really helped us craft the episode guide and filmography.
For its first couple years, BCDB existed on a shared server at our host, Aros.Net. But as the Database approached 20,000 records, well, a shared server was just not enough. On April 20, 2001, we went live on our own modest server, with MySQL being served on a separate server from a local vendor. Our initial server:
- Intel Celeron 533 mHz Processor
- Asus CUV 4X-6 Motherboard
- 20 Gig 100 MB/s U-ATA HD
- 512 Megs of 8 ms PC 133 Memory
- 3COM 509.C 10/100 Ethernet
- FreeBSD
- Apache
- Links SQL
- mod_perl
A modest server to be sure, but we needed to start somewhere. Almost two years later in March of 2003, that hardly seems enough. As time has gone on, this project has grown beyond all our original hopes and dreams. The DataBase is larger that we thought it would be, we are getting more hits than we ever thought possible, and based on user requests we have added a thriving Forum… things are going well. And all of this load is slowing down our modest server more. We needed to do something, or have a very muddled site.
To that end, in February 2003, Big Cartoon DataBase became a non-profit corporation. We can now accept tax-exempt donations. Our first priority was to gather enough donations to upgrade our server to something that can better handle the traffic and loads our site is now placing on the server.
On August 16th, 2003, the upgrade became a reality. A lot of research, hard work, sweat, a small amount of blood and one torn tendon (don’t ask!) resulted in a new, fast and hopefully expandable server. With a faster processor, it can easily handle the extra loads of a dynamic forum; the RAID 5 disk arrays can get the database information out much quicker, more reliably, and with greater security- this server seems to do it all! And we did it on a budget that would make any miser proud. Our new goliath:
All this is packed in a nice, 4 unit high rack mount. You can see the new guy here and here.
In March of 2007, Aros.Net became shaking as a hosting and ISP, so we picked up the servers one day, and moved up the street to X-Mission. We have not had a day down since the move (knock on wood!), and the pipelines seem to be fast and stable. We will be here for a while, I think.
There are a variety of ways you can help us at BCDB. If you are interested in doing something- and anything is appreciated!- please see our sponsor page.
Currently, the DataBase holds:
- 115,059 Cartoons
- 1,520 Studios
- 7,211 Series
- 86,735 Registered Users
- 4,799 Reviews
- 8,694 Videos
Thanks again for stopping by…
Dave Koch
The Big Cartoon DataBase
