John Travolta's career may have spawned 50-movies, playing a sympathetic hit man, a teenage rebel, a middle-aged biker, a presidential candidate, a disco king and an overweight housewife, even receiving two Oscar nominations, including generating $2 billion in ticket sales, yet, his 8-year-old daughter, Ella Bleu remained unimpressed, till he starred in a cartoon film. "All this work, and that's what it took to be a superstar in her eyes. That's the one thing she'll watch, regardless of what it is," says Travolta. As will moviegoers, with the industry cranking out three times the number of animated movies than the 1990s, believing cartoons to be its most bankable genre.

Travolta's new offering 'Bolt' scheduled for a Friday release is about a TV dog, who manages to get lost in New York . The voice of Bolt, an adorable, eager-to-please puppy with super powers, Travolta, 54, admits there are certain canine aspects to his own personality. Growing up, he was often compared to a dog in games about what kind of animal would you like to be. Big on loyalty, Travolta thought it would be cool to be a dog.

But while, a glut of horror films spell doom for the genre, animation continues to flex more muscle, rather than less, with cartoon films, such as, WALL·E, Kung Fu Panda and Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who, featuring amongst 2008's top seven movies.

More powerful than ever before, apart from a few exceptions, animation films are the primary choice for family film outings for a number of reasons. Today, animation films use humour with a double edge, gags for children and jokes that make adults laugh. Apart from that, computer generated animation films come at prohibitive costs, costing as much as big-budget action movies, which means only film makers interested in making real investments for getting it right are interested in making animation films.

As well, it takes a long time to make an animation film due to the elaborate graphics i. e. close to three years. So much time spent on making the film, means that more time is spent on threshing out the story line.

However, despite their popularity, some animation films have bombed at the box office. The $150-million Beowulf only grossed $81 million last year, while $85-million Surf's Up took in only $59-million. Yet, Travolta believes animation films won't lose in the popularity stakes, as the genre is too ingrained in Hollywood history. As he says: "I look at my daughter, and she loves that magic, whenever it was made. There's something timeless about (animation). She'll watch Peter Pan, as often as, she will Finding Nemo. Now she can watch me."

In the movie, Travolta not only gets to lend his voice to Bolt, a dog who is the star of a kids action series on TV, at the top of his game and one who can do no wrong, he also gets to sing duets with teen star Miley Cyrus, the voice of beloved person, separation from whom leads him to discover the real world is different for a four legged creature. Director Chris Williams chose Travolta as the voice of Bolt, as he felt only Travolta had the right qualities i. e. a perfect combination of toughness and innate sweetness, for the role.

With four films due for release in 2009, Travolta says, quality in musicals, movies or animation, is now his paramount concern. According to him, the money has been made and now he only wants to do good work.