All of us have opinions, views and tastes which just aren't held by the public at large. But you need not be scared or ashamed to share them any longer. Here is the thread where you can share those less-than-popular opinions about animation and cartoons without fear of derision or persecution. Just state them here. And no flaming or arguing please; we're all entitled to our views, popular or not.
I'll start:
I find Peanuts to be highly overrated. The strips and specials have their amusing moments, but by and large I find it to be very dull, depressing and even a little mean-spirited now. Nonstop losing, unrequited love and failure gets seriously old after a while.
I like Marvel's Super Hero Squad Show. There, I said it. I don't care how goofy and silly it is, I don't care if hardcore comic book fans consider it to be a blight on Marvel's various franchises, I enjoy the series precisely because it's so goofy and silly. And I love the concept of all of Marvel's characters residing in in single city as a setting. Yes, it's just set up to sell toys, but I still love Superhero City. I love it.
I don't mind or even care that CGI has become the dominant animation style in animated features now. I'm sick of people bemoaning the fact that CGI exists and acting like computer animation is the first sign of Armageddon. I'm also sick of people bad-mouthing Flash animation. CG and Flash are just like everything else: there are good and bad examples of each. I wish folks would learn to judge cartoons by the quality of the art, writing and direction, not solely by how they're animated.
Johnny Test is not the abomination that most people make it out to be. Sure, the show's writing is kind of weak and the stories can get very repetitive at times, but it's an OK concept and some of the characters are at least interesting ideas. JT would actually be a pretty decent show, if they would just get rid of the title character, whom I find to be an annoying, generic twit.
I think I'm starting to seriously dislike 'adult' cartoons now. When did 'adult' come to mean as scatological, trippy, lewd, crude and unfunny as possible? I'm done with all of Seth MacFarlane's shows, and Adult Swim is really starting to rub me the wrong way. The only good shows on AS are the early Aqua Teens and Robot Chickens, and China, IL and Mary Shelley's Frankenhole have their moments. The less said about AS's live-action 'comedies', the better.
Avatar: the Last Airbender just bored me. I know a lot of people really loved this show, but I found it to be very dull and slow-moving. I liked the concept of the Benders and I liked Toph, but beyond that A:TLA just never clicked with me.
I've tried and tried, but I just can't get into Adventure Time, and I probably never will. People on Toon Zone especially never stop heaping praise on AT, saying how wonderfully quirky, compelling and deep it is, but at best I find myself scratching my head over it, at the worst it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I don't like how it's so often lacking in form and structure: it tries to be simultaneously a comedy, a stoner show, an action show and a drama, and doesn't succeed at any of them. I kind of like Jake, he has some good lines now and then, although his spotlight episodes tend to be kind of weak. Finn I just can't get into at all, though I've tried. I didn't really like the Fionna and Cake gender-swap episode (though the majority of TZ loved it), but I will say that I probably liked Finn's female counterpart Fionna more in her one appearance than I ever have or will like Finn himself.
Lupin the 3rd is flat-out one of the best anime ever made, and it's seriously deserving of more praise than it's ever received in the US.
Rocko's Modern Life is simply the single best thing Nickelodeon has ever put on the air. Ever. On a semi-related note, there have only been about 3 really good or above average Nicktoons: Rocko, Angry Beavers and KaBlam!, IMHO.
While I don't hate Hanna-Barbera, I've never felt like the works of that studio belong in the same category as the likes of Warner Bros and MGM, or even Jay Ward. It's not the limited animation, their shows, characters and humor have never really gelled with me for whatever reason. Even H-B's most major productions like The Flintstones, Yogi Bear and Huckleberry Hound were just 'meh' at best to me.
I find the unabashed love, praise and adulation for Cartoon Network's Toonami block to be annoying and a little shallow and sad. I enjoyed the block too back in the day when it was good, but the way some people hype this show to the sky and act like it was the single greatest achievement in human history is just ridiculous. As if these shows were somehow made 100 times better just because they were surrounded by bumpers of a robot talking with the voice of Steven Jay Blum. I honestly like the Miguzi bumpers more.
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Unpopular opinions, eh? Well, this may get a little long, so you might want to go and get a snack now. Here goes...
Animaniacs is still a funny show, but the humor of the show's lead characters, The Warner Brothers and their sister Dot, sadly has not aged all that well. Don't get me wrong, I still watch the DVDs from time to time and Yakko, Wakko and Dot still amuse me sometimes, but those characters just aren't the comic gods that I once believed them to be. I used to think that I was great how anarchic and crazy that they were, but now they just seem needlessly annoying and irritating in some places. Part of the problem is that the Warners have little to no character beyond being as annoying as possible to everyone around them, and as the case with Bugs Bunny, their formula only worked when the victim of their unwelcome attention is a total scumbag who deserves to be taken down a peg. However, when the Warners mercilessly torment someone who hasn't wronged them in any way, most notably Dr. Scratchensniff (who's kind of a modern day Elmer Fudd in some respects), you have to wonder why you didn't hate the Warners for doing what they did to him. On a semi-related note...
I never much cared for Pinky and the Brain, and I certainly didn't think that they were compelling nor likable enough characters to warrant getting a spinoff. The character from Animaniacs whom I thought was more deserving of a spinoff was Slappy Squirrel. The Slappy cartoons are just as funny to me now as they were when A! was being 1st run.
I never understood the massive appeal of Rugrats. I never got why this show was the one-time darling of Nickelodeon and why kids ran to this show in droves. Sure, Rugrats had a very original premise (the world from a baby's perspective), but the show wasn't terribly clever or funny, at least not to me. Most of the babies' jokes were them mispronouncing words and talking about "poop". Not sophisticated writing. Rugrats always struck me as being a B-level show that was inexplicably given the a-list treatment. But as bad as Rugrats became, it's continuation series All Grown Up somehow managed to be even worse. At least when the shows' central characters were infants, they had some originality to them. As "tweens", Tommy and company just came off as bland carbon copies of every other tween show that was on TV at the time. Also, it made no sense how the AGU characters were set at about 11-12 age-wise, but they talked and acted like they were teenagers. The only Rugrats on AGU who actually were teens were Angelica and Susie (they were 13). Nick should never have allowed AGU to go beyond the "All Growed Up" TV special. Seeing what Tommy, Chuckie, Phil & Lil would be like as teenagers might have been amusing to see once and only once as a fun special, but it absolutely failed as an endless series.
I liked the late Cartoon Network series Secret Mountain Fort Awesome. Yes, you heard me right. I liked it. Yes, the shows' main characters were a group of gross monsters called the Digustioids, and yes, one of them was creature who resembled a living butt who was named The Fart, but I liked the show. I was repulsed by the characters at 1st glance, but the shows wacky, surreal humor quickly made me look past the ugly character designs and just let the series wash over me like a warm mist. I found SMFA to wacky and wonderfully weird, and I think that CN canceled the series much too soon, and furthermore, I don't care who knows it.
I'm sick and tired of Cartoon Network and Disney churning out gender specific TV shows (and channels in the case of the latter). CN and Disney should just concentrate on making shows that are good and entertaining and can be enjoyed by everyone, regardless of what sex they happen to be.
I'm sick of animation fan boys and girls who say things like "Anime>>>>Western animation" and also the flip side of that fandumb, "Anime sucks". Both points of view are equally ignorant and annoying. I never saw the point of hating or praising a cartoon solely based on what country it comes from. On a related note, I've had it with USAnimation fanboys taking crap about Canadian cartoons. There are (and have been) plenty of good, enjoyable shows from the Great White North. Nation bias in entertainment is beyond lame. If you're going to hate on a show, come up with a better reason to hate on it other than "It's from Canada." or "It's from Japan" or "It's from America".
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Procrastinators unite....tomorrow.
(This post was edited by SpaceDemon on Apr 27, 2012, 8:53 PM)
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While I don't hate Hanna-Barbera, I've never felt like the works of that studio belong in the same category as the likes of Warner Bros and MGM, or even Jay Ward. It's not the limited animation, their shows, characters and humor have never really gelled with me for whatever reason. Even H-B's most major productions like The Flintstones, Yogi Bear and Huckleberry Hound were just 'meh' at best to me.
I agree, mostly. My formative years of cartoon-watching came when Yogi, Huck and QuickDraw were in their formative years on TV. They were the newbies and their "competition" on Saturday mornings (and throughout the week, actually) was WB, MGM and Jay Ward. That's lofty company and comparisons could not help but expose the limitations of the H-B canon. However, compare H-B against Courageous Cat, Crusader Rabbit, and (agh) The New Adventures of the Wizard of Oz, and H-B comes away looking like pre-MGM Marx Bros. Speaking of MGM, it blew my elementary school mind when I realized that Tom & Jerry was the work of Hanna & Barbera. "You're kidding—the same guys who do Ruff 'n' Reddy? So wha' happened?" That may be the first instance of critical thinking I ever applied to cartoons. So, earlier this week, I tuned in Boomerang and Yogi was coming on. I took a break and watched and got hooked. I must have been in deep toon mode, because those cartoons were LOL funny. It wasn't nostalgia, either. There was one scene where Ranger Smith is advising the picnic-pilferer to just give it a rest and hibernate like the other bears. And he does it by suggesting that Yogi get his—and he chuckles here—beauty sleep. It was the chuckle that got me. I was laughing on and off for the rest of the day. Is Yogi in the same league as Bugs or Daffy? Heck, he'd lose a battle of quips to Foghorn Leghorn. But he's a fully-dimensional character and he makes me laugh… mostly.
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"If it's hot, don't sit on it." —NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg
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Ok, here I go.
I'm also not a fan of the H-B cartoons. They just don't grab me. I don't hate them. I'm just not big on them.
One thing that has always bugged me, is the opinion that I'm not allowed to not like Anime. There's something about the pacing of the story and comedic timing that makes it tedious for me to watch. My brother likes it and has shown me some episodes. Of the ones I've seen, there is one that I do like. I don't remember the name, but it's a drama and it's written really well. So far, that's the only one thats grabbed me.
Lastly, I'm not a RR/Coyote fan. Sorry... but I just don't get why they are so popular. Yes, the first two or three shorts are good but after that it's meh. I've read that even though it's the same formula, it can still be original. For me, it can get boring. I know I'm the minority on this, but I had to say it.
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One thing that has always bugged me, is the opinion that I'm not allowed to not like Anime. There's something about the pacing of the story and comedic timing that makes it tedious for me to watch.
I've been on the receiving end of that a few times myself. I like some anime (I've enjoyed funny stuff like Lupin III and Dr. Slump, but some people want to treat you like a pariah if you're not a super-duper otaku who automatically shuns all animation not from Japan.
On a similar note, I'm tired of the elitist attitude shared by many on the internet that as an adult, I'm somehow not allowed to like silly, bright, colorful, wacky cartoons which don't have long-reaching story arcs or river-deep character development and make kids laugh. Too many people I've talked to hold the notion that if a cartoon show has self-contained stories, is lighthearted and blithe in its' approach and isn't grim, dark, serious and violent that it's "just for kids" and therefore not worthy of anyone's attention. Some people like simplistic and silly, OK? The irony of the belief that "dark, humorless, serious with lots of gratuitous violence, sex and nudity = mature fare" are often the opposite of mature. There's nothing inherently wrong with deep and dark; roast duck with caviar is a fine meal, but if you eat nothing but that every night for dinner, you'll get bored with it. There are other things you can eat. Sometimes a greasy bacon cheeseburger and a milkshake can be just as satisfying.
Dinsey's Meet the Robinsons is a very underrated film. I enjoyed that more than several Pixar movies I've seen.
Peter Laird would never agree with this, but: I don't think Venus DeMilo (the 5th female turtle who was briefly added to the Ninja Turtles around 2000 only to be dropped soon afterwards) wasn't entirely a bad idea. My issue with Venus wasn't that she existed, but how she existed. IMO, there were only 2 things wrong with the addition of Venus:
1. She arrived too late in the franchise's history. By the time of the character's introduction in Saban's Ninja Turtles: the Next Mutation, the Turtles already had a 65+ episode syndicated TV series and 3 movies under their belts; it was too late in the game to try and add another member to the team. If Venus had come along much earlier, say, around the 1987 show's 2nd season, she might have gone over better, as viewers would've had more time to get used to her and she would've been given a place in the movie trilogy as well.
2. Laird hated Venus because he felt "she violated the premise of the 4 Turtle brothers being the only 4 mutant turtles in the world", but the Next Mutation plot implied that were originally 5 Turtles and Venus was merely separated from the other 4, so technically they all were still the only group of mutant turtles, and so I can overlook that. What I couldn't overlook was how the NM writers inserted all this malarkey that the 4 original Turtles now weren't actually brothers just so Venus could be potentially shipped with a male Turtle. This bothers me, not just with Venus but with female cartoon characters in general: why do female toons always have to be girlfriends first and characters second? (This is one reason why I've never been able to really get into South Park, there aren't any girl characters in that show who command the notoriety of the likes of Stan, Kyle, Cartman and Butters; all the girls on that show are nothing more than potential girlfriends or token chicks.) Not only is that notion demeaning, but it's also ludicrous: even if the 4 Turtles weren't biologically brothers, they'd still be brothers in the bonding and familial sense, since they were raised in the same home by the same parental figure. They're no less brothers. It's like Jonny Quest and Hadji; no, they're not related by blood, but they were raised in the same household by the same parents, so they're just as much brothers as biological siblings. Trying to revamp the show's basic structure and continuity just to accommodate the new character and trying to negate all that they've established just for the sake of a potential ship didn't sit right with me.
If Venus had come along much earlier in TMNT's history and the writers had simply classified her as the Turtles' mutant sister, then there probably wouldn't have been so much flack regarding her arrival.
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Johnny Test is not the abomination that most people make it out to be. Sure, the show's writing is kind of weak and the stories can get very repetitive at times, but it's an OK concept and some of the characters are at least interesting ideas. JT would actually be a pretty decent show, if they would just get rid of the title character, whom I find to be an annoying, generic twit.
Agreed about Johnny Test. I honestly think that Johnny is the worst part of his own show. He's just so thoughtless, clueless and demanding. Susan & Mary are the cool ones. They're the ones with the big ol' brains, the high tech lab and the super science and cool gadgets. They should be the stars of the show, not Johnny. I'd like to see an episode where Johnny has a very small part or doesn't appear at all. I know that it won't happen, but a man can dream.
I've got a few more:
My Gym Partner's a Monkey is one of the worst Cartoon-Cartoon shows of all time. Second only to Squirrel Boy and Evil Con Carne. Even for fiction, the premise makes no sense. Where on Earth is this school solely for animals who talk and act like people? Do the animals graduate and get animal jobs? All implausibilities about the premise aside, the show just wasn't funny. At all. Jake the monkey was irritating rather than entertaining. I saw a repeat of Gym Partner on Cartoon Planet last night and as usual, I didn't laugh once.
I'm tired of American writers and directors treating "Queen" like it's a dirty word. In most American fiction, queens are either evil or they have to die early on in order to move the story along (Ex: Happily N'ever After 2 and The Tale of Desperaux). On My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Lauren Faust originally intended for Princess Celestia to be a queen, but Hasbro insisted that the character's title be changed because apparently, little girls are afraid of queens. I'm guessing that it was this same mode of thinking that prompted Hasbro to change Candy Land's Queen Frostine's title to Princess Frostine in 2000. If kings can be portrayed as being either good or evil, why can't or shouldn't the same be assumed for queens? Just once I'd like to see a story with a queen character who is actually benevolent who also isn't dead within the 1st half hour of the story.
Going back to MLP: FiM for a moment, I like the character of Celestia's sister, Princess Luna, but she's only made a small number of appearances (so far). Apparently, Hasbro has been reluctant to use the character of Luna to any significant effect because she's indigo colored, and it's assumed that all characters with a predominantly dark color scheme are evil and scare kids. So we have queen = evil and dark colors = also evil. Seriously? could someone please think outside the frelling box? Can we have a character with dark colors who's actually good? I'd like for someone to pull a Shrek and write a screenplay in which the witch is the heroine and the princess is the villainess and the kingdom is run by a benevolent queen (which would technically make it a queendom), just to see what would happen afterwards.
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Procrastinators unite....tomorrow.
(This post was edited by SpaceDemon on Apr 28, 2012, 7:27 PM)
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Sorry about this. I would simply add this to my post from yesterday, but unfortunately, it's far too late for me to edit.
Another complaint that I have with Johnny Test is that I don't much like how the shows' writers treat the character of Johnny's mom Lila. Lila is one of my favorite characters on JT, and I dislike how sometimes the writers seem as though they forget that she exists at all. I get that Lila is the "super busy" mom who has the job and who works during the day, therefore sometimes the writers can use her being at work as an excuse for her to not be at home, and I'm OK with that. My problem is the other times where logically, Lila should be around, but will still be inexplicably absent. For example, in the episodes "Johnny's Sleepover", "Johnny's Big Snow Job", "Johnny's Trophy Case" and the recent camping trip episode (I can't recall the exact title right now), Lila doesn't appear, or even get a casual mention, which annoys me greatly. She's not present at the Porkbelly World Record ceremony in "Johnny's World Record" and she's even a no-show at Johnny's going away party in "99 Deeds for Johnny Test". It makes it look like she doesn't give a frag.
The biggest blunder of all has to be the half hour 3rd season finale "JX5". In this story, Darth Vegan and his forces invade the planet Earth. The invasion is broadcast on live TV and there still no sign or mention of Lila whatsoever! Where the heck was Lila during all of this? There's no way that Lila was just having a normal day at work when the entire flipping planet was facing imminent doom! The invasion had nationwide news coverage, fer cryin' out loud! If just once, Johnny or 1 of the Twins had mentioned their mom just once instead of temporarily forgetting that they even have a mom, then I might have cut this episode some slack, but as it was, this is a classic case of what I like to call "lazy writing".
I'm not suggesting that Test's writers change the shows' focus and make it Lila's show or anything, but Lila is a member of the Test family and she does live in the same house as Johnny, the Twins, Dukey and Hugh. It would just be nice if they would acknowledge the character's existence more than once in a while. I'd just prefer it if the character would show up, even in brief cameos, than not show up at all.
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Procrastinators unite....tomorrow.
(This post was edited by SpaceDemon on Apr 29, 2012, 9:32 AM)
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I'm tired of American writers and directors treating "Queen" like it's a dirty word.
The wicked queen from Disney's Snow White likely has much to do with the anti-queen sentiment. However, there is also Clytemnestra, the wife of King Agamemnon, who murdered her husband when he returned victorious from the Trojan War. That'll put a dent in the ol' crown. Further, Angelina Jolie's portrayal of Olympias, mother of Alexander The Great is historically accurate: scheming, subversive, vengeful.
Perhaps the most egregious example would be Eadburh, wife of King Beortric of Wessex. She would routinely stack the King's court in her favor by manipulating her husband into executing or exiling those Eadburh disliked. Once, when Beortric refused, she tried to poison her adversary; her husband fell victim instead, and Eadburh narrowly escaped to France.
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Another reason for the general dearth of fictional queens but overabundance of fictional princesses is due to the general connotation of the titles: princesses are typically associated with youth, grace, style and beauty, things which according to focus groups are instantly appealing to young girls, whereas queens are often associated with age and tons of duties to uphold, things which are not so attractive to youngsters.
By making female royals princesses rather than queens, they get to enjoy all of the perks and accolades of wearing the crown, while remaining young and free of the tough responsibilities. Kind of shallow, but yeah.
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Getting back on topic: "unpopular," he says?
I happen to like Loonatics Unleashed. That's like, not love. When Ted Turner put the kibosh on SWAT Kats, C and Y Tremblay tried for a reprieve with the Loonatics. This could have worked, except it was saddled with Looney Tunes expys, forcing the show to try to walk in two worlds at once: dramatic superheroes and comedy troupe. If I forget that these are LT derivatives, Loonatics Unleashed is about as watchable as Hanna-Barbera's The Herculoids.
Speaking of which, I like The Herculoids as well. Plus many other Hanna-Barbera series. I know some people blame Bill and Joe for the Dark Age of animation. However, all three broadcast networks, namely ABC and CBS and NBC, were buying Hanna-Barbera's output. They must have been doing something right.
Count me as liking Disney's Treasure Planet, too. Not great, not a Disney classic-legend, certainly. I find it amusingly watchable, though.
Lastly, I'll even give kudos to Fox's Titan AE. Of course, blowing up Mother Earth in chapter one is one huge hole to dig themselves out of, but Don Bluth and Gary Goldman have enough on the ball to make a go of it.
No matter what, these cartoons and features are way better than having some talking head blather at you for an hour.
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I, too, like anything from Hanna-Barbera, as well as most anime and sci-fi/adventure cartoons from other studios. But even I have to draw the line, and here's where I do:
Theatrical cartoons. Yes, there were good ones that had humor, and even told coherent stories. But there are just as many that I wouldn't see again for anything. These include a few Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies cartoons, as well as a handful from Paramount Famous, and even some Disney shorts.
I have also been totally unwilling to see many TV cartoons from 1991 onward. Of course, you know I'm talking about Ren And Stimpy, Beavis And Butthead, and all cartoons on Adult Swim.
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I think that it would have been better if The Simpsons had ended after the movie, as that would have been a perfect way to finish the series. The fact that the series continued after the movie made the whole event kind of anti-climatic. It's my personal opinion that no scripted series should run for 20+ seasons, regardless of how well it's doing. Just because a network can keep renewing a series for decades doesn't mean that they should.
I think that The Amazing World of Gumball might actually have been better without all of the different animation styles for the characters. The different visual styles serve no real purpose on the show except to be an attention getting device as a way to distinguish itself from other animated series, and if the series had 1 unified visual style, it would make the episodes less expensive and less time consuming to produce.
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Procrastinators unite....tomorrow.
(This post was edited by SpaceDemon on May 2, 2012, 7:40 AM)
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My Gym Partner's a Monkey is one of the worst Cartoon-Cartoon shows of all time. Second only to Squirrel Boy and Evil Con Carne. Even for fiction, the premise makes no sense. Where on Earth is this school solely for animals who talk and act like people? Do the animals graduate and get animal jobs? All implausibilities about the premise aside, the show just wasn't funny. At all. Jake the monkey was irritating rather than entertaining. I saw a repeat of Gym Partner on Cartoon Planet last night and as usual, I didn't laugh once.
I agree with you on "My Gym Partner's a Monkey" I only saw pieces of it--and thought it was a very stupid and unfunny premise. Tom Kenny's portrayal of Jake the spider monkey was much like a rather unfunny Spongebob. Also, maybe it was just me, but the gorilla buddy that Jake hung out with almost always looked stoned.
I have no longing to rewatch Ren and Stimpy. I saw the show as a very young child--and was a bit disturbed by it--although I hardly remember what I saw--despite my fantastic memory for cartoons. It's not because I'm afraid to watch it, I just never found it appealing as a child. As an adult, I just don't want to watch it, the designs seem rather ugly to me and while I do enjoy some dark humor and violence at times, I just don't think this is something I'd enjoy.
I have an indifference towards Spongebob Squarepants. I understand why people like it--it's so stupid it can actually be funny at times. Yet, I never got into it--although it does have its moments (such as Patrick telling Spongebob the story of "The Ugly Barnacle") and I do like about 6 of the earlier episodes.
I hate Catdog. It's a gross, unfunny cartoon--except for one episode where Cat sneaks Dog into an all cat club. None of the characters appealed to me except the underused Lola. Every time Cat or Dog ate something and it came out the other's mouth-- I found it rather disgusting.
I liked the pilot episode of Adventure Time--back when it first appeared on Nickelodeon. However, I really haven't gotten into the series--although I did like the genderbent episode--and I do read the comic book--courtesy of my boyfriend. Ironically, I was the one who introduced my boyfriend to the pilot cartoon and he now loves the show. I guess I just find it a tad too trippy at times--even for me.
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"Homer,we just brought Flanders back from the dead. Did you use the notebook to make a flock of penguins peck him to death?" Marge-"Murder He Wrote"-a Simpsons Comic story.
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I miss original ideas.
Some of today's cartoons are quite good, but too many of them are reboots, sequels, prequels or new interpretations of already existing shows, characters and properties. I realize that these days budgets are tight and familiarity sells, but I'd like to see more cartoon shows which aren't based on anything that already exists; new characters, new concepts, new universes, new shticks, etc.
I sometimes get tired of how much some of my colleagues tend to glorify the 1990's cartoons, but one thing I agree with them about is that during the 90's artists, networks and studios weren't afraid to experiment with new and original concepts. Dexter's Lab, Johnny Bravo, The Powerpuff Girls, Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy, Courage the Cowardly Dog, Futurama, heck, even Rugrats, Ren & Stimpy and Beavis & Butt-Head were totally new concepts. Regardless of how I felt about them, they weren't just updates or carbon copies of franchises that already exist.
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You know what I miss in cartoons? Fun. Pure, unadulterated fun. No kick-butt action. No stylized fight scenes. No villain whomping. No elements of drama or sadness. No sagas. Just fun for the sake of having fun. Don't get me wrong; I like action in cartoons also. I loved Justice League. I enjoy Young Justice and Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes. I have nothing against action in cartoons, but I'm getting tired of action being the norm for animation now. I'm old enough to remember a time when edgy action wasn't a requirement for an animated series, and I'm also old enough to remember when any and every cartoon that didn't contain any such elements wasn't immediately dismissed as being "kid stuff" and therefore, "not cool".
Anyone remember the original Nicktoons? Doug, Rugrats and Ren & Stimpy? Now, I'm not a huge fan of any of these shows, but none of them were action oriented and everyone loved them. I'd like to see a return to that mentality. Not every animated series has to have a continuing story epic, world saving or evil villain fighting in order to be entertaining, and it is possible for show to not contain such elements and still be enjoyed by everyone and not just tiny tots.
I think that the reason why so many writers write edgy action stuff in cartoons nowadays is because explosions and fight scenes are easier to write than genuine humor.
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Procrastinators unite....tomorrow.
(This post was edited by SpaceDemon on Jul 5, 2012, 9:48 AM)
Re: Unpopular Opinions of the Animation
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"I never understood the massive appeal of Rugrats. I never got why this show was the one-time darling of Nickelodeon and why kids ran to this show in droves. Sure, Rugrats had a very original premise (the world from a baby's perspective), but the show wasn't terribly clever or funny, at least not to me. Most of the babies' jokes were them mispronouncing words and talking about "poop". Not sophisticated writing. Rugrats always struck me as being a B-level show that was inexplicably given the a-list treatment. But as bad as Rugrats became, it's continuation series All Grown Up somehow managed to be even worse. At least when the shows' central characters were infants, they had some originality to them. As "tweens", Tommy and company just came off as bland carbon copies of every other tween show that was on TV at the time. Also, it made no sense how the AGU characters were set at about 11-12 age-wise, but they talked and acted like they were teenagers. The only Rugrats on AGU who actually were teens were Angelica and Susie (they were 13). Nick should never have allowed AGU to go beyond the "All Growed Up" TV special. Seeing what Tommy, Chuckie, Phil & Lil would be like as teenagers might have been amusing to see once and only once as a fun special, but it absolutely failed as an endless series."
I have to totally disagree with you. "Rugrats" was both clever and funny. And you even acknowledged yourself, that it had an orginal premise. And surely the babies sure did other things than mispronounce words and talk about poop? We also got to see a lot about the grown-ups and their lives, which I really liked. I also really like "All grown up". It maybe wasn't as original as "Rugrats" had been, but it was still a good show, which has gotten an undeservedly bad reputation. Phil and Lil weren't that gross anymore, and I also liked Dil's crazy personality.
(This post was edited by Furienna. on Jul 22, 2012, 10:58 AM)
Re: Unpopular Opinions of the Animation
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I have to totally disagree with you. "Rugrats" was both clever and funny. And you even acknowledged yourself, that it had an orginal premise. And surely the babies sure did other things than mispronounce words and talk about poop? We also got to see a lot about the grown-ups and their lives, which I really liked. I also really like "All grown up". It maybe wasn't as original as "Rugrats" had been, but it was still a good show, which has gotten an undeservedly bad reputation. Phil and Lil weren't that gross anymore, and I also liked Dil's crazy personality.
...And judging by the huge commercial success that Rugrats once enjoyed, no doubt you're not alone in disagreeing with me, but that's cool with me. This is a thread for unpopular opinions, after all. Alls I know is that I tried, I really made a genuine effort to try to get into the show, but I just never could. Both then and now, I found/find the character designs to be obnoxious and unattractive and many of the shows' characters (especially Angelica and Chuckie) annoyed, rather then entertained me. And while it's true that I did indeed acknowledge that Rugrats had an original premise, that was merely an observation, not an opinion. CatDog had an original premise also, but that doesn''t mean that I thought that show was any good either. Then I think of all the hours of my life that I've spent watching Rugrats that I'll never get back and that gives me the blues.
Nonetheless, I respect your opinion, even if it's the opposite of my own. Different strokes for different folks. We'll just have to agree to disagree here.
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Procrastinators unite....tomorrow.
(This post was edited by SpaceDemon on Jul 23, 2012, 7:52 PM)
Re: Unpopular Opinions of the Animation
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Yeah, we'll agree to disagree. The character designs maybe weren't that pretty, but I've seen worse. Angelica was a mean, spoiled brat, but there also were a lot of episodes, where you felt sorry for her. And I don't understand how Chuckie could be seen as annoying. I just felt sorry for him most of the time.
I never really got into "CatDog". I guess that show was too weird, even for a cartoon, for me as well. But that show never became as popular as "Rugrats" was either.
Re: Unpopular Opinions of the Animation
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Angelica was a mean, spoiled brat, but there also were a lot of episodes, where you felt sorry for her.
There was never a moment when I sympathized with Angelica. That kid would have made an excellent poster child for Planned Parenthood. As a supporting player, Angelica might have been semi-tolerable in small doses, but when the shows' writers put Angelica in the front and center and started shoe-horning her into every single episode, the show got considerably worse.
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And I don't understand how Chuckie could be seen as annoying. I just felt sorry for him most of the time.
Chuckie became annoying due to the character's over-exposure, when he became the focus of nearly every episode. Plus, the whole "Chuckie doesn't have a mommy" bathos was overdone and unnecessary. The writers could have just given Chuckie a mommy from the get-go and spared us (the viewers) a ton of unnecessary angst.
But the purpose of this thread isn't to debate about Rugrats and I don't think that the thread's creator would much appreciate us derailing the thread like we've been doing here, so I'll get back on topic.
On the subject of Nicktoons, I'm going to say that Rocket Power was, IMO, the single worst Nicktoon ever produced. RP was even worse than CatDog. The latter at least tried to have some genuine humor, even if the series missed more than it hit. Rocket Power existed for no other purpose than to cash in on a hot new trend, in this case, extreme sports. There were no characters to care about, only caricatures. And the obnoxious cuts to buzzwords with MTV inspired collages was uber-annoying and pretentious. To top it off, RP went for the "family being raised by a single father" trope, which is beyond tired. Rocket Power was the "Poochie" of Nicktoons, by which I mean that it was a series created for the sole purpose of being cool and hip, but was merely the soulless by product of committee thinking.
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Procrastinators unite....tomorrow.
(This post was edited by SpaceDemon on Jul 24, 2012, 8:03 AM)
Re: Unpopular Opinions of the Animation
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I never cared much for Rocket Power either, but I think the main reason I never got into it was because it was a sports show. I never was very athletic so a show that catered to skateboarding,and snowboarding amongst other things didn't excite me. The only character I found pretty interesting was Tito.
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"Homer,we just brought Flanders back from the dead. Did you use the notebook to make a flock of penguins peck him to death?" Marge-"Murder He Wrote"-a Simpsons Comic story.
