The title says it all: What do you wish was different or would like to see changed in the world of animation these days? For me:
I'd like to see Nickelodeon, Disney Channel and Boomerang to get their collective acts together. Disney, stop milking Phineas & Ferb and Nick, stop milking SpongeBob, and both of you realize that you can still be producing quality original cartoons. (This goes for their live-action efforts as well.) And Boomerang, get off your lazy duffs and just start trying, for corn's sake. Turner split Boom from Cartoon Network and made it into an entire channel, and then they just use it to loop the same 12 shows all day. They only air about 1/4 of the shows which they have available in the Turner vaults. Is it really too much for Turner to show every episode of every show that they own on Boom, and designate certain hours and days to certain eras and decades? If Turner has so little interest in doing anything with Boomerang, then they might as well have left it as a programming block on CN.
Speaking of CN, I'd like to see The Powers That Be at that network to finally get the point that no one wants to see live-action on a channel with the word CARTOON in its' name. 'Cartoon' is not a dirty word, CN.
I'd like to see the return of intelligent adult cartoons, not the rude, crude stoneriffic junk that permeates the likes of Adult Swim and FOX's Animation Domination these days. You don't have to be dirty, crass and lol wut random to appeal to adults. On that subject, I'd like to see Adult Swim get cut back, have it start later and not air every night.
I'd like to see the return of fun animation blocks on weekday afternoons and in prime time. I miss blocks like SNICK, Miguzi and Cartoon Cartoon Fridays. They gave me something to watch on afternoons and Friday and Saturday nights.
I'd like to see more original ideas, cartoons which are totally new: new characters, new worlds, new shticks, shows which aren't reboots, updates, sequels, prequels or midquels of some other franchise which already exists.
I'd like to see less shows set in school. As a kid I hated school, the last thing I wanted to do is spend my free time watching people in school. (To be fair, this is more of an issue for live-action shows than cartoons nowadays.)
Getting back to Disney, I'd like to see them make more good shows based on their existing properties which are designed to appeal to more than just preschoolers, in addition to more original shows. Why can't we have another Darkwing Duck, Goof Troop, Tail Spin or even Bonkers in this day and age?
And finally (for now), I'd like to see more gender balance in cartoons and less re-usage of shopworn stereotypes. Less of the "boys/dads are idiots who have no real talents or skills beyond causing or getting into trouble" and "girls/moms are these annoyingly perfect, smug creatures who never make mistakes and live to remind their male counterparts how stupid they're being" tropes. Can we see a smart, capable male protagonist and a wacky, comically flawed female protagonist once in a while??
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Some things should not be redone unless they can be done properly--I'm looking at you, George of the Jungle (I've never seen either version to be honest, although I definately did not like the look of the newer version) On the contrary, I think "Super Secret Squirrel" and the New Thundercats are a lot better than their original incarnations--however they are rare cases.
Unless a type of modern Looney Tunes can be created in the vein of "The Duckorsist " "Invasion of the Bunny Snatchers" and "Little Go Beep" with enough zaniness thrown in, drop "The Looney Tunes Show. It's not that I don't approve of Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck and everyone else living in the suburbs--it just needs more slapstick and less sitcom quality. Something that's more on par with their music videos. To be honest, I feel a lot like I could just swap out Bugs and Daffy for other cartoon characters.
Please, no more Scooby Doo.It was fun when it first came out--but enough is enough. Some of those direct to video movies like "Scooby Doo on Zombie Island" and "Scooby Doo and the Witch's Ghost" were pretty inventive, but if you're mostly going to go for the stale "It was just an insane man/ woman in a costume" plot--it's not worth it. Even with all those bizarre "Mysteries Inc" plot twists, to me it's still the same premise--and to me most of them just don't work--such as Shaggy and Velma attempting to be a couple or Fred and Daphne breaking up.
Spongebob needs to be put to rest. What has it been--ten years now? It was somewhat funny when it first came out, but the show has long lost its touch.
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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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Oooh, I don't know where to begin. Well, since I don't own a TV myself, I can hardly comment too harshly without being an ignorant douche, but from what I've seen, I have to completely agree with the previous posters. Lame live action shows, reboots after reboots after reboots of old characters, and tasteless humor seems to be galore.
Reusing characters does make sense, and in some instances it's worked very well. Some of my favourite recent shows have been reusing characters, e.g. Duck Dodgers. I mention this show every other thread, but there they took an established character, and put him in an unusual position while still mostly remaining in character. Of course the idea came from Chuck Jones, but he didn't expand much on it. A whole series based on this idea makes a lot of sense since with cartoons, you can do everything. In Sci-Fi, you can do everything as well, and there's lots of prior art to parody. That just makes it quite easy to focus on making fun cartoons, without shoe-horning too many iconic characters into a new situation, and adding new characters like the Martian Queen actually makes sense. Some shows seem to add new characters just to say "we have a new character, we're original!" while the remaining 95% of the cast are recycled to score on the nostalgia factor.
But completely new characters would be good as well. And some things are best left to rest, at least for 10-20-30 years. Like the aforementioned Scooby-Doo.
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Duck Dodgers was indeed surprisingly good. What I really liked was that if a familiar character appeared for a special appearence, they were given the sci-fi treatment for the most part such as Nasty Canasta as a space bounty hunter, or the Goofy Gophers as aliens.
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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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It would be nice to see shows that are for adults without disgusting humor. I've seen entertaining shows that are aimed at adults and are either clean or somewhat clean. I don't remember the titles, but I think they were both live-action.
I also agree that some shows need to stop and make way for new shows. There are too many SpongeBob episodes that are just horrible and there are way too many Scooby-Doo shows. Giving Jimmy Neutron a rest will be nice as well.
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I'd like for the classic Disney movies to be shown again. And why can't Dangermouse return to Nickolodeon?
As for Cartoon Network, I think it should dump Adventure Time, Gumball, and a few others. Bring back The Secret Saturdays, and keep Ben 10. Yesterday, when I saw a new episode of Bakugan on my DVR, I deleted it right away. Why? Because without Dan Kuso, Drago, and the the rest of the original Battle Brawlers, it wasn't the same old Bakugan! Plus, the animation was third rate.
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Eh, even though I'm one who tries to stay focused on the positives, I agree with those who say that more original ideas would be great. Even though many reboots, updates, sequels, prequels and midquels can be good (My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, The Legend of Korra and in my opinion, The Looney Tunes Show, to name a few...), it would be nice for them to come up with more original ideas (especially Nick in my opinion). Dan Vs., Regular Show and even Gumball are starters in my opinion, hopefully a new trend of innovation/creativeness will arise within a few short years.
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I'd like for the classic Disney movies to be shown again.
If you get Disney Junior, they air the classic movies at least a couple times a week. It would be nice though if they do air the classic shorts on the channel as well.
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Shunned by the majority, but not on this blog: http://cybervillesanctuary.blogspot.com/
(This post was edited by classicsguy626 on Jun 5, 2012, 12:36 PM)
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I don't have a problem with action cartoons, provided they're done well, but I'd really like to see more cartoons that are all about fun, with no kick-butt action-y stuff, or at least no more action than the average Looney Tunes or Tom & Jerry cartoon. Action has basically taken over Nicktoons Network. Every kid/family oriented cable/satellite channel now has an action block (CN has DC Nation, Disney XD has Marvel Universe). What about a comedy animation block? Why can't someone launch a block like Cartoon Network's "Funny For Your Face", only good?
I'd like to see an end to gender specific cartoons. Disney in particular needs to stop with all of the "boy shows" and "girl shows" and just concentrate on making good shows.
I have no need nor desire to see CN, Nick and Disney Channel bring back all of their old shows from the 1990s, since many of them are either on DVD or available on iTunes or some similar site. However, I would like to see some new and original series made with the same creativity and spirit of those shows aforementioned. Why can't we have a SNICK or a Cartoon-Cartoon Fridays of today? And why doesn't Nick or CN have showcases for potential new pilot series anymore?
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Procrastinators unite....tomorrow.
(This post was edited by SpaceDemon on Jun 5, 2012, 2:22 PM)
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As for Cartoon Network, I think it should dump Adventure Time, Gumball, and a few others.
I'm not big on Adventure Time either, but it's putting butts into seats, so dumping the show while it's hot wouldn't be good for business.
I actually like Gumball; it's not perfect (it's guilty of the 'dumb boys/dads, smart girls/moms' trope I mentioned earlier), but it's still pretty good, IMO. Unfortunately, given how time-consuming and expensive the show is to produce, I fear that Gumball may not go too far beyond 2 seasons.
If there's one CN show I'd like to see laid to rest, it's Johnny Test. Sure, kids love it, but it keeps repeating the same stories and plots over and over again, the title character is so annoying and the few potentially good concepts the show has are horribly wasted.
Also, why don't Megas XLR, Time Squad, Sheep in the Big City, Cartoon Planet (the original one) or Space Ghost: Coast to Coast air on Boomerang when shows which came after those like Ben 10 or The Secret Saturdaysdo air on Boom?
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I'd like to see an end to gender specific cartoons. Disney in particular needs to stop with all of the "boy shows" and "girl shows" and just concentrate on making good shows.
Agreed. And on that note, I'd like for Disney to forget this idee fixe they have that "girls, especially teen girls, don't watch cartoons, so we don't have to produce any animated shows for Disney Channel". That's bull. The whole "girls don't watch cartoons" myth is hard to support when you consider that 1 of TDC's biggest commercial successes was Kim Possible. Girls are just like everyone else: they'll watch cartoons as long as they're worth watching.
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Speaking of Disney, I'd like it if The Disney Channel would go back to being an all ages channel instead of being strictly a teen girls channel. It's nothing short of ridiculous that Disney now has 4 cable/satellite channels but doesn't run the Disney theatrical shorts on any of them. Now, I know that Disney has neither the money nor the interest to launch a 5th channel, but is a Vault Disney program block or perhaps a half channel like Adult Swim really so much to ask for?
Also, I wish that 20th Century Fox would buy back the Fox Kids library from Disney and launch a Fox Kids Channel, or something similar, although I know that after the failure of the Fox Family Channel, it's very unlikely that Fox will attempt another family oriented channel again.
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This will never happen, but making the wishes anyway:
1) Somebody green-light Lauren Faust's pet project, Milky Way And The Galaxy Girls. When Lauren Faust offered to do a reboot of Hasbro's My Little Pony franchise, Hasbro shrugged and said, "Go ahead." The new Friendship Is Magic took the viewing public by storm, and became a breakaway hit for The Hub. However, Hasbro took control of the project, and marginalized Lauren. Galaxy Girls could easily be what Friendship Is Magic should have been without the Executive Meddling.
2) Christian and Yvon Tremblay gave us SWAT Kats, until Ted Turner decided it was too violent, and put a kibosh on it after two seasons. The Tremblays pitched a parallel idea to Warner Brothers Animation ... which promptly mutated it into Loonatics Unleashed in a scheme to reinvigorate the Looney Tunes. We all know how that fiasco played out. One more time, guys, and this time no Executive Meddling. An all-new Funny Animal world that's wild and weird and fun.
3) Don Bluth learned the cartoon craft at Disney studios, before breaking away with Gary Goldman and John Pomeroy. He gave us The Secret of NIMH and All Dogs Go To Heaven and Anastasia and Thumbelina. Bluth can mimic Disney and he can parody Disney. One more, Don, please. There'll be no more interfering busybodies, either, we promise.
Congress should pass a bill imposing a hefty tax on studios' stuffed suits that monkey-wrench a director's vision. Say, 70% right off the top. That should clear things up nicely.
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I'd just like to see Old and New Cartoons hand-in-hand.
Have something like "Ruff and Reddy" on one end and "Adventure Time" on the other....
In a perfect world, that's what Cartoon Network would be.
And ditto on a Milky Way and the Galaxy Girls series. Someone bigwig in the industry please have the foresight to greenlight a MW&TGG show and let Ms. Faust do it the way she wants. I'd also settle for a Super Best Friends Forever series.
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There is one show in the future I'm looking forward to on Fox-- Axe Cop. It's based off a very popular web comic in which a 29 year old brother drew the art, and his 5 year old brother (Who is now 8 and just as imaginative) "wrote" the story (or at least told it to his brother) Hopefully, the show will be just as amazing as the webcomic, and just as creative. Trust me, you never know what's going to happen next with Axe Cop thanks to Malachai's creativity. (the little brother)
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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'd like to see more animated series starring human characters and less cartoons which change human characters into animals for no reason (and no, I'm not talking about animated films such as Ratatouille and Finding Nemo). If being about non-humans is part of the premise, then it's fine. It's only when human characters are made into animals but then don't do anything that animals do and are essentially human characters in animal skins that I see it as being unnecessary.
In addition, I'd like to see more TV shows and movies that don't star or center on Caucasian males. Not that I have a problem with Caucasian males, of course, but it would just be nice to see some other colors more than once in a while.
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Not to derail the topic, but personally I like cartoon action shows to star animals instead of humans. Usually, logic has to be temporarily put on hold on these shows, and having the cast as anthropomorphic animals instead of humans helps me with that. Examples include Biker Mice from Mars and Mighty Ducks. But as you say, if non-humans are part of the premise that helps as well, which these examples does include in my opinion. (Side-note: I wonder if Disney was trying to copy the Biker Mice a bit with Mighty Ducks. Quite a bit of the backstory and general feel seems to be pretty much the same.)
