Now, now haredevil... aren't you being a bit... you know? Harsh?
Nothing like a good old chinese tortured, peel back the skin and cover teh wound with salt, that's more like it, and if you want to make them see the "Bay Looney Tunes" whilst being tortured, well, don't forget that little gadget from a "clockwork orange" which I find that always comes handy at times like these!
I'm gonna wait and see how this turns out, but I'm not hoping for much.
If you're at all interested in the history of Disney (the man and the studio), click on Haredevil's link and order the book Barrier is discussing, "Walt's People, Volume 1". A terrific collection of interviews with artists who worked with Walt and created much of the Disney canon that we study endlessly today.
If you order it, order from xlibris.com - the authors get a larger cut of the cover price than they do from Amazon.
Disclaimer - I'm not one of the contributors to this book; merely a student of animation history that would love to see more volumes in this series produced.
"'The new series will have the same classic wit and wisdom, but we have to do it more in line with what kids are talking about today"
That's the problem right there, for me. The Looney Tunes have hit on contemporary topics on occasion, usually for parody purposes, but how it seems is that they were created simply as something funny, musical, and retaliatory. They weren't designed as a 'medium for communication' toward people who wanted to buy affiliated merchandise.
"[Teen Titans] quickly became a hit. It ranked No. 26 among kids programs for the fourth quarter last year."
If 26 is a hit, what do they call the other twenty-five in front of it?
"Steven Spielberg sparked things up in the early 1990s with 'Tiny Toons,' a series in which new characters interacted with the originals. But a 2002 effort, 'Baby Looney Tunes,'has been a dud for the Cartoon Network..."
Of course it's a dud! Who in Seville was their target market? Tiny Toons succeeded because it wasn't afraid of being creative and intelligent beyond its visage, and because it was more in line with the intentions of the original Looney Tunes.
At least if you're going to commit this crime, pick better names than the cereal companies.
With all due respect to those here, I agree with Sander Schwartz's quote ("...more in line with what kids are talking about today").
The Looney Tunes characters are anachronisms. They're incredibly fun anachronisms, but they come from a different era. I interact with kids regularly, and to them, the Looney Tunes are fun but dated.
I sympathize with Schwartz' desire to update the characters. I imagine he's under a lot of pressure to maintain lucrative characters and appeal to ten-year-olds who watch Teen Titans and Yu-Gi-Oh.
However.
I don't agree that the best solution is to re-invent the characters. I say, create new characters. Heck, I might announce that the original characters are being back-burnered (not abandoned; just put away for a while) and that WB is intentionally creating a new Looney Tunes cast.
In fact, why not replicate the original cinema experience by creating a weekday afternoon Tune Showcase on The WB? Each episode features a few short films with some new characters. The popular characters stick around. Give it a couple of seasons to establish long-lasting popularity. Really popular characters could get spun off into their own shows if need be, to keep the original show full of relatively experimental characters.
Who thinks this wouldn't at least generate a lot of buzz?
I have to agree with you on the new characters point, because I read the first half of what you said and went "Sure, of course it's not a bad idea to give the kids something, but why not make something new? If they're detached from the Looney Tunes, who really cares? It's not -for- them and it's just a bonus they have any attachment to begin with. A rehash is not the answer..."
A better example than Tiny Toons would be the Animaniacs. I realize historically they said that show deviated to college-aged kids and then collapsed when they tried to bring it back to kiddie form, but that definitely counts to me as new character shorts that are as funny and irreverent as those that came before. I mean, the main characters have a basis from older characters, but they're derivations with (relatively) wholly original additional cast, not poorly-drawn uglified copies.
As an aside, how are they getting their info on kid's interests? I'd hate to see something like a Loo-ni-OH!
I interact with kids regularly, and to them, the Looney Tunes are fun but dated.
Yeah, the wierd thing is, the Looney Tunes have already proved that they can exist and appeal to kids that were born after their heyday. In fact, there are several grown men and women in their 30's and 40's who think that the LT were made for Saturday morning for their generation. They'd be taken aback if they ever found out that these cartoons were shown in movie theatres 20 or 30 years prior to their time. Why should today's kids be any different?
Can believe it....just another case of corporate greed disguised as "oh. we want to entertain a new generation of kids".
Nothing new to greed....
I am glad Chuck Jones isn't around to see these JMK::IUGCGHCRFDTFHV < GYRTRTYTDHGMKPOU)*Y*GI so and so's wreck something that is already entertaining.
Creeps!
Creeps without souls!
Creeps wthout heuvos...
I can't imagine this being any worse than "Baby Looney Toons" or the "totally-crossed-out" Looney Toons of the Kris-Kross era. Sadly, these characters have been relegated to merchandising figures. I'd rather see them stick around as symbols of Warner Bros. and a great age of animation instead of being recycled into increasingly more mediocre properties. The thing these execs forget is that Bugs and pals weren't created to appeal to children in their age either. They were created to be hilarious "actors" on a movie screen. They never were kids fare.
This quote from the article is absolutely ludicrous:
"The new series will have the same classic wit and wisdom..."
No, it won't. Numerous people have tried to duplicate the wit and stylings of the old WB toons. NO ONE has. This certainly won't be the show that finally "gets it."
I was actually considering a poll asking who believes what specific characters have been so fully developed as to be considered real people. There are crazies who believe Santa or Frankenstein exist, but I mean sane people.......not that you think they are a real live sentient being with a mind and body you can go see this minute, but that they're as good as real.
First and foremost, I elect Bugs Bunny.
Secondly, with the exceptional voice acting to aide him (Kevin Conroy through three or four odd...maybe more series) Batman from his Animated Series and associated cartoons...
The reason I say this is...when they do that like fourchinnigan said it relegates this real person to me back to as if they were a flat cartoon. I've met people in my life that were less real to me than Bugs. And this is how he gets treated. Ay carumba :rolleyes:
Here's the problem, imo:
Ther are so fixated on making something timely that they forget it should be TIMELESS.
Screw the focus groups and get a good story crew and people that KNOW cartoons, and you'll make something EVERYONE will want to see.
The fact that they want to create these for the kids now days is purely motivated by money/profits! I worked at WB for a number of years and can tell you from first hand experience, that they would rather recycle something proven from the past to guarantee a profit, rather than create engaging new content and characters.
Back in the late 90's when I was there, they had their feature development teams working on different ideas for possibilities for new animated feature films. Here were some of the projects they were considering: The Wizard of Oz, Gilligans Island, Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, a remake of the Incredible Mr. Limpitt, and the one original idea was animals escaping from the zoo.
My point again: They are only motivated by money. They reason they want to appeal to todays kids is to get into the wallets of today's kids parents!
.......... and the one original idea was animals escaping from the zoo.
.....................!
Madagascar?
UGH! "Baby Looney Toons" and "Duck Dodgers" were bad enough! :mad:
Now this! Why do they have to ruin Looney Toons even more????? :mad:
~S
Hey Duck Dodgers is actually decent....at least if the concept's been done they try to do new material for it...
Yeah, Duck Dodgers is somewhat watchable. You can at least tell that the talent working on that one at least has an appreciation for the original toons and tries to preserve as much integrity as possible. But, with TV animation the way it's run, that isn't easy.
As someone else said elsewhere, the less said about Baby Looney Tunes the better. :p
Holy crap, that's even more cheesy than I anticipated.
That trailer is classic -- if you had never posted this I would've thought it was a joke built by some kids online and making its rounds across the e-mail circuit or something...
I guess Duck Dodgers is watchable. I was kinda exaggerating. In my opinion I don't even like the show. But it is more watchable than the Baby Loonies. I say just watch the original "Duck Dodgers". Chuck Jones was a genius!
Chuck indeed was a genius. As was pretty much every other artist who worked there. Can't say the same for the people who came up with this one. :(
I WOULD NOT offer my services for this show...have some dignity!
Any other Animation H... out there?
These folks (at WB) don't know the heritage of the characters...and it's safe to say they don't know entertainment...
What do you all say...should I edit out the services response...?
I think it's down right funny that he posted a service ad in here. Is it directed to us or the WB? Either way I had a great laugh. Maybe he thought they could use some help after looking at that terrible promo? Thanks for the good tines yatsulyak!
no,he's just posting that in any thread,even if it has nothing to do with what he's posting. He thinks it will get him work,but it just makes people like me annoyed. Someone should talk to him about this...Thats a terrible way to advertise your services... :(
Does that spammer guy have any idea how annoying and inappropriate his spam is.
Could a moderator block him from posting or something?
I found out that he posted this in other forums after my comment. Now, I'm not impressed either. I don't have the authoritah to erase it in this forum, I'll pm Larry or Dan to fix it up.
Look down a few lines at the character list. Reading the text bios of the characters/relationships. Thoughts went into it. Not thought, thoughts.
Too much to hope for here lol
Oh lord. If I had seen that trailer on TV, I would have thrown the thing out the window before I hit the end!
Since when did mainstream animation become about ruining everything that was ever great about the industry???
Is nothing sacred?
Those characters don't even look like they would animate well, and maybe it was just because I was seeing it on a small screen, but I could barely tell them all apart.
I think I am going to crawl off and be sick now... :(
We should definitely do all the poll options and more to whomever wrote this article. :mad:
i stubbled upon this garbage while i was channel surfing last weekend. i didn't even realize they were rippoffs of looney tunes characters until they started talking, and then i nearly choked to death on my breakfast in utter disgust
the animation industry takes a critical blow
-999hp
:( what happened to you saturday morning, you used to be cool?
:( what happened to you saturday morning, you used to be cool?
Saturday morning was only cool when we were kids. I hate to admit it, but my dad was right, most of the stuff on in the morning was cheap imitations of the lowest grade Japanese animations (he said it less eloquently). The only real worthwhile shows from the '80's tended to be re-runs of animations from the '40's to the '60's.
Smurfs, Snorks, Dungeons and Dragons, Gi Joe, Transformers, Scooby Doo, Mr. T and his gymnastics squad, The Littles, Gem and the Holograms, Punky Brewster and Gloomer, Thundercats, He-Man, Sheera, and all the rest of the Hasbro Tie in Shows, I watched them all. But now I realise that they were just long commercials with half-assed writing and worse than half-assed animation, and if it weren't for nostalgia I'd actually be as angry as I am now about some of the cartoons on now. I know I'll get some very heated debates that Transformers was cool, but I'll stick to my guns that if it came out now it'd be comparable to Yu-Gi-Oh, the quality of animation is identical and the scripts only slightly less predictable. Nostalgia clouds ones vision.
There are exceptions of course, like the Disney shows managed to keep a visual and writing quality that few shows of the time had and for the most part manage to remain watchable.
On the other hand, I'd say that the writing for cartoons is significantly better now than it ever was while I was growing up, Sponge Bob, Fairly Odd Parents, Recess, Filmore, and even Mucha Lucha, all have made me laugh with how witty they are, even now that I'm over 30. The story lines for Samurai Jack, and Xiaolin Showdown tend to be much more sophisticated than we ever saw in the '80's. They may not stand the test of time like the original Looney Toons or early Tom and Jerry's, but not much does.
Sure there's a bunch of garbage on TV, but I think there's a lot more watchable stuff now than there used to be. We as the audience have just grown up enough to take our parents place at pointing out the garbage that producers deem worthwhile to sell.
Yeah, I have no desire to watch that show. Well, maybe with the same desire like watching NASCAR, just waiting for the crashes.
I have to agree with you Kdiddy. Saturday morning cartoons when I was a kid, late 70's and 80's, sucked!!!! I loved them as a kid and they still have a place in my heart, but it's mostly nostalgia. I've seen a few, lately, GI Joe, and Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, and wow, was I throughly underwhelmed! I remember when they used to show Spider-man and Friends was shown with the Hulk, and thinking as a kid that Spider-Man was way better animated than the Hulk. After seeing it again, it's the pot calling the kettle black. It's exactly for this reason that I don't want to by the Transformers DVD collections, and haven't looked for Darkwing Duck, Rescue Rangers, and Tail Spin on DVD.
Oh well, I'm glad I'm in Germany, hopefully it'll be canned before I get back :)
Aloha,
the Ape
Saturday morning has always been drek.
Its true.
As children, we have no sense of taste. We ingest the most dreadful pablum because we don't know any better. If it flashes in front of our eyes, its enthralling to us. That and some noise, coupled with maybe a thematic idea that captures the imagination and we are hooked.
Cartoons today, as a whole, are 10 times better than the stuff from my youth--starting in the 60's. There is more all-ages material being produced now that ever before, and better writing and concepts in cartoons than there's ever been.
Memories become clouded/distorted and augmented by emotions, ego...as time goes on. This is what makes endearing memories endearing.
Its why "our" stuff is always "better" than our kids stuff.
yeah, you guys are right.
i find myself turning to cartoon network and sometimes nickelodeon to quench my thirst for quality animation
at least the crap i watched in the 80's was original crap and not a rehash of something that wasn't crap originally
at least the crap i watched in the 80's was original crap and not a rehash of something that wasn't crap originally
Muppet Babies. Sorry, just had to throw that one out there. :D
Hey, I am old enough I grew up with the originals: Tom Terrific, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Mighty Mouse, Beany and Cecil, Gumby, and the original Loonies.
I think the problem lies with the fact that the people making the broadcast decisions are so young or stupid all they can do is rehash old ideas. This one sounds like a combination of Loony Tunes and the Justice League. But look at the movies that came out this summer, most of them were remakes of perfectly good films or TV shows (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Bewitched, War of the Worlds, Dukes of Hazard, Bad News Bears) . Did they bring anything new to the concept? Maybe some fancy special effects, but does that really justify the expense of remake? I didn't pay to see them. Don't plan on watching them when they come to TV.
Do these broadcast wizards have any new thoughts or concepts? This is a new century, and their market are fresh young minds. Why not come up with something fresh and new that really relates to them?
I'd guess it has less to do with being young or stupid, and more to do with a business structure that doesn't reward risky behavior. If your job depends on making money, why go out on a limb with a new idea, when releasing Dukes of Hazzard will probably at least make it's money back (whether it did or not, I don't know). The people typically in charge are much older than the idealistic artists they hire and want very much to keep their jobs green-lighting garbage and going to parties in the Hollywood hills.
Perhaps, it could be argued that the "desired" audience is young and stupid which directly influences which movies and animations are getting made, but the people in charge are usually neither (although I might go with stupid after having dealt with some of them). They aren't in it for the art, it's a business for them.
It's up to use, the artists to create new and brilliant works. Enter festivals, pitch projects, post stuff on the web. Hopefully, we'll find an audience and be able to change what's out there by example.
Due to the controversy surrounding this series, I forced myself to watch the premiere of Loonatics.
It would be foolish to try to hold this show up to Looney Tunes standards. It's on par with such pre-teen fair as Ninja Turtles or Teen Titans. It's just the normal children's garbage we expect to see on television, or in the theaters.
It does whore out the classic Looney Tunes characters, but that's what you should expect from corporate-owned cartoons.
What do you love today: Wallace & Gromit, The Incredibles?
Well, allow me to prepare you for the eventual Gromitics and Incredi-babies.
>Sigh<
They say they want to come up with something new for a new generation--but this is nothing new. This is your standard junk. Is it just me, or are all kids' cartoons starting to look alike? But then again, I don't have cable.
Comments
there there
Now, now haredevil... aren't you being a bit... you know? Harsh?
Nothing like a good old chinese tortured, peel back the skin and cover teh wound with salt, that's more like it, and if you want to make them see the "Bay Looney Tunes" whilst being tortured, well, don't forget that little gadget from a "clockwork orange" which I find that always comes handy at times like these!
I'm gonna wait and see how this turns out, but I'm not hoping for much.
If you're at all interested in the history of Disney (the man and the studio), click on Haredevil's link and order the book Barrier is discussing, "Walt's People, Volume 1". A terrific collection of interviews with artists who worked with Walt and created much of the Disney canon that we study endlessly today.
If you order it, order from xlibris.com - the authors get a larger cut of the cover price than they do from Amazon.
Disclaimer - I'm not one of the contributors to this book; merely a student of animation history that would love to see more volumes in this series produced.
That's the problem right there, for me. The Looney Tunes have hit on contemporary topics on occasion, usually for parody purposes, but how it seems is that they were created simply as something funny, musical, and retaliatory. They weren't designed as a 'medium for communication' toward people who wanted to buy affiliated merchandise.
If 26 is a hit, what do they call the other twenty-five in front of it?
Of course it's a dud! Who in Seville was their target market? Tiny Toons succeeded because it wasn't afraid of being creative and intelligent beyond its visage, and because it was more in line with the intentions of the original Looney Tunes.
At least if you're going to commit this crime, pick better names than the cereal companies.
With all due respect to those here, I agree with Sander Schwartz's quote ("...more in line with what kids are talking about today").
The Looney Tunes characters are anachronisms. They're incredibly fun anachronisms, but they come from a different era. I interact with kids regularly, and to them, the Looney Tunes are fun but dated.
I sympathize with Schwartz' desire to update the characters. I imagine he's under a lot of pressure to maintain lucrative characters and appeal to ten-year-olds who watch Teen Titans and Yu-Gi-Oh.
However.
I don't agree that the best solution is to re-invent the characters. I say, create new characters. Heck, I might announce that the original characters are being back-burnered (not abandoned; just put away for a while) and that WB is intentionally creating a new Looney Tunes cast.
In fact, why not replicate the original cinema experience by creating a weekday afternoon Tune Showcase on The WB? Each episode features a few short films with some new characters. The popular characters stick around. Give it a couple of seasons to establish long-lasting popularity. Really popular characters could get spun off into their own shows if need be, to keep the original show full of relatively experimental characters.
Who thinks this wouldn't at least generate a lot of buzz?
I have to agree with you on the new characters point, because I read the first half of what you said and went "Sure, of course it's not a bad idea to give the kids something, but why not make something new? If they're detached from the Looney Tunes, who really cares? It's not -for- them and it's just a bonus they have any attachment to begin with. A rehash is not the answer..."
A better example than Tiny Toons would be the Animaniacs. I realize historically they said that show deviated to college-aged kids and then collapsed when they tried to bring it back to kiddie form, but that definitely counts to me as new character shorts that are as funny and irreverent as those that came before. I mean, the main characters have a basis from older characters, but they're derivations with (relatively) wholly original additional cast, not poorly-drawn uglified copies.
As an aside, how are they getting their info on kid's interests? I'd hate to see something like a Loo-ni-OH!
Yeah, the wierd thing is, the Looney Tunes have already proved that they can exist and appeal to kids that were born after their heyday. In fact, there are several grown men and women in their 30's and 40's who think that the LT were made for Saturday morning for their generation. They'd be taken aback if they ever found out that these cartoons were shown in movie theatres 20 or 30 years prior to their time. Why should today's kids be any different?
Oh, btw, here's a link to this story on MSNBC. It has video of Sander Schwartz himself talking about this thing. :rolleyes:
Can"t Believe It!
Can believe it....just another case of corporate greed disguised as "oh. we want to entertain a new generation of kids".
Nothing new to greed....
I am glad Chuck Jones isn't around to see these JMK::IUGCGHCRFDTFHV < GYRTRTYTDHGMKPOU)*Y*GI so and so's wreck something that is already entertaining.
Creeps!
Creeps without souls!
Creeps wthout heuvos...
I can't imagine this being any worse than "Baby Looney Toons" or the "totally-crossed-out" Looney Toons of the Kris-Kross era. Sadly, these characters have been relegated to merchandising figures. I'd rather see them stick around as symbols of Warner Bros. and a great age of animation instead of being recycled into increasingly more mediocre properties. The thing these execs forget is that Bugs and pals weren't created to appeal to children in their age either. They were created to be hilarious "actors" on a movie screen. They never were kids fare.
This quote from the article is absolutely ludicrous:
No, it won't. Numerous people have tried to duplicate the wit and stylings of the old WB toons. NO ONE has. This certainly won't be the show that finally "gets it."
I was actually considering a poll asking who believes what specific characters have been so fully developed as to be considered real people. There are crazies who believe Santa or Frankenstein exist, but I mean sane people.......not that you think they are a real live sentient being with a mind and body you can go see this minute, but that they're as good as real.
First and foremost, I elect Bugs Bunny.
Secondly, with the exceptional voice acting to aide him (Kevin Conroy through three or four odd...maybe more series) Batman from his Animated Series and associated cartoons...
The reason I say this is...when they do that like fourchinnigan said it relegates this real person to me back to as if they were a flat cartoon. I've met people in my life that were less real to me than Bugs. And this is how he gets treated. Ay carumba :rolleyes:
Here's the problem, imo:
Ther are so fixated on making something timely that they forget it should be TIMELESS.
Screw the focus groups and get a good story crew and people that KNOW cartoons, and you'll make something EVERYONE will want to see.
The fact that they want to create these for the kids now days is purely motivated by money/profits! I worked at WB for a number of years and can tell you from first hand experience, that they would rather recycle something proven from the past to guarantee a profit, rather than create engaging new content and characters.
Back in the late 90's when I was there, they had their feature development teams working on different ideas for possibilities for new animated feature films. Here were some of the projects they were considering: The Wizard of Oz, Gilligans Island, Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, a remake of the Incredible Mr. Limpitt, and the one original idea was animals escaping from the zoo.
My point again: They are only motivated by money. They reason they want to appeal to todays kids is to get into the wallets of today's kids parents!
Madagascar?
UGH! "Baby Looney Toons" and "Duck Dodgers" were bad enough! :mad:
Now this! Why do they have to ruin Looney Toons even more????? :mad:
~S
Hey Duck Dodgers is actually decent....at least if the concept's been done they try to do new material for it...
Loonatics trailer :eek:
Yeah, Duck Dodgers is somewhat watchable. You can at least tell that the talent working on that one at least has an appreciation for the original toons and tries to preserve as much integrity as possible. But, with TV animation the way it's run, that isn't easy.
As someone else said elsewhere, the less said about Baby Looney Tunes the better. :p
Holy crap, that's even more cheesy than I anticipated.
That trailer is classic -- if you had never posted this I would've thought it was a joke built by some kids online and making its rounds across the e-mail circuit or something...
I guess Duck Dodgers is watchable. I was kinda exaggerating. In my opinion I don't even like the show. But it is more watchable than the Baby Loonies. I say just watch the original "Duck Dodgers". Chuck Jones was a genius!
Chuck indeed was a genius. As was pretty much every other artist who worked there. Can't say the same for the people who came up with this one. :(
Servicing who?
Hello.
I WOULD NOT offer my services for this show...have some dignity!
Any other Animation H... out there?
These folks (at WB) don't know the heritage of the characters...and it's safe to say they don't know entertainment...
What do you all say...should I edit out the services response...?
I think it's down right funny that he posted a service ad in here. Is it directed to us or the WB? Either way I had a great laugh. Maybe he thought they could use some help after looking at that terrible promo? Thanks for the good tines yatsulyak!
no,he's just posting that in any thread,even if it has nothing to do with what he's posting. He thinks it will get him work,but it just makes people like me annoyed. Someone should talk to him about this...Thats a terrible way to advertise your services... :(
annoying everyone
Does that spammer guy have any idea how annoying and inappropriate his spam is.
Could a moderator block him from posting or something?
I found out that he posted this in other forums after my comment. Now, I'm not impressed either. I don't have the authoritah to erase it in this forum, I'll pm Larry or Dan to fix it up.
There you go!
Hello.
There you go! The post was just too much of an advertisement!
Thanks.
Death by Baby Looney Toons!:mad:
what a painful way to die
http://www.angel-hare.com/acorn/tta/cs/
Look down a few lines at the character list. Reading the text bios of the characters/relationships. Thoughts went into it. Not thought, thoughts.
Too much to hope for here lol
Oh lord. If I had seen that trailer on TV, I would have thrown the thing out the window before I hit the end!
Since when did mainstream animation become about ruining everything that was ever great about the industry???
Is nothing sacred?
Those characters don't even look like they would animate well, and maybe it was just because I was seeing it on a small screen, but I could barely tell them all apart.
I think I am going to crawl off and be sick now... :(
We should definitely do all the poll options and more to whomever wrote this article. :mad:
i stubbled upon this garbage while i was channel surfing last weekend. i didn't even realize they were rippoffs of looney tunes characters until they started talking, and then i nearly choked to death on my breakfast in utter disgust
the animation industry takes a critical blow
-999hp
:( what happened to you saturday morning, you used to be cool?
Saturday morning was only cool when we were kids. I hate to admit it, but my dad was right, most of the stuff on in the morning was cheap imitations of the lowest grade Japanese animations (he said it less eloquently). The only real worthwhile shows from the '80's tended to be re-runs of animations from the '40's to the '60's.
Smurfs, Snorks, Dungeons and Dragons, Gi Joe, Transformers, Scooby Doo, Mr. T and his gymnastics squad, The Littles, Gem and the Holograms, Punky Brewster and Gloomer, Thundercats, He-Man, Sheera, and all the rest of the Hasbro Tie in Shows, I watched them all. But now I realise that they were just long commercials with half-assed writing and worse than half-assed animation, and if it weren't for nostalgia I'd actually be as angry as I am now about some of the cartoons on now. I know I'll get some very heated debates that Transformers was cool, but I'll stick to my guns that if it came out now it'd be comparable to Yu-Gi-Oh, the quality of animation is identical and the scripts only slightly less predictable. Nostalgia clouds ones vision.
There are exceptions of course, like the Disney shows managed to keep a visual and writing quality that few shows of the time had and for the most part manage to remain watchable.
On the other hand, I'd say that the writing for cartoons is significantly better now than it ever was while I was growing up, Sponge Bob, Fairly Odd Parents, Recess, Filmore, and even Mucha Lucha, all have made me laugh with how witty they are, even now that I'm over 30. The story lines for Samurai Jack, and Xiaolin Showdown tend to be much more sophisticated than we ever saw in the '80's. They may not stand the test of time like the original Looney Toons or early Tom and Jerry's, but not much does.
Sure there's a bunch of garbage on TV, but I think there's a lot more watchable stuff now than there used to be. We as the audience have just grown up enough to take our parents place at pointing out the garbage that producers deem worthwhile to sell.
Yeah, I have no desire to watch that show. Well, maybe with the same desire like watching NASCAR, just waiting for the crashes.
I have to agree with you Kdiddy. Saturday morning cartoons when I was a kid, late 70's and 80's, sucked!!!! I loved them as a kid and they still have a place in my heart, but it's mostly nostalgia. I've seen a few, lately, GI Joe, and Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, and wow, was I throughly underwhelmed! I remember when they used to show Spider-man and Friends was shown with the Hulk, and thinking as a kid that Spider-Man was way better animated than the Hulk. After seeing it again, it's the pot calling the kettle black. It's exactly for this reason that I don't want to by the Transformers DVD collections, and haven't looked for Darkwing Duck, Rescue Rangers, and Tail Spin on DVD.
Oh well, I'm glad I'm in Germany, hopefully it'll be canned before I get back :)
Aloha,
the Ape
Saturday morning has always been drek.
Its true.
As children, we have no sense of taste. We ingest the most dreadful pablum because we don't know any better. If it flashes in front of our eyes, its enthralling to us. That and some noise, coupled with maybe a thematic idea that captures the imagination and we are hooked.
Cartoons today, as a whole, are 10 times better than the stuff from my youth--starting in the 60's. There is more all-ages material being produced now that ever before, and better writing and concepts in cartoons than there's ever been.
Memories become clouded/distorted and augmented by emotions, ego...as time goes on. This is what makes endearing memories endearing.
Its why "our" stuff is always "better" than our kids stuff.
yeah, you guys are right.
i find myself turning to cartoon network and sometimes nickelodeon to quench my thirst for quality animation
at least the crap i watched in the 80's was original crap and not a rehash of something that wasn't crap originally
Muppet Babies. Sorry, just had to throw that one out there. :D
Hey, I am old enough I grew up with the originals: Tom Terrific, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Mighty Mouse, Beany and Cecil, Gumby, and the original Loonies.
I think the problem lies with the fact that the people making the broadcast decisions are so young or stupid all they can do is rehash old ideas. This one sounds like a combination of Loony Tunes and the Justice League. But look at the movies that came out this summer, most of them were remakes of perfectly good films or TV shows (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Bewitched, War of the Worlds, Dukes of Hazard, Bad News Bears) . Did they bring anything new to the concept? Maybe some fancy special effects, but does that really justify the expense of remake? I didn't pay to see them. Don't plan on watching them when they come to TV.
Do these broadcast wizards have any new thoughts or concepts? This is a new century, and their market are fresh young minds. Why not come up with something fresh and new that really relates to them?
I'd guess it has less to do with being young or stupid, and more to do with a business structure that doesn't reward risky behavior. If your job depends on making money, why go out on a limb with a new idea, when releasing Dukes of Hazzard will probably at least make it's money back (whether it did or not, I don't know). The people typically in charge are much older than the idealistic artists they hire and want very much to keep their jobs green-lighting garbage and going to parties in the Hollywood hills.
Perhaps, it could be argued that the "desired" audience is young and stupid which directly influences which movies and animations are getting made, but the people in charge are usually neither (although I might go with stupid after having dealt with some of them). They aren't in it for the art, it's a business for them.
It's up to use, the artists to create new and brilliant works. Enter festivals, pitch projects, post stuff on the web. Hopefully, we'll find an audience and be able to change what's out there by example.
Due to the controversy surrounding this series, I forced myself to watch the premiere of Loonatics.
It would be foolish to try to hold this show up to Looney Tunes standards. It's on par with such pre-teen fair as Ninja Turtles or Teen Titans. It's just the normal children's garbage we expect to see on television, or in the theaters.
It does whore out the classic Looney Tunes characters, but that's what you should expect from corporate-owned cartoons.
What do you love today: Wallace & Gromit, The Incredibles?
Well, allow me to prepare you for the eventual Gromitics and Incredi-babies.
>Sigh<
They say they want to come up with something new for a new generation--but this is nothing new. This is your standard junk. Is it just me, or are all kids' cartoons starting to look alike? But then again, I don't have cable.
But not to worry, some kids recognize trash when they see it:
www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7656717/
Pooryorik