Kids only want ninja shows?

D'Snowth

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Hey, maybe ninjas are the thing right now? Like first it was vampires, then it was zombies, so maybe now it's ninjas?
 

MuppetSpot

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Yeah, ninjas seem like the thing right but, zombies are huge where I live, not since its Halloween, its been like this since summer.
 

Drtooth

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Hey, maybe ninjas are the thing right now? Like first it was vampires, then it was zombies, so maybe now it's ninjas?
Ninjas were around first. Heck, there's a Garfield and Friends where Jon's trying to sell either an animated series or a comic book and the publisher/producer says "kids these days want mutants and ninjas and ninjas and mutants" (take a wild guess what 2 shows popular at the time he was talking about).

Still, I've noticed something. Late teens to early adults go through internet memes quickly. So much so that they have barely a one month period of being relevant. Kids, however, essentially don't get the memo. I remember someone telling me a couple years back that kids were still making bad Chuck Norris jokes. So I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't get that Ninjas (as well as pirates, vampires and zombies) are so over.

As for animation and kid's shows, it seems that with the advent of Uncle Grandpa, Pig Goat Banana Cricket and Pickle and Peanut (which is so surreal that I can't even make a decision about it), the wacky cartoon is coming back. Seriously. If you told me that PGBC was a holdover cartoon from 90's Nickelodeon they had in the back of their vaults and forgot about, I'd totally believe it. Action cartoons seem to be cooling off (TMNT and Disney's Marvel and Star Wars line up are all that's left), while wackier fare seems to be coming out of the woodwork. Of course, the thing now is sweet cartoons with incredibly dark moments (Adventure Time/Steven Universe) or at least poignant ones (Harvey Beaks/We Bare Bears).
 

Xerus

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Why would anybody take kids to ComiCon? If we're always so concerned about kids immitating stuff that they see to the point where we had to stop Don Music from banging his head on his piano, do we really want kids to see the kind of stuff that goes on at cons?
The kids I met at the last Comic Con was dressed as a Jedi. There was even a couple pushing around a baby in a stroller. Would a baby remember a Comic con experience?
 

Xerus

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Hey, maybe ninjas are the thing right now? Like first it was vampires, then it was zombies, so maybe now it's ninjas?
Probably so. And I've now seen that some kids want to be Jedi. Swinging things around that look like long pointy lightsabers.
 

Xerus

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Ninjas were around first. Heck, there's a Garfield and Friends where Jon's trying to sell either an animated series or a comic book and the publisher/producer says "kids these days want mutants and ninjas and ninjas and mutants" (take a wild guess what 2 shows popular at the time he was talking about).

Still, I've noticed something. Late teens to early adults go through internet memes quickly. So much so that they have barely a one month period of being relevant. Kids, however, essentially don't get the memo. I remember someone telling me a couple years back that kids were still making bad Chuck Norris jokes. So I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't get that Ninjas (as well as pirates, vampires and zombies) are so over.

As for animation and kid's shows, it seems that with the advent of Uncle Grandpa, Pig Goat Banana Cricket and Pickle and Peanut (which is so surreal that I can't even make a decision about it), the wacky cartoon is coming back. Seriously. If you told me that PGBC was a holdover cartoon from 90's Nickelodeon they had in the back of their vaults and forgot about, I'd totally believe it. Action cartoons seem to be cooling off (TMNT and Disney's Marvel and Star Wars line up are all that's left), while wackier fare seems to be coming out of the woodwork. Of course, the thing now is sweet cartoons with incredibly dark moments (Adventure Time/Steven Universe) or at least poignant ones (Harvey Beaks/We Bare Bears).
I remember in Garfield and Friends, Orson wanted to read Booker and Sheldon the story of Cinderella, but the chicks asked if he could replace the wicked stepsiblings with step-ninjas.
 

Xerus

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Ninjas were around first. Heck, there's a Garfield and Friends where Jon's trying to sell either an animated series or a comic book and the publisher/producer says "kids these days want mutants and ninjas and ninjas and mutants" (take a wild guess what 2 shows popular at the time he was talking about).

Still, I've noticed something. Late teens to early adults go through internet memes quickly. So much so that they have barely a one month period of being relevant. Kids, however, essentially don't get the memo. I remember someone telling me a couple years back that kids were still making bad Chuck Norris jokes. So I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't get that Ninjas (as well as pirates, vampires and zombies) are so over.

As for animation and kid's shows, it seems that with the advent of Uncle Grandpa, Pig Goat Banana Cricket and Pickle and Peanut (which is so surreal that I can't even make a decision about it), the wacky cartoon is coming back. Seriously. If you told me that PGBC was a holdover cartoon from 90's Nickelodeon they had in the back of their vaults and forgot about, I'd totally believe it. Action cartoons seem to be cooling off (TMNT and Disney's Marvel and Star Wars line up are all that's left), while wackier fare seems to be coming out of the woodwork. Of course, the thing now is sweet cartoons with incredibly dark moments (Adventure Time/Steven Universe) or at least poignant ones (Harvey Beaks/We Bare Bears).

I really do hope the wacky style of cartoons do come back. Like how the New Mighty Mouse and Ren and Stimpy opened that door back in the early 80s and late 90s.

We Bare Bears was like seeing a new type of classic HB cartoons where wild animals talk and mingle with humans.
 

Drtooth

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The thing about wacky cartoons is with each and every new wacky cartoon the margin for error gets smaller. It's going to be compared to the wacky cartoon before it. Everything gets compared to Ren and Stimpy for example, and let's say what made the show fun ended about 3 and a half seasons in, leaving the last bit of the series to try and fail at copying what made the show wacky. Just not what made the show great. Wacky comedy is hard. Crazy drawings and goofy characters can only get you so far. Things have to be pushed, yet not thrown around. I was talking about Pickle and Peanut in another thread, and the reason why that show isn't successful at being glorious (unlike Pig Goat Banana Cricket and Uncle Grandpa), is that it tries too hard all while being minimalist. The number one rule of the wacky show? Go big. But a special level of big. Not too big that the show is too nonsensical and full of the same gross jokes not used properly, but not second guessing and holding back. Weird has to make just enough sense to be senseless but not gratuitous and pointless.

Personally, I've always liked wacky cartoons, but once I hit a certain age, I found my favorite genre is action comedy. It can be any ratio of the two. Comedy action stuff like Freakazoid and The Tick, Action with comedy like Jackie Chan Adventures... I like that balance.
 

Thomas Young

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Don't they say, 'Once a ninja, always a ninja'? The same is the case with my kids too (especially the elder one). Making ninja sounds and prancing around the house is something she specializes in. And she is doing her best to teach her younger brother primitive versions of ninja sounds too; and I can't really seem to do anything about it. So the situation is like this - while I'm trying my level best to introduce my younger one to something constructive like preschool games like these or plain basic alphabets, what he ends up imbibing is ninja sound effects. I give up!
 

Drtooth

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So...basically a kid is doing what a kid does and you're surprised by it?
 
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