Kids only want ninja shows?

[Xerus]

When I was showing off my webcomics at a local comic con, a kid kept asking if I can put ninjas in my cartoons. I've noticed that these days, kids only want to see cartoons and shows with ninjas in them. If you try to read a fairy tale or American history to them, they ask if you could put ninjas in them. And when you finally give them a show about ninjas, they say, "Not enough ninjas."

 

[Drtooth]

There's only like 2 cartoons that are even about ninjas.

One should be painfully obvious. The other is Randy Cunningham, and I'm only seen like a couple episodes of it, so I don't know how ninja-y it is. Naruto is no longer market directly to kids (to my knowledge). I think ninja is just an overused meme that kids didn't get sick of yet.

(Samurai are cooler anyway!)

Though it does remind me of a story.

Konami has the license to make an Asterix arcade game all the way back in the early 90's. Konami desperately wanted to add Ninjas to it, even though it was historically inaccurate (Asterix has a lot of inaccuracies, but it's more of the cartoonish kind). Considering their other popular licensed cabinets featured ninja in them as well. One of course being that painfully obvious classic, the other, awkwardly shoehorning a Japanese drama that's somehow filmed at Channel 6 studios in Springfield in The Simpsons (complete with completely out of nowhere Kabuki themed end boss that ends with a kabuki curtain when he's beaten, because, you know, that's to be expected from American fans of Early seasons Simpsons when the game came out) But Asterix's creators stood firm. There were no ninja in the final product. Just Romans and other adversaries from the comics. And a Mummy.

 

[Xerus]

There's also Ninjago, Masters of Spinjitsu. And Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

I too remember the ninjas in the way later part of that Simpsons game.

 

[Xerus]

Not only do kids seem to want only ninja shows, they want to act like ninjas too. I've seen them jumping and kicking the air and making ninja sounds. They might accidentally hurt someone.

 

[mr3urious]

Too bad there's no demand for pirate shows.

 

[Pig'sSaysAdios]

Not only do kids seem to want only ninja shows, they want to act like ninjas too. I've seen them jumping and kicking the air and making ninja sounds. They might accidentally hurt someone.

I'm not so sure about that. Kids seem to be obsessed with super heroes a lot more than ninjas. Also shows like Adventure Time, Steven Universe and SpongeBob seem to be more popular than ninja shows. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles seems to be the only really popular ninja series. As for them accidently hurting themselves,there's not much you can do about that,children are always hurting themselves and always have.

 

[D'Snowth]

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?

 

[Drtooth]

There's also Ninjago, Masters of Spinjitsu. And Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Ninjago keeps appearing and disappearing. It's not consistently on the network, not even for reruns. That said, there's only three if you include that.

I'm not so sure about that. Kids seem to be obsessed with super heroes a lot more than ninjas. Also shows like Adventure Time, Steven Universe and SpongeBob seem to be more popular than ninja shows.

The strange thing is, there isn't all that many superhero kid's shows either. Mainly because WB and DC refuse to invest money in anything unless they have a high selling toyline, or it's as cheap to produce as TTG. The only real superhero cartoons I've seen is Disney XD's Marvel line up. Marvel essentially can't make a failure in entertainment media if it tried (Fantastic Four was Fox, Marvel under Disney's ownership had nothing to do with it). But WB couldn't make hits out of Young Justice, Green Lantern, or most puzzling Beware the Batman. Yep. They couldn't make their golden boy meal ticket Batman successful, though I suspect there was sabotage because he had a female sidekick and no one wants to make the female character an action figure, even though April O'Neil always managed to sell.

So, Marvel has 3 of these things at a time, and that's Ultimate Spider-Man, Guardians of the Galaxy (though I find that more of a sci-fi series), and Avengers Assemble. The Hulk series was only doing so so, and was canned. DC only has TTG, but if you want to get technical, that's their only show. They have several DTV movies for both kids and adult comic fans. And of course, those also include Lego DC films. Just no TV shows at the moment. It's been confirmed a new Justice League series is coming next year.

 

[Pig'sSaysAdios]

Ninjago keeps appearing and disappearing. It's not consistently on the network, not even for reruns. That said, there's only three if you include that.



The strange thing is, there isn't all that many superhero kid's shows either. Mainly because WB and DC refuse to invest money in anything unless they have a high selling toyline, or it's as cheap to produce as TTG. The only real superhero cartoons I've seen is Disney XD's Marvel line up. Marvel essentially can't make a failure in entertainment media if it tried (Fantastic Four was Fox, Marvel under Disney's ownership had nothing to do with it). But WB couldn't make hits out of Young Justice, Green Lantern, or most puzzling Beware the Batman. Yep. They couldn't make their golden boy meal ticket Batman successful, though I suspect there was sabotage because he had a female sidekick and no one wants to make the female character an action figure, even though April O'Neil always managed to sell.

So, Marvel has 3 of these things at a time, and that's Ultimate Spider-Man, Guardians of the Galaxy (though I find that more of a sci-fi series), and Avengers Assemble. The Hulk series was only doing so so, and was canned. DC only has TTG, but if you want to get technical, that's their only show. They have several DTV movies for both kids and adult comic fans. And of course, those also include Lego DC films. Just no TV shows at the moment. It's been confirmed a new Justice League series is coming next year.

Yeah, i'm still really ticked off about Cartoon Network's treatment of DC Nation. I heard that the reason they gave us for canceling Young Justice was because too many girls were watching it. Why the heck do networks like Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon put all this money into these shows if their just going to screw them a few months later ? And also, this new JL series better not be anything like Teen Titans Go or else i'm done with animated DC shows until Cartoon Network can find another president.

 

[Drtooth]

Also, no one was buying the overpriced and not really that good Young Justice toys Mattel pooped out. Plus, well...if you have a show produced by Greg Weisman, well... you oughtta know by now that show's not long for this world.

I'm more annoyed with Green Lantern and Beware the Batman. The first one failed because the crappy, but not as bad as everyone says live action film flopped, and none of the retailers (Wal*Mart especially) wanted to carry Green Lantern animated toys if the crappy film toys were still impossible to sell and sitting on shelves. Beware the Batman didn't even get a toyline (it got one Batman action figure in a general DC collectors line), pretty obvious that it's because of Katana and how Mattel hates female characters in their male toy lines (then again, that's probably because they actually included them in the failed YJ line).

So in case you haven't figured out, action shows are too expensive to exist without the profits from toy sales, at least on that network. And when a show gets a toy line, it better the heck do well. Look at the new Thundercats. The things were overpriced and no one touched them until they hit clearance, then the show went all "cancelatus." Meanwhile, TTG does have a toy line. Jazzwares puts it out, and it's only exclusive to TRU. But that show is much cheaper than as state of the line CGI as they can afford, so... Do the math. They only need to show 11 minutes a week of flash animated footage with a small rotating cast, vs a full half hour of top of the line animation. No wonder DC nation bit the dust. They're cheapskates.

Though I'm happy their other 11 minute cartoons don't need to be sold via a toyline, except for the fact some Steven Universe and Uncle Grandpa stuff would hit the spot.