Decline of entertainment?

[Yorick]

I don't like to pick on something other's like, but I found the Pink panther and Sons cartoon completely cliche ridden.

You always explain your reasons fairly and intelligently, so everything's cool and I appreciate your thoughts. I also enjoyed the Ralph Bakshi and John K Mighty Mouse! Especially Bat-Bat! And his sidekick - though I recall the comic version (with those characters) a little better right now. It was cool to learn Ren and Stimpy were ready for some time before they were "allowed" to air. I think I learned that from you here on the board, actually

 

[Drtooth]

It was cool to learn Ren and Stimpy were ready for some time before they were "allowed" to air. I think I learned that from you here on the board, actually

Ren and Stimpy have been in John's head since the 70's... George Liquor and a couple others as well. The story goes, Ralph, John and some others got a meeting at CBS, and they had all these different ideas for cartoon shows, but they were all dismissed for the reasons I said earlier... they were new creations and they weren't a toy line (nor were they planned to be). Ralph somehow said I have Mighty Mouse! We can do Mighty Mouse! Now, he kinda fibbed and said he owned it (he did work for Terrytoons for years in the 60's)... and things came full circle when CBS actually found out they actually HAD the license to Terrytoons, and just didn't bother.

Of course, their budget was enormous, so there were multiple clip shows and music videos (featuring old cartoons and clips of previous episodes) they had to do. But they managed to do some of them pretty cleverly. The best one was one where Scrappy (no confusion with Scooby's nephew) watches old Terrytoons and comments on them... "Why does Farmer Al Falfa always look so guilty."

As for the show, at the time, they broke a LOT of ground we take for granted today. They ranted at the current cartoon industry ("The Ice Goose Cometh" and "Don't touch that Dial" especially) and anytime they had to put heart into the show, they did it sarcastically. And they actually said, sure they caught the "cocaine" reference that wasn't really there ("The Littlest Tramp" where Mighty sniffs a crushed flower stem, and large white motion lines were to blame)... but a LOT of the stuff they left in was pretty sneaky.

 

[MrBloogarFoobly]

Our society in general is in the dumpster. Comedies like "Epic Movie" and "Scary Movie IV" are all about pushing the boundaries of taste... but since everyone is so depraved, there are no boundries left to push. I like dirty humor, but not when there's nothing intellectual to hold it up. Actually, this is true of comedy in general now a days - all about bad taste. Being offensive, just to be 'edgy'. People have forgotten how to be funny without dropping F bombs left and right. Larry David's show "Curb Your Enthusiasm" is hilarious, and the show Scrubs (was) pretty fun, but aside from that, I can't think of any good modern comedies.

As for animation... well, animated shows are just awful now. The last good Nickelodeon show, I think, was "Invader Zim", which featured beautiful, stylized-animation and wacky storylines. It was a lot of fun. Then we got "Butt-Ugly Martians", "Super Duper Sumos"... basically, things went down the metaphorical tubes.

I was not impressed by "The Dark Knight", personally, although I thought it was a step in the right direction. Lots of good ideas, but the film was overblown, too long for not enough plot, and the character arc for Harvey Dent felt rushed and contrived. I can't think of any modern fantasy movies that equal "The Dark Crystal", or "Labyrinth"; they're all just rehashed garbage, like Burton's "Alice In Wonderland", which was essentially every fantasy cliche thrown together in a blender.

Cinema today is about remakes, not about creativity.

Annnnd I have to go to work now, but there will be more disjointed ranting later. How I do love a good rant.

Mr. Henson, why did you have to die so young? You would have been the lone force to stand against the banality and mediocrity of modern entertainment.

 

[Drtooth]

As for animation... well, animated shows are just awful now. The last good Nickelodeon show, I think, was "Invader Zim", which featured beautiful, stylized-animation and wacky storylines. It was a lot of fun. Then we got "Butt-Ugly Martians", "Super Duper Sumos"... basically, things went down the metaphorical tubes.

face palms... I spent half this stinking thread about that. NO! It's not terrible, and those 2 shows WEREN'T all that successful anyway. And Didn't Butt Uglies appear before Zim?

The old "all cartoons today suck" chestnut drives me insane as BOTH an animation fan AND as a would be animator. It's almost as annoying as the overused phrase "raped my childhood." For the zillionth time, I have yet to see any non-preschool cartoon that's as bad as half the Jabberjaw and Yogi's Space Race crap Hanna Barbera pulled in the 70's. Loved Hong Kong Phooey, however... wish HB made more shows that good in that era.

It seems that NO ONE understands that the animation industry (except for theatrical movies, which is a gold mine) is hurting. Kids want to watch Hanna Banana Schmanna stuff (apparently) or play long, drawn out video games. So we're getting roughly half of what we were getting 10 years ago. All of the major (non-cable) networks are out of the kid's TV business, except for the lame TV/EI mandate which is basically lip service stations pretend to care about to keep their FCC license. So, we basically have children's programming for 3 major cable stations, and they ALL want to move away from animation, especially CN for some reason. So we're getting a LOT less...

But a good number of that stuff is highly well done. Why, I like the new X-Men series over the 1990's one so far, Spectacular Spider-Man is a tragedy since they'll never get to finish off the great show they started. Things ARE getting better, and no where NEAR the horrendous days of "Rubik! The Amazing Cube." I'll be smooed if I ever see something that outrageously terrible again.

Just because Batman TAS and Invader Zim aren't forever in production doesn't mean that there's nothing good. You have to actually LOOK for it. It's hard, but there's ALWAYS something.

 

[Xerus]

There's this new kids' network that's supposed to air on Discovery Kids this October called The Hub. It's supposed to feature remakes of classic cartoons like Transformers, G.I. Joe, and My Little Pony, plus new series. And I heard they got veteran voice artists Peter Cullen, Frank Welker, and Michael Bell to voice the Transformers. So I'm trying to have high hopes for The Hub.

Also, I've decided since if I couldn't find cartoons I like anymore, I should make my own. And thanks to the net, I can do just that by making internet comics that try to capture the style of past Saturday morning cartoons.

 

[Frogpuppeteer]

i was reading about Hub over at the transformers forums...its supposed to be a channel made by hasbro to show their cartoons on

 

[Xerus]

i was reading about Hub over at the transformers forums...its supposed to be a channel made by hasbro to show their cartoons on

That's right. I remember those Hasbro cartoons from the 80's. Here's The Hub website. Hopefully, it'll get updated soon so we can learn more about what we'll see this Fall.

http://hubworld.com/

 

[Drtooth]

I guess that isn't terrible, even if they are all toy based cartoons. Wonder if they plan on airing older ones too... I'm sure a LOT of Jem fans would be happy, since some idiotic copyright bugaboo still is preventing the rest of the series from being released on DVD. I'm sure Shout's working on it.

Now, if they aired the Live action Mr. Potatohead puppet show, I'd buy cable for that alone. I LOVED that show.

 

[MrBloogarFoobly]

face palms... I spent half this stinking thread about that. NO! It's not terrible, and those 2 shows WEREN'T all that successful anyway. And Didn't Butt Uglies appear before Zim?

The old "all cartoons today suck" chestnut drives me insane as BOTH an animation fan AND as a would be animator. It's almost as annoying as the overused phrase "raped my childhood." For the zillionth time, I have yet to see any non-preschool cartoon that's as bad as half the Jabberjaw and Yogi's Space Race crap Hanna Barbera pulled in the 70's. Loved Hong Kong Phooey, however... wish HB made more shows that good in that era.

It seems that NO ONE understands that the animation industry (except for theatrical movies, which is a gold mine) is hurting. Kids want to watch Hanna Banana Schmanna stuff (apparently) or play long, drawn out video games. So we're getting roughly half of what we were getting 10 years ago. All of the major (non-cable) networks are out of the kid's TV business, except for the lame TV/EI mandate which is basically lip service stations pretend to care about to keep their FCC license. So, we basically have children's programming for 3 major cable stations, and they ALL want to move away from animation, especially CN for some reason. So we're getting a LOT less...

But a good number of that stuff is highly well done. Why, I like the new X-Men series over the 1990's one so far, Spectacular Spider-Man is a tragedy since they'll never get to finish off the great show they started. Things ARE getting better, and no where NEAR the horrendous days of "Rubik! The Amazing Cube." I'll be smooed if I ever see something that outrageously terrible again.

Just because Batman TAS and Invader Zim aren't forever in production doesn't mean that there's nothing good. You have to actually LOOK for it. It's hard, but there's ALWAYS something.

Buttuglies, I think, went into production around the same time, but was not put on the Teen Animation Block (can't remember the catchy title) until the Summer of 02. I'm an animation enthusiast, and (wannabe) animation, not like that gives me any credentials... but I have yet to find something that I personally enjoy. It's an opinion. You don't have to go all on me, by cracky!

 

[Drtooth]

Sorry about that, but there's nothing that annoys me more than when people say something is bad when it's a matter of taste. There's a difference. Matter of taste is, "I don't like the Office, and I don't see the appeal. I really like Friends, though." Bad is...

well... this for example

It has to have abhorrent quality no matter who you are. Universal unappeal, as it were. And while I'm sure a lot of people love cartoons from the 1970's and 80's, the rules and regulations (not to mention studio heads) at the time were just repressive and frustrating. Again, check out Mighty mouse the New Adventures. That was all those animators crying out after finding relative freedom. That's why the 90's had such high quality cartoons. barriers were being broken all the time. You NEVER would have seen shows like Ren and Stimpy or Rocko in the 80's. Nicktoons came in and changed the face how cartoons were handled. For the first time, probably since the 60's (if anything) we saw "Created By" credits in cartoon shows. Batman TAS... broke barriers of how violent and gritty you can be. They mentioned drug busts in one episode. There was occasional death.

And I really think people take this for granted now.

But above all, everything's cyclical....

Early 1960's... the first real wave of animated programming specifically for TV. It started in the 50's, and things were a bit more experimental. Out of the decade Hanna Barbera and Jay Ward rose into power. And we got some of the best cartoons for television we'll even see.

Late 1960's- the rise of the super hero action show. but at the same time we got Archies, Scooby-Doo, Wacky races... etc. Stuff that Hanna Barbera and Filmation would exploit in:

The 1970's... as I said, the decade was dominated by sometimes terrible kid band and fad cartoons. While there was a lot of action shows that were pretty good, and they reran classics on Saturdays, the rules and regulations (no thanks to the upstarting Action for Children's Television movement) started to form. A real shame that Jay Ward never got his "The new Bullwinkle Show," which he was pitching around then.

Which brings us to the 80's, which i touched upon... things were slightly better than in the 70's... there was a ruling that let toy and video game cartoons to be made (there's a long story about a 1970's Hot Wheels cartoons I don't want to get into)

Then came the early 90's, where everything changed, as I said. more people were getting into the toon business... Fox Kids, Kids WB, Cartoon Network... we had the Renaissance we were always wanting...

But it segwayed into to late 90's, where, because Pokemon was a hit, everyone copied it, leading to a lot of toy commercial based animes, and some good shows with bad, almost show destroying dubs to appeal to kids... Escaflowne and CardCaptor Sakura especially. But the worst part was the FCC rulings that were passed in the day... they didn't hurt the market yet... but they were about to. Especially when CBS said, "Heck with it" and started rerunning shows from another network they owned. Something that would eventually destroy Saturday mornings.

The first half of this decade was hunky dory... but then came the rise of live action kids programming... and somehow EVERYONE felt that this was a first, not bothering to remember the Krofft shows of the 70's and Power Rangers and Saved By the Bell in the 90's. Causing basically a monopoly. All the regulations passed a decade ago made children's programming unprofitable, less kids were watching TV... it was the perfect storm. now we got a few cable channels and 4Kids. that's basically it. It's a terrible time, but there are quality shows out there. unfortunately, they tend to last either too long, or way too short.