Is this cartoon really so bad?

[Drtooth]

Right, that's why people are calling it a rip off on YouTube. It's the equivalent of those rip offs of Thomas the Tank Engine, lol.

But I like watching these anyway, if only because it preserves the voices of people from so long ago.

The characters are ripoffs, no question... though frankly EVERY cartoon character looked like that at the time (all generic mice looked like Mickey, even before Walt did Oswald... Mickey was just the first mouse to have a name). But the subject matter is cliche. Compare it to the Fleischer color cartoon "Somewhere in Dreamland," which was basically the same thing, minus the Castor oil and references to the moon, and that came out later...

Reminds me of certain CGI films today which shall remain nameless, lol. Pioneering effects sure, but no substance.

At the risk of making a joke, a LOT of early CGI cartoons once they even discovered CG years before anyone realizes, same thing. Anytime a new technology comes out, everyone's hungry to use it. It takes a master to turn it into SOMETHING. I could easily say the same for Scanimation... but SS eventually stopped saying "WOW! Scanimation" and did something with it besides whirling things around.

Though I will say, with new CGI movies, it's more about being the next Dreamworks than playing around with stuff.

 

[CensoredAlso]

The characters are ripoffs, no question... though frankly EVERY cartoon character looked like that at the time (all generic mice looked like Mickey, even before Walt did Oswald... Mickey was just the first mouse to have a name).

Plus as I understand it, you saw a few rip offs after Mickey was created due to the large number of disgrunted former Disney animators, lol.

 

[Drtooth]

Yeah... there's that... but in truth the standard cartoon rodent looked a LOT like what Mickey would come to be. There's gotta be some examples, I just can't name them at the moment.

Man, these old 30's cartoons have a LOT of singing in them and very little plot. I'm SURE glad that changed.

 

[mr3urious]

Another cartoon that a lot of people really like, myself included (I recently got to viewing this one a few days ago), is Balloon Land. This is made by Ub Iwerks' studio, like Jack Frost. It's very wacky, surreal, and slightly dark, with a hammy villain to top it off. This should be right up your alley, Tooth.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKyOQ6FOaWA

 

[Yorick]

Thanks to everyone for the great replies! And I LOVE Balloon Land! I first saw it on Pee Wee's playhouse! Then I found two different VHS tapes with the full version of the cartoon. One title card said Balloon Land and one title card said The Pincushion Man. I think the boxes were labeled the same, so I may have wondered if one was a sequel.

 

[beaker]

You know what cartoons I never have any love for? Those late 1920's cartoons where everyone saw Steamboat Willie and said "HOLY CRAP! We can make cartoons with SOUND!" and preceded to make terrible cartoons about dancing flowers and dancing farm animals with NO plot whatsoever. Maybe a racial stereotype thrown in for "laughs." Yucka. Historical value is one thing, but they have zero entertainment value.

Sorry, I LOVE ALL cartoons from 1905-1929. I dont care how derivitive they are. The fact cartoons existed back then is amazing to me.

 

[beaker]

Seriously tho, check out the 1905-1920 cartoons on youtube. Way better than the flash looking cartoon network garbage on tv

 

[Drtooth]

I tend to want to like Windsor McKay, but a lot of his cartoons are much longer than they need be, and animation is reused quite a bit to stretch out the story. I still think he's the wizard of animation, but guy could've edited his stuff down a bit more.

I LOVE old silent Felix cartoons, though. There's a lot of experimental stuff around that era that's pretty good too. I just have problems with early sound cartoons. I really do like Steamboat Willie up until the point where Mickey pulls a Marvin Suggs and abuses animals for sound. That bothers me for some reason. But ones with tapdancing flowers just... boring. I'm a HUGE fan of the late 40's, early 60's theatrical animation and most TV cartoons from the 60's onward.

But for modern day yuck, the UGLIEST cartoon I ever saw was The Problem Solverz. I couldn't bring myself to watch anything but one clip. Ugly character design, lazy flash animation... and I heard they cancelled it.. But I LOOOOOVE Regular Show.

 

[beaker]

I won't discredit a show because of the flash look. I mean to me late 90's cartoon network and even phineas and ferb have shades of that flash look while not being flash.
But when it comes to stuff like Space Balls, I find it too distracting.

My specialty has always been mid to late 80's cartoons(including many that most people never have heard of and will never get a home release...the stuff you literally had to wake up at 6am to see as a kid) as well as the breadth of 1991-2000 animated series.

But to me animation got lazy and stupid in the 1960's. Clutch Cargo is just the tip of the iceberg. I mean Sword and the Stone, Fox and the hound...all the way to just before Little Mermaid. Disney, what happened? How do you go from the unimaginably amazing Alice and Wonderland and Fantasia 2000 animation which blows my mind to this day and looks a million times more amazing than most stuff out today...to Sword and the stone? the 60's through 80's is a definite dark period for disney 2d features i feel. Meanwhile I LOVE pre Disney afternoon stuff like Ducktales original run, Gummy Bears, Wuzzles, etc.

But Im also just kind of meh on most animation in general. I dont watch Looney Tunes much at all. Not a fan of Tom and Jerry, Woody Woodpecker, or most of that stuff.
I LOVE the Roger Rabbit animation and shorts, and notice all the themes they're riffing on. But modern animation just doesn't strike my fancy on tv. Ive learned to hate Seth Mcfarlane's work. I love the Simpsons and think its the best its been since the mid 90's, thats one of the only few cartoons these days I watch. Im hoping Napoleon Dynamite will be good, tho its strange a sleeper indie film from 7 years ago is being turned into a show.

My absolute top cartoons in retrospect probably would be Muppet Babies, The Tick, Rocko's Modern Life, The Tick, Dilbert, G1 Transformers, the short lived Clerks, Fraggle Rock animated, Alf animated, Garfield and Friends, Skysurfer Strike Force, New Adv of Winnie the Pooh, Recess, Teen Titans, Mighty Orbots, Silverhawks, COPS,
Centurions, Gem, Galaxy High, Pepperann and Eg Grimley. Im kind of all over the map

 

[Drtooth]

On the subject... is there ANYONE who actually liked Allen Gregory? I mean, that show was just... ugh... the pastel pallet was very unpleasant to begin with, it seems like the show's only capable of 2 kinds of characters... oblivious and deadpan straightmen. There wasn't a single character that wasn't unlikable.

Yeah, I think making a Napoleon Dynamite cartoon now is just weird. The movie's popularity died out years ago. But I'm still gonna watch the thing. Love Bob's Burgers, but it feels like a cable show.