The End Of What We Grew Up With As Kids

[CensoredAlso]

I do like how digital animation cleans up things and we have less wrong characters talking out of the wrong characters and zoomed in to cover up animation screw ups....

I can understand why that's prefered of course, hehe, but ultimately it's the quality of the actors and the writing that can often make up for shoddy animation, lol.

 

[Gonzo's Hobbit]

I'm wondering if some people in the entertainment area are realizing things like this because I'm seeing a slight revival of things. Not too much. But for example, I just saw an ad for the new Winnie the Pooh movie coming out which looks like the same style as the old one. and we were talking in another thread how puppetry is making a little bit of a comeback. Again, I still think we have a long way to go but it's slightly encouraging.

 

[The Shoe Fairy]

Kids, in short, don't want to be kid's anymore AND their parents and society want them to grow up faster... the same parents start whining about how they're kids are rushing into sex and how kids are so sexualized now. Why? They have no reason to have a childhood anymore. We give them iPhones so they can play Angry Birds (which SUCKS) all day, we force them to do all this homework, all these standardized tests... we make them worry over jobs they're going to have in the future when they're still in the womb...

Here here! That is probably the truest thing I've seen all week. I find it utterly strange when people dress their toddlers in skinny jeans and nike sneakers and then hand them their smartphone in the pram, to make them shut up and look like minature versions of their parents. It's ridiculous, not to mention creepy when you see girls that are like 10 years old wearing more makeup than everyone else at the bus stop, combined. Ugh.

 

[beaker]

@Dr Tooth: Have to disagree...a lot of modern kids cartoons are over simplistic, ADHD flash looking crap. Take any nick jr, cartoon network/adult swim, etc. All flash style, which began to creep in with power puff, dexter's lab, etc. Animation reached an apex with Invader Zim and not only never reached that peak...but has been on a decline. I kind of like the style of GI Joe Renegades for some reason. It's funny how the ill fated "Governator" series was trying to mimic the 1992/1993 tv cartoon look(ala Xmen)
That Watchmen cartoon parody on youtube is funny, as again it apes the 93/94 look.

You're more generous than I in terms of Nicks TMNT. My love of TMNT will never shake, but thats because theres so much great toi-tools stuff. The Dreamwave comics, the GBA/DS games, the original series, the b/w comics, the 93 color mirage comics, the playmates line, the OVA from 1995, the amazing TMNT 90 and 2007 films, the 2k3 series, the 1989 arcade game and its sequel.

Speaking of great shows of yesteryear, I just picked this up for $15 at Walmart! They had one left, and I had no idea it was even being made: http://www.amazon.com/Rockos-Modern-Life-Season-Tom-Kenny/dp/B004RBC5IS

(one of my all time fave cartoon series!)

 

[Drtooth]

I can understand why that's prefered of course, hehe, but ultimately it's the quality of the actors and the writing that can often make up for shoddy animation, lol.

I've seen cartoons with BOTH shoddy acting and poor animation... care to take a guess on what I'm talking about?

I'm wondering if some people in the entertainment area are realizing things like this because I'm seeing a slight revival of things. Not too much. But for example, I just saw an ad for the new Winnie the Pooh movie coming out which looks like the same style as the old one. and we were talking in another thread how puppetry is making a little bit of a comeback. Again, I still think we have a long way to go but it's slightly encouraging.

There are ALWAYS revivals. There's always been. We just happen to notice it recently. Jay Ward once tried to revive Bullwinkle in 1979/1980 with some new cartoons he didn't sell at the time, but they fell through and nothing came of it. Look at Batman. He's ALWAYS revived. Him and Scooby-Doo... they're always part of some cartoon series in every decade. Scoob's only major road block was the mid-late 90's when he only survived by reruns and DTV movies. Now it's like, every 2 years when a show ends, another takes its place. Brave and the Bold seemed to pop up a year or so after The Batman ended.

The problem with revivals is they're a double edged sword. The best you can hope for is that the kids like it, because I find a lot of people are just too stubborn to give a new version of something a chance. EVEN if they're made with fans in mind. Sure, there is always garbage like New George of the Jungle (who was that even for?). But I still find Extreme Ghostbusters (just that horrible buzz word name bugs me) got a bad rap. Unlike most of the other revivals, instead of being a complete reboot, it was a legit continuation that made reference to the old show.

Plus, I always hear complaints about why X was cancelled and there's no more episodes, but when they bring them back they always HATE the episodes... and if they don't they instinctively hate what replaces it... it's something I'm tired of hearing.

Have to disagree...a lot of modern kids cartoons are over simplistic, ADHD flash looking crap. Take any nick jr, cartoon network/adult swim, etc. All flash style, which began to creep in with power puff, dexter's lab, etc. Animation reached an apex with Invader Zim and not only never reached that peak...but has been on a decline. I kind of like the style of GI Joe Renegades for some reason. It's funny how the ill fated "Governator" series was trying to mimic the 1992/1993 tv cartoon look(ala Xmen)
That Watchmen cartoon parody on youtube is funny, as again it apes the 93/94 look.

I was referring to digital ink and paint with traditional animation. Like Young Justice. Man, I LOVE the look of that cartoon. I LOVE the full animation and character designs. Good strong action cartoons still manage to have a nice look to them. I REALLY hate the look of Flash cartoons on television. I mean, you ever see a Flash cartoon on the internet now? Those things look like fully animated Saturday Morning shows... almost theatrical quality.

The best 2-D cel painted limited TV animation came from Japan in the 80's and 90's. I mean, look at a Ducktales episode done by TMS... the characters almost seem to keep a Carl Barks quality to them. Then compare the TOEI animated Muppet Babies to the junky studio that did it the last 2 seasons... the animation quality difference is shocking. But hald the studios MWS used were either REALLY good or REALLY bad. I swear, they used the A studios of TMNT and the B studio for Toxic Crusaders. I mean, I LOVE those guys, but I watched one yesterday, the animation was just very sloppy, and they reused quite a bit in the same episode... and it was obvious. The dialogue sparkled through, though...

Seriously miss when anime was more rubbery and grainy, though... I'm liking the fact that we're seeing fuller animation. At least those people KNOW how to use digital shortcuts the right way.

 

[CensoredAlso]

About that Baby dinosaur movie from the '80s, here's an interesting perspective on the non-CGI effects at the time (Starlog Magazine, 1985). Wow, I remember when animatronics were the big thing, lol:

"On the large dinosaurs, the feet and tail moved...The mother dinosaur's head and neck section also moved. On each shot, they would work different parts of the animal, but there were some shots where different things could work all at once, so you would get big master shots."....

"They was really remarkable. They would get people inside of it and work the head, tail and feet. You could actually film a master shot and have it look real."....

"Still the usual problems characteristic of such mechanical co-stars did arise sporadically, as garbled gears turned the monstorous beasts into reptilian prime donnas once the cameras rolled.".....

"Acting with that type of effect, you learn that you had better get it right every single take, because the take that the dinosaurs get right is the one they print. Not only that, but Sean and I had a responsibility--particularly working with Baby--of trying to make the effects look good. Without sacrificing our own performance, we had, at the same time, to try to make Baby look good."

 

[Drtooth]

Saturday Morning's latest casualty... ABC Kids (which sucked for years) finally gave up, and now is making room for...

Litton's crapfest Weekend

Full of the same dull nature and tediously impossible to watch live action shows that local syndication stations put on at 5 Am to fulfill a pointless FCC requirement.

Anything I can say would be redundant, and I didn't give a crap about ABC kids since they actually had programming on, and I bet the same genius that killed the soap programming for "The Chew" (a show that somehow absolutely needed to be made and that absoultely everyone will watch, really) sold the block to some rinky dink live action garbage fest producer.

 

[TSSD]

Man, ABC Kids is gone? That sucks. I remember when it used to have good shows, instead of Hannah Montana and Suite life, and pretty much the exact same things that air on the equally crappy Disney Channel every other minute. They should have taken a page from the 90's Are All That, and made it a block showing old, good Disney Channel shows.

 

[Drtooth]

Yeah, I got my hopes up that they'd run Phineas and Ferb, but then again, they didn't even finish off Emperor's New School or The Replacements, and I had to watch the end of those shows online. They showed all but 3 episodes of the first season since 2006. Not even adding in the holiday episodes. The shows ended in 2008, and they didn't even manage to show any of the second season since.

So basically, fail gets replaced by fail. I miss One Saturday Morning. That was an attempt. This was a lazy FCC requirement, the ratings were sliding for years... now they're replacing it with junk no one's going to watch anyway (they say it's for tweenagers, but tweenagers SLEEP IN on Saturday Mornings). Almost seems like a lateral move.

Saturday Morning is dead... or barely alive hooked up to an iron lung and a complete vegetable. CBS's girly Cookie Jar blah fest, NBC's worst shows from Qubo snooze a rama and 4Kid's PLEASE! Let Sonic X DIE already line up are the only things really left. Fox is all infomercials, and has been for 2 years now.

 

[Gonzo's Hobbit]

I remember on Saturday mornings I'd get up and watch the Bugs Bunny Daffy show. It's actually kinda fuuny becaus eI recall the decline of Saturday mornings. We'd always watch Looney Tunes which was always great. Then they stopped playing that and we'd watch nicktoons (Hey Arnold, Angry Beavers, etc) It wasn't the same but it was pretty good. Then those shows started getting replced by other shows and before you know it (like you guys said) the idea of Saturday Morning Cartoons was a foreign concept. The same thing happened with Toon Disney. It got turned into Disney XD which had a bunch of live action shows. Ironically (at least I think it's Ironic) I noticed the decline of Toon Disney when they showed a muppet movie as one of the afternoon movies. I remember thinking, I love the muppets but what are they doing on a cartoon channel?