"What a Cartoon!" Cartoon Network Shorts

[Xerus]

The reason I liked Utica Cartoon and Kitty Bobo a lot because they were like an animated Seinfeld. Adult characters getting into crazy situations with every day things.

I too liked Uncle Gus and I can imagine the crazy things he would do if he got his own series. I also loved his nephew's name, "Beeyotus!"

Longhair and Doubledome was pretty good too. I would've voted for that one also.

Some people say the reason these cartoons didn't win was because CN felt that kids would rather watch cartoons about kids. Which was why The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, Robot Jones, and KND ended up becoming series.

 

[D'Snowth]

Billy and Mandy was great in it's first couple of seasons or so... then when CN split it and Hector ConCarne up into their own separate shows, they suffered... Hector ConCarne didn't even survive another season, then afterwards, Billy and Mandy were milked for more than they were worth... though interestingly, they threw in crossovers ala Red Guy always barging in on both C&C and Weasel.

But they probably have a point about kids wanting to watch cartoons about kids, so I can see how those cartoons would've won... though, I really couldn't get into Robot Jones, and I don't guess most others didn't either... it only lasted what, a couple of seasons? But on the plus side, I really liked the minimal animation style, at times almost making it look like a comic book, but on TV... it kind of reminds me of Rocky and Bullwinkle, which was the Holy Grail of minimal animation.

KND was a sellout, I think. CN treated it more like their golden goose than a decent cartoon show... I liked the premise of kids forming an organization to battle crazy adults who want to ruin childhood, but again, it became overkill when CN acted like it was the ONLY show of theirs that we had to watch. I was really disappointed when all of the sudden, KND got all kinds of merchandising so soon after it premiered, while other shows that those of us growing up REALLY enjoyed (Courage, the Eds, etc) had maybe a hat and some t-shirts and that's it (though after the Eds were canceled, then renewed, they had some really cool looking merchandise). It also seems like since then, any new show CN brought in automatically and immediately got special attention and treatment that none of their previous shows (save for maybe Dexter and PPG) received.

I think Sheep in the Big City also had more potential than it was given, but I can see why kids probably wouldn't like it, because it really did appeal more to adults than anything with its modeling after Laugh-In, Rocky and Bullwinkle, etc. I DO remember Sheep had a line of toys at Subway one summer (as did Courage, which I snatched up like a heartbeat)... I think I still have General Specific's chopper somewhere, lol.

 

[Drtooth]

To be honest, I LOVE Billy and Mandy, but I could never get into the Evil Con Carne show. I liked how Skarr was absorbed into B&M and he became a character almost bitter that his show was canceled.

KND.. well, it had merchandise, but it wasn't really that plentiful unless you went to a TRU, and it was made by a fifth party company... and they had more prototypes than released figures. it also changed from a pure comedy show to more of an action adventure comedy. I really liked the tone of those larger adventures... same reason I like American Dad and Futurama than Family Guy and the Simpsons... whey you break out of comedy to become comedy action and go on wacky adventures that have an air of drama to them, you transcend just for laughs and actually give the audience a thrill ride as well. but a FUNNY thrill ride. Of course, in KND's defense, when you have a success, you run with it. They didn't have anything that successful since PPG, but PPG could swallow KND whole in terms of popularity. They didn't even release the movie to video yet.

That said, Fosters was SUPPOSED to get a wave of merchandise from BanDai... but nothing came out of it. And that was their runaway success after KND. But then it fizzled due to live action crapcoms on other networks. They did have general stuff from Mattel which was impossible to find, with Billy and Mandy and the Eds... that was about it.

And Chowder got JACKED! Almost like they WANTED to rush it off the schedule. That was the show that was supposed to save the network.

To me, CN's worst Cartoon Cartoon/CN Original series was the immature and poorly written and drawn "My Gym Partner's a Monkey" which should have been called "Guess what? Monkey Butt!" since it was basically all that. Monkey butt, monkey butt, monkey butt. I.R. Baboon's butt was only a small fraction of why that show was funny. Of course, Cow and Chicken/ I.M. Weasel ran with the odd ball goofy, almost stupidity of the show and made something so delightfully nuts that it was ingenious in it's own "stupidity." Monkey just couldn't do that. it was just stupid and stupid was supposed to sell the series. Now, I never saw Squirrel Boy, but I have respect for Everett Peck. I like that guy's art, and Duckman was a hugely underrated series. Camp Lazlo was watchable, almost enjoyable... but it really seems the people who made Rocko Rocko were missing... the writers... even though it was the same creator, and most of the same VA's. But Monkey... that was a DARK time for the network.

 

[D'Snowth]

CN really hasn't had a really decent show since their demise back in 2004, I don't think.

I look at promos for shows now and... ugh... like is that raccoon and blue jay supposed to be Ren and Stimpy knockoffs? And what in the world is Adventure Time supposed to be, like a Zelda knockoff with weirdly drawn creatures that you can't even tell what they're supposed to be?

And now CN has pretty much fallen victim of the same "We don't want to keep playing what we're all about programming anymore" attitude that almost every network on television takes: half of what's on CARTOON Network isn't even cartoons anymore, but we've cried that river so many times that the folks at CN have basically donned scuba gear to work everyday.

 

[Xerus]

It seems like CN's newest cartoons are mostly for older kids and teens. Adventure Time has some violence in it, Regular Show has some mild cuss words. And MAD is a rated TV-14 show, it's like a toned down version of Robot Chicken.

 

[Drtooth]

Adventure Time might be a good show, but I can't get by the ugly Now-ness of the artwork.

Their best bet is action series like Brave and the Bold and Young Justice. They need to get some of the old creators back and make a new series. That said, I saw a preview of the Looney Tunes show which looks promising.

 

[minor muppetz]

Family Guy WAS supposed to be Larry and Steve... right down to the other Larry and Steve pilot using the Philadelphia movie joke (where everything Tom Hanks says is funny) that was also used in both the unaired Family Guy pilot and the first episode (which was almost word for word, but rerecorded and reanimated).

On audio commentary for The Weird Al Show, it was said that Seth MacFarlane pitched the Family Guy concept (or I guess this prototype) as a series of animated shorts for The Weird Al Show, but were turned down because Weird Al didn't think the censors would approve.

 

[D'Snowth]

Has anyone besides me noticed that whenever a WAC becomes a series, the style of the series, and the designs of the characters almost always differ in some ways from the original short? With the exception of like Johnny B. and Dexter, I think.

 

[Xerus]

Has anyone besides me noticed that whenever a WAC becomes a series, the style of the series, and the designs of the characters almost always differ in some ways from the original short? With the exception of like Johnny B. and Dexter, I think.

Yes, I have. I noticed when I saw the first 2 Powerpuff Girls episodes on WAC. The animation looked kind of different. Bubbles and Miss. Keane were first voiced by Kath Soucie and the narrator was Ernie Anderson who was replaced by Tom Kenny when the series started. Also, Fuzzy Lumpkins looked a lot different and they had a completely different looking and sounding mayor.

 

[D'Snowth]

While going through an old tape the other day, I found an interesting WAC, see if you guys remember this one...

Hillbilly Blue was created by Butch Hartman and Michael Ryan. About a duo of hillbilly animals: a crawdad and a possum, who live out in the sticks, the crawdad is fed up with all the humans in the bayou wanting to eat him, so he decides he wants to go to New Orleans, after seeing a magazine article about a fancy restaurant that's "Famous for serving crawdad in royal fashion"... something he misinterprets, because it doesn't mean they serve dinner for crawdads, they serve the crawdads for dinner.

It's also full of random cultural references little kids might not understand, like a running gag of a chicken being chased by a southern colonel, and a cameo by Fat Elvis (with Johnny Bravo's voice). There's also a huge truck driver who speaks only in guffaws and gibberish exactly like Ed from the Lion King franchise (both voiced by Jim Cummings).