The Mysterious Mr. Enter / Jonathan Rozanski's "Growing Around" - IndieGoGo Campaign Failed, John going off the deep end, "Turning Red" is ignorant about 9/11 (later retracted)

[Jewelsmakerguy]

To his credit, he is going back and revising old episodes. I don't know if he's fixing the fundamental flaws but he is at least self aware enough to realize his scripts need some work.

I doubt it, considering the newest iteration's got as many typos as the past versions.

 

[Trappin in the Trap]

Hopefully it'll be proofread this time.
View attachment 1308647

On a side note, I just got done reading the episode "House Keepers." Does anyone else find it funny that the only black character in the show is afraid that "spookies" will come and steal her house? Also for a while I thought Dora and Kimiko were the same character because their only notable character traits are that they're shy and they love animals.

because their only notable character traits are that they're shy and they love animals they are Fluttershy.

 

[Sir Wesley Tailpipe]

He’s shown time and time again that he’s a slave to the almighty word count. Anyone can crank out a first draft of something in a matter of hours, but you only wind up with something good if you take the time to plan, draft, edit, and redraft. He never does this and never will, which is why his writing is so absent of any sort of theme or structure and usually has such an abrupt ending.


Depends on the cartoon. I could see something like Avatar or Teen Titans taking a while to write, especially because the network has to then approve the script which could result in many rewrites based on the exec’s will.
But a goofy gag show? You could probably get two of those done in an 8 hour day

A lot of classic Looney Tunes cartoons were storyboarded out in half a day, no script needed.

 

[LiquidKid]

A lot of classic Looney Tunes cartoons were storyboarded out in half a day, no script needed.

Yeah, but a lot of those were basically music videos for the movie they were attached to.

 

[Optimus Prime]

A lot of classic Looney Tunes cartoons were storyboarded out in half a day, no script needed.

A lot of Looney Tunes cartoons were also stand alone by nature and you didn't have some elaborate overarching mature backstory going on like what Enter is trying.

I mean, your typical Wile E. Coyote cartoon can be summed up as essentially just miniature skits of Wile building or executing some hilariously convoluted plan that initially may even succeed at first (or it immediately blows up in his face), only for comedic contrivances like a perfectly positioned rock precariously balanced on a precipice or the actions of whoever he's trying to get a one-up on (Road Runner or Bugs) to come around and foil his schemes, often excruciatingly painfully.

Then there's the absolutely fantastic time he actually does catch the Road Runner (or rather, the Road Runner lets a then-miniature Coyote bear hug one of his legs)...and then the mute Coyote (he's only mute when dealing with the Road Runner, since he converses quite fluently with Bugs) holds up a sign stating he doesn't even know what to do now that he has "captured" the Road Runner. This moment is, naturally, never referenced in any other instance involving the Coyote in all of Looney Tunes.

 

[Username Cannot Be Blank]

I recently read episode 2 and made a list of all the characters who appear in it.

Spoiler: long ass list

Everyone has a spoken line unless otherwise noted and ones with an asterisk are characters who haven't shown up prior.

Jessica*
Sally
Max (no spoken lines)
Autumn
Robert (still no personality)
Tom*
Tom's dad*
Tom's mom*
Avery
Avery's mom*
Avery's dad*
Cecelia*
Elma*
Ms. Laura*
Princess Aribella* (only mentioned)
Shane*
Janet*
Frankie*
Amber*
Principle Sam* (only mentioned)
Damien*
Jacy*
Rover*
Gwen*
Kimiko*
Linda*
Joe*
Sylvia*
Blake*
Lily*
Lisa*

That's 31 characters, 26 are introduced in this episode, and 28 have spoken lines.
Also wanted to mention how Linda was Autumn's old name so it gets confusing when reading and you think Linda is Autumn.

Reading over this list, I remembered something Enter said in an FOP review (or maybe someone else said exactly this but it's still relevant) that Hartman's philosophy for making a long-running series interesting is to just add new characters, and he pointed out how there were already plenty of characters from the first season alone Hartman could have returned to. Credit where it's due, Butch's practice of dropping a new character in front of you and going "this is a main character now" is sloppy writing at best, but Enter, in classic Enter fashion, thinks that the infodump method of characterization of showing us half the town within a half hour is "doing it right".

As others have pointed out already, the reasonable approach would've been to initially focus only on a limited cast and allow them to develop on their own, and then start slowly developing background characters, if the plot calls for it or whatever, so that these recurring characters are well-developed that they serve a purpose within the show, but not so much that they distract from the main cast. This is the standard formula most series abide by, animated or live-action, network or web-based. It's not even relegated to serialized shows; SpongeBob dedicated a whole episode to the "my leg" fish, but only after ten or so seasons of writing, two decades of the series becoming a pop culture staple, and that character becoming a meme in his own right, all of which I doubt the writers of SpongeBob were anticipating back when it was just a simple background gag.

Sorry if I sound spergy or like I'm talking out of my ass, but if Enter feels the need to introduce to us fifty characters within the first two episodes, I'd say that's affirmation that his world is boring as hell but we knew that already.

 

[LiquidKid]

Reading over this list, I remembered something Enter said in an FOP review (or maybe someone else said exactly this but it's still relevant) that Hartman's philosophy for making a long-running series interesting is to just add new characters, and he pointed out how there were already plenty of characters from the first season alone Hartman could have returned to. Credit where it's due, Butch's practice of dropping a new character in front of you and going "this is a main character now" is sloppy writing at best, but Enter, in classic Enter fashion, thinks that the infodump method of characterization of showing us half the town within a half hour is "doing it right".

As others have pointed out already, the reasonable approach would've been to initially focus only on a limited cast and allow them to develop on their own, and then start slowly developing background characters, if the plot calls for it or whatever, so that these recurring characters are well-developed that they serve a purpose within the show, but not so much that they distract from the main cast. This is the standard formula most series abide by, animated or live-action, network or web-based. It's not even relegated to serialized shows; SpongeBob dedicated a whole episode to the "my leg" fish, but only after ten or so seasons of writing, two decades of the series becoming a pop culture staple, and that character becoming a meme in his own right, all of which I doubt the writers of SpongeBob were anticipating back when it was just a simple background gag.

Sorry if I sound spergy or like I'm talking out of my ass, but if Enter feels the need to introduce to us fifty characters within the first two episodes, I'd say that's affirmation that his world is boring as hell but we knew that already.

Or at least his main cast is unremarkable

 

[Trappin in the Trap]

Or at least his main cast is unremarkable

I mean...if you think about a certain way, if none of the characters are worth focusing on, then EVERY character is worth focusing on.

Enter is an autistic genius confirmed?

 

[Icarus B. Nezzer]

Reading over this list, I remembered something Enter said in an FOP review (or maybe someone else said exactly this but it's still relevant) that Hartman's philosophy for making a long-running series interesting is to just add new characters, and he pointed out how there were already plenty of characters from the first season alone Hartman could have returned to. Credit where it's due, Butch's practice of dropping a new character in front of you and going "this is a main character now" is sloppy writing at best, but Enter, in classic Enter fashion, thinks that the infodump method of characterization of showing us half the town within a half hour is "doing it right".

As others have pointed out already, the reasonable approach would've been to initially focus only on a limited cast and allow them to develop on their own, and then start slowly developing background characters, if the plot calls for it or whatever, so that these recurring characters are well-developed that they serve a purpose within the show, but not so much that they distract from the main cast. This is the standard formula most series abide by, animated or live-action, network or web-based. It's not even relegated to serialized shows; SpongeBob dedicated a whole episode to the "my leg" fish, but only after ten or so seasons of writing, two decades of the series becoming a pop culture staple, and that character becoming a meme in his own right, all of which I doubt the writers of SpongeBob were anticipating back when it was just a simple background gag.

Sorry if I sound spergy or like I'm talking out of my ass, but if Enter feels the need to introduce to us fifty characters within the first two episodes, I'd say that's affirmation that his world is boring as hell but we knew that already.

It's like Enter assumes that introducing any new characters in later seasons is a terrible idea, but that was never FOP's problem. Their real problem was that the characters they introduced were terrible characters. Whether Sparky showed up in Season 9 or Season 2 is irrelevant to his quality as a character. Heck, I distinctly remember Mr. E writing an episode where the Dunn family adopts their pet horse, but then he retconned it so the horse could have some "meaningful screentime" in the first episode. Lord forbid we defy the Status Quo in a serialized cartoon.

 

[coach_mclurk]

John never finished high school did he? I can't find him on the graduating lists from his supposed high school and he has a GED prep book in his office.

 

[Icarus B. Nezzer]

he pointed out how there were already plenty of characters from the first season alone Hartman could have returned to

Oh yeah, forgot that juicy part. Has anyone on Enter's team stopped to wonder why Hartman didn't keep using the old characters? The simple answer is he ran out of ideas for them. How long did he last before introducing Poof? Roughly 77 half-hour episodes. And how long does Enter want "Growing Around" to be? Over twice that amount? 175? Uh oh...

 

[coach_mclurk]

John never finished high school did he? I can't find him on the graduating lists from his supposed high school and he has a GED prep book in his office.

Oops, he mentions in his office tour vid that he does in fact have a high school diploma. Now the only question is from where?

 

[Delta Δ]

It was a several day affair, but I finished the three and a half hour Ryan Lily Orchard video. Like the last one, I didn't really watch it, but kept it on while I did other shit. He somehow finds a way to talk about the exact same shit for even longer. He literally talks about the same video he did in the last one for another forty five minutes. There were a few interesting notes, however.

• He believes Growing Around can and will happen, and that he 'likes it'.
• The editor has an editor, and this editor is somehow even worse than Ryan. The mic quality fluctuates from sentence to sentence, music is often louder than it should be and there's long pauses and cut offs.
• About an hour in, he starts calling Lily "Cunty Orchard" because he thinks it's funny.
• Ryan sees no issues with misgendering. That's just funny to me.
• He brings up that he was raped and sued over and over again. If a subject even close to rape or a lawsuit is brought up, he'll say he was raped and sued. As I said before, I have reason to believe these didn't happen.
• Ryan's mom seems like a genuinely reasonable person. She told him he'd grow out of cartoons, told him he's not an anime girl and somehow didn't tell him about the LGBT community until high school. I don't think the last one is her doing, but it's interesting.
• When Lily mentions the infamous official blackface Steven Universe character, Ryan says he doesn't think it's racist, but says he can't elaborate further because "I am white".

I don't think I'm going to talk about Ryan again here, or watch his third Lily video. Maybe he should get his own thread, I don't know and I doubt I'm one to judge. Before I stop this madness, I want to bring up his website. He refers to his weird giantess fanfictions not as smut, porn, or even lemon, but rather as cumfics. Cumfics. He also has a link to his discord, but he linked the channel and not an invite, so it's literally impossible to join it.

 

[CoconutCat]

I've been lurking in this thread for a while. I wasn't going to post anything, but there's something that's been on my mind for a while and Enter's newest script (It's a Boys' Girls' World) was the straw that broke the camel's back. With every gender-related GA episode, the logic makes less and less sense.

Let's start with his DA post on gender episodes: https://www.deviantart.com/mrenter/art/GA-Commentary-Gender-Episodes-812499760

Here, he explains how girls have had more power throughout GA history:

In history, childbirth was a lot more complex and a lot more all encompassing. If you didn’t replace your population, goodbye to your civilization. Giving childbirth was also a lot more dangerous without modern medicine, and infant mortality was incredibly high. Like less than half of infants made it to the age of six (which is why the “average age” of bygone eras was so low; it had nothing to do with people dying in their thirties). That there determined women and men’s legal and social roles all throughout history. I’m not saying it’s a good thing; it’s just… what happened.

In the world of Growing Around though, none of the people in charge had to worry about this kind of stuff. That would be the responsibility of “the adults.” So, in glimpses of the past, in episodes like The “B” Word we have seen boys and girls on more even footing. However, those are only glimpses and it’s safe to assume that things haven’t always been that equal, because kids aren’t immune to prejudice. Many kids do go through a “boys/girls are icky and have cooties” phase. Also, girls do mature (physically at least), faster than boys - there is a period of time where girls are taller than most boys their age - so it makes sense that in, maybe even most cases - girls would be on top of society.

I won't go into detail about how "girls have more power because they physically mature faster" contradicts the show's entire logic (if maturity and physical strength are important, why not just put adults in charge?), because others have done so already.

But the next part is where it starts to completely fall apart:

This episode is more straightforward than most of the other episodes in this arc. That’s fine. Being straightforward isn’t always bad. I mean, it is the basic moral of “sexism is wrong.” But the plot is kind of a straightforward revolution plot. The girls in charge use laws to regulate “boyishness” and start forcing the boys to act more and more like girls, starting with forcing them to play with dolls and then to wear dresses “for their own good and to civilize them.”

Enter clearly doesn't know how historical sexism worked, or why we ended up with the society we have today. In the real world, throughout history, women were forced into a subordinate role that was DIFFERENT from men. In GA, boys were forced to act the SAME as girls. This would have led to a society that's different to our own, but in modern day episodes like Pinks and Blues, everything is suddenly like the real world (with boys being bullied for acting like girls) with no explanation.

But it starts to make even less sense with Tales of Childhood Past:

Growing Around - Boys vs. Girls Uncivil War: https://www.deviantart.com/mrenter/art/Growing-Around-Boys-vs-Girls-Uncivil-War-788937531 (an art piece with a description of the episode in the description)

Growing Around - Tales of Childhood Past I: https://www.deviantart.com/mrenter/art/Growing-Around-Tales-of-Childhood-Past-I-788686890 (the actual episode script)

For generations, the royal family of Americandy only had princesses, so by the time of the episode's start, things were already well in favor of the girls - the uniform that the girl is wearing was the official military uniform of the time. The canon also shoots glitter, by the way. The final straw was when the princess made a law that all of the boys had to carry dolls with them at all times in public (because there were so many dolls that went unplayed with), and so the boys decided to rebel, with their stink bombs, their worms, and their mud.

So now it's established that boys have been forced to wear dresses and act feminine for generations. The boys are upset about this and are trying to reclaim the right to act like boys.

This is where it gets absolutely mind-boggling, because it shows Enter's complete and utter lack of understanding for how perspectives work.

The boys of this world were born into it and have no memory of a time where they weren't expected to act feminine. To them, masculinity shouldn't even exist except as a history lesson, but they act like they just lost something they've had for years.

This basically equates to children getting nostalgic over something from before they were even born. Does Enter think memories are genetic or something? Or does he just think everyone thinks exactly like he does? Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if Enter thinks modern kids are as upset as he is about cartoons not being the same as they were in the 90s.

But anyway, back to what I said before, about the modern GA world not properly aligning with history.

In Tales of Childhood Past, it's shown that boys were forced to do the cooking and cleaning, but in Sugar and Snails, it's portrayed as a feminine trait.

Growing Around - Sugar and Snails (Season 2) by MrEnter on DeviantArt

www.deviantart.com

And finally, in It's a Boys' Girls' World, upper body strength is portrayed as a masculine trait. Even though girls are supposed to be stronger (due to maturing faster) and that was the entire fucking reason girls got into power in the first place.

Summerway Spitballs - Its a Boys' Girls' World by MrEnter on DeviantArt

www.deviantart.com

Sorry for the long rant. It's just, so many things don't fit together.

 

[Piga Dgrifm]

I've been lurking in this thread for a while. I wasn't going to post anything, but there's something that's been on my mind for a while and Enter's newest script (It's a Boys' Girls' World) was the straw that broke the camel's back. With every gender-related GA episode, the logic makes less and less sense.

Let's start with his DA post on gender episodes: https://www.deviantart.com/mrenter/art/GA-Commentary-Gender-Episodes-812499760

Here, he explains how girls have had more power throughout GA history:



I won't go into detail about how "girls have more power because they physically mature faster" contradicts the show's entire logic (if maturity and physical strength are important, why not just put adults in charge?), because others have done so already.

But the next part is where it starts to completely fall apart:



Enter clearly doesn't know how historical sexism worked, or why we ended up with the society we have today. In the real world, throughout history, women were forced into a subordinate role that was DIFFERENT from men. In GA, boys were forced to act the SAME as girls. This would have led to a society that's different to our own, but in modern day episodes like Pinks and Blues, everything is suddenly like the real world (with boys being bullied for acting like girls) with no explanation.

But it starts to make even less sense with Tales of Childhood Past:

Growing Around - Boys vs. Girls Uncivil War: https://www.deviantart.com/mrenter/art/Growing-Around-Boys-vs-Girls-Uncivil-War-788937531 (an art piece with a description of the episode in the description)

Growing Around - Tales of Childhood Past I: https://www.deviantart.com/mrenter/art/Growing-Around-Tales-of-Childhood-Past-I-788686890 (the actual episode script)



So now it's established that boys have been forced to wear dresses and act feminine for generations. The boys are upset about this and are trying to reclaim the right to act like boys.

This is where it gets absolutely mind-boggling, because it shows Enter's complete and utter lack of understanding for how perspectives work.

The boys of this world were born into it and have no memory of a time where they weren't expected to act feminine. To them, masculinity shouldn't even exist except as a history lesson, but they act like they just lost something they've had for years.

This basically equates to children getting nostalgic over something from before they were even born. Does Enter think memories are genetic or something? Or does he just think everyone thinks exactly like he does? Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if Enter thinks modern kids are as upset as he is about cartoons not being the same as they were in the 90s.

But anyway, back to what I said before, about the modern GA world not properly aligning with history.

In Tales of Childhood Past, it's shown that boys were forced to do the cooking and cleaning, but in Sugar and Snails, it's portrayed as a feminine trait.

Growing Around - Sugar and Snails (Season 2) by MrEnter on DeviantArt

www.deviantart.com

And finally, in It's a Boys' Girls' World, upper body strength is portrayed as a masculine trait. Even though girls are supposed to be stronger (due to maturing faster) and that was the entire fucking reason girls got into power in the first place.

Summerway Spitballs - Its a Boys' Girls' World by MrEnter on DeviantArt

www.deviantart.com

Sorry for the long rant. It's just, so many things don't fit together.

Well, this is what happens when you do your worldbuilding based on what turns you on instead of anything resembling logical thought.

 

[Master Shake]

And this is the same man who got pissed over Fairly Oddparents' gender stereotyping.

Growing Around at this point has degenerated into a full-on fetish work. If it's his fetish and he wants to make a show around his fetish, then fine, but if you're going to make a fetish show then at least be upfront about the fact that it is, and have it be meaningful to the plot/lore of your work instead of just having it for the sake of having it. I don't understand why crossdressing is such a huge part of GA other than "BUT HOW CUM IT'S OKAY FOR WIMMIN TO DO MAN STUFF". It just doesn't seem to serve a purpose other than author appeal. At least when Bugs Bunny dresses in drag it's done with the intent of foiling whatever antagonist he's up against, and not just randomly dressing as a woman just because.

And then there's the fact that he thinks he's making some profound statement on gender with his fetish show yet doesn't understand the subject in the slightest (and outright admitted addressing it makes him uncomfortable) and handles it with all the delicacy of a drunk bull in a china shop. I am both dreading and looking forward to the inevitable backlash from the trans community.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Well, this is what happens when you do your worldbuilding based on what turns you on instead of anything resembling logical thought.

I just had a horrifying realization (on top of the 100% horrifying bullshit that has to go down to even make GA sound remotely plausible).

Where the fuck do new children come from?

Are the "retirement homes" literally just A Handmaid's Tale made reality where child-minded adults are forced to fuck to produce offspring and grow the numbers of their immature masters?

 

[Wabbu]

I just had a horrifying realization (on top of the 100% horrifying bullshit that has to go down to even make GA sound remotely plausible).

Where the fuck do new children come from?

Are the "retirement homes" literally just A Handmaid's Tale made reality where child-minded adults are forced to fuck to produce offspring and grow the numbers of their immature masters?

There is a "home for the childless", that he has described as something akin to an orphanage

But it's probably a swing club

 

[Brit Crust]

I'm starting to think Enter is a huge simp for his female OCs.

 

[Siryakko212]

I don't know if this was ever discussed earlier in the thread or not, but I must ask. Has Mr. Enter ever touched upon if politics is going to be present in Growing Around? When I was thinking about this whole world and it's 'logic', I thought it would be communism, but it may also be fascism as well.