Western Animation - Discuss American, Canadian, and European cartoons here (or just bitch about wokeshit, I guess)

[Trilby]

I'm 30 minutes and 22 hours early as I post this but....


Happy big 3 0 to the nicktoons.

At least someone remembered.

 

[A Grey Cat]

At least someone remembered.

how could i forget? the days before...well everything they are now were the happiest days of my life.

 

[Trilby]

how could i forget? the days before...well everything they are now were the happiest days of my life.

How I look back to my years in junior high and high school then (1990-96)

 

[Steamboat_Bill]

I'm 30 minutes and 22 hours early as I post this but....


Happy big 3 0 to the nicktoons.

It's hard to look back now and think just how different and offbeat these shows were when they came out. Especially Ren and Stimpy, which introduced techniques that were new and different at the time that are now pretty much the standard - nobody was doing storyboard-driven animation in 1991 but them and now everyone does it.

Thankfully I'm not seeing much in the way of bad hot takes on the anniversary. You would think that after everything John K. has done...

 

[Overly Serious]

I saw DC's Doom Patrol. Is Stargirl anything like it?

@Morethanabitfoolish already did you a good reply but huge fan that I am I can't resist adding my own. They are alike in so far as both are excellent, both have well-written characters that actually engage you and there's a similar level of SFX and unashamedness of its comic book origins. Neither show is embarrassed to have a big robot in it. Not for Star Girl the reinterpetations and realism attempts of Arrow. And, as was pointed out, they both care about the source material. But Stargirl is appropriate for young teen audiences. Younger children might enjoy it but a fair bit may go over their head. That said, I found it very enjoyable as an adult as well. It's proper old-fashioned two-fisted comic book stuff and yet has enough modern sensibilities to feel very fresh and plugged in. In particular, there's a twist that is nigh impossible to hint at without spoiling things so I'll just say the show does not feel woke at all. Which in my opinion just goes to show that woke isn't about strong female characters because Star Girl has that in spades. Woke is about smug moralizing and putting down your target group and Star Girl doesn't do that at all.

The show I'd most liken Star Girl to is not Doom Patrol, it's actually Young Justice. Aside from the superficial elements of both starring young heroes finding their way, they both play a long game of layering on mystery and clues as they build and draw you in. And both do it excellently (at least, for the first two seasons YJ, did anyway). I don't want to raise expectations too high for Star Girl - it's more like a Japanese painting than a Western Renaissance one - by which I mean simple lines perfectly done, rather than a welter of heavy detail and intricacy. Enjoy it for what it is, complete with teen school scenes (not that many, actually!) and I think you'll like it. I also have to give a massive shout out to the fight choreography for Star Girl who has what is practically a unique martial arts style based around having a staff that can move and anchor itself in space in any position. Imagine a pole dancer beating someone up. And then stop imagining it because she's a teen you perv., but that's kind of what it's like. Really very cool, actually.

All of that said, Season 2 started last night and it's the first episode done under their new CW masters and shared DC verse. There's a new Green Lantern character appeared in this one that I hoped was going to be just a cross-over introduction but I've seen hints online that she's a regular, If so it might be the start of CW's fell woke hand making its presence known. I'll say no more other than it now makes Hourman the sole male character in the group and that I took an instant disliking to her in her introduction. But definitely give the first season a try.

It's hard to look back now and think just how different and offbeat these shows were when they came out. Especially Ren and Stimpy, which introduced techniques that were new and different at the time that are now pretty much the standard - nobody was doing storyboard-driven animation in 1991 but them and now everyone does it.

A critic, I forget who, said he hated Sylvia Plath not because he didn't like her poetry but because she opened the doorway to what he called the "I am a garden of red and black sausages" school of poetry. After her, you got floods of impressionistic poets vomiting forth reams of bland blank verse populated with whatever associative thinking imagery they could throw together - the more off the wall it was, the more they thought they were profound. I was too young for Ren and Stympy when it came out but my impression is that after it, we got floods of very badly drawn cartoons by people who thought lack of effort made them look ground-breaking. Am I wrong or did the flood gates open to that around this time? Was Ren and Stympy the Sylvia Plath of Western Animation?

 

[Steamboat_Bill]

A critic, I forget who, said he hated Sylvia Plath not because he didn't like her poetry but because she opened the doorway to what he called the "I am a garden of red and black sausages" school of poetry. After her, you got floods of impressionistic poets vomiting forth reams of bland blank verse populated with whatever associative thinking imagery they could throw together - the more off the wall it was, the more they thought they were profound. I was too young for Ren and Stympy when it came out but my impression is that after it, we got floods of very badly drawn cartoons by people who thought lack of effort made them look ground-breaking. Am I wrong or did the flood gates open to that around this time? Was Ren and Stympy the Sylvia Plath of Western Animation?

No, in part because most of the shows that came in the wake of R&S and tried to do what they did were pretty good - and a lot of them actually had R&S crew members involved. (Cow and Chicken in particular was basically a reunion.)

Don't forget, as well, that Genndy Tartakovsky and Craig McCracken were both big fans of Ren and Stimpy and put that influence into their shows. (Somebody who knew him once said Dexter's Lab was his tribute to Spumco, basically.)

 

[Overly Serious]

No, in part because most of the shows that came in the wake of R&S and tried to do what they did were pretty good - and a lot of them actually had R&S crew members involved. (Cow and Chicken in particular was basically a reunion.)

Happy to be corrected, then. As I said, I was a bit too young for Ren and Stympy at the time so all the cartoons of that era are a little jumbled up for me. Thanks.

 

[OmnipotentStupidity]

A critic, I forget who, said he hated Sylvia Plath not because he didn't like her poetry but because she opened the doorway to what he called the "I am a garden of red and black sausages" school of poetry. After her, you got floods of impressionistic poets vomiting forth reams of bland blank verse populated with whatever associative thinking imagery they could throw together - the more off the wall it was, the more they thought they were profound. I was too young for Ren and Stympy when it came out but my impression is that after it, we got floods of very badly drawn cartoons by people who thought lack of effort made them look ground-breaking. Am I wrong or did the flood gates open to that around this time? Was Ren and Stympy the Sylvia Plath of Western Animation?

I'd say Family Guy is a more apt analogy. As @Steamboat_Bill already pointed out, many of these shows actually took what worked in Ren and Stimpy, or at the very least was inspired by it (or in Cow and Chicken's case, ported over the same staff from it) and they all turned out really well.

Family Guy on the other hand set the standard for adult animation for years to come where Simpsons had laid the groundwork. Instead of taking notes of the good aspects of both shows' earlier seasons and running with it, nearly every adult cartoon that's come out since has been: a dysfunctional family sitcom, intentionally ugly, lacking any charm whatsoever, and substituting actual jokes for pop culture references and shock humor/gross-out humor, with one or two possible attempts to try and be deeper than it actually is. Thus opening the floodgates to rip-off after soulless rip-off.
(With ironically enough, Ren & Stimpy: Adult Party Cartoon, being one such example.)

 

[A Grey Cat]

Hard to believe out of the original 3 Doug arguably came out the least scathed. Rugrats had a shitty reboot last month that feels more like trying to play weekend at Bernie's with a skeleton, ten and Stumpy's Creator retired in shame just barley avoiding legal action due to expired statue of limitations while a shitty reboot is in the pipeline.


Doug is owned on a split custody between nick and Disney but at least he's allowed to rest in peace...for now.

Correction thanks to @Steamboat_Bill the Ren and stimpy reboot is Dead in the water.

 

[Steamboat_Bill]

(With ironically enough, Ren & Stimpy: Adult Party Cartoon, being one such example.)

John was actually trying to be South Park with that one. When they were doing one episode and a staffer told him that he couldn't show naked breasts on TV, he said "Well, South Park does it!" ... And let's not forget how he tried to sue the creators for supposedly ripping off one of his characters for Mr. Hanky.

Hard to believe out of the original 3 Doug arguably came out the least scathed. Rugrats had a shitty reboot last month that feels more like trying to play weekend at Bernie's with a skeleton, ten and Stumpy's Creator retired in shame just barley avoiding legal action due to expired statue of limitations while a shitty reboot is in the pipeline.


Doug is owned on a split custody between nick and Disney but at least he's allowed to rest in peace...for now.

"Least scathed" my foot. The Disney version sucked ass. (There is no shitty reboot of R&S in the pipeline, either. That's deader than a doornail.) And Disney has all the rights to the character, so Nick can't do anything with him - they can do whatever they like with the show, but not the character.

Would you believe they thought Doug was going to be the big hit of the three?

 

[A Grey Cat]

John was actually trying to be South Park with that one. When they were doing one episode and a staffer told him that he couldn't show naked breasts on TV, he said "Well, South Park does it!" ... And let's not forget how he tried to sue the creators for supposedly ripping off one of his characters for Mr. Hanky.


"Least scathed" my foot. The Disney version sucked ass. (There is no shitty reboot of R&S in the pipeline, either. That's deader than a doornail.) And Disney has all the rights to the character, so Nick can't do anything with him - they can do whatever they like with the show, but not the character.

Would you believe they thought Doug was going to be the big hit of the three?

Thanks for clarifying the ren and stimpy reboot is Dead. Sure the Disney version of Doug was... not very good but like I said at least Douglas Yancey funnie can rest in peace. And his corpse isn't being propped up for money.

 

[Trilby]

Thanks for clarifying the ren and stimpy reboot is Dead. Sure the Disney version of Doug was... not very good but like I said at least Douglas Yancey funnie can rest in peace. And his corpse isn't being propped up for money.

Thank goodness there. I could see Disney try to milk it further if they were that desperate but the retro 90's fad has probably left us. Soon to be replaced with the 2000's and a generation far removed from normalcy.

 

[A Grey Cat]

Thank goodness there. I could see Disney try to milk it further if they were that desperate but the retro 90's fad has probably left us. Soon to be replaced with the 2000's and a generation far removed from normalcy.

good at least that means we can remember the retro 90s era in peace without worrying about it being desecrated further . A perfect little snow globe capturing the last few moments of happiness in our short and fleeting lives.

 

[LavenderMenace]

View attachment 2379448

People are judging you for liking a character that was actually a cool-headed, smart female character and is turned into a pink-haired, blushing, "UwU WLW EXIST" shitshow. Seriously Amity went from being the smart kid to girlfriend with no life". Her whole entire character is now helping Luz and her just being her gf. It's fucking atrocious. If Luz was male, Dana would've been getting cancelled for "being sexist".

*EDIT TO PREVENT DOUBLE POSTING!*
If any of you are still wondering whether or not to check out Tuca and Birtie, PLEASE DO. I know its kind of a visual ADHD mess for the first 3 episodes but the series is very much a surreal like cartoon that visualizes alot of it's storytelling. They even change the art medium alot in the show that gets really interesting.

Just skip to Episode 5: Plumage, that's when the show really starts. It also goes into why one of the main characters, Bertie, has really bad anxiety and mental issues. It gets into some shocking stuff at times. The "Bojack vibes" of treating it's main charactes as complex is strong.
Its a fun show that I'm glad Adult Swim managed to pick up for a season 2 and it's getting really interesting.

I'll say this to entice some of you: They're actually showing a woman, in a lesbian couple, being emotionally abusive in current year.

 

[A Grey Cat]

People are judging you for liking a character that was actually a cool-headed, smart female character and is turned into a pink-haired, blushing, "UwU WLW EXIST" shitshow. Seriously Amity went from being the smart kid to girlfriend with no life". Her whole entire character is now helping Luz and her just being her gf. It's fucking atrocious. If Luz was male, Dana would've been getting cancelled for "being sexist".

*EDIT TO PREVENT DOUBLE POSTING!*
If any of you are still wondering whether or not to check out Tuca and Birtie, PLEASE DO. I know its kind of a visual ADHD mess for the first 3 episodes but the series is very much a surreal like cartoon that visualizes alot of it's storytelling. They even change the art medium alot in the show that gets really interesting.
View attachment 2436509
Just skip to Episode 5: Plumage, that's when the show really starts. It also goes into why one of the main characters, Bertie, has really bad anxiety and mental issues. It gets into some shocking stuff at times. The "Bojack vibes" of treating it's main charactes as complex is strong.
Its a fun show that I'm glad Adult Swim managed to pick up for a season 2 and it's getting really interesting.
View attachment 2436503
I'll say this to entice some of you: They're actually showing a woman, in a lesbian couple, being emotionally abusive in current year.

Tuca and bertie should have stayed in the television graveyard where it belongs

 

[Private Pyle]

John was actually trying to be South Park with that one. When they were doing one episode and a staffer told him that he couldn't show naked breasts on TV, he said "Well, South Park does it!" ... And let's not forget how he tried to sue the creators for supposedly ripping off one of his characters for Mr. Hanky.


"Least scathed" my foot. The Disney version sucked ass. (There is no shitty reboot of R&S in the pipeline, either. That's deader than a doornail.) And Disney has all the rights to the character, so Nick can't do anything with him - they can do whatever they like with the show, but not the character.

Would you believe they thought Doug was going to be the big hit of the three?

Thanks for clarifying the ren and stimpy reboot is Dead. Sure the Disney version of Doug was... not very good but like I said at least Douglas Yancey funnie can rest in peace. And his corpse isn't being propped up for money.

Why do people keep insisting that particular reboot is dead? I already mentioned like a few pages back that nothing has been reported about the reboot being dead or cancelled.
Interestingly around the same time, a Daria spin off centered on Jodie was announced and has been quiet for the most part; it’s been something I’ve been dreading as a casual Daria fan. Reboots and spin offs seem to be the equivalent of Canadian imports of the late 00s for this era.

 

[Commander X]

Just dropped, the trailer for a totally needless animated remake of Night of the Living Dead.

I saw somebody say what I was thinking, that it looks like an episode of Archer where they accidentally turned off the cel shading. New lows in lifeless (ha!) Western animation.

 

[Gender: Xenomorph]

Oh good grief no. Very much a PG or at times even a U rating series rather than Doom Patrol's "how many profanities can we make Brendan Fraser say in a 30 second window."

But they do share that they both remain true to the source material rather than chasing the current zeitgeist. Doom Patrol's LGBTwhatever else rep was a decade and change ago rather than the band wagon jumping cringe we have now. Stargirl is pretty solidly committed to similar stuff done in the Stars and STRIPES/JSA comics. While there is more diversity representation (the cast are essentially a new JSA. Wildcat and Dr Midnight are a pair of non-white girls inspired by the originals and Hourman is the lone male teen currently in the group) it's an aside rather than a focus. Without spoiling it's actually possible to say that progressives are the villains of season 1.

Overly Serious will give better summaries than I do. However aside from Doom Patrol I do not know another current DC live action series I would say is as good and between the two at this point I think Stargirl is better (just about). Doom Patrol you could show to a fair number of people who might enjoy it as long as you're not worried about the gore/profanities. Stargirl almost anyone could enjoy it. Very young children would struggle with the plot and terminally nervous children might find some bits scary but frankly any child you would show Disney's Pinnochio movie too can cope with Stargirl.

I gave the first episode a watch.

Seems to me it's the generic teem drama/generic superhero BS that gave me the burnout to begin with. If I am gonna sit through an entire season of highschool drama, it better pay off with good action scenes, like Invincible.

No thank you.

Just dropped, the trailer for a totally needless animated remake of Night of the Living Dead.

I saw somebody say what I was thinking, that it looks like an episode of Archer where they accidentally turned off the cel shading. New lows in lifeless (ha!) Western animation.

Legit, I thought this was gonna be a web toon. Looks fucking lit for a fucking web toon.

Then I saw, It's full budget animation. Holy shit it's janky. Season 1 Archer put more effort into that!

 

[Steamboat_Bill]

Why do people keep insisting that particular reboot is dead? I already mentioned like a few pages back that nothing has been reported about the reboot being dead or cancelled.
Interestingly around the same time, a Daria spin off centered on Jodie was announced and has been quiet for the most part; it’s been something I’ve been dreading as a casual Daria fan. Reboots and spin offs seem to be the equivalent of Canadian imports of the late 00s for this era.

It's been a year and there hasn't been any news on the reboot. We've got more stuff on the Beavis and Butthead reboot than we do that. If people who have contacts in the industry say it's shelved, why should we not believe them?

I don't know why you're so invested in the reboot still happening. Is it because you really want to own those SJWs who complained about them?

 

[Private Pyle]

It's been a year and there hasn't been any news on the reboot. We've got more stuff on the Beavis and Butthead reboot than we do that. If people who have contacts in the industry say it's shelved, why should we not believe them?

There hasn’t been any news on the aforementioned Jodie, or Hazbin Hotel, or Genndy’s new show, among other things. Outside of getting new movies, we actually don’t know that much about the B&B reboot. A year of radio silence isn’t the slam dunk you think it is and the one guy you used as a citation doesn’t even work on the reboot so it really come off as a reach.

I don't know why you're so invested in the reboot still happening.

I’ve said multiple I have no horse in this race and would rather have no reboots in the industry. But I don’t like people spreading rumor as absolute fact regardless of the situation.
If anything I’m more curious why you’re so dead set on this reboot not happening in a sea of millions of cheap reboots.

Is it because you really want to own those SJWs who complained about them?

Nigga when did I ever imply that? Imagine being so salty someone disagrees with you that you have to resort made up as hominems.