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

[Basic Blond Boy]

I should sit down and watch Adventure Time one of these days, one of those CN shows that cropped up just as I had stopped watching TV in favour of streaming. That goes for Regular Show, too. Still need to finish Primal as well.

I need to go back as well as I believed I missed a bit of the series later years much like many others. CN stopped airing it as much and news was scarce the last two years of the eight year run. If you are going to watch it, here is my general outline of the series.

• Seasons 1 + 2 are fun but not much else. I think I actually missed a bit of season 2 on its initial airing. The show was laying the groundwork, so definitely watch, but know that the series is primarily dumb shit during these two seasons.

• Seasons 3 + 4 are the most loved seasons as most of the better story telling comes from these seasons. Ice King goes through a massive transformation during these seasons, culminating in some of the best episodes of the show. A big portion of the series is dedicated to shipping this season, so be aware, but AT is on the better side of these plots, meaning they are not horribly annoying. 4 introduced Flame Princess who is by far the most consistently good character in the series behind Ice King.

• Season 5 - So, I don’t know if this is still the case, but season 5 was originally double the length of other seasons. Season 5 is most defined by it being the beginning of AT becoming bad. It has some spectacular episodes like Simon & Marcy, but also a lot of duds. I believe the beginning phases of mass character derailment begin this season, so be prepared to hate Finn and PB as they become “Too smart for the audience message” characters and get shoved into weird, sometimes Reddit tier plot lines. PB is the worst case of derailment as she becomes a Reddit atheist against magic and then takes on an evil story arc that leads to mass surveillance of people and straight up genocide. Finn has a shit wet dream story arc just so he can break up with FP along with a man whore plot. Many arcs also just get rushed, a problem stemming from earlier seasons that only got worse here. Some are justified like Finn’s arm, which was forced to change by CN execs, but a lot is poor writing. Flame Princess and Ice King really save this show’s ass this season and the next.

• Season 6 - Shit, it is just shit. AT wanted to be a much bigger show than it was and went against all that made it good. The characters and their relationships was what drew people in, so season 6 said fuck that and made the focus one-off characters for “world building.” Most of the story lines are pretentious as fuck, and the character derailment hits a peak. The worse part is the main season storyline. King of Ooo, some joke character from season 5 becomes the new Candy Kingdom leader as Bubblebitch is, well, a bitch. Somehow this ties into a plot about Gunther being a fucking space alien who ends the season going on a pretentious monologue about creation. This was a decision so universally panned that it is made fun of in the next seasons. Season 6 is only worth watching for FP and IK.

• Season 7 - So, now we’re finally in the Trump years, and… The show is good again? AT goes back to its roots this season and just kinda pushes the last season under the table as much as it can. This season feels like old season 1 AT at its purest form, and is a nice watch. Hell, even Fionna and Cake, a part of the show I typically find cringe, was actually a fun watch. In a weird twist, AT actually became a better show after the election.

• Seasons 8 + 9 - Peak AT once more. These two seasons were defined by miniseries all of which were banger. Stakes, Elementals, and Islands were all fantastic. These seasons also introduced Betty and Fern, both of which are well developed and feel right at home with the cast. If season 7 was the return to seasons 1&2, these seasons were the return to 3&4. More story driven, but not dry as hell, actually, they might surpass previous seasons as they have a better balance of story and comedy. These seasons also do a lot to redeem the bad seasons. Finn and FP get a mature amends to Finn’s bs from season 5. The Sugar injected bad dads get better treatment as both Hudson and Finn’s fathers go from trash to genuinely good dad in their moments. Overall, this was a great wrap up to the series that most seemed to miss.

• Season 10 - Rushed. AT wanted to conclude with a big epic, but CN limited the episode count and thus, the series goes out on a whimper after an incredible high. The end is a season all about war that has little time to actually have said plot. The writing is by no means egregious, but you can tell more was supposed to happen.

• Distant Lands - The best ending to the show. I think the Together Again episode would have been the best way to close out, but sadly HBO made it second to last. The other episodes are also good.

 

[starborn427614]

Thanks for the write-up. Deleted the other post because it didn't really add much to the thread, but I'll keep this in mind.

 

[KingLiberty76]

From what I've seen of Sonic Prime the voices are entirely different, I think sonic sounds great, but Eggman and Knuckles sound the worst particularly Knuckles, everyone else sounds okay. But if it makes people like Sonic again, then I'm fine with it

EDIT: I replied to the wrong post, but I might as well make this a post on it's on

 

[Amber the Hedgehog]

GDT's version of Pinocchio is out on Friday. Heard nothing but good things about it.
View attachment 4022823

I watched this with my brother and we both enjoyed it very much. I went into the movie fairly blind, I watched the trailers but outside that avoided any info. I admit I was expecting bit more faithful adaptation but that didn't stop me from liking what was there. Also I needed to watch something lighthearted afterwards so night ended up double feature with Klaus.

I'm going to go on detail some of the spacing issues I noticed but like I said overall it's an interesting movie and there plenty to enjoy. So first of all the visual are neat. The characters designs ugly cute and characters as individuals can have good range from terrifyingly sinister to adorable. The environments are bit gray on monotonic side but tankfully not dull or one note. Music and voice acting are good, I especially enjoyed Pinocchio himself. The tone is interting and there were few turns that I didn't see coming but they didn't feel just different for different's sake.

I have agree with others that the movie has some notable spacing issues. Some aspects feel way stretched out and others clossed over. For example the start takes too long to get to the actual Pinocchio story. As important as it is for Gepetto's motivations and how far he has fallen, the movie didn't need to kinda start twice. Maybe some of it could have been in flash backs that get shown trough out movie. There were multiple times where that would have fitted in fine like how to his son died could have shown when Gepetto tells Pinocchio why hates war. Then we as an audience learn with Pinocchio about him as they grow closer and would have helped my big next issue.

Overall Gepetto and Pinocchio needed more screen time together or better hints of them spending time off screen. I like their their relationship arc of Pinocchio wanting to get out of the shadow of his dead son and Gepetto having to learn to love Pinocchio as he is rather expect him just like his lost son, but it feels bit hollow. Some of it works, Gepetto despite his issues does have multiple scenes where fatherly warmth shines and you get why Pinocchio might care for him but overall they spended too much time in angry conflict or with other characters. You just don't get a feel for why we should care about this relationship specificly witch is bad when the emotional climax relays on it. This is also problem with the cricket.

To go to the disney movie for a moment, Jiminy Cricket works way better. He is the second lead in that movie for a reason and him being around or not around Pinocchio reflects Pinocchio's character growth. Actually he goes trough a similar if more more subtle character growth because he is there visualize Pinocchio's inner struggles. For example when Pinocchio wakes up for the first time Jiminy tries and mostly fails to teach Pinocchio but you get that both characters are trying and mean well. Then on the first day starts and they both fail bad. Pinocchio naively believing Honest John's sale pitch and Jiminy ditching Pinocchio after getting butthurt by Pinocchio not listening him when he comes in late. This demonstrates temptation really well, we often know what supposed to do but still follow a bad idea despite something telling us that it sounds too good to be true.

In this movie we just don't have that type of relationship between the cricket and Pinocchio. He gets the same assignment but there is no real follow trough. The relationship doesn't get established well and more importantly it doesn't get expanded on. Although some of their scenes are really good but others feel superfluous. Pinocchio gets more meaningful advice and guidance from the death that from the cricket. The cricket spends more time with Gepetto than Pinocchio witch could have worked if the movie had actually committed on he's there to serve as Gepetto's not Pinocchio's conscience. Overall he didn't really need to be in the movie witch is a shame because I really liked his design and many ideas around him like him literally being inside Pinocchio are neat.

 

[A Grey Cat]

Ill giv

I have to be honest, other than seasons 5-6, AT never got that bad. It really cleaned itself up in the last seasons. While the final wasn't good (it was rushed due to CN's episode limit), Distant lands more than made up for it.

I'll give AT this. It mostly stuck to the story and characters and even as the Trump years prompted the mass media to go more sociopolitical (aka woke) it never went to the lengths Steven Universe did. The whole bubble gun x marceiline wasn't a thing till the show neared the end, and only recently got pushed by cartoon network tfor brownie points whenever pride month rolls around. (Just go back to this thread around June for proof)

Conversely ss sugar went further and further down the rabbit hole do fid her show. Suddenly fusing became a metaphor for sex, the gems despite using female bodies are supposed to be gender less and the grande pliae of all garnets gems getting "married." To say nothing of the PSAs they did after the show ended.

 

[Trianon]

@.Basic Blonde Boy

I need to go back as well as I believed I missed a bit of the series later years much like many others. CN stopped airing it as much and news was scarce the last two years of the eight year run. If you are going to watch it, here is my general outline of the series.

Thanks for this. I tapped out after Season 5, I think. I may have watched a few episodes into Season 6 while they were doing the Citadel stuff, but I don't remember it well. "Reddit-tier" is a good way of describing some of those episodes, which were sometimes given to celebrity writers who came in to guest-write or guest-animate an episode. So in addition to not "feeling like" the best kind of AT episode, they are all trying to win awards and they mostly did this by being cringe. I was also following a lot of the storyboard artists at the time, and their blogs were all about them trying to channel their weird adult feelings into each episode. There were no storylines, just general feelings of ennui and depression.

I'm looknig through the list of season 5 episodes now. All the Little People, Jake the Dad, Lemonhope are easily my most hated episodes of television ever. I cannot climb down from this! They left such a bad taste in my mouth that it just cast a cloud over everything.

The ones I remember liking were Wizards Only, Fools and Simon & Marcy, and some of the Flame Princess episodes. But like you said, Finn and Bubblegum's character progression was depressing as fuck and totally ruined the show for me (although I liked every time Peppermint Butler undercut her - he was loopy fun). I just wasn't looking forward to it every week. I wasn't having fun. I was getting actively depressed while watching some of them. It's what I imagine the Bojack Horseman vibe is, but with the added bonus of having no grounding in reality, so it's just an attempt at existentialism with none of the catharsis.

 

[Sleazy Car Salesman]

I really hate that the bingewatching culture seems to have killed episodic series, or at least made them way less attractive to networks and studios. I'd love for new episodic cartoons that have nice, tight, well told stories that don't take twenty hours to tell where I can sit down and watch one or two episodes and get two to four good stories out of it.

I'm sure there's more factors at play than just bingewatching but when that got popular it seems to be the downturn for episodic content in general.

 

[Basic Blond Boy]

Since we are talking about Del Torro and AT, I thought I should share a quote from him that came from the art book:

I don’t think I’ll ever be able to put into words just how much this show means to me, but I will say this-

Adventure Time is the purest reflection of human emotion I have ever seen. It makes me feel, down to my core, in a way nothing else can. It makes me marvel at the joy, and pain, and warmth, and grief, and above all- the sheer wonder of life.

Loss, candy and bacon.

How lucky we are to be alive.

How lucky am I to have been alive at the same time as you.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Original panel: https://norathebean.tumblr.com/post/177691688966/i-dont-think-ill-ever-be-able-to-put-into-words

I'm looknig through the list of season 5 episodes now. All the Little People, Jake the Dad, Lemonhope are easily my most hated episodes of television ever. I cannot climb down from this! They left such a bad taste in my mouth that it just cast a cloud over everything.

Yeah, I remember how much I hated those episodes. Weirdly enough, Jake The Dad somewhat gets redeemed in later seasons. I hated how that episode was typical AT rushing giant plot lines because status quo, but aging the puppies came back around to giving Jake many sweet episodes with each of his kids later on. Ocarina is a great example of this, having the episode be about how Jake’s son matured past him and now wants his dad to grow up. It has a sweet ending of the two embracing each other’s strengths and faults.

Lemonhope was shit. I have no idea who thought that plot line would be interesting. The best thing to come from those episodes is the propaganda video of Lemongrab’s autistic communism. Otherwise, the episodes made little sense, made PB into a bigger monster as she pushes some child to clean up her mess, and gave pretentious vibes all over with its weird Jesus shit. Then All the Little People was just disturbed. It was the most blatant writer fetish episode outside of Breezy.

The ones I remember liking were Wizards Only, Fools and Simon & Marcy, and some of the Flame Princess episodes. But like you said, Finn and Bubblegum's character progression was depressing as fuck and totally ruined the show for me (although I liked every time Peppermint Butler undercut her - he was loopy fun). I just wasn't looking forward to it every week. I wasn't having fun. I was getting actively depressed while watching some of them. It's what I imagine the Bojack Horseman vibe is, but with the added bonus of having no grounding in reality, so it's just an attempt at existentialism with none of the catharsis.

I would add Food Chain to the list of great episodes from the seasons as that was the one guest animator who created a fun ride with fantastic animation and a song. Otherwise agree, the show became a depressing slog. It does get better after those seasons though if you ever go back. It sucks that those seasons poisoned the franchise so hard that most neglect the stuff between them and the finally.

 

[Neil]

Posted about this in the Disney thread. Might as well post it here. Pixar's making a new Disney+ series about prepubescent kids playing softball, and can you guess what the first episode is about?

I saw a leak of the first episode of Pixar's new "Win or Lose" series, and surprise surprise, the plot is about one of the kids on the team being a troon and trying to feel comfortable using the girl's bathroom despite puberty causing his voice to deepen. A very relatable struggle for kids aged 6-11.

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Spoiler

Why are modern writers too mentally stunted to think of any message that goes beyond sexuality or gender identity?

A transgender athlete kid (MtF, of course!) using the girl's bathroom, playing majority female sports (and being the best at those sports out of everyone), and being afraid of puberty making his voice deeper and giving away the fact that he isn't a girl!

It's a giant Steven Universe-esque validation fest where the coach comes around to give the kid a pat on the back and talk to the audience about the message, all tell, no show.

 

[Morethanabitfoolish]

So this little number got an animated film recently. And you all get the novel cover because I prefer it.



Like almost every attempt to adapt Pratchett's stuff I am not really a fan. But I recognise what they are going for it. My biggest issue is it's not as murder heavy as the books but, sociopathic little child I was, I said that about Farthing Wood and Watership Down too.

I think as an attempt to make a PG film that targets modern children it's...average. I could slate every single change it's made and why it's awful, scream at every altered line of dialogue and rant for days. But I watched it with someone who's not a major Discworld fan and every line Pratchett wrote that was a funny one got a laugh and maybe 20% of the added material did. It's not perfect but maybe it'll get some more people enjoying the source material.

 

[Purple Threat]

Snip

Wanted to specifically reply to your post before this but I can't for whatever reason. My personal gripes with AT was how they handled finn and jake post s4.

I generally hated how depressing and abstract the show got as it progressed and I liked how the earlier seasons were more akin to the misadventures of flapjack where you had a goofy character/adventure juxtaposed by a surreal/scary world. As opposed to later AT, which was just ok let's have jake be a brick because metaphor for existentialism or whatever.

I quit after s6/s7 and I dont know how well/if they even fixed these problems but I just hated all the new minor characters that took up more screen time than finn and jake. I hated finn's daddy issues considering he already had parents in his life and it felt like the writer's were just trying to cater to the lore and trauma fans that circle shows like this SU, gravity falls, owl house etc.

Was also not a fan of how Finn's crushes were handled. Him going back to PB for a bit after flame princess was weird and i heard he tried to hit up huntress wizard????. I saw stakes tho, and think Marceline is definitely the best and most consistent character in the show.

Personally I just hated how big the world/stakes/lore got and would have liked if they just kept things simple instead of deciding every character needed some big defining arc.

 

[starborn427614]

I really hate that the bingewatching culture seems to have killed episodic series, or at least made them way less attractive to networks and studios. I'd love for new episodic cartoons that have nice, tight, well told stories that don't take twenty hours to tell where I can sit down and watch one or two episodes and get two to four good stories out of it.

I'm sure there's more factors at play than just bingewatching but when that got popular it seems to be the downturn for episodic content in general.

Week to week is the best way to view media IMO. Part of that comes from being used to online discussion and the culture that comes with it, but it's nice to have time to discuss things without them all being dumped at once.

 

[Sleazy Car Salesman]

Week to week is the best way to view media IMO. Part of that comes from being used to online discussion and the culture that comes with it, but it's nice to have time to discuss things without them all being dumped at once.

It's way better, also allows for a better judge of quality since you have a week between episodes to really digest what you've just seen and think about it. Binging a series just burns out your brains ability to actually process what's happening, I think it also makes things far less enjoyable on a rewatch.

 

[Basic Blond Boy]

Was also not a fan of how Finn's crushes were handled. Him going back to PB for a bit after flame princess was weird and i heard he tried to hit up huntress wizard????. I saw stakes tho, and think Marceline is definitely the best and most consistent character in the show.

Huntress Wizard never really went anywhere. Finn got tired of crushes and only helped her as a friend. Jake tried to pair the two up, but both came to the conclusion that they cannot easily be tamed. Out of Finn’s crushes, she was the best as they just left the door open, but never really had them go past friends before the show ended. It was a good way of displaying how Finn matured over the course of the series. Fans took to it more than the writers, as honestly, they fit the best.

I quit after s6/s7 and I dont know how well/if they even fixed these problems but I just hated all the new minor characters that took up more screen time than finn and jake. I hated finn's daddy issues considering he already had parents in his life and it felt like the writer's were just trying to cater to the lore and trauma fans that circle shows like this SU, gravity falls, owl house etc.

After season 6, they knock this shit off. The random one off character stories were universally panned, so AT stopped doing them in season 7. They also quit the daddy issues shit, and actually somewhat redeem Martin in Islands as they show how much he loved Finn as a child, but events separated them and gave him some brain damage. From that episode, you kind of feel bad for him as he had his child taken from him escaping a dictatorship and is probably in grief over Finn more than likely being dead to understand Finn is still there. Hell, I remember Hudson getting more redeeming qualities as well. An episode is dedicated to him trying to get into his daughter’s interest. S7 and beyond really drop the shit hard and bring AT back to the good years.

Personally I just hated how big the world/stakes/lore got and would have liked if they just kept things simple instead of deciding every character needed some big defining arc.

Pretty much everyone hated the lore shit. AT’s world never felt sane enough to add lore to, and season 6 got way to pretentious with it. I actually like story arcs in AT though. Simon and Flame Princess are the prime examples of it done right, and Finn can be really good when the writer isn’t projecting. I think PB’s arc could have been good. The idea of Finn maturing and seeing that PB can be morally reprehensible in some aspects or a control freak is a good idea. The execution ruined the concept though as they went so far with PB that arguments have easily been made declaring her the villain of the series. Season 10 does the plot a lot better as PB being forced into a war makes her questionable without stripping her of humanity completely. Her motives make sense even if she is not looking for another way like Finn wants. In saying this, Jake and Marceline had little potential for story arcs and are best left out. Stakes and the Simon stuff was probably the best Marcy could have gotten. As for Jake, I like seeing him with his pups, but the push to make him existential was bad.

 

[Jonah Hill poster]

Sonic Prime's doing really well in terms of viewership.

(Source: https://twitter.com/WildBrainStudio/status/1603812165529616412)

Not bad, but I really need to know why Americans think watching Harry & Meghan is far more important than Wednesday Addams and Sonic. That right there is just insane to me.

 

[starborn427614]

Not bad, but I really need to know why Americans think watching Harry & Meghan is far more important than Wednesday Addams and Sonic. That right there is just insane to me.

We must forgive our yank brethren, they know not what they do.

 

[Basic Blond Boy]

Not bad, but I really need to know why Americans think watching Harry & Meghan is far more important than Wednesday Addams and Sonic. That right there is just insane to me.

It’s a great series. I loved the story arc of Harry figuring out how to use the toaster. It took 26 episodes, but he finally got it. That ending where he made the family a hot pocket dinner, and they all clapped, and then Obungo came out from around the corner and shook his hand and handed him a medal, was so inspiring.

Truly a masterpiece this show is:

 

[Čmarobnjak]

John K. shares some interesting history about his father on his blog:

http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2009/10/happy-birthday-dad.html

http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2012/06/happy-fathers-day.html

 

[A Grey Cat]

John K. shares some interesting history about his father on his blog:

http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2009/10/happy-birthday-dad.html

http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2012/06/happy-fathers-day.html

He's still blogging to the public? People aren't gonna forget what happened with him even if no charges ever stuck.

Anyways I mentioned code monkryd a while back and low and behold a couple episodes got uploaded two years ago and seem to be safe from a takedown for now. Enjoy this episode while you can especially since as one commenter points out todd is almost a one to one of owl Chris

 

[Coolio55]

He's still blogging to the public? People aren't gonna forget what happened with him even if no charges ever stuck.

Anyways I mentioned code monkryd a while back and low and behold a couple episodes got uploaded two years ago and seem to be safe from a takedown for now. Enjoy this episode while you can especially since as one commenter points out todd is almost a one to one of owl Chris

Never really watched code monkeys and I'm sure that something like this being on TV must have been mindblowing back in the day but this is like if the scary movie guys tried to parody the big bang theory.