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

[Commander X]

I haven’t seen much Teen Titans Go but whenever a clip shows up somewhere where I can see, it always seems like really obnoxious Animaniacs- or Tiny Toons-level “entertainment industry humor” that actual kids don’t get or care about, that sort of "hip Hollywood satire" in 1990s cartoons that shows like, well Tiny Toons and Animaniacs got the ball rolling on where hack LA writers congratulated themselves on awkwardly ham fisting references to people like Michael Eisner into kids' cartoons. This has never gone away - it's the reason for that Chip n' Dale movie. It's what people who don't particularly like cartoons come up with when they write cartoons. The cartoon characters are like actors! In Hollywood! They make extended jokes and references to celebrities and industry figures and make "in jokes" about studios! Without writers like these, I mean...well do you think any yahoo off the street can come up with gold like having some random character talk like a celebrity i.e. do the most basic impression of them that's been done before? No, you need "professional" writers who have little or no feeling for animation yet insist on writing for animated projects to do that.

 

[Mao Hao Hao]

Some animated movie trailers for the thread:

Bad Guys 2

Wallace and Grommet: Vengeance Most Fowl, now appearing at the beginning of next year

We're getting the Wallace and Gromit on TV on Christmas Day (UK), so any non-UK Kiwis who wanna pirate it can from that point if they don't want to wait for January.

 

[Trilby]

I haven’t seen much Teen Titans Go but whenever a clip shows up somewhere where I can see, it always seems like really obnoxious Animaniacs- or Tiny Toons-level “entertainment industry humor” that actual kids don’t get or care about, that sort of "hip Hollywood satire" in 1990s cartoons that shows like, well Tiny Toons and Animaniacs got the ball rolling on where hack LA writers congratulated themselves on awkwardly ham fisting references to people like Michael Eisner into kids' cartoons. This has never gone away - it's the reason for that Chip n' Dale movie. It's what people who don't particularly like cartoons come up with when they write cartoons. The cartoon characters are like actors! In Hollywood! They make extended jokes and references to celebrities and industry figures and make "in jokes" about studios! Without writers like these, I mean...well do you think any yahoo off the street can come up with gold like having some random character talk like a celebrity i.e. do the most basic impression of them that's been done before? No, you need "professional" writers who have little or no feeling for animation yet insist on writing for animated projects to do that.

It's that level of obnoxiousness that repels me. I feel like every show is like this now.

 

[Crescent Fresh]

I haven’t seen much Teen Titans Go but whenever a clip shows up somewhere where I can see, it always seems like really obnoxious Animaniacs- or Tiny Toons-level “entertainment industry humor” that actual kids don’t get or care about, that sort of "hip Hollywood satire" in 1990s cartoons that shows like, well Tiny Toons and Animaniacs got the ball rolling on where hack LA writers congratulated themselves on awkwardly ham fisting references to people like Michael Eisner into kids' cartoons. This has never gone away - it's the reason for that Chip n' Dale movie. It's what people who don't particularly like cartoons come up with when they write cartoons. The cartoon characters are like actors! In Hollywood! They make extended jokes and references to celebrities and industry figures and make "in jokes" about studios! Without writers like these, I mean...well do you think any yahoo off the street can come up with gold like having some random character talk like a celebrity i.e. do the most basic impression of them that's been done before? No, you need "professional" writers who have little or no feeling for animation yet insist on writing for animated projects to do that.

The important difference is, those shows had actually competent writers who could buoy the references with actual humor and reverence to the source material. Those shows still hold up today even for people who have no idea what most of the references are because in between those references was actual writing.

You can even see an explicit comparison in the Animaniacs reboot, which was just fucking awful and immediately joined the ranks of its contemporaries, a show which, notably, did not ask any of the original writers back even though they were very very willing to work on it, instead going with a bunch of the exact crop of writers which make these terrible.

And the less said about their weird TTA reboot the better, which was “hey let’s take these characters no kid would remember and use them to make a very juvenile show about college life because our writers can only write about their experiences.” Terrible.

 

[Edgeymcedgename]

You can even see an explicit comparison in the Animaniacs reboot, which was just fucking awful and immediately joined the ranks of its contemporaries, a show which, notably, did not ask any of the original writers back even though they were very very willing to work on it, instead going with a bunch of the exact crop of writers which make these terrible.

What you didn't cum in your pants when they referenced trump and Anime?

 

[The Lawgiver]

And the less said about their weird TTA reboot the better, which was “hey let’s take these characters no kid would remember and use them to make a very juvenile show about college life because our writers can only write about their experiences.” Terrible.

Didn't they end up retconning the characters that's running joke was they weren't related into them being related which implied incest was happening?

What you didn't cum in your pants when they referenced trump and Anime?

I remember a lot of my friends liked the anime scene due to it being animated by an actually competent animation studio, but yeah it was only that scene they liked. The episode itself was a really bad gun control allegory. There's a reason that scene was like the only thing shown off to promote the show for a while,it was literally the only good part of it. You goin expecting wacky high effort shit like that only to get slapped with "bunnys(allegory for guns) are bad because they're everywhere and unregulated!" for like a large chunk of runtime.

 

[Cloudby Skytoucher]

cuz that show is the only thing that kids are willing to watch from them.

Yes, compared to newer shows that's certainly the case, but Cartoon Network has a BIG back-catalogue of shows from 30 years that had varying levels of success. TTG was contemporary with Regular Show and Adventure Time, which were also successful, but re-reruns of the former are rarer than those of TTG. Cartoon Network used to put the most random shit imaginable on the screen during weekdays when kids were at school at the audience was all sick people and stoners, now they don't. What changed?

 

[Kari Kamiya]

Cartoon Network used to put the most random shit imaginable on the screen during weekdays when kids were at school at the audience was all sick people and stoners, now they don't. What changed?

Boomerang became the dumping grounds for old IPs until Warner/Discover was done with it.

 

[Cloudby Skytoucher]

Boomerang became the dumping grounds for old IPs until Warner/Discover was done with it.

Boomerang is still on the air but it seems to have reverted to its original purpose of playing Looney Tunes 24/7

 

[Edgeymcedgename]

Boomerang is still on the air but it seems to have reverted to its original purpose of playing Looney Tunes 24/7

I know a Mexican restaurant near Portland that plays boomerang while you eat along with soccer(lol) and football on their TV. Cool place

 

[OrangeJuliusEvola]

I haven’t seen much Teen Titans Go but whenever a clip shows up somewhere where I can see, it always seems like really obnoxious Animaniacs- or Tiny Toons-level “entertainment industry humor” that actual kids don’t get or care about, that sort of "hip Hollywood satire" in 1990s cartoons that shows like, well Tiny Toons and Animaniacs got the ball rolling on where hack LA writers congratulated themselves on awkwardly ham fisting references to people like Michael Eisner into kids' cartoons. This has never gone away - it's the reason for that Chip n' Dale movie. It's what people who don't particularly like cartoons come up with when they write cartoons. The cartoon characters are like actors! In Hollywood! They make extended jokes and references to celebrities and industry figures and make "in jokes" about studios! Without writers like these, I mean...well do you think any yahoo off the street can come up with gold like having some random character talk like a celebrity i.e. do the most basic impression of them that's been done before? No, you need "professional" writers who have little or no feeling for animation yet insist on writing for animated projects to do that.

It's not like the Hollywood inside baseball stuff that flies over the heads of kids is something that was invented in the 90s. Warner Brothers cartoons were riffing on that stuff back in the 30s-50s along with classical music and literature. They just did it much better by making it funny to people who didn't know what was being referenced.

Inside jokes aren't necessarily bad. They just are when it becomes gratuitous huffing of your own farts, which is what Tiny Toons and especially Animaniacs ended up doing.

 

[starborn427614]

Well tonight I learned that Craig of the Creek is a show I should avoid for being deeply mediocre. Thanks, stray Toonami commenters.

You're not exactly missing much. It's like Ed, Edd and Eddy if there was zero bite to it.

 

[Commander X]

This was why Ralph Bakshi's Mighty Mouse happened when it did in 1987. We really needed that wake-up.

Regardless of whether it's accurate, I'm impressed how fully they embraced how Real Ghostbusters was animated in Japan, making perhaps the first 'Western animators roasting Japanese animation' bits ever, beating all those Speed Racer & Pokemon parodies by a good decade. Making a joke about that in 1987 took a level of observation I wouldn't expect from most animators. I mean, it's pretty petty, but still...

This episode was co-written by Tom Minton, and there's a nod to the “The Little Clowns of Happy Town" near the end, which was a lousy educational cartoon Minton and company hated, and was previously mentioned in this thread. At some point, Minton outright admitted it was meant as a vicious jab.

 

[PS1gamenwatch]

Regardless of whether it's accurate, I'm impressed how fully they embraced how Real Ghostbusters was animated in Japan, making perhaps the first 'Western animators roasting Japanese animation' bits ever, beating all those Speed Racer & Pokemon parodies by a good decade. Making a joke about that in 1987 took a level of observation I wouldn't expect from most animators. I mean, it's pretty petty, but still...

This episode was co-written by Tom Minton, and there's a nod to the “The Little Clowns of Happy Town" near the end, which was a lousy educational cartoon Minton and company hated, and was previously mentioned in this thread. At some point, Minton outright admitted it was meant as a vicious jab.

When I watched that ages ago I was wondering why the Gagbusters all sound like Garfield. Until I watched The Real Ghostbusters. Last part I didn't understand back then when Mighty Mouse tells the audience "Enough of this lying and hypocrisy and time for what television is really about", today I get it.

 

[Cloudby Skytoucher]

I know a Mexican restaurant near Portland that plays boomerang while you eat along with soccer(lol) and football on their TV. Cool placeView attachment 6681251

unfathomably based

 

[Trilby]

When I watched that ages ago I was wondering why the Gagbusters all sound like Garfield. Until I watched The Real Ghostbusters. Last part I didn't understand back then when Mighty Mouse tells the audience "Enough of this lying and hypocrisy and time for what television is really about", today I get it.

Yep, all about ads!

And funky 5 second ditties!

EDIT: I often feel the best shows are the ones that force children to think critically of what they watch. The late 80's had a lot of it. Thought of this one...

 

[Ambient Occlusion]

Man, you just gave me a vision of a completely inverted version of "preschool show for adults" and I actually really want it.
Imagine a show with cute appealing characters, cartoony animation, no cheap shock/swearing/drug garbage and everyone talking in a relatively mature tone ...while still being about day to day adult life with adult problems.

Fuck. That sounds like the sort of thing Jim Henson would make.

Not western animation, but that's very much what Aggretsuko is. It deals with a lot of mature subjects with a cutesy style, and not just the typical sex and violence you usually get from "mature" animation, but real adult problems. Problems like starting a new job and thinking everyone there hates you and has it together, but then you realize they're just normal people like you. Dealing with work life balance, pushy parents that want you to get married ASAP, etc. It's great.

 

[Edgeymcedgename]

Not western animation, but that's very much what Aggretsuko is. It deals with a lot of mature subjects with a cutesy style, and not just the typical sex and violence you usually get from "mature" animation, but real adult problems. Problems like starting a new job and thinking everyone there hates you and has it together, but then you realize they're just normal people like you. Dealing with work life balance, pushy parents that want you to get married ASAP, etc. It's great.

I liked the first season, never saw the second after that though. It's not because it tried (and failed horribly) to appeal to communists, I just never started watching it again.

 

[Dracula]

This was why Ralph Bakshi's Mighty Mouse happened when it did in 1987. We really needed that wake-up.

 

[Chromeo]

Teen Titans Go was over-promoted to the point it choked out every other show airing at the same time, and the big line in the marketing was "YOUR NEW FAVORITE SHOW!!" It was extremely forced. The retard-level humor, saturated colors, screaming brainrot, and shitting all over a beloved show that never properly ended certainly didn't help anyone like it. Despite that, if you had absolutely nothing better to do but to watch TV and nothing else was on, Teen Titans Go could be alright sometimes. La Larva Amor was a great episode (maybe because half of it focused on Silkie, who doesn't talk.) The real disappointing element imo is that you could've replaced the Teen Titans with any 5 wacky roommates and it would've been the same show. It really didn't need to be a reboot/spinoff/whatever of Teen Titans.

I feel like that skinwalking element of "whatever the writers want to talk about, dressed as [X] show from the 80s-2000s" is a major source of the cringe we talk about in this thread.