Blog Talkback: The Incredible Disappearing Animation Channel

I'm curious about one thing: Is live-action less expensive to produce than animation? Cause I keep thinking that one of the reasons why Cartoon Network is producing more live-action than animation. And if that was one of the reasons, what reason would Cartoon Network have to air old live-action movies? When the CN live-action shows came out(Like the Othersiders and Unnatural History), I kept thinking: Why couldn't they made them as an animated series instead of live action? At least CN is producing more cartoons like Adventure Time, Generator Rex, and the upcoming Sym-Bionic Titan. But Cartoon Network needs to drop this whole live-action junk and work on what they do best: Cartoons.

And another thing, if Cartoon Network cancels an animated series because it didn't get enough ratings, it's probably because they didn't promote it enough or they stuck the show on a death slot like 6:30 in the morning. Most kids don't get up around that time. A show can't get ratings if no one can see it and no one could watch a show if it's on a time when everyone is sleeping. And that goes the same for Nickelodeon. They had shows like El Tigre and My Life as a Teenage Robot and they just put them on death slots(And on their sister channel Nicktoons Network) which was hard for those who wanted to watch the few remaining episodes. And it wouldn't hurt for Cartoon Network(And Nickelodeon) to produce more DVD sets on their previous animated shows. At least CN has started releasing DVDs on the classic Cartoon Cartoons, though I wish Nick would produce an Angry Beavers DVD collection.

Well that's my two cents on this whole Live-Action thing...:sweat:
 
That's what I would assume since animation is a slow, time consuming process as oppose to shooting something in live action. :sad:
Very good point. Most shows I like don't get as much promotion as others, and not every cartoon deserves to get sent to the morning death slots. Especially if they didn't get a fair shot in the prime time schedule.
 
Yes, it's generally a less expensive process to film or to video tape real people doing things than it is to draw several hundred drawings put through the process of animation, but that's not the reason why the execs at Cartoon Network are embracing live action. CN claims that they're embracing live action in order to broaden it's audience, although going from an audience of kids and adults of both genders who love cartoons to pre-teen boys who love action seems to be more of a step backward to me. CN also believes (or pretends to believe) that bringing in live action programming is necessary for variety, which is also bunk, since the world of animation has plenty of variety. Just consider the many different types of cartoons that exist now:


  • action cartoons
  • comedy cartoons
  • romance cartoons
  • animated sitcoms
  • sci-fi cartoons
  • arty cartoons
  • old school (retro) cartoons
24 hours is plenty of time in a day to showcase several different types of animation. The claim that Cartoon Network needs live action programming in order to widen it's audience is emptier than a school parking lot on Christmas day. CN is trying desperately to be Nickelodeon Too when they'd be better off trying to be the alternative to Nick and Disney Channel. CN needs to decide once and for all what it wants to be: either the home for cartoons or Spike TV's little brother. It can't be both.
 
I pretty much have to agree what everyone says on here, and what Zach says about the person running CN having a grudge on animation. Everyone should know that not all good things can happen forever, the good stuff has to come to end sometime(I know its sad but true). A few of my friends who gave up watching CN, they each had a pretty good reason for giving up the channel and decided to watch cartoons that they grew up with on DVD/blu-ray. Now I will admit that Cn's toons are hardly even good as of today but Chowder has some goodness to it. And then there's Tartakovsky's upcoming animated show which looks like has that "looking forward" in it. But I would like to see some cartoons that had some humor from the 90's, but I know thats never gonna happen. I would just love it to see people like Doug tennapel, John k, Pat Ventura, or anyone who happens to be a cartoonist who knows the roots instead of people who are just doing animation as an excuse to make money. Heck if there's anyone in my book who deserves to get back into animation and show these people who dont know how to make cartoons to make good cartoons its Ralph Bakshi and Milton Knight. I would even give Milton Knight a promotion if he does a new animated series or a 2D animated movie.



I keep fore-slapping my head every-time I hear this in my face. Also the person running the studio who's running the timeslots on these shows make the worst choices when it comes to showing good stuff. A lot of good shows are on the worst times and heck what the chances of somebody watching it at 7 in the morning when it should be played after school like say 3:30 pm? Heck the person behind the studio can make the worst choices on canning the best shows that people like, and replacing it with something nobody would look at. Like Swat Kats and Sonic Satam are two good examples in my book. Swat Kats had a good fanbase and so did Sonic satam, but satam didnt have much ratings as much as Swat Kats did. Satam got whacked by the ratings of Power-rangers and the kats got off due to Turner canceling for fearing on kids shooting people. Hey turner! What about Tom and jerry? that had violence! Thats being a little hypocritical dont you think?
 
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