Cartoon Series Finales

T

T.O.T2

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In your opinion, how do you think a cartoon series should end? With a TV movie (Ed, Edd n Eddy)? A 30 minute special (Chowder)? Or just regularly (The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack)? Personally, I think a TV movie, especially if the series was popular, plus it's a memorable way to end a show.
 
T.V. movie, definately, although it depends on the show. I couldn't see Chowder or Flapjack doing 80 minute movies without A LOT of filler.
 
Chowder actually had a TV movie planned at one point. It was canned because of production schedules, but I am confident that it would have been a better finale than ?Chowder Grows Up?. Really, I think any animated program can have a feature length finale and I wish that they would more often. If 101 Dalmatians: The Series, a children?s comedy with practically no continuity, can make such a finale work then I can?t see why any other animated program wouldn?t be able to do the same.
 
Another thing to consider is the cliffhanger ending. There should at least be a back door so that if a series isn't renewed within a certain amount of time that there is an ending with closure.

Incidently, I have to wonder if Sonic Satam's cliffhanger ending was that bad. I mean in my mind, if a cliffhanger is setting up for another story (like Ixis Naugas taking over) as opposed to ending the season with an unfinished story (The universe being destroyed in Silver Surfer), then at least there is some finality.
 
It would be nice if when a series left the air that the network did something special like hold interviews with creators and voice actors to air before/after the show comes to an end, it would only work on franchise shows though and not just a run of the mill filler series like a Metajets or a huge property aquired by a network like TMNT or something. It would have been cool to see interviews with the Chowder and Flapjack cast leading up to the series finale of the shows, it would have made the finale's a little more special, but at least Chowder was given a marathon to see it off, I'm still surprised that Flapjack got nothing at all.
 
I love TV movies for series endings. The only thing is that, if there's a cliffhanger or the movie's really popular, it makes me wonder if the series will come back. I don't want to see a great TV series ruined, because they wanted the series to keep going. :(
 
I prefer a TV movie/multiple episodes strung together to make a movie style finale more. It gives the crew more leeway to wrap up the loose ending and make sure that everyone gets a proper send off.
 
I think that a TV movie/hour-long special is the best way to end a series. That way you can tie up all the loose ends and let the show out with a bang.
 
Every series finale is really a case by case basis. What's a good way to end one series might not necessarily be the best way to end another one. Beast Machines had one of my all time favorite animated series finales. However, there's a lot of Transformers fans who really really hated it.

Ironically, what's probably my favorite animted series finale of all time didn't even end up being the series finale. The Justice League Unlimited episode "Epilogue" clearly was created with the possibility of it being a series finale. However, that didn't end up being the case as the show ended up with one more 13 episode season.
 
Here's how I think animated action/adventure series should end.

1. Either wrap the series up with a TV movie or multi-part episodes.

2. During the finale, try to answer all unanswered plot points that have yet to be revealed.

3. The series should have a happy ending, if possible.
 
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