How High School Musical Has Affected Animation TALKBACK

As much as I hate these shows Disney has put together, I will say I do have a certain respect for them. It isn't my cup of tea, sure. I don't like the writing, and the situations, and I don't think they're too clever. But the fans do. I'm just disappointed we live in an industry that these types of shows don't live in harmony with the animated series. Look at all the other times Live action claimed to dethrown animation...

1970's- Banana Splits (while it may not count, since they were hosting a mix of live action and animation), H.R. Puffenstuff, Land of the Lost. They seemed to mingle well with their animated counterparts. in fact, seeing a nice little fantasy show like that after seeing cartoons all morning would be refreshing.

1990's part 1- Americanized versions of Power Rangers and Kamen Rider were taking up the Fox schedual, and sadly some of the shows were lost in the mix. But the other networks didn't retaliate by making copies. Other than Super Human Samurai Cyber Squad (which was a dead on knockoff of Ultraman) which was syndicated, most of the "copies" of PR were localized entirely by Saban, and only one was on another channel- syndication.

1990's part 2- NBC dropped its line up of cartoons for Saved by the Bell and variations on that theme (with the same characters with different names). And while it hurt them in the long run, no other channel attempted teencoms, and stayed in the animation they had.

I don't see why other networks feel they have to copy to compete, if they had pretty good success doing their own thing for a while. The popularity of any given thing can fade, and after a while, the tweencom movement is bound to bust. if every network puts their eggs in one baskett, they're all gonna drop.
 
Couldn't you say the same thing if they aired a lot of animation and only a little live-action? Nick and CN seem to have done fine in the 90s with little (or none) live-action, so no reason it'll be different now. Then, it might switch back in 10 years and we'll keep going back and forth.
 
I don't know. Judging from this article, it says that shows focusing on pop music and pre-teen drama are popular with the kids these days, but it gets pretty old really fast. Some kids watch classic animation like The Smurfs prefer that over shows like "Hanna Montana". I know this cause some kids at my neighborhood told me so, some don't want to watch some kid with divorced parents making trouble ala Pepper Ann. Its been done to death! I hope this is just a fad that will go away soon.:(
 
I sincerely hope you're not promoting The Smurfs. Going back to the '80s trend of animated infomercials would be just as horrible as the current music drama trend.
 
I'm not sure 2 shows constitute a trend anymore than Robot Jones and Teenage Robot constituted a robot trend. Not until we see Disney replace all their shows with musical ones, anyway.
 
That's how trends work for me too. I think that the only trend I followed was Pokemon too. Most of the other ones that I hear about just don't appeal to me.



That's okay. No problem. I just wanted to get that detail right. Thanks for the edit.



That is pretty interesting. That's too bad that he suffers from seizures. I hope that turns out better. I've heard that one in every hundred and fifty people have autism, of which Asperger's Syndrome is a form of.

Anyway, just so that my post is more on-topic, I'll mention something else that I noticed in the article. Out of all three networks mentioned, Disney, Nick and CN, Nick seems to have a better balance of live-action shows and cartoons on its lineup. Sure, Nick has the same show repeating with different episodes during the day, at least that's how it is for me when I turn it on, but they still have a decent balance between the two types of shows.

Disney, on the other hand, shows much more of its live-action shows all day. And I honestly think that their live-action qualify went down after Even Stevens, but that's beside the point. They don't even show much of their cartoon series until midnight, when most of their audience is sleeping, and in the early afternoon, when most kids are still at school. The way Disney does give their cartoons a slot where most kids aren't there, even for new episodes, show how they're focused on the success of their live-action movies/shows, mainly HSM and Hannah Montana.

As for CN, while it is trying to have success with their live-action series, Goosebumps and Out of Jimmy's Head, and they definately found a ratings hitting with Goosebumps, their network shouldn't really focus on those kinds of series. The name of their network means how they should be about cartoons, but the huge success of live-action shows on Disney and Nick, I believe, has gotten them interested in jumping on that band wagon. Besides that, fans of MTV said the same thing years ago. They're also much different from a station like Nick, where it began with live-actions shows and then incorporated cartoons starting in the early 90s. While it is true that they still have more cartoons on their block, that could easily change within a few years with their sucess of whatever live-action they would air. For them, as well as most other networks, their minds are focused mainly on the ratings.
 
HSM, Hanna Montana, Naked Brothers (different style, yes, but fits the mold), you could argue Class of 3000 fits in despite being animated. And it seems the trend is growing. OK, maybe trend is the wrong word. Fad is probably the better name for it.
 
Actually, NBB predates both HSM and Hannah Montana, and was originally pitched to Disney, but they rejected it because they already had a music show planned.

It's really just dumb luck these shows came out within close proximity of each other, which happens a lot in entertainment. Though I suppose Co3000 could have been made in response to HSM/HM/NBB, but that'd be the only one. I still don't think 1 show per network (2 of them being a coincidence) is enough to call it a fad, though.
 
Well, at least it's fair to say that HSM and Hanna Montana are fads in their own rights. Also, remember how popular Hilary Duff was in pop music a while back, and how if I recall correctly the Raven CDs sold very well? I'd say a Disney monopoly on the kids music industry has been going for a while, with HSM being the height of their success. It helps that they can plug their stuff on one of the only national radio station chains left.
 
How is high school really much more filled with peer-pressure than most adult working environments? I'm only a freshman, but I haven't lost my ability to think for myself yet.
 
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