If Less Popular Cartoons Were More Popular.

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Streets Disciple

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I'm sure there have been threads made on here about some cartoons that are overrated and others that are underrated. But something I thought of and what I'd like to know is if those same underrated shows had gained more popularity, what exactly would be your feelings on or reaction to them? Would y'all have been really glad that they suddenly got more shine or would y'all consider them overrated if they had been vise-versa? Or would anybody even be neutral? Y'all may name any cartoons that y'all would say are underrated, whether they're featurettes, t.v. shows or full-length features and then explain what y'all would think of them if they were as popular (if not even more so) as other shows have/had been. This is just what I've been wondering about for the longest now. Although I know the cartoons that may be thought of as overrated can be for various, different reasons, like a so-bad-it's-just-plain-bad rather than the so-called so-bad-it's-good thing, for one. I think I'll make a spin-off thread of this soon that's the other way around "If More Popular Cartoons Were Less Popular".
 
Well, there's an interesting thought. Just imagine... a world in which The X's and Kappa Mikey were both more popular than Spongebob. Ooh boy, that's definitely a weird image.

This kind of stuff is just too subjective to really think about. Of course, if some obscure cartoon like Time Squad would have, instead, turned out to be an entertainment empire recognized throughout the world, you'd have thousands of people that'd call it "overrated" just because it was popular. On the other hand, if, say, Spongebob were instead a show that only lasted one 13-episode season back in 1999, you'd have plenty of people that'd claim it as an underrated masterpiece that wasn't given a chance to find an audience. It works both ways.
 
Well, if some of the less celebrated animated series such as Time Squad, Kappa Mikey, Catscratch or Sheep in the Big City were hugely popular and commercially successful, then there would come the inevitable imitations from rival networks attempting to copy the formulas of said shows hoping to repeat their powerful success.

Overall, though, it's like Kiddington already said: this is really too subjective, as which shows are "overrated" and "underrated" is mostly a matter of opinion, depending on who you ask.
 
It's always hard to play what-if scenarios where it's easier to highlight under appreciated series.

That being said, I'd like to suggest that popularity comes from a few things. It's not just that show is made available, it's how you market it.

Here's a good example: Escaflowne. I think a lot of people around here will agree that Escaflowne is an AWESOME series, but Foxkids didn't market it right, didn't look enough into the series and didn't put it in a position to bloom so as a result, it probably reached far less people then it should have.

Another more recent example is Onepiece. Cartoon Network just didn't support the series well and 4Kids didn't exactly do a good job with it either. As a result, a series that was wildly popular in Japan and wildly popular with anime fans barely registered as a blip on the US Animation Radar.

Then you look at a series like Power Rangers, Digimon, Pokemon or YGO. Were they seriously good enough to warrant the explosive popularity they achieved or did it have to do a lot with the marketing of those series? It's hard to tell today, but we can look back and see that all these series were VERY WELL SUPPORTED. Much better the other series around them. Did this play into their popularity?
 
Here’s one: What if Dr. N!godatu was the break-out cartoon from Tracey Ullman, and not The Simpsons?

The history of animation on television would be shattered.

Would you support time travelers tampering with such events?
Dr. Katz would be like todays Family Guy.
 
There are a lot of what if's to think about. I'd like to think that the Critic and Dilbert would have lasted a LOT longer if they'd had more support from Fox and UPN.

On the Saturday Morning front, if the networks weren't so keen on cancelling most shows after only 1 or 2 seasons (unless they were really popular), just how far would Sonic SatAM, Wild West C.O.W.Boys of Moo Mesa, ALF TAS, and other shows have gone? Would they have gotten syndication deals for 40 to 65 more episodes at some point? Would they have lasted six plus seasons like Smurfs, TMNT, The Real Ghostbusters, etc?
 
I often wonder what would have happened had 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo been popular? They didn't even capture the last ghost. Would some thing else had happened to let the series continue?
 
From what I heard (it may have been just a rumor), had Scooby not gotten cancelled at that point, the 13 Ghosts aspect would have been dropped regardless and they'd have gone with another theme for the season, including having Scooby Dee as the new member of the gang.
 
Well, I wish The Secret Saturdays had been more popular so it could still be in production and air premieres alongside Generator Rex and SymBionic Titan (that could've been an amazing trio of action shows).

It was supposed to their next cashcow after Ben 10, so obviously there'd be a ton of merchandise after the first wave. Maybe it would become such a well-known property that sketch shows like MAD make parodies of it (like it did with Ben 10 last night) and is jokingly referenced in other shows like the Colbert Report (which, again, it did with Ben 10).

Inevitably, there would've been either a live-action TSS special (which wouldn't be anywhere near as funny, exciting or well-written as the cartoon) or a crossover with Ben 10 (which would be an absolutely putrid idea and not just because I personally detest Ben 10). Probably both.
 
I wonder what things would be like for Adult Swim now if The Boondocks and The Venture Brothers had stayed on their originally planned networks; The Boondocks was originally going to air on FOX before the network backed out of the deal, and Jackson Publik and Doc Hammer originally pitched Venture Brothers to Comedy Central,who turned it down.I wonder what AS would have aired in place of those 2 shows if they had never gotten them.
 
Spongebob has been relegated to "Does anyone remember?" type conversations and you can't walk into a store without seeing Tak and the Power of Juju merchandise.

Does this apply to movies too? If so Alpha and Omega would be the hit movie this year.
 
Despite it’s flaws, Adult Swim is quite good at allowing creators control over their cartoons. If Boondocks was a FOX program it may have gotten a bigger budget, more episodes per season and seen by a larger audience. McGruder may have been overwhelmed by the pace and frustrated by censoring. Even the anime look may have gotten nixed by FOX, so it would have been a very different show. I’m thinking [AS] Boondocks is a much better product then FOX Boondocks could have been.

Venture Bros. on Comedy Central is a toss-up. It’s possible they would have had a bigger budget.
My one hope for Venture Bros. is that it gets some movie length episodes like the Futurama DVDs, but not messed-up movies that have to double as separate episodes like the Futurama DVDs.


Funny thing is, I bet many of the people that hate Spongebob would have be angry at Nick if they didn’t pick it up for a series, because it had a pretty well respected pilot.
 
Winx Club would probably get a lot more hate because more people would have heard of it - some of its current (or past, it's sort of gone down when it presumably ended) haters talk about it like it's Sex and the City (talking about it like it's some mainstream phenomenon that changed the face of women's... er, girls'... entertainment, or more than just a Saturday morning cartoon (some discussions of which don't really belong in a discussion about a TV-Y7 rated childrens' cartoon). So I should have said discuss it like it's Hannah Montana in some respects.).
 
I wonder what if NBC didn't throw all its eggs in the same basket with the Smurfs and allowed the green light for more seasons of the 1982 Hulk and Spider-man & his Amazing Friends? These 2 series had more potential then we taught.

6Teen was very popular in Canada, it would had been more popular in the US when Nick who aired 6Teen first broadcasted the episodes in a correct order as well as a bigger promotion of the series.
 
You kidding me? So no matter how popular the show the 13 ghosts plot still would have been dropped? Would they have at least caught the last ghost? And really Scooby-Dee? Wo what a crazy add on LOL.
 
Boondocks was originally going to go to BET as a part of their animation block. This included Black Panther, a new superhero show created by Dwayne McDuffie and Denys Cowan, and a show produced by Will Smith. But the CEO hated the idea of animation on BET, thus utimately alienating both Reginald Hudlin and Aron McGruder.
 
What about if Clone High had been as popular ratings-wise as is critically post-cancellation? I would have hoped that MTV would have pumped a couple of more seasons out of it.

Even if that happened, I doubt it would have became overrated assuming the creators kept the same formula throughout.
 
Well, at that point, like Superfriends, Scooby was reinventing himself each season. I think only the original 'Where Are You?' series and the 7 minute Scooby/Scrappy shorts lasted beyond one mere season before moving onto the next new theme (Where Are You?- The New Scooby Movies-Scooby Doo Show-Scooby Doo & Scrappy Doo- NEW Scooby Doo & Scrappy Doo Show- New Scooby Doo Mysteries- 13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo- Whatever 86's theme would have been)
 
Not an unpopular cartoon by any means, but i read that Dan Povenmire and Jeff Marsh had created Phineas and Ferb long before the show actually debuted, and were shopping it around to nick, cartoon network, and fox kids before disney picked it up. I wonder if the show still would have gained as much popularity if it had been picked up by one of those networks. As for unpopular shows getting popular, i wonder if Megas XLR would have been bigger if they had had more merchandising.
 
I sometimes wonder what things would have been like if [adult swim] had more money to throw around. I heard that 2 of their pilots, Welcome to Eltingville and Korgoth of Barbaria, weren't green lit because they were each too expensive to produce as regular series. Eltingville in particular I would've loved to have seen become a regularly airing show on [as] had the network's budget allowed it to.
 
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