Opinion: Jake Long vs Juniper Lee

M

Marshawn

New member
I didn't know whether to put this in the Disney or CN forums, so I posted it here. Here goes:

There are so many eerie similarities between Disney's American Dragon: Jake Long and CN's The Life and Times of Juniper Lee that I would feel nauseous if both shows came on simultaneously (by switching back and forth between the two channels).

I mean:

-Both main characters are of Chinese ancestry and battle magical creatures while balancing out their normal lives.
-Both main characters have the initials of "J. L."
-Both are accompanied by younger (about half their age) siblings and toy-sized dogs (what breeds are Fu Dog and Monroe, anyway?); and mentored by their grandparents.

Are these similarities intentional or coincidental?

I assume that sooner or later, Disney and CN would get in trouble with each other...but it might make an interesting crossover!
 
Fu is a Sharpai,Monroe is a pug (I think...)

American Dragon was here first.Also,it pwns Juniper.When it was first thought of,all the way to now and forevermore.
 
I also think that the fact that both series have similar traits is a coincident. While both shows premiered within a few months, I'm sure that they were both in development for awhile as well. I also think that American Dragon proved to be more interesting and better, to me at least, than Juniper Lee. Juniper Lee did have better artwork, compared to season one of American Dragon anyway, but I wasn't drawn into it as much as the other series.

I think some of my problems with the Juniper Lee was how she couldn't tell anyone about being a magical warrior other than her annoying little brother and grandmother. At least Jake was able to tell his friends eventually about him being a dragon. Besides that, the fact that Juniper was suppose to be eleven years old and be that tall, not to mention all of her friends looked and acted like teenagers, not elementary school kids, always got on my nerves. I also was more interested in the writing for American Dragon than I was for Juniper Lee overall.
 
On a side, somewhat un-related note: Whenever I try to think of Juniper's male best friend, I always come up with Roger of "American Dad!". :sweat:
 
I like American Dragon more. One of the things I don't like about Juniper Lee was how all the monsters were invisible.
..among other things.
 
But Juniper Lee was in development years before that but it didn't become an animated series till 2005. ;)

I enjoyed Juniper Lee more because of the character designs and the various baddies that June had to fight. I thought the monsters being invisible is more interesting that having them just hide from humans. As for Jake Long, it's ok though I didn't like Fuu Dog and the way Jake was talking all "gansta" like. And I thought it was confusing to have a design change during the second season.
 
In reguards to Jake's arrogant attitude, which is a flow of his and I have heard lots complain about his attitude, and how his arrogance may make want to see him fail, a good comparison to that is 10 year old Ben Tennison from the original Ben 10.

Now if Jake and Ben ever meet, I don't think the room would be big enough for their egos. LOL
 
J.L., by a long shot. :P

Seriously, for me, Juniper Lee was the better show. First off, whereas Long mostly ran through the standardized set of mythical creatures (a goblin is a leprechaun is a unicorn is a blah blah blah...), Lee went with making up new and original creatures, and at least tried to put a new spin on old favorites (hippie leprechauns beat out stereotypical Irish ones any day, IMO). And I personally thing invisible creatures is a better story than creatures that are oh-so-clever at "blending in".

Second, the storytelling in Lee was just plain better. The problem with Long, as well as many Disney shows in general (Recess, later KP, etc.), is that what the characters say and do seems to come a bit too easily to them, while the action moves a bit too quickly from one point to another. There's no pause, no time to let the scene speak for itself. It's like the storyboarders were trying to cram as much content into as little time as possible. Lee went at a slower, and IMO more natural, pace. Not to mention, the humor felt so much more natural in Lee than Long; wish I could name some examples, but it's been a while since watching either show. Plus, Lee's real world references FTW.

Finally, the characterizations were much more relatable in Lee than Long. For example, as far as kid siblings go, RayRay may have come off as annoying, but at least he was sincere, and not out to best his sibling like another stereotypical little girl who could only be sincere when the episode called for it. I could go on, but my point is that the Lee characters generally act more believably and naturally than the Long ones do.

And, uh, that's all I got.
 
I hear ya, and couldn't agree more. :lol:

Unfortunately I haven't seen to much of either, although Juniper Lee was just starting to be broadcast at home in Irish right before I left. It seemed like a decent enough kind of show.
 
Ray-Ray was VERY annoying, actually. He was one of the main reasons why I had to stop watching Juniper Lee. Perhaps I might have found Ray-Ray more tolerable if he had a reduced role on the show, but he was on camera every smegging second! Argh!!
 
I'd say the similarities are coincidental. Anyone whose chief influence is as soul-destroyingly uninspired as American Dragon would be banned from working in any kind of creative medium the minute he put pen to paper. I mean, come on, even a TV executive would shudder at the thought of a lack of imagination that profound
 
I could agree with that if it weren't for the fact that Haley has made some appearances where her annoyance factor was toned down, plus the fact that had some character growth. Something I don't recall happening with RayRay.
 
I remember flipping through the channels and Jake Long was on and two of Jake's friends were doing that "Want s'mores?" "S'more what!" "S'mores!" "S'more what!"

I never passed Disney Channel again while channel surfing.

EDIT: Oh, and out of all the "Kids having powers keeping secrets" shows (Danny Phantom, Jake Long, etc), I think Juniper Lee was the coolest.

But I admire Kim Possible for not having to be like "LOL MY COOLNESS HAS TO BE A SECRET YOU GUYS SSHHHHHHH" and just being like "GOTTA GO SAVE THE WORLD BRB YOU GUYS".
 
First of all I totally agree with you about Kim Possible, it is a great chance of pace of not following the cliche of secret identity. The only other similartiy is My Life Is A Teenage Robot, but I digrice.

I never saw Jupiter Lee so I will not comit on that, but Jake and Haley that have shown character and have improved greatly as people, in the beginning of the series they both were very unbearable with their attitudes.

But from the beginning, I can't help but compair Haley favorable to the other Dante Basco voice character sister, and Haley is favorable in any point of the series. I rather have a snob annoying little sister like Haley who deep down loves me, is on my side and have my back over a evil psycho like Azula any day of the week.
 
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