Overrated Cartoons

I wouldn't say UTTERLY forgettable, but there are some shows that retain nearly 100% of their appeal, or even the rare few that actually IMPROVE upon repeat viewings, and I don't get the sense that Avatar is one of them. Naturally it'll take watching it through again to be sure (which I'll probably do if the DVDs ever drop in price), but I get the feeling that there's probably not much more to be discovered about the characters or themes with a repeat viewing that wasn't immediately obvious with the first viewing.

And, yeah, the third season / finale were fine for what they were, but they could've been stronger IMO.
The sea turtle showing up out of nowhere to give Aang his new bending-taking-awaying superpower was kind of deus ex machina, and having Aang whack his back against a rock to return his Avatar State power was just ridiculous.
 
They didn't really do anything, though, just fight some random no-named guards. There was no real challenge or final battle for them. Then again, there was only like two villains on the show (one of which didn't really do anything until the finale) so I guess they ran out of match-ups. Would be nice if there were more antagonists on the show
 
Considering that two of them lacked bending and that the only bender among them had limited material, I thought they got decent challenges, though I do agree that a better antagonist could have been found/used.



No apologies need, just that too many posters associate overrated with "what I don't like".
 
The entire DCAU is overated, JL and JLU in particular. I'd go on, but I really feel there's no explanation neccessary.

Instead, I'll turn to Kim Possible and W.I.T.C.H, which are moderately good shows, but waaay overrated by their fanbases.

Kim Possible really had a lot of flaws to accompony the strengths. One of the biggest was the characters of Kim and Ron themselves. The writers tried too hard to make Kim a strong female role model that she came across as arrogant and off-putting on several occasions. On the flipside, Ron became more and more of a Butt Monkey as the show went on, only regaining dignity in the last season. Will Friedell pitching his voice up did not help matters. The strengths of Kim Possible are good, but they're not good enough to overlook the flaws. :sweat:

As for W.I.T.C.H, I was vastly left unimpressed by much of the first season, especially when compared to the Meridian Arc of the original comics. Much of the plot was dragged out and boring, and there was character butchering (Cornelia) and annoying new characters (Blunk) aplenty. The second season, thanks to Greg Weisman, was the opposite; it was very good. The villain Nerissa and her plan were especially well-written. But that finale...ugh. I can't understand some folks' praise for that finale; as it consisted of just the girls going up against the boring Cedric for the umpteenth time, with the gimmick of Cedric having supah-powers! I don't care if all loose ends were tied up or not, I expect finales to be cool, and this one was lame. Even the first season's finale was better, and that's saying something. :yawn:

Oh, and concerning Avatar, I agree that it can be overrated (really, what popular thing can't be?) but I think people who underrate it because of the third season are just being silly. The third season was a drop from the second, yes, but it was still high quality nonetheless, especially the second half. It's not as if the third season was bad, it's just not as just as the second season, and really, the second season wasn't completely perfect either. Saying that the whole show went down the drain because of the final season being somewhat lesser than the previous one is ridiculous and IMHO rather shallow.
 
Wow, the whole DCAU? Well to each their own I suppose, I was a fan of almost all the stuff put out based on DC characters, this is the first time I have ever seen anyone say this. Come to think of it, I did kind of get tired of all the Batman TAS praise back in the day, I loved the show and all but jeez people would not shut up about it. Interesting post man.
 
I don't think you can call any show that aired on a channel less than 500,000 people watch overrated; if anything, W:TAS is underrated. Factor in the sexist stigma it got ('Girl main characters? Clearly a girl's show") and you got yourself a recipe for an underrated show. Even more of a shame when you realize how groundbreaking it was for US animation.

Oh, B:TAS is definately overrated. It was revolutionary/groundbreaking, no doubt about that, but it may be because I didn't watch it until a few years ago, but I didn't actually enjoy it that much. It might be one of those "have to watch it growing up" shows, like Transformers G1 (Another show I didn't see until adulthood, I much prefer Beast Wars to G1, and JL/JLU to B:TAS), that doesn't mean it's a bad show, though. Overall, I feel the DCAU peaked late in it's life (JL-era), rather than early (B:TAS-era) Still, it was a fine show, and considering how revolutionary it was, I can't fault it too much for the praise it gets, but it does get annoying.
 
Sponge Bob/Simpsons were both very over rated for me. The Simpsons did not need almost 20 years on the air and I have never seen the attraction to Sponge Bob, I have seen the show here and there and just don't see what it could be. I guess the kiddies love it and some adults are drawn to it's sense of humor. Chowder reminds me a lot of Sponge Bob.
 
IMHO, just about everything on Fox Sunday nights, King of the Hill, Simpsons, Family Guy and American Dad. I used to love Family Guy, but lately it seems to be jumbled and a mere husk of what it once was. I hated the Blue Harvest special, real weak.
 
I meant overrated by fanbase. Speaking of which...



Yeah, and apparently I nor the general public have yet to realize just what was so groundbreaking about it. It was good, but there are other shows before and after it that have done what it did and did it better (for instance, Gargoyles. Weisman's work on W.I.T.C.H and Spider-Man is great, but Gargoyles far and away remains his best work IMHO.) You say it's groundbreaking, but I see no ground broken.

Come to think of it, an even worse situation is Sonic SATAM. It's fanbase really seems to claim it's groundbreaking and a masterpiece, but really, as other people have pointed out, it didn't really do anything for TV animation history and watching it today, it doesn't hold up as well as several other shows from that era did.
 
It was the first US cartoon (that I can think of, someone correct me if I'm wrong) to have an actual set goal which developed every episode with little/no filler or any "adventure of the day" plotlines, and ended with the main villain defeated. A lot of shows may establish a goal (defeat the evil Cobra Commander/Decepticons/Aku/Big bad) but few actually choose to develop it in every episode (let alone at all) and they never get any closer to defeating the big bad than the previous week, or take their time and draw the series out with various side-villains (aka a Rogue Gallery). Very rare for U.S. animation even today, with only a handful of shows that can fit that definition

One could argue it's "groundbreaking" as in it was the first (of unfortunately many) reimagining of Sonic being "dark" and "serious", though that only applies to Sonic and not cartoons (B:TAS is the series which broke ground for dark/serious cartoons) and plenty of people would argue it wasn't for the best (going by the quality of the franchise these days) But I honestly don't see many people talk about it so I don't think I'd call it overrated, even though I don't like it.
 
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