Second season improvments

I agree on on Avatar and Ed, Edd, n Eddy for many of the same reasons. And to that I'll add SpongeBob. While the the first season was lots of fun, I feel like the show really came into it's own by the second season. I always thought this season had the wackiest gags, clever innuendo, and most classic episodes.
 
Danny Phantom is the one show that usually comes to mind for me. Season 1 was just OK since the show was pretty much "Spider-Man with GHOSTS!", but Season 2...man. While the animation stayed the same quality, the writing actually improved quite a fair bit and gave the characters, well, more character outside of their outward stereotypes.

Then Season 3 came along and screwed it all up. :shrug:
 
I suppose Brandy & Mr. Whiskers may qualify for this. Steve Loter was brought onboard for the second season and the format of the series was changed significantly. Instead of the titular duo being stranded in a primitive jungle, the jungle suddenly became civilized, with amusement parks and shopping malls suddenly appearing. How they appeared was never explained, and a joke was even made about it in season two's first episode, but the sudden civilization did allow for a wider variety of plots. Brandy Harrington also stopped trying to find her way back home and simply accepted her new life in the jungle, even getting along much better with Mr. Whiskers. I think the second season was a marked improvement over the first season, but at the same time, it did some things worse and some people may disagree with my assessment.
 
Quite a number of Disney Channel cartoons in the past 5-10 years seem to have noticeable improvements in the second season. Even Emperor's New School got better. How much is up to you.

Also, Steve Loter worked on Brandy and Mr. Wiskers? Since he worked on American Dragon's second season, I guess that makes since. Speaking of bringing in people to fix something, the only reason I watched The Replacments in the first place was because Steven Silver mentioned on his blog that he redesigned the characters and I got curious on what else had changed for the show.
 
I rewatched recently one of season 2's episode name "A Really Crushing Crush" and they have Katie Rice name in storyboard which is very fine despite the fact that this show was made by a live-action writer. (Familiar with Sid Marcus?) But what stop me to rewatch again and again this season was the John McIntyre directing. He did flat and uninspiring episodes and looking too excited to make random gags who goes finally too forced and out of nowhere. Just as the way it's in the same level of the Columbia cartoons from the 1940's (Not the UPA stuff).

The first season is better despite the standard formula of Brandy want to bring back at home. The season 2 seems a cheat.
 
The animation and expressions got stiffer, but other than that, Mlaatr improved immensely by the second season. It still always suffered from the godawful "Status Quo is the Way to Go" writing (among other things), but there was far less juvenile attempts at humor in favor of character-driven storylines. Suprisingly, the attempts at drama ended up resulting in the best episodes, and for once you get romance that has substance beyond "Wouldn't these two look cute together?" with Jenny and Sheldon(unlike, say, Danny and Sam). It never quite hit its stride (I have a feeling it was due to Rob having a shallow view on his creation, seeing only the show's potential for humor, not really concerned with characterization or development), but most of the series better episodes are from the second season.
 
I'll echo the Marvel Action Hour. The first seasons of these are jokes with inconsistent animation and plots which often make no sense. Iron Man in particular is very clearly trying to push a toyline and Fantastic Four was just dull (the Doom three parter...ugh). The second season just clicked so much better and amazingly did this whilst keeping at least basic continuity with what had come before. Force Works were written out to create some nice drama and a more focussed cast, the Mandarin got a nice season long arc which built up across every episode, the obnoxious Baxter Building land lady was removed, etc. Makes it all the more a shame that even this couldn't save the show from cancellation.
 
Rugrats is another Nickelodeon example. Unlike others, I dig Wang's funkier animation and the more "esoteric" music scores Mark Mothersbaugh did for the first season, mostly out of nostalgia. But when Anivision takes over for Season 2, the animation and character designs improve drastically, and the writing of the show under Paul Germain's posse becomes sharper and more satirical.
 
Jimmy Neutron seems to be the biggest stand out for me. The first season seemed to be all over the place, with lots of hit or miss episodes and the plots and characters being pretty generic. As soon as the second season came along though, the villains became fleshed out and reoccuring, the comedy felt more character driven, and the cast dynamic became far more natural.

It's a shame Planet Sheen doesn't have the same luck.
 
Phineas and Ferb: I'd say that the real improvement point would be Season 1's episode "Dude, We're Getting the Band Back Together!", which showed just how well the show could be done with it's seemingly "repetitive" plot, but season 2 really improved and played with everything the show was doing, and even managed to do some really cool experimental episodes (like Unfair Science Fair and Bubbleboys/Isabella and the Temple of Sap).

ReBoot: Went from a fairly average, kinda poorly voiced "Supervillain caused weekly problems" type of childrens show into a dark, epic story halfway through season 2.

The only other thing I can think of as a kind-of example is the completely unwatchable Super Mario Bros Super Show turning into the campy Super Mario Bros. 3 Cartoon that spent most of its time focusing on the funny to watch Koopalings as apposed to the personality deprived Mario and his personalityless friends.
 
In my personal opinion, I actually think some of the earlier episodes work better than what we got after or are currently getting. The show has definitely grown and improved, but I think some necessary edge has been lost. In a recent interview, Povenmire complains about how a frustrated writer for the show asked if the characters actually had any character to actually play with and that his response was that the writer was expecting the same cynical, snarky characters that most shows offer these days. I kind of agree with both of them because enjoyable as it is, often times I feel that everyone is a bit too wishywashy. For example, Buford works better with the cast now he's not just a cliche bully antagonist but there was actually some character and conflict when he was. I'm not a fan of needlessly harsh humour but sometimes I think Phineas and Ferb plays it far too safe.
 
Phineas and Ferb was lightning in a bottle for Disney, because they actually managed to create something on par with a classic Cartoon Network/WB-style show and not have it be cancelled outright within its first season. The fact that it's a cute show and at the same time can lampshade itself is what works for it, and I have actually caught myself watching full episodes of this season, as opposed to earlier when I wasn't all that into it.
 
Pardon me for bumping this up, but one more example came to me;

I Am Weasel. Most of the episodes of the first season revolved around some variation of "Baboon unsuccessfully tries to upstage or sabotage Weasel", which really limited the comedic potential of the shorts. Season 2 added the Red Guy as a major character, who was even funnier than he was in Cow and Chicken, plus there was much more variety in the stories.
 
Planet Sheen is only on the first season, like you said Jimmy Neutron first season was just off. It could happen here too for all we know, could get better in the second season. Any who, gotta agree with whoever said Danny Phantom, season one was pretty cool, the season finale was its best episode, with GhostFreak and Danny being controlled. Than season two came around the corner and it had some of the best episodes/movies. Kind of feel like watching Danny Phantom now :sweat:
 
It was easy to see the potential in Jimmy Neutron even when watching the first season. I've seen enough of Planet Sheen to see that it isn't the case here.
 
I also echo Danny Phantom. The show didn't get good until the episode where Walker and his cops went into the Danny's world near the end of season 1.
 
Awe I guess its been a while since I've watched Danny Phantom :p

DarthGonzo I guess it was different for me, the only thing keeping me intrested in the first season of Jimmy Neutron was Sheen's crazy comments. Than in the second season, I started liking all the characters except Carl. Than the third season came around and I felt they started writing better storylines. I guess I'm giving Planet Sheen a chance cuz of that. If it doesn't get better in the second season than well.
 
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