The Effects Of Time

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I had noticed that a lot of people were genuinely bothered by the sudden death of “Toonami”. There were those who had expected the block to come to an end, but most people saw it as a monument to Cartoon Network’s past and expected it to be the beacon towards its future. The decision that was made by Cartoon Network will likely be the subject of great scrutiny for quite some time, but that is not the reason that I made this thread. “Toonami” was a staple of Cartoon Network for eleven years, yet in a decade, it will have practically been forgotten. The same is true for just about every animated program that we love today.

It can be difficult for us to put such things into perspective, yet many of the animated programs that were loved a decade or two ago are relative unknowns to today’s youth. There will always be those who look to the past, and those who lived in the past will certainly remember what took place, but as generations lead into generations, most of the animated programs that we have enjoyed will gradually be forgotten. Even animated programs that were quite important, such as “Gummi Bears” are no longer discussed today, so how will the future treat the animated programs of the Disney Afternoon or the WB Silver Age? How will the future treat the Nicktoons and the Cartoon Cartoons? Most of it is going to be forgotten; little more than archival footage of what people used to watch in the “old days”. Even the ones that are lucky enough to receive DVD releases aren’t going to be the subject of contemporary discussion.

Can anything really be done to change that? Even some of the legendary characters of the past are practically forgotten; do children today even know who Popeye is? I’m pretty sure that the name “Bugs Bunny” will cause children to think more about “Baby Looney Tunes” than the classical shorts. Chances are, they’ll only fall more into obscurity in the coming years.

Am I too pessimistic? What do you believe the effects of time are? Will the animated programs of yesterday and today be remembered fondly in the future, or will children not even know what the hell “Animaniacs” or “Rocko’s Modern Life” was. Actually, I doubt that most children today know what they are, which is more-or-less the reason for this thread. Still, it’s difficult to come to terms with the fact that the kids of tomorrow will know so little about the brilliant animated programs that we have all enjoyed.

I’ve rambled enough. Perhaps somebody else can put a positive spin on doom. :p
 
New gets replaced with old; that's the circle of life. I see no problem with it. There's always channels like Boomerang if you want to see them, but we should always be pushing forward when it comes to television.
 
I have always been in favor of new ideas, but the fact that so many of the classics are more-or-less forgotten by today’s youth leaves me doubtful about the future. Nobody likes to see the things that they love become irrelevant and be forgotten.
 
Disagree. In the past decades networks have done well at mixing the old with the new, so I fail to see why old shows/cartoons are all of a sudden an entertainment plague.



Seconded. Besides, if old movies, literature, music can be enjoyed by today's audience, then so should animation.

Even then, I can understand the more obscure less successful shows such as Jabberjaw and Speed Buggy being left out of basic cable, but as far as I'm concerned, if an old show has lasted several decades through spinoffs and episode count, then said show deserves a more prominent airtime.
 
I am in agreement. Our past disagreement was based on a misunderstanding; as you said, networks shouldn’t rely on older programming, but I believe it’s downright appalling that “Looney Tunes” isn’t airing somewhere.
 
While I'm all for enjoying the classics from all kinds of eras, my generic stance is that I think new generations should get their own classics rather than perpetually depending on those of an older generation.

We may have already lost some classics, since preserving film and TV shows for future audiences was not something that anybody thought about until relatively recently. The BBC just threw out entire seasons of Doctor Who because they didn't want to store them. Hollywood fought long and hard against VCRs because the idea that people would pay to own pre-recorded movies (let alone old TV shows) was completely and totally alien to them. I'm sure that there's some truly great programming that's either sitting in a vault somewhere, slowly decomposing without anybody to know or care about it, or that those shows or shorts are already gone forever.

I don't think you realize how much easier it is to get classic cartoons in front of kids than it was in the past. I remember the days when dinosaurs roamed the earth and there were 3 major networks, 2 local syndication stations, and PBS on TV (and we had to get up off the couch to change channels, even). Cable TV was cool because we got 30 whole channels and there was nothing remotely resembling the home video market of today. Between DVD, 800+ cable networks, video on demand, and the Internet, it seems to me that today, the problem isn't one of having limited choices, but having too many. It's not that kids won't have the chance to see the classics, but that those classics will be be drowned in an ocean of other, far lesser cartoons competing for their attention, and that's an entirely different problem.

You're also relying the taste of network programmers to pick the good stuff over the bad stuff, and history has demonstrated that they do not always have the ability to tell the difference between "old" and "classic." Honestly, the cost to license is probably much more important than the quality of the show. When older networks were recycling older shows, they were doing it to control costs, not because they thought the stuff was good. The Popeye I got on TV was the far inferior post-Fleischer pre-HB product, which is why I was never much of a Popeye fan as a child. I also think I got much later Woody Woodpecker, which I hear isn't as good as the earlier stuff.

Also, you can't really count on kids to be willing to sit through a classic 'toon. People consider Heckle & Jeckle and Mighty Mouse to be classics, but I never liked them as a kid, and I'm pretty sure I was getting the good stuff for those. Kids should have the choice (and, as I said above, I think they do), but you have to be ready for them to reject what you think they should like. I think there is an impression that "old" == "boring" among the general populace, which is why a lot of people today won't sit through a black-and-white movie even if it's Casablanca. While older networks would use old shows to control costs, nowadays I guess the economics works out that it's cheaper to try newer stuff in the hopes that you'll hit the next Hannah Montana.

I don't know that any of the above will make you feel better, but I'm just looking at it from a different angle because I'm old :p :D. The reality is that most shows end up forgotten, no matter how popular or classic they are considered at the time. Who here has ever watched an episode of Gunsmoke or the original Mission: Impossible? You might look back fondly at those older days when networks recycled older programming and kids could watch the classics, but even so, it seems to me that we're better off than we ever were in the past at preserving historical and the classic cartoons and getting them in front of a new generation.

-- Ed
 
Which is why I think that shows such as The Flintstones, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Smurfs, The Real Ghostbusters, Thundercats and Superfriends could do well. I mean they outlasted much of their sibling shows did they not (whether through high episode count or spinoffs)?

Now again, I could understand hesitancy to air the failed programs such as Jabberjaw, Speedy Buggy and Funky Phantom, but the shows I listed above had plenty of episodes produced and went beyond just being successful. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for instance made it up to 193 episodes with The Real Ghostbusters getting 120 episodes. And considering that those shows originated in The 80s (where the majority of cartoons ended at 26 episode), those episode numbers aren't something to sneeze at.



Fair enough, but if they can enjoy the older episodes of Sccoby Doo, Tom & Jerry and Spider-Man And His Amazing Friends, I don't see why other old shows should do poorly. Now sure, they are tied to famous franchises, but it doesn't change the fact that the shows perform well despite their old age.
 
This is an interesting topic. I also agree that kids should, and I believe they do the last time I checked, whether or not they want to watch classic cartoons. Some kids might find some of them interesting if they watch it on a channel or either they or their parents buy DVDs. A lot can end up being forgotten, but not completely, I would think, if there are some people who still enjoy the series or are affected by it in some way, whether in life in general or in how they chose to watch another series. Basically, kids can watch some classic cartoons if they want to, but I also think that having some of their own contemporary programs would be great so that their generation gets the chance to watch their own classic cartoons.
 
That's what I did when I was younger. I would flip to Cartoon Network and watch Looney Tunes in the morning and Toon Heads at night. *sigh* Brings back memories. :crying:
 
I think it's a tough situation. On the one hand, I do agree with appreciating older productions and ocassionly continuing them. On the other hand, there are equally valid advantages for leaving these things in the past and bringing forth new ideas.

Some personal perspective- as widely know, I'm a Gundam fan. It started in 1979 and I became a fan not long after the 20th anniversary (its 30th is next year). Many of the production crew, including creator Yoshiyuki Tomino, have said Gundam was always intended to be a standalone series and after that they'd move onto other works. Heck, some of them are rather angry that it's become what they're most famous for and openly say people should ignore it and generate new ideas. But because of its cultural and finanical success, Gundam continues to this day. Tomino tried to effectively give it an ending for the 20th anniversary but after learning that wouldn't happen, he's taken to publically saying that he believes it's no longer his concern and believes it should be the work of younger talent.

With a situation like that, there are two main reactions in my mind. On the one hand, it's great to see new content and such being created. But on the other, it can be seen as desperately clinging to an idea the original creators feel should have been put to bed a while ago. That's certainly a more than fair opinion, especially since Gundam tends to get by by serving up the same basic ideas every 5 years or so to a new generation of kids. There have even been recent productions that have led fans like myself to say "This is an interesting idea...but it really didn't need to be Gundam. It would have worked much better as a brand new, independent series".
 
Anyway, I do agree with Ed that this generation should be allowed to have it's own classics in addition to our own. But as I stated in another thread, with networks burning out their shows, no matter how good a program is, it will wear out it's welcome before it has a chance to achieve classic status.
 
No...not true. Do you remember things from when you were a TODDLER? If you're born now, then you'll be ten years old ten years from now. Therefore, those kids would have just been born in the present time.
 
Eh. I'm not John K here. I could care less about the "classics". They look like crap compared to what's being done in what is now the future.

The future is now.

Far as I'm concerned, let em die....I'd rather face the future than linger in the past.

And honestly, the kind of "classic" I prefer to remember is REAL narratives, like Blade Runner and Tolkien's Ring Trilogy and War and Peace. The new school of animation (what with computers and the age of information) comes closer to achieving such a level of depth and splendor (or basically, perfection) than any Walt Disney film ever did. Heck, even Walt Disney himself, The Devil Himself, or a Visionary in the animation community, depending on who you ask, actually had the nerve to fire or at least refuse to work with authors like Aldous Huxley for being "too deep" for Disney. Just like Tank Girl and Akira (when it first came out in the U.S.) were both considered "too hip and cool for Spielberg" (in their own regrettable words) and they turned both projects down at the time. (You can bet I don't forget historical facts like that).

And that is why deep down, I kind of hate Disney. Sure he could do fantasy, but he was not the king of true narrative. Osamu Tezuka came closer to that, considering the length of his work as it compares to Disney, even if Astro Boy (back then anyway) came nowhere close to the visual level of American animation at the time. But things have changed. And evolved. If you look at the big picture, in the universe of animation around the world, in an objective sense, progress has been made. And besides, Walt Disney never had modern anime and its culture, corporate espionage, or YouTube to contend with like everyone today does. So in many ways he had it easier or at least simpler than our generation does.

Will this be a controversial post, I suspect, among the animation elite? Yes, probably, but hey, that's what I'm here for, to add fuel to the fire.
 
Especially now. The Japanese and the French get this. Americans? Not so much, hence the daytime lineup of boomerang, which is biased in favor of Hannah Barbera pseudo-classics over everything else in classic and semi-classic (90s/80s) television animation.

So frustrating
 
Except we're not against the newer programs, we're accepting of both.

And frankly if you have to take comments out of context, you failed to make a credible arguement.



A: Simplicity doesn't equal crap.
B: Facing the future doesn't mean that you have to abandon the past.
C: There's room for both old and new, why does it have to be one or the other. I mean, I can understand if there were only a few cable channels, but with literally hundreds there's nothing wrong with some channels or timeslots with the older stuff.
 
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