What do you look for in a cartoon?

A

allsmilezayo77

New member
What do you look for in a cartoon? What keeps you hooked after seeing an episode? What are your pet peeves that will curse the cartoon and cause a violent rant?

Starting off, when I see a new cartoon, I listen to dialogue and voices. Depending on what I hear factors heavily on what I watch.

What keeps me hooked to a cartoon is subject matter and art style, and for me the latter is heavily affected when it comes to seeing different versions of the same thing ie BTAS and The Batman. If the art looks like a step back, I likely will need a alot more to accept and watch.

My pet peeves are plot holes. If a new series sets up the story and theme, only to chuck the series' logic out of the window for an episode or two, I'll stop watching. Cliches are a tiny one, and it depends. ie serious talking dogs with accents are a peeve, but won't enrage me.
 
Believability. If a cartoon can make me forget that what I'm viewing is an animated image, then I consider it to be a rousing success. This includes aspects like character dimensionality, convincing storylines, vibrant animation, compelling music, legitimate voice acting, etc. This is extremely difficult to pull off in the world of animation, but those who do succeed can create true masterpieces of the moving image.
 
The three fundamental qualities I look for in any cartoon are:
  • Is it appealing in its own way?
  • Is it well-written?
  • Is it entertaining?
If a cartoon can't meet those basic qualities, why watch it?
 
A main goal, plot and character that develop, creativity in abilities and location, no filler (or at the very least, only a few episodes), and well written stories with plenty of twists and turns.

Unfortunately we get very few shows like that, and I'm not sure why that is. The last one was W.I.T.C.H.: The Animated Series (ended 2 years ago).
 
Generally, I look for appealing characters and designs, good writing and entertaining stories. A cartoon which has these three elements has me as a fan.



I have to admit, I'm not the biggest fan of episodic cartoons, because shows which run in a serial fashion have to be watched in a specific order; if you come in in the middle of a saga, you're completely lost in the plot since you haven't been meticulously following every event leading up to that point. I generally prefer shows in which each installment is a self-contained story. That way, you can watch any random episode at any given moment or in any given order and still be entertained and not be totally lost.
 
Guess we're opposites then. I can't really get into a show unless I know something's going to come out of the premise/plot it's giving. I find it boring when the heroes fight the villain over and over each week with no real progress (like G.I Joe and Samurai Jack)
 
The first thing I look at is the character designs, unless I've already heard overwhelmingly good or bad things about the writing. In the writing, I really appreciate it when a cartoon steers clear of stock lines and overused types of jokes.

Any cartoon that abuses toilet humor, is especially mean-spirited, or takes jokes from other medium unironically will lose my interest in a snap.
 
I just want to be entertained. And since my preference is with comedy cartoons for me to be entertained means I need to get a good laugh from what I'm watching.

That's all.
 
What it needs: A cartoon has to have a good premise. To me, a good premise matters above everything else. No matter how good the art or how funny the jokes, I will not watch a cartoon unless there's a good premise. That's one of the main reasons I disliked Class of 3000; the premise didn't catch my attention, though I liked the wavy style of the art.

What keeps me with it: After the premise gets me interested, a few factors control whether I will continuously watch it. The art needs to be good, that's my first attraction. Good art hooks me on after the premise interests me. That's why I was iffy towards Adventure Time, since the art doesn't appeal to me at all. As for the jokes, good writing and good voice acting does A LOT and I mean A LOT. Believe it or not, a lot of cartoons have very good writing, but simply the way the voice actors voice the characters can either make or break the joke. Sometimes a piece of writing isn't even meant to be funny, but the way the voice actor performs the line makes it funny. This is the case with Chowder and Flapjack. Both of which have good jokes, but the jokes are strengthened by the way the voice actors say it, and sometimes something that's not even meant to be a joke makes it funny if it is said funny. The same goes for facial expressions. A show needs to have a variety and details in facial expressions. A joke can be funny, but if a character doesn't look like they would in reality when they say the joke, the joke can fall flat. Once again, both Chowder and Flapjack achieve excellence in facial expressions. In all and in order, Good art, Good voice acting/writing/facial expressions.

My Pet Peeves: My biggest pet peeve is art. I need art to be good. I'm a big critic on art, right down to the boldness of the lines or the color schemes or the background designs. I find it hard to enjoy a show with bad art. A minor pet peeve I have is that the character's need to have stable personalities. This kinda goes along with the premise, but if a character doesn't have an original personality and has no interesting characterizations with their relations with other characters or (in action cartoons) the way they develop, a show falls bland and I often find myself saying (why didn't they do this, why didn't they do that).

So, what makes a good cartoon:

Good premise
Good art
Good writing/voice-acting/facial expressions
Good characters

Oh! and animation. I can't stand looking at shows like TDI and Johnny Test because they're so poorly animated. It bothers me...a lot.
 
Talented writers are costly, the inexperienced ones on the other hand aren't in the position to expect a lot of money.



But that's really a matter of execution. I for one watched the W.I.T.C.H. episode "W Is For W.I.T.C.H." among the others who didn't wait for the preceding episodes and enjoyed it no less.
 
W is for WITCH was a great episode, but it did pretty much ruin the four+ huge plot twists in U is for Undivided and V is for Victory when Disney aired it before those episodes (I think it was two weeks ahead, correct me if I'm wrong), and would definately be a lot better to watch them all in order. Sort of like watching Return of the Jedi before Empire Strikes Back; doable, but meant to be seen in order since you'll miss a lot of stuff in the end.
 
True, but the point is that the episode was still enjoyable. If anything, seeing the proceding episode only makes it more enjoyable (You know what happens beforehand, but seeing how the events came to pass is the highlight).
 
In a cartoon, I just want one thing: comedy. I'm open to many different forms of comedy, such as weirdness [Billy and Mandy, Invader ZIM], realistic blured with cartoonish humor [The Simpsons], emphasis on art [Ren and Stimpy], and various other cartoons with no specific description.
 
I hold different standards for most shows. I have some pretty lax expectations for comedies, simply expecting likeable characters and good writing. The jokes need to be fresh, and the situations can't just feel like someone placed different problems on a dartboard and threw an arrow at them.

For action series, I expect the above as well as a somewhat sympathetic villain. He needs to have a reason for his actions, not just be evil for the sake of being evil. There also has to be some sort of repurcussion, otherwise it loses the believability of the conflict. Also, the action scenes have to be well choreographed, especially important since that bar has been raised by recent series like Avatar, TMNT, and Spectacular Spider Man.

Adaptations have the most expectations out of me. Aside from the stuff above, I expect the series to be either very close or completely the same as the source material. The characters also can't be completely screwed over, though I'm willing to let some support characters get downplayed.
 
I probably should have mentioned that I'm more into comedy than action. So another prerequisite in that genre is of course that it has to be funny.

In regards to action cartoons, fighting villains over and over doesn't really bother me, as long it's not the same villain every time. That just gets old and tired real fast.
 
Back
Top