When Cartoons That SHOULD Have Been Good Go Bad

In what way did Yin and Yang have sexist attitudes? They were intentionally comically exaggerated versions of boy and girl archetypes, nothing more, and certainly nothing sexist.

The buh? You're declaring Chowder a failure just because of the character designs? Have you actually seen any episodes of Chowder? Yes, the show's creator was a writer on SpongeBob, but the show is not, repeat, not a ripoff of SpongeBob. It has a unique humor and writing style all its' own. I personally think Chowder is one of the best shows to come down the pike in recent years.
 
Here's some more:

Spider-Man Unlimited & Avengers: United They Stand (1999): Fox, or more specifically, Saban, fumbled big time with these two. With the Avengers, Saban decided that certain of the characters (Ant-Man & Wasp stand out) should have full-face helmets, a la the Power Rangers & Beetleborgs. That was the kiss of death all by itself. Spider-Man Unlimited sent Spidey to Counter-Earth, but the complex plot was lost on fans expecting a more natural follow-up to the last series. Fox suits, desperate to counter-program the hottest show of the period (Pokemon), pulled SMU after 3 weeks. Avengers was delayed, then pulled, all within about a month.

Wishkid, Pro-Stars, & Hammerman (1991): DIC's unholy trinity of celebrity-driven toons. Two of the three aired on NBC, back-to-back, even. Hammerman was bounced around by ABC, which knew it had a turkey on its hands. Of the three, only one had the actual star-inspiration voicing his animated likeness, and that was Macaulay Culkin (Wishkid). MC Hammer did some wraparounds and the theme song for Hammerman, but the concept just died because the titular hero's powers come from a pair of shoes. Oh, stop the pain! Pro-Stars gave us Bo Jackson, Wayne Gretzky, & Michael Jordan, but none of these star athletes actually contributed to the show, aside from the clips used in the show open. I get the concept, but the execution was about as bad as, say, the weak sisters of the NBA and/or NHL.;) :p :D

Skeleton Warriors & WildC.A.T.S. (1994): These two fell victim to what I call "late-start syndrome". Delayed two weeks for reasons known only to the network (CBS), despite much hype. Shoot, the "Adventures" comic Image put out for the WildC.A.T.S. series came out before the TV show launched. As memory serves, these two were to debut the week after the US Open Tennis tournament, as per CBS tradition. Didn't happen. I watched the first two WildC.A.T.S. eps, and that was it. Had it started on time (Nelvana has a better track record, doesn't it?), maybe it gets renewed. Same with the Skeleton Warriors (though I didn't follow the show).
 
Well, you did say "godly". But I guess I did jump the gun a bit, sorry - I just hear that argument everywhere, it seems.



Yeah, it's formulaic and simple, and it always will be, but at least now they're putting in the effort to make it good. I can't think of a single filler episode from the Sinnoh region that didn't feature at least some solid humor or character development, and that's a vast improvement over the stodgy "random trainer with Pok?mon X has a problem" fillers we used to get. They're also introducing supporting characters who are more interesting than the ones that preceeded them (i.e. Paul, Hunter J, Conway, Jun, etc.), so their episodes are something to look forward to. They're doing everything they can to make the fillers feel less like fillers, and they're pulling it off quite well, I'd say.
 
Chowder has never tried to be like Spongebob. The only connection that can possibly be drawn to Spongebob is that the creator was a script writer, otherwise there's absolutely nothing in this show that is even comparable. This isn't Coconut Fred's Fruit Salad Island we're talking about.

Also, yeah, that's a stylistic choice, like how all the main characters in Flapjack look cartoony, but everyone else looks hideously realistic.
 
Oh, I know there's really nothing new. It's just the premise of Jake Long in particular seemed to have a lot of potential to break the tween mold and morph into something with a more universal appeal.

Conversely, I really enjoyed Danny Phantom largely because it was cookie cutter, and it KNEW it was cookie cutter - sometimes that makes all the difference. X)
 
I can certainly see why Kanto is considered the best:

A: Johto upped the repetitiveness by making every one episode trainer an insecure individual who needed Ash and companies help to improve. Kanto on the other had trainers who gave Ash a run for his money and had fillers which weren't interchangable (such as two would be Gym Leaders starting a war in the city and an alternative to getting the 8 badges)

B: By the time Johto, Hoenn and Sinnoh had come along, the formula has been done plenty of times. When Kanto was the current season, it was the first of it's kind.
 
Well, since the title of this thread isn't "When Pokemon jumped," and since I don't want this to turn into a huge argument (even if I respectfully agree with Mad Mod 49)...let's change the subject.

A cartoon I thought could have been good, but went bad: the JLU finale. If that's not a bad example of deus ex machina, I don't know what is.
 
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I'm glad SOMEBODY said it. Nobody wants to get flamed, least of all me, but I think it's time we all faced it: Star Wars is not the infallible super commodity it used to be. It is quite flawed, and getting MORE flawed with each passing episode of this show. And here's where my problem lies:

- There's no excuse for how substandard the animation in this show is, and I don't believe for one second it was due to anything even CLOSE to a tight deadline or a constrained budget. George Lucas could have spent as long and as much on this thing as he wanted and there's not a person on this planet who would've dared tell him otherwise. Every episode of this cartoon should look as good as Final Fantasy: Advent Children. It just doesn't.

- Why are we here AGAIN? Okay, there's 10 years between Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones, 3 years between Clones and Revenge of the Sith, somewhere between 15 and 19 YEARS between Sith and A New Hope (the lamest title EVER, by the way!). That represents the single biggest gap in the Star Wars continuity.

Considering that we've already seen clones vs. droids in Attack of the Clones, clones vs. droids in Revenge of the Sith, and clones vs. droids in Genndy Tartakovsky's frankly superior 2D-animated Clone Wars micro-series, you honestly mean to tell me you wanna do ANOTHER show about - you guessed it - FREAKIN' CLONES VS. FREAKIN' DROIDS? And, I'm sorry, what's that? You want it to be 100 EPISODES LONG?! Are you out of your damn mind?

See, here's where this stops working. Even after 100 episodes of this cartoon, the only thing I can POSSIBLY hope for are the tragic and gruesome deaths of Asajj Ventress and (please please please) Ahsoka Tano. I don't think she's cute. I don't think she's funny. I don't think she's necessary. What I DO think is that she's annoying as hell in the summertime, has all the earmarks of a Mary Sue in the making, and is in serious need of a lightsaber to the Solar Plexus. And why do I say that?

It's because I KNOW what happens to Anakin. I KNOW what happens to Obi-Wan. I KNOW what happens to Dooku. Hell, I even KNOW what happens to Jar Jar! There is no DRAMA in this series. It's really hard to get excited if I know EVERYBODY'S GOING TO BE FINE!

My suggestion: Why not make a cartoon called Star Wars: Rise of the Rebellion that takes place in the whopping and unscripted 20 YEARS between Sith and New Hope?

That would have been awesome! Darth Vader and a newly formed Empire tightening the noose throughout the galaxy, Ben Kenobi and the few remaining Jedi that survived Sith scattered to the ends of the universe, fighting tooth and nail to hold their own against a foe that is systematically and methodically hunting them into extinction, the Force nearly being outlawed as a religion, witch hunts to have any Force users located and arrested. Believe me when I say that the REAL adventure series is HERE, not in the 3 years of clones vs. droids skirmishes we've seen too many times already.

This could have been like WORLD WAR TWO IN SPACE! It could have been as mature as Exo-Squad and with all the subtle political maneuvering of Gundam Wing. In my opinion, Lucas missed his shot to tell the one story the fans have wanted most since 1977, which is not to say that after Clone Wars is done, he won't make a series like this. Maybe he will, and maybe Clone Wars will get really good in the next few weeks. I'm just not holding my breath.
 
^^Thank You

What I'd like to know is why Lucas thinks we need to see the further adventures of characters we were all sick of years ago? This prequel stuff should have ended when Episode 3 came out. This Clone Wars cartoon just treads ground we've seen many times before. I like Star Wars and all but I just don't see the appeal of this.
 
Gundam SEED Destiny and Code Geass R2. Both are sequel series to two of Sunrise's most popular shows this decade. However, when this studio hits on a success that means the execs from Sunrise/Bandai get involved and start exerting their power to insist on useless, out of place elements to try and draw in new demographics or sell products. Most commonly this means awkward fanservice, half assed forced 'romance', cheap melodrama cliffhangers and biased to audience favoured characters. Both of these shows really suffered from this as their stories need heavy shades of grey to work- Destiny starts out as a story about the blood on the hands of the previous cast and the mess they left behind. Geass R2 is similar, with the character of Lelouch going to even darker depths in his quest to try and change the world. All the exec forced elements just destory this. We get angry new protagonists that never grow out of it or after we've just witnessed our lead pull off a bloody massacre we then have to watch him goof around with the school council.

Please, Sunrise/Bandai. Just learn to back off and let the people you've hired tell a story. You'd get your much loved money too if you gave them room to craft something really memorable.
 
True, but lots of people don't even read any of that stuff. That time period may have been covered in the books but it's never been touched on film in any way. And I think it's time that it was. The EU stuff isn't canon, right?
 
And where ChiChi is being overbearing at making her son smart, Goku's just as overbearing at making his son a fighter.
 
I was once looking forward to Danny Phantom because it looked like Butch Hartman finally had a chance to write something besides humor, especially since Fairly Oddparents had moments of over the top action and some character development in the early seasons. However, the show felt very lacking in my opinion. Many of the characters had a boring 1 note personality, especially Sam who despite being a good person, bothered me so much with her agenda pushing ways. Danny himself did nothing to stand out from other shonen heroes at the time. The villains were also complete jokes. It's like the recycled some of Timmy's worst tormentors by just giving them a green coat of paint.

The show would've been better if the school aspect was either toned down or ignored completely. It may not have been as believable, but I really dislike characters who have an insatiable need to be popular. His rogue's gallery could also stand to be a little more intimidating, which means less one-liners per scene. It worked in Kim Possible, but not here. Finally, the fight scenes needed a lot of work.

There are also a bunch of minor quips that could've been fixed, but those are the main reason why I couldn't enjoy this show.
 
10 pts. As a semi-official Star Wars fanboy (don't ask), I want to know why we can't just have an animated adaption of "Heir to the Empire", or even that crappy children books series. I want more Han Solo.
 
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