When Cartoons That SHOULD Have Been Good Go Bad

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hazey

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Here's a question. I'm an old dude, so this is mostly aimed at anyone who actually wants to make cartoons (writer/director/animator, etc.) for a living, but even if you don't I'd still like to hear your thoughts.

I know I'm not the only person this has happened to. Have you ever been excited for a new cartoon that had a premise that was so cool or clever or innovative and then ended up really disappointed with the show once you saw it? I'll give you an example from the 80's:

C.O.P.S. - Now, I know what you're saying right now. "What's he talking about? That show was awesome!" But if you watch it again, you'll find that it's mostly not. I mean, come on. It's in the future. There are highly-trained police specialists with some seriously righteous gear (remember Longarm's grappling line handcuffs?) fighting criminals the likes of which I haven't seen since the days of Dick Tracy. What could possibly go wrong? Oh, and all those guys were designed by Bart Sears, by the way, so the show looked spectacular, but that's where half the problem was.

C.O.P.S. only ever looked good. It very rarely was good.

Most of the crooks were woefully inept (see: Berserko, Buttons McBoomBoom, Rock Krusher) and even a few of the cops were apt to throw in the towel anytime the going got rough (see: Ace, Barricade). The show ran for 66 episodes, and of those 66, I think something like 5 of the episodes were what I would call great.

The capers were almost always pretty lame, the action sequences were hardly ambitious, and the stakes were so low so much of the time that they bordered on insignificant. I never felt like the bad guys were a threat save for in the first two episodes. This is cops and robbers, man! What could be more pure than that? That show should've been balls-to-the-wall every episode and it NEVER WAS!

You don't have to agree or disagree with me about C.O.P.S. That's not the point of the thread. That's just a show that burned me.

So I ask you, what cartoons were you really psyched for and got let down by? And, if you could have, what would you have changed in those cartoons to make them better? I think this thread has potential for some great discussion about what makes a cartoon work vs. what makes one, you know, not. But enough ranting from me. What are your thoughts?

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"Hagen's gone; make him stop haunting me!"
 
Agreed. The Appleday Toons and Jimmy's crazy family and friends were both (potentially) OK concepts, but they didn't deserve each other. It seemed obvious (to me, at least) that the Appleday Gang were only shoehorned into the series to somehow justify the presence of a live action kidcom airing on CARTOON Network. Perhaps the Appleday Gang should have had their own show or a set of recurring segments running on CN, while Turner should have made the Jimmy kidcom stuff it's own seperate show airng (possibly) on TBS, since WB is too cheap to create a seperate kids' channel.

Agree with this also. If Yancy was going to be an alien, the writers should have taken advantage of that fact more often. I'm not suggesting that they turn the show into Star Trek or anything like that, but what was the point of making her an alien if she was hardly ever going to do alien stuff? Also, if Yancy was essentially the "Ugly Sister" character of the show,the she should have been a more constant source of annoyance to Jimmy. The 2 of them barely interacted with each other in some episodes. Yancy had the potential to be another Candace (from Phineas & Ferb). Again, good idea, poor execution.

I'm actually of 2 minds on this one. I agree that there wasn't a whole lot of point in the series being live action if most of the characters were going to behave like cartoons, but I didn't have much of an issue with that, nor strangely enough, did I really have a problem with Jimmy's dad being essentially a human version of Goofy. I'm a Goofy fan, so that didn't really bother me. The main thing that I disliked about Mr. Roberts was that he was overdone. He wore far too many hats on the show. Add to that, I think that Jimmy's mom should have been around full time to counterbalance her husband's personality. After all, you can't have The Odd Couple with only Ocscar; without the contrast, it's isn't very funny. Mrs. Roberts was a good character with potential, and my favorite episodes were the ones in which both parents appeared.

Here's what I think should have been done with OOJH:

1. The school should not have been the shows' main setting. The bits at Jimmy's school should have been greatly downplayed, if not removed entirely.

2. Have Mrs. Roberts as a regular, full time cast member. I didn't like the idea of the full time dad and the occasionally seen mom when the series started and I still don't like it now. Jimmy's mom could have been a working "super mom" and still have been seen regularly. Make her more like the working mom on Johnny Test.

3. Take Mr. Roberts out of Jimmy's school. Mr.Roberts didn't need to be both the Dumb Dad and the clueless guidance counselor. That was too much and it risked making the character overused and unbearable. If the show really had to have a dopey adult authority figure at Jimmy's school, I think an entirely new character should have been created for that role.

4. Make better use of Yancy. Both as an alien and as an annoying sister.

5. Keep the toons and the humans universes separate. The 2 sensibilities just didn't mesh. If the live action universe was to be a cartoon, then the toons served no purpose, as their cheif distinction offered little to no contrast with the rest of Jimmy's world.
 
Movies most certainly DO count. And I share your pain on that particular flick. What would you have done differently?

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"Hagen's gone; make him stop haunting me!"
 
Ok, here's a few. Debate if ya like:

Turbo Teen (1985): If I didn't see any ads before the series started, I figured it might be some kind of left-handed parody of "Knight Rider". In truth, it was, but not the way I envisioned it. The titular hero turns into a car?! WTF? No wonder this show lasted just one season.

Godzilla: The Series (1998): If Sony & Toho actually came to some sort of an agreement, then the 'Zilla in this series would've been the vertical, iconic one we all know and love. Instead, as with the movie that came out that same summer, 'Zilla was reimagined as a crawling, horizontal-only monster. The movie sucked, especially when P. Dopey blasphemed a Led Zeppelin classic on the soundtrack, and the series was even worse. 20 years after Hanna-Barbera made 'Zilla a superhero, Sony went in the other direction. Watch. The next Godzilla toon will be an anime approved by Toho and imported by 4Kwacks.

Richie Rich (198?): Speaking of Hanna-Barbera, their treatment of Richie wasn't that much better than that of Harvey stablemate Casper a few short years earlier. Irona, the Rich family's robot maid, was turned into a shape-shifting super-bodyguard (Gee, I wonder why? Richie, IIRC, had Super Friends for a lead-in), and every plot seemed to be the same, with some villain trying to steal the Rich fortune. When another studio revived Richie several years later, they stayed truer to the comics.

I'll think of a few others when I can.
 
I must disagree. Cookie-cutter teenaged superhero doesn't really define Jake at all. He's a Chinese-American hip-hop talking dragon. It's sort of unique in my books, and he really does grow up in the second season. Plus let us not forget the sacred Jake/Rose relationship. lol.

Darkaviator (sp?) back me up here. :confused:

Bit of trivia: I put 'scared' instead of sacred. ^^
 
Atlantis: Like garfield said, frickin' awesome trailer. Movie? Not so much.

Ben 10 Alien Force: I was expecting a more mature, plot-focused show than the first series. What I saw was more of the same.

One Piece: 4Kids dub. 'Nuff said.
 
All the GI Joe revivals (the DiC eps, Extreme, Sigma Six). All had potential to try and reinvent the franchise for a new generation, but DiC was more childish than the 80s show ever was, Extreme looked like a bad image comic (even buzz dixon who wrote for the show admits it was a disapointment), and Sigma Six was a bad attempt to try and add an anime influence. Lets hope we see a GOOD attempt at a Joe cartoon soon.
 
Wow! Turbo Teen! God, help us! I remember that cartoon, and not fondly either. Wasn't it like Ranma 1/2, in that he turned into a car whenever he got wet or something like that? Anyway, I always felt sorry for that main character, whose name escapes me, because he always had to lug his loser friends around in every episode, and, as if that wasn't enough, he had to solve crimes too like some sorta animated Angela Lansbury... that, uh, turns into a car, I guess.

It always looked like it hurt like hell too whenever he transformed into his car mode. What a nightmare! I wouldn't wish that super power on my worst enemy!

And as far as Godzilla goes, I want somebody to take another crack at a Godzilla animated series, and this time they need to take a page from the Godzilla: Final Wars playbook, which is to put every Toho monster you can cram into one series, appoint a ragtag team of human monster-hunting badasses to do most of the grunt work, and then bring out Godzilla to lay the ever-loving atomic smack down only when the poop REALLY hits the fan. Now THAT's a cartoon!

Who's with me?! Godzilla 3:16!

Oh, and there had BETTER be a special circle of hell waiting for P. Diddy and anybody ELSE who ever dared to demolish a great Zeppelin song. I mean, of all the - "Kashmir"? Come on! COME ON! "I said good DAY, sir!"
 
The Eighties TMNT. The show was not horrible at the beginning but it gets worse each season. season one (The five part mini series) was good, season two was ok, season three ranged from average to bad but remained average, but by season five the show became nearly unwatchable and was basicly a parody of itself. This show way over used fourth wall jokes.
 
To be fair, most of the RR comics ive read had the same problem, either there was some villain trying to steal the rich fortune (Including a villain who actually HAD A LIGHTBULB FOR A HEAD), or short gags where richie shows off all the stuff he has (of course, theres not much you can really do with rich people unless your name is carl barks).
 
Seasons 1-3 were fairly good. The first half of Season 4 was weak, but the second half was good. Season 5 just had no real fighting, but the stories were decent, same for Season 6.

Season 7 was great though, and brought it back to the way it was in Season 1. And of course Seasons 8-10 were the final Red Sky seasons, which were a nice attempt to make the show darker.
 
Not sure if this counts, but Pokemon. It was GODLY up until season 2 ended (even if Tracy was really, really creepy), but Johto League should be written down as a EUPHEMISM for "horrible filler material."

Atlantis: The Lost Empire. I really like that movie, but let's face it, that was a bad deus ex machina ending.

While we're on the topic of deus ex machina, anyone remember a certain episode by the name of "Destroyer."
 
Please tell me you're just talking about the 4Kids dub and not the show as a whole. (I respect your opinion either way though)


This is funny because I loved Chicken Little (Though I agree Pixar could have made it even better)

Meh, I don't know what it is about MiB the series. Maybe it was that it was kind of....oh boy how do I say this....childish? Okay I know, I know, I know what time it came on but I mean, I guess I was expecting something like B:TAS but with aliens and ended up getting Godzilla with even more annoying aliens. I don't know. Maybe it's just my own thing.
 
-Oh Atlantis. You could have been so much better than you were but somehow screwed everything up in the second half. (Anyone remember the trailer to that movie? It was freakin' sick)

-Titan A.E.-The trailer, astounding. The music, incredible, the CGI, flawless. The characters and Plot....eh...not so much. Now don't take this to mean that I hated Titan A.E. because I didn't. I still watch it today. But I'm not gonna lie, the story is off. It really has some elements that I think could have been explained a little better like the Gaoul (sp?) and I always had a problem with the ending on how everything was solved just like that. But hey, I'm not an explaining person and this is sounding more like a fanboy's rant than a criticism so I'll move on

-Every animated movie the Nostalgia Critic has reviewed-I have the good fortune of having seen all the animated movies that he's ragged on and I do have to agree with a lot of his points. Even Space Jam. And I loved Space Jam! (Though that will change with Rock-A-Doodle and Titanic:Animated) If you need an explanation, go watch his videos. :p

-Godzilla: The Series/MIB: The Series-These two came out at around the same time (Of course I could be dead wrong) so I figured that I should share my criticisms about both. Now the idea of Godzilla the series as well as a Men In Black series drove me up the wall but the plots seemed, well, cheap. Granted this is a Saturday morning cartoon so I have to give some leverage but I expected Godzilla vs. Mothra every week and I got...Godzilla vs. Alien-of-the-week. Same for MIB though I at least felt like watching MIB every week. Anyway, I was dissapointed by Godzilla. MIB, not so much but they both could have been better.

-Ben 10: Alien Force-I'm just gonna say that the premise sounded interesting but the characters are boring as heck. I found myself dissapointed when I didn't feel like watching the next episode.
 
Beast Machines - I remember loving BW as a kid, and was hoping that BM would be just as good. But with the bad attempts to look dark, the out-of-character moments (the one where Rattrap decided to betray the other Maximals being a major low point in the series), Nightscream, and the overall dissatisfaction with what was going on, I just thought it was a complete letdown.
 
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