Why don't they make cartoons with talking animals anymore?

Uh...Here we go.....


Because they don't have to. The notion that everything animated has to be anthropomorphic animals is old school. Besides fueling the furries, what's the point of all toons being animals? You can't live in the past. Animal characters aren't on the decline. Cartoons have just evolved. Anyway, what difference does any of that make as long as the cartoons are good and entertaining?


And anyway, have you been watching any animated features made in the past 15 years? Anthros haven't gone anywhere.

That's irrelevant. The Loonatics characters were still anthros, so it still counts.

These "old cartoons = good, new cartoons = bad" discussions are really getting tiresome.
 
Just to point it out, lagomorph is the order of which rabbits belong to, not rodents like many people assumed. So yeah, he's a rabbit.

On topic, I really don't see the need for anthro animals in order for something to be good. Nor do I see a decline in shows featuring anthro animals. Just an increase of shows using human characters, which to be honest I think one could for the most part relate to more.
 
Anthropomorphic animals in cartoons haven't gone away; it's just that cartoons starring human characters have been increasing over the years. I for one think that's a good thing; people are finally evolving beyond the primitive notion that cartoons have to about talking animals with clothes. I've never understood that mentality myself. Are cartoons characters really that much more attractive and funny when they're turned into animals? I don't think so.

The mindset that all cartoons have to star anthro animals is one factor (but not the only factor) that has contributed to the misconception that all animated cartoons are strictly for kids, and while I don't dislike anthros, I'm personally glad to see this trend being toned down.
 
Frankly, I find humans to be rather dull. I can still enjoy animated programs that are about humans and many of my favorite animated programs over the years had a predominantly human cast, but animals can do things that humans can’t. One of the reasons that I’ve enjoyed “The Penguins Of Madagascar” so much is that many of its plots have the animals interacting with the world as if they were animals; they may be more advanced and capable of doing things that real animals couldn’t do, but they have little understanding of the world and some of their “missions” wouldn’t really work if humans were in their place. That’s the key. If animal characters are used, then the series needs to make use of their species.

Having animal characters and then doing nothing with them is just a waste. As much as I loved “Brandy & Mr. Whiskers”, well, the fact that all of the characters were animals didn’t really matter much. In fact, it only seemed relevant in the series when a carnivore was trying to eat some of the characters, but that’s not really making use of them being animals.

I am not advocating that all animated programs should have animal characters, but I’d certainly prefer more shows featuring animal characters over teenaged humans.
 
Toon animals are also victims of this demographic marketing age. For executives any talking animal must be a pre-schooler show. And if a indie creator tries to make a comic or flash on the web people go "oh noes, a furry!"

A genre truly hard to make in this age.
 
I'm just saying that unless it specifically calls for a character to be a anthropomorphic animal, then they can just be a human. Human characters can do anything that non-humans can. I never understood the point of turning human characters into animals for no reason. If you're going to humanize animal characters to the point where they walk around in full wardrobes, live in houses, hold down jobs and date and/or associacte with humans, then they may as well be humans, and when animal characters are humanized to the point where they have human anatomies complete with human hands and feet like the characters on Arthur, then that's when it crosses over from being cute to creepy, IMHO.

I'm not arguing the point that teenage human characters are overdone, but talking animal characters are just as overdone. How many animated features about funny animals saving their forest home can you have?
 
There are just as many talking animals as there were back in the "good old days".

Talking animal cartoons from the 2000s and beyond: (and I don't want to hear any "but that one doesn't count because!...")
-101 Dalmations II
-Alvin and the Chipmunks Meet the Wolfman
-Ant Bully, The
-Balto II & III
-Bambi II
-Barnyard
-Bee Movie
-Bolt
-Brother Bear
-Cat City 2
-Cat Returns, The
-Charlotte's Web 2
-Chicken Little
-Chicken Run
-Clifford's Really Big Movie
-Dinotopia: Quest for the Ruby Sunstone
-Dinosaur
-Doogal
-Emperor's New Groove
-Extremely Goofy Movie, An
-Finding Nemo
-Flushed Away
-Fox and the Hound 2
-Garfield Gets Real
-Happy Feet
-Home on the Range
-Hoodwinked
-Horton Hears a Who
-Ice Age
-Jungle Book 2
-Kung Fu Panda
-Lion King 1 1/2
-Looney Tunes: Back in Action
-Madagascar
-Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers
-Open Season
-Over the Hedge
-Queer Duck: The Movie
-Ratatouille
-Shark Bait
-Shark Tale
-Shrek
-Space Chimps
-SpongeBob SquarePants Movie
-Surf's Up
-Tale of Despereaux
-Teacher's Pet The Movie
-Tigger Movie, The / Winnie the Pooh: A Very Merry Pooh Year / Piglet's Big Movie / Pooh's Heffalump Movie
-TMNT 2007
-Tweety's High Flying Adventure
-Wild, The
-Wild Thornberrys Movie

And that's only feature films, AND I'm sure I left out some! This is simply another "nostalgia/modern animation sucks because it's new" topic. Aren't we tired of those yet?
 
Because there is no fetish in the otaku community for that. Try watching Chi's Sweet Home though, it's about a real cat.


By the way do we count Pokemon? I know they don't talk (well a few do) and aren't technically animals that we know of but I don't know I feel like it should be included.
 
Yes, that's likely another reason why animation seems to be leaning more towards human protagonists these days; to make the characters more relatable to the audience. After all, who wants to be a mouse or a duck?
 
Firstly let me say that imo i believe those cartoons with talking animals, due to their unrealistic and weird nature, to be purely a form of entertainment and i only consider humanoid characters to have any reality and i only treat humanoid characters as equals to myself, i.e Pepper ann or Doug, whereas a talking dog is an amusement and a simple beast.

Secondly there are still talking animals in cartoons. What about

Brandy and Mr Whiskers
Spongebob
Chopsocky Chooks
Pokemon (Mewtoo or wtvr his name is... that chap who serves Team Rocket)
Family Guy (BRian)
 
Yes and no. They're basically fictional creatures, though a lot of them based on real ones, like Pikachu is supposed to resemble a mouse (somehow) and Meowth is supposed to resemble a cat.
 
Catching up a bit on this thread...

>>
My question is why do the talking animals have pets? Like, a talking Dog have a pet dog.

I know this is a little off topic, but why?
 
What I've always wondered is if there's ever racial tension between the different animal-types. Like in Duck Tales, you've got the duck-people (Scrooge, Donald, nephews, etc.) and then you've got the dog-people who look kinda like Goofy (most of the random incidental characters you see walking around). Considering that most of the upper- and middle-class characters we see (Scrooge himself, Flintheart Glomgold, Launchpad, etc.) are duck people, and the criminal element we see are usually dog-people (the Beagle Boys), does this mean that dog-people are an oppressed underclass? Did the Beagle Boys turn to crime because the media didn't spotlight enough positive dog-person role models?
 
IMO the worst use of anthropomorphic animals is when they are animals for absolutely no reason at all and act just like humans. The best example would be Arthur. In Arthur you have an 'aardvark' who has a pet dog. ???

Whereas Brandy and Mr Whiskers and The Buzz on Maggie (flies), Growing up Creepie, The Wild Thornberries and other shows that use semi anthropomorphic animals or talking animals i judge individually but on the whole i prefer either animal cartoons or human cartoons, and if they be animal cartoons i prefer those like the loony tunes where the cartoon is purely comedic and not taken seriously or trying to be realistic or ones where they are mostly animal like but talk as in say... Jake Long's dog or Brian from Family Guy. What i really hate is when in shows like Arthur (actually i like the show itself) they have characters who are so anthropomorphic that their animalness is unecessary and had Arthur been human i would probably like it more.
 
I can think of many shows with animal characters that don't act like the animals they are, but they wouldn't be the same or as memorable if they were human. A good example is Snooper and Blabber. They don't act like a cat and mouse and could easily have been human characters but they are much more funny and memorable as animals. Another example is the Disney version of Robin Hood with the title character being a fox.

And even in the cartoon world, funny animals co-exist with regular animals of the same species. For instance, there was one Huckleberry Hound cartoon where he was a dog catcher, and another where he's a mailman trying to get by a barking dog. And if Huck was a human instead of a dog, I doubt he'd become the cartoon star he is.
 
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