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Criswell
Minister of the Sacraments of Jabootu
32 Posts |
 Posted - 10/17/2005 : 9:24:34 PM
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and I don't mean in a good way:
So I was watching Adult Swim last night, in particular the two new shows "12 Oz Mouse" and "Squidbillies". My first thought was, "Wow, I am SO glad they won't give the go ahead for a 3rd season of "Big O" so they can put crap like this on the air."
Which brings me to my main point; remember when Sci-Fi channel had cool shows like "Trailer Park" and "MST3K"? Then remember how the people in charge decided to show nothing but badly produced movies and crack-pot psychics?
I fear CN has begun the lemming march of crapulence right into mediocrity.
I'm so depressed...
"Something's wrong with our worm Earl." -Grady-
"Nyo Ho!" -Gyro Zepelli- |
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CDiehl
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
361 Posts |
Posted - 10/17/2005 : 9:57:57 PM
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Glad I'm not the only one getting sick to death of badly drawn animation. Squidbillies makes Aqua Teen Hunger Force look well-done. Is this why they can't get Beavis and Butthead or Daria?
You know Grand Funk, don't you? The wild, shirtless lyrics of Mark Farner? The bong-rattling bass of Mel Schacher? The ... adequate drumwork of Don Brewer? |
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GalahadPC
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
380 Posts |
Posted - 10/17/2005 : 10:34:55 PM
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When I first started seeing promos for Squidbillies several months ago, and nothing seemed to materialize, I figured it must have been some kind of huge practical joke. It was the only plausible explanation I could come up with.
Funny this should come up. At the other messageboard I visit, some folks have started complaining that if not for Teen Titans, JLU, Megas and Billy & Mandy, there's be nothing worth watching anymore on CN before 11 PM. Nobody I know likes the new shows they've been putting up lately, and while Samurai Jack and Megas get yanked off the air almost as soon as they stop producing episodes, Ed Edd & Eddy continues to run the same dozen nails-on-a-chalkboard episodes over and over again. |
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thsmith
Archdeacon of Jabootu
USA
10 Posts |
Posted - 10/18/2005 : 12:12:51 AM
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The same thing happened with The Disney Channel and Nickelodeon. They used to have great shows (Angry Beavers, anyone? I can't be the only one here who liked that show, not with the b-movie spoofs they did from time to time, the best one being the Halloween episode.) Then they both went crazy, and started making shows that all looked the same.
On the subject of Cartoon Network, anyone else feel that the "new" episodes of Dexter's Laboratory just weren't as good as the older ones?
"We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually produce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true."- - - Robert Wilensky |
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MikeC
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
749 Posts |
Posted - 10/18/2005 : 06:00:45 AM
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One thing to keep in mind about CN: most of the really good
older & classic cartoons have migrated to BOOMERANG, their
digital tier service.
This is consistant with other cable networks (TLC, Discovery)
migrating niche or popular programing 'up' to try and get
people to buy expensive digitial services from local cable
companies.
MikeC |
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KarlAllen
Archdeacon of Jabootu
USA
10 Posts |
Posted - 10/18/2005 : 10:29:37 AM
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It seems like the past few years have seen an explosion in cartoons where the quality of animation is secondary, or even purposefully crude. Not sure if South Park is entirely to credit/blame, but that surely had some effect. In some cases I think it's freed up creativity. By not spending inordinate time and money on animation some shows have been more free to concentrate on characters and stories. There's also some stuff you can do with rough animation that just looks funny in ways you can't do with higher quality stuff. I'm a huge fan of Aqua Teen Hunger Force, for example, which doesn't exactly break new ground in animation technology. (I will say it's not physically painful to look at, though, which some of the other rough animation shows are).
The dark side, however, is that it seems Cartoon Network has decided that "Crude animation = hilarious" all by itself. Exhibit #1 in this is "Tom Goes to the Mayor". I don't understand how that show got on television, other than that it's clearly got a lot of big names working on it. It's produced by Bob Odenkirk, and they've had all kinds of guest voices ranging from Jack Black to Jeff Goldblum, and it's one of the least amusing, most boring shows ever to grace the screen. It's pretty clear the producers just slapped some stuff together and assumed standards were so low they didn't need to do anything actually, you know, funny. The fact that Squidbillies and 12 Oz Mouse (saw the former, it was okay but nothing great, haven't seen the latter) both got greenlit makes me worry that Adult Swim is thinking that because some shows with crude animation work that means any who with badly drawn characters is going to be gold. Kind of like how Hollywood does the same thing, making loads of junk superhero movies because Spiderman and X-Men hit big.
On the other hand, AS will soon have "Boondocks" on, and from the promos they've clearly spent a lot of money on the animation, which looks quite good.
K |
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governor_breck
Diocesan Ecclesiarch of the Sacred Order of Jabootu
USA
79 Posts |
Posted - 10/18/2005 : 10:33:23 AM
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I miss The Venture Brothers already. I hope it's not dead.
As Mike C notes, there's a lot of good stuff on Boomerang, including Batman TAS and Superman TAS. Lots of crap on that channel too, but at least there's less of it. |
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KurtVon
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
387 Posts |
Posted - 10/18/2005 : 10:41:24 AM
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My wife and I accidentally caught Sunday Pants (no, really, it was an accident) and kind of liked it. It had about a 60% hit/miss ratio which is fairly decent. I'm also impressed by anyone who has the guts to import Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo (haven't seen it dubbed yet, but it doesn't lend itself well to "cleaning up" for American audiences no matter how unfaithful the translation might be).
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Ubiq
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
347 Posts |
Posted - 10/18/2005 : 1:04:07 PM
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One of the problems that Cartoon Network has been laboring under for the past few years, ever since the AOLTWCHOAM merger, is that they're stuck under the same corporate umbrella as WB Kids, which is a competing network and one that has often been favored in disputes. Rising Sun and daily Toonami fell victim to simply being on at the same time as competing WB blocks.
The 52 episode rule (wherein a series that had reached 52 episodes was not renewed, regardless of ratings or storline) that claimed Samurai Jack and Courage the Cowardly Dog seems to no longer be in effect. That Ed, Edd, and Eddy managed to avoid that fate despite being contemporaries of those other shows is something that annoys me to this day.
One downside of the widespread popularity of flash cartoons is that ugly has been acceptable where animation is concerned. Squidbillies and 12 Oz Mouse are indeed hideous and often downright unentertaining. Comedy Central should also share some of the blame, though South Park makes up for for it's low grade animation with incisive wit, it's minimalist rather than cheap like Squidbillies. Unfortunately, Comedy Central doesn't seem to understand that, just look at Drawn Together.
CDiehl mentioned Daria; how irritating is it that Drawn Together has a DVD set out while Daria doesn't? The show is limited to that handful of episodes that Noggin will show, with language edits at that.
You can still find well animated shows out there, Avatar: The Last Airbender is one, though Nickolodeon is currently showing one new episode every other week for some odd reason. I really like Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends and The Life and Times of Juniper Lee, but there seems to be more shows that simply don't bear watching. I also worry about those shows when their creators get sidelined with something else or leave the project altogther, look at the declines of The Powerpuff Girls, Dexter's Lab, and Johnny Bravo when their creators left.
Outside of those few, the best new shows on Cartoon Network are imports, like Naruto and Bo-Bobo, which bodes ill for American animation.
BM: I should have mentioned this at the beginning. I solve my problems with violence. |
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zombiewhacker
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1475 Posts |
Posted - 10/18/2005 : 3:49:18 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by thsmith
On the subject of Cartoon Network, anyone else feel that the "new" episodes of Dexter's Laboratory just weren't as good as the older ones?
Ubiq has it right. Genndy Tartakovsky and Craig McCracken were the creative geniuses behind Dexter's Laboratory. But then Tartakovsky left Dexter to work on Powerpuff Girls, then Samurai Jack and Star Wars: Clone Wars successively. McCracken likewise ditched Dexter to work on Powerpuff Girls and is currently the creative force behind Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends.
For those who bemoan the current state of CN, remember there have been darker days. Remember when I Am Weasel got its own show? |
Edited by - zombiewhacker on 10/18/2005 3:50:10 PM |
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Atomic Glee
Archdeacon of Jabootu
USA
24 Posts |
Posted - 10/18/2005 : 6:23:06 PM
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I used to adore Adult Swim, but these days, I find it more irritating than entertaining. It's almost as though the network is using it to purposefully annoy me personally. Futurama is great (though with my DVDs I can watch it any time I wish), The Venture Brothers is superb, and Aqua Teen Hunger Force is always worth a go, but beyond that there's nothing much to keep me watching. I *hate* Family Guy and American Dad, the cheapie unfunny new shows give me headaches(from Tom Goes To The Mayor to Stroker & Hoop, I cannot fathom why any of these shows exist), I'm not looking forward to Boondocks (not a fan of the strip), and beyond Cowboy Bebop I have little interest in anime. I almost *never* watch the AS block these days.
What I miss are shows like Space Ghost Coast To Coast, The Brak Show (I love The Brak Show - it was so amazingly stupid in such a great way), the first two seasons of Sealab 2021 (the show badly went off the rails after Harry Goz passed away, IMHO - it was never, ever the same without Captain Murphy), that sort of thing.
Kevin Buchanan
Atomic Glee - The blog/modern pulp mag. http://www.atomicglee.com |
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Ubiq
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
347 Posts |
Posted - 10/18/2005 : 8:34:05 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Atomic Glee
Futurama is great (though with my DVDs I can watch it any time I wish),
Futurama was always an iffy proposition at best for me; tonight's episode is especially an example of an episode where they went out and used a premise that doesn't make sense in light of what we know about the universe that they inhabit.
I mean, they keep Pamela Anderson's head alive in a jar, but not the First Man on Mars, who also had dozens of other achievements? It's not like consent has anything to do with it as certain heads were dead centuries before they were put into jar and some of them outright resented being kept alive in that fashion.
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The Venture Brothers is superb, and Aqua Teen Hunger Force is always worth a go, but beyond that there's nothing much to keep me watching.
I'm not as fond of the more recent Aqua Teens as I was of some of the earlier ones, simply because it seems like Williams Street has come to the conclusion that sheer weirdness is, in and of itself, amusing. I would welcome more episodes of The Venture Brothers.
I also fail to see the appeal of shows like Stroker and Hoop, but badly animated, unfunny shows seem to fare well on Adult Swim. I've known a few people to even express affection for Home Movies, which I hate on so many different levels that I can't even begin to list them.
BM: I should have mentioned this at the beginning. I solve my problems with violence. |
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Atomic Glee
Archdeacon of Jabootu
USA
24 Posts |
Posted - 10/18/2005 : 9:38:03 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Ubiq
I'm not as fond of the more recent Aqua Teens as I was of some of the earlier ones, simply because it seems like Williams Street has come to the conclusion that sheer weirdness is, in and of itself, amusing. I would welcome more episodes of The Venture Brothers.
I also fail to see the appeal of shows like Stroker and Hoop, but badly animated, unfunny shows seem to fare well on Adult Swim. I've known a few people to even express affection for Home Movies, which I hate on so many different levels that I can't even begin to list them.
You are definitely correct re: recent episodes of formerly great AS shows. ATHF being a great current example. They do seem to just be weird now, thinking that weird is always funny. Also see Sealab 2021 in its last run, especially after Harry Goz died and as a result the show lost Captain Murphy. It got weirder, but not funnier. I mean, it was always a freaking bizarre show, but it always felt to me like after Mr. Goz left us they were looking simply for the next strange off-the-wall episode premise, whether it was funny or not.
The Venture Brothers is easily my favorite of the AS original shows still around.
Hank: Brock's stuck inside Dad's thing that makes people happy. But it's all evil.
Dean: I dare you to make less sense.
Kevin Buchanan
Atomic Glee - The blog/modern pulp mag. http://www.atomicglee.com |
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CobraCmdr
Diocesan Ecclesiarch of the Sacred Order of Jabootu
70 Posts |
Posted - 10/19/2005 : 08:29:53 AM
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I don't know, I was a big fan of the Adult Swim Block on Cartoon network when I was in College, and I love Family Guy and Futurama, as well as Venture Brothers. However I agree that the newer shows are getting a little stupid. I like a little wierdness in a cartoon (like in Family Guy and Southpark) but not to the point that it becomes incomprehensible. I think I prefer the more mainstream shows because they at least look and sound like they were professionally done, instead of thrown together by stoned college kids.
On another note, I think sometimes I am alone on this board in that I cannot stand most TV from the 70s, particularly the cartoons. I was born in the early 80s, so I have no nostalgia for this era, and I was really happy when all the old shows got the boot to Boomerang.
I grew up on shows of the 80's (Transformers, GI Joe, Ghostbusters) so I guess they are my eqivalent of the Superfriends and all the Hana-Barbera shows. When I was a kid if a cartoon wasn't created to market a toy I wasn't watching! |
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kdraut
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
343 Posts |
Posted - 10/19/2005 : 08:45:19 AM
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I am a big fan of Home Movies. It's well written and just a touch silly. The Ren Fest episode is a classic.
ATHF and Sealab have both definately taken a nose-dive. The last episode I saw pretty much took one joke and beat it into the ground over and over again. Then I saw a preview for Boondocks. I hate the Boondocks comic strip, there is no way I'll be watching that one.
I liked Mission Hill and Baby Blues. Maybe it's just my age showing.
Kirk
http://www.kdraut.com/photo |
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Criswell
Minister of the Sacraments of Jabootu
32 Posts |
Posted - 10/19/2005 : 9:46:01 PM
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You know, I'm embarrassed to say that I didn't know that the up-and-coming Boondocks cartoon was based on a comic strip...
"Something's wrong with our worm Earl." -Grady-
"Nyo Ho!" -Gyro Zepelli- |
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