after the success of June Bugs...

[mmv3000]

is there any chance we can look forward to November Porky or even, perhaps, January Claude Cat? :D

[Jack]

How bout:

"Daffy December"
"Tom and Jerry February"
"Coyote and Roadrunner Summer"
"Pepe Le Pew's Valentines Day Special"
"Sylvester Saturday"




Or how about a marathon of one shot cartoons? Featuring cartoons with no reoccuring characters at all (not even minor characters)...

[Sogturtle]

Nice ideas fellers... Buuuuut let's not forget to celebrate these holiday cartoon-a-thons...

Speedy Gonzales races through Cinco de Mayo

Thanksgiving Turkey Day... with Buddy

Mental-Health Awareness Week with... Screwy Squirrel

Fowl Foods Festivals... with Daffy and Foghorn

A Bosko Fourth of July

[Patrick McCart]

In a couple of years when WB has all the WB and Popeye cartoons restored, they should have a "Toon-out Marathon" showing every cartoon they have in their library back to back (with commercials, though)

They'd be random...it would take a whole week to do and some video tape makers could sponsor it :D

[The Silver Fox]

i like that, i
reather see a summer of that then
a summer of CArtoon CArtoon (is it me or are those new shows
look very poorly animated, time squad and the other CC summer prime time primer??)

[mmv3000]

Originally posted by The Silver Fox
i like that, i
reather see a summer of that then
a summer of CArtoon CArtoon (is it me or are those new shows
look very poorly animated, time squad and the other CC summer prime time primer??) We live in the age of such hit shows as South Park, Beavis And Butt-head, Simpsons and Ren and Stimpy. Minimalist animation is in. Unfortunately.

[PorkyandDaffy]

TIME SQUAD's animation looks fine to me (a hell of a lot better than Sheep in the City). From the previews, the cartoon looks funny. I'm looking forward to seeing the premiere this Friday.

[Garrett]

That's an understatement-These new cartoons (especially the ones on Cartoon Network) can be called limited, what with the stock (or stock-like) animations (and I say this while seeing the train animation in "Hare Trigger", which is the same one as in the beginning of "Super Rabbit").

In fact, I'm disturbed about that, even if I personally enjoy PPG, Dexter, Johnny Bravo and Sheep in the Big City (which is admittedly *very* ugly). I know it's expensive, but full animation, and *good* full animation at that, is a wonderful thing. Of course, I grew up in the 80s, when full animation made its little comeback.... :D

[kiddiesunshine]

The Simpsons is damn good animation. Matt Groening has some of the best working for him. you can't put The Simpsons in the same category as Time Squad and Beavis and Butthead. That's not right.

[Garrett]

Originally posted by kiddiesunshine
The Simpsons is damn good animation. Matt Groening has some of the best working for him. you can't put The Simpsons in the same category as Time Squad and Beavis and Butthead. That's not right.

I hadn't meant to-The Simpsons is one of the cartoons I was hoping to imply as being good, even if 'NSTYNK appeared on the show this past season.... :rolleyes:

[PorkyandDaffy]

That comment about limited animation made me wonder if we really are headed for the dark ages of cartoons again (like the 70's and 80's). It sure seems like it. We haven't had that many great new cartoon series starting in 2000, it seems to get worse and worse (primarily the newer Nicktoons and the Craptoon-Craptoons), and the animation budgets look weaker, too (I'm definitely looking in SHEEP AND THE BIG CITY's direction).

[Jack]

Well, from a few interviews I've read about Cartoon Cartoon creators, they seem to think they are battling Disney realism, or something like that. The only thing is, Disney hasn't made a "realistic, fully animated" show for years, so they are rebelling against somethinfg that just isn't there. I suppose the movies count, but CN is competing against the movies...

It seems they want to over-stylize things, making them very ugly at times. This doesn't help weak cartoons (I might watch a cartoon if it at least has nice animation and artwork, even if the gags are weak), this is why "Sheep" is such a crummy cartoon (IMO). The designs are a major turnoff, the animation is awful, and the gags, which can be mildly amusing at times, aren't very good. The same goes for "Ed, Edd, and Eddy," and the REALLY bad "Mike, Lou, and Og." "Mike, Lou, and Og" actually does have good animation, but the character designs hide it very well.



Jack:D

[happyheathen]

Basically, there are two ways to do animation:

A. Draw/Color/Photograph cels.
B. Computer.

The former is so labor-intensive that it is being contracted to the lowest cost-of-living but still talented-enough-to-do-it-well economies (for 'The Simpsons', that means Korea). Even 'simpsons' animation is lacking when compared to 'Song of the South' and the best of the WB 'toons.

(yeah, I hate the mouse house, love WB (pre-1960), so don't bother with the complaints about the comparisons).

That leaves us with silicon-based animation - the graphic and audio quality was achieved years ago, but the software was/is expensive to acquire (1998 price for the SGI software, re-written for WIN98: 14K (single processor - you will need at least 3 quad machines (with talented animators) to do much of anything))
AND Incredibly cumbersome to use (yes, there is a digital equivalent of rotoscoping - guess how it works (Hint: no camera involved))

Our best hope is that the software gets faster/easier to use...


dave

and the beat goes on...

[Garrett]

Originally posted by PorkyandDaffy
That comment about limited animation made me wonder if we really are headed for the dark ages of cartoons again (like the 70's and 80's).

It seems very likely, especially since there isn't a studio like Marvel or Sunbow to push the standards of animation and story quality. Plus, CN seems to be interested only in promoting (with the exception of the early Scooby runs and the Golden Age stuff) their substandard cartoons (remember when the Gary Coleman Show was on every Friday night?) or anime (using Peter Cullen-the voice of Optimus Prime-to hype cartoons that couldn't hold a candle to the "half-hour commercials" that made him famous).



It sure seems like it. We haven't had that many great new cartoon series starting in 2000, it seems to get worse and worse (primarily the newer Nicktoons and the Craptoon-Craptoons), and the animation budgets look weaker, too (I'm definitely looking in SHEEP AND THE BIG CITY's direction).

Yup-Dexter and PPG openly revel in the crappy plots and animation of the 80s. If it wasn't for the puns and other writing-based factors, I'd hate Sheep. And Johnny's actually fairly decent looking (but still not on par with what I've seen in my life time).

I seriously think that CN is lowering the bar, and relying on the dregs of H-B's library, while refusing the TONS of petitions for shows from studios such as Marvel Productions (such as Dungeons & Dragons and Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends), Sunbow Productions (all those Hasbro-related shows, plus the Conan cartoon and the Tick), and Filmation Associates (whose output, particularly in the 80s, puts that of H-B's of the same era to shame). Granted, some of these shows aren't cheap (Transformers cost 5 million about 5 years ago, partly due to the property), and I could argue until I'm blue in the face about their merit, but it's worlds better than what CN currently shows. (And I haven't even mentioned stuff like Beany and Cecil, or some other the "other" Golden Age studios.)

Regardless, things don't look all that grand for animation right now. I finally saw the Project: Zeta series, and wasn't too impressed. Of course, that series has the problem of being based on what *should* have been a one-shot G.I. Joe in-joke (the "Synthoid" concept in BB is appropriated from G.I. Joe's initial two-part episode, "The Synthoid Conspiracy") propagated by Paul Dini (who worked on Joe, as did Bruce Timm), so go figure.

The new Cartoon Cartoons have more of this "stylized" animation, which is getting old. It's starting to really hurt the "feel" of good cartoons-even stuff like Disney and WB "feels" realistic.

And as for, CGI, please not yet. Humans still don't look right. Of course, cost wouldn't be as big of an issue if animated projects got budgets equivalent to even the most modest live-action show. The average episode of a Sunbow Productions cartoon in the 80s (when Joe, TF, Jem, et al were the bulk of the studio's output) was about $250,000 per half hour, using the services of Toei, and a few other Korean and Japanese studios. I'm willing to bet that, with the exception of the Simpsons, this figure hasn't gone up much. And Sunbow's output was, when the episode's budget was at or above that figure, some of the best I've ever seen on the tube (that was made for it).

And I haven't even gone into the problems with writers and censors......

Garrett

P.S.-Sorry for the long post. :D