Fresh Question #50: Some Helping Hype?

[Nightwing]

Greetings Citizens! Nothing new to report here, so it's Fresh Question time! Recently the animated world has churned out another clunker with The Mummy. It's shows like this and, say, the first season of X-Men Evolution that make me wonder, if movie hype has EVER contributed to a spin off show of actual good quality.

What do you think? Does the hype from a movie to create a cartoon show EVER give us quality programing?? Or is it just about popularity and profit...?

Are there any examples out there....!?

[BourgeoisBuffoon]

The Mummy is an example! :D

My say is that we never really have many series that are popular from movies. Look at the GODZILLA series, for another example. These shows last only as long as the public remembers the movie's hype, and that's getting shorter and shorter nowadays. These movies usually have no basis or ability to last as a series. Only ocasionally is gold struck like with the MIB...

[Calhoun07]

If you're going outside of the animation genre, I recall TV shows like Alice and MASH spinning off from movies that were much more successful than their theatrical counterparts. I know that there are more TV shows that spun off of movies (it was quite the fad there for a while) but I can't think of any other examples right now.

[Leaping Larry Jojo]

Batman the Animated Series. It would never have materialized without the hype and success of the Burton movies.

[Samhaine]

Three words: The Real Ghostbusters.

I'm also enjoying Alienators. However, I wouldn't say the movie gave it hype, seeing as how the movie bombed...

[Nightflower]

Yeah, Ghostbusters was the one I was thinking about. There's also Buffy, but that's not an animated series....although, they *are* making a spin-off animated series ^_^

[Leaping Larry Jojo]

Originally posted by Nightflower
Yeah, Ghostbusters was the one I was thinking about. There's also Buffy, but that's not an animated series....although, they *are* making a spin-off animated series ^_^

Yeah, I heard about that. It'll be a kid's show, apparently. One can't help but think a "tamer" Buffy would be a step down from the edgier, "meatier" live-action one. (Or so it was for the first few seasons or so...)

Will she actually "stake" vampires through the heart? Or will she use some lame gizmo to "banish" vampires to another dimension?

Will Angel be in it? And will they have a romance, or just be "friends?" If it's on Fox, at least the romance part has some chance of appearing. If it's on the KWB, they'll just be "friends," keeping in line with KWB's allergic reactions to relationships.

[Failure]

The problem with cartoons spinning off of movies is that it's all profit based so there's not much of an incentive to make the show great or even good. It's all about the future line of action figures and video games and whatnot. There are some exceptions, like a few have already stated Ghostbusters was cool, I think I liked it better than the movie. Of course, I havent seen it in years, so maybe I only liked it because I was little. I do remember having a bunch of ghostbuster toys, so maybe they just got lucky and it "accidentaly" wound up being good. MIB was cool too. X-men Evolution, I'm not sure yet, not great, but not Godzilla.

I dont really consider BTAS as a spinoff from the live action movies. I mean I'm sure the success of live action Batman was a big factor in bringing BTAS around, but u could say the success of the movie came from the success of the comics.

It's basically all about the money, but I think if you have room to develop your characters like in Ghostbusters, MIB, etc, you at least have a chance to make it pretty good. But how they heck are you going to develop Godzilla's character? Yeesh, a more caring, loving G?

[RockItShipper]

Originally posted by Failure
I dont really consider BTAS as a spinoff from the live action movies. I mean I'm sure the success of live action Batman was a big factor in bringing BTAS around, but u could say the success of the movie came from the success of the comics.

I'd say that the Adam West show probably was more established in the public eye than the comics, tho'.

I think the market was different when BTAS premiered. The fact is that the movies were something to push the project along. I mean, look at Catwoman and the Penguin's designs. Or the way a guest appearance by Black Canary(mmmmmm) was nixed because Robin wasn't in the script... Batgirl and Mr. Freeze in a direct-to-video initially scheduled for release alongside B&R... New episodes with Batgirl as a regular commissioned to start airing the fall after B&R hit theatres...

I'd say that BTAS is awfully close to the movie-based genre of 'toons, but it's easily one of the best of the lot.

[Failure]

Originally posted by RockItShipper


I'd say that the Adam West show probably was more established in the public eye than the comics, tho'.

I think the market was different when BTAS premiered. The fact is that the movies were something to push the project along. I mean, look at Catwoman and the Penguin's designs. Or the way a guest appearance by Black Canary(mmmmmm) was nixed because Robin wasn't in the script... Batgirl and Mr. Freeze in a direct-to-video initially scheduled for release alongside B&R... New episodes with Batgirl as a regular commissioned to start airing the fall after B&R hit theatres...

I'd say that BTAS is awfully close to the movie-based genre of 'toons, but it's easily one of the best of the lot.

I'm in complete agreement with you in that the movies definitely helped pushed things along. Without Batman the movie, there may have been no BTAS. But I'm just syaing that BTAS, unlike other spinoffs, had decades and decades of history to fall back on, so they had an excellent opportunity to make a great series. The history that exists is why I consider it in a little different place.

[freakboy86]

Well, off hand I'd have to say that "Roughnecks: Starship Troopers" was a pretty darn good show. Nice CGI animation and intelligent stories.
Of course we then have dren like the old Star Trek toons. blah. Or worse, the '77 version of 'Batman' with Adam West and Burt Ward doing the voices. I'm ashamed when I think how I used to watch those toons as a pre-teen.

[JustJack]

Ghostbusters=Real Ghostbusters. I think everyone enjoyed that.

I wouldn't go as far to say that B:TAS was based on the batman movie hype. I'd just say it was based off the comic, but with the movie hype, they designed some of the villains from off the movie. But then, in TNBA, They went back to a more classic-comic orientation.

Godzilla: I liked the show more than the movie. But, it still didn't last long, for various reasons(one of the being that Season 2 sucked...)

The Mummy: I pray the show gets better. I just hate how they made Imhotep!

Alienators Evolution Continues: This show isn't running off of any hype at all. Basically, it's your generic Saturday Morning Cartoon show. I miss cheesy, blant-super heroish kinda shows like this. It isn't great, It has almost NOTHING to do with the movie...but it's just simply fun. Makes me feel younger..

I forget the whole timeline, but didn't the Ninja Turtles cartoon appear AFTER the movie? Or BEFORE? Either way...It was a good show. But, remember in the mid-90's, when they supposedly based the show right off of the movies? Then, all of a sudden, the Turtles had Giant Samurai Robots? Hmmm....? I didn't like that much. And if you don't remember it, be happy that you don't.

Dude! Roughnecks ruled! To bad I hated the movie...

[Leaping Larry Jojo]

Originally posted by JustJack
Ghostbusters=Real Ghostbusters. I think everyone enjoyed that.

I wouldn't go as far to say that B:TAS was based on the batman movie hype.

The cartoon may have turned out to be more faithful to the comic than we thought, but the animated series would not have went into production had the movie not been successful. Therefore, I consider its existence due in part of the movie.

[Calhoun07]

Didn't Men In Black start as a comic book that was turned into a movie? I never have seen the comic book, tho. Bummer they didn't do a regular series of it. So wouldn't the animated series be based more on the comic book or was it based solely on the movie?

[JustJack]

Originally posted by calhoun07
Didn't Men In Black start as a comic book that was turned into a movie? I never have seen the comic book, tho. Bummer they didn't do a regular series of it. So wouldn't the animated series be based more on the comic book or was it based solely on the movie?

MiB was a comic book first, a short lived mini-series. But, the comic came across some guy in Holywood, and the movie happened. But, the cartoon is totally based off the movie(the comic was more...gruesome..less funny.)

[DarkAngel]

Originally posted by Nightwing
What do you think? Does the hype from a movie to create a cartoon show EVER give us quality programing?? Or is it just about popularity and profit...?

Are there any examples out there....!?

Like you guys have said, The Real Ghostbusters was great. That's the example. And, I'd also agree with BTAS being another. I've always seen it as being a result of the movie. Other than that, I can't think of any others. There have certainly been more failures than successes.