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American cartoons are dying or dead


Dagobahn Eagle

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There's this one cartoon I like where this kid takes time once in awhile to talk to the viewer about his views about certain things.. he like hangs out with his friends, a nerdy chick, a sporty chick and a black guy... dunno what it's called but I thought it was aright. only seen it like 3 - 4 times though XD

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... Avatar is an American show. One of the better made western "anime-style" shows.

 

I love Foster's, but most cartoons suck these days. Then again so do most live action shows. I blame the Brits and their damnable pop idol and big brother crap. TAKE THESE CRAP IDEAS BACK!

 

Anyway, the good shows get canceled because they're placed in crap time slots and they don't give it time to grow. Zim got canceled, Angry Beavers, Clerks, etc.

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There's this one cartoon I like where this kid takes time once in awhile to talk to the viewer about his views about certain things.. he like hangs out with his friends, a nerdy chick, a sporty chick and a black guy... dunno what it's called but I thought it was aright. only seen it like 3 - 4 times though XD

 

If it was on Toon Disney, you're probably talking about Weekenders. If not, I have no idea.

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I forgot about Angry Beavers! Did you know that Nick cancelled the last ep because it was about them getting cancelled and Nickelodeon didn't want a cartoon that told kids that they were repeating the same eps over and over.

 

noo i used to love this show when i was younger, another one i really liked was "rockos modern life", man i loved those random shows. I suppose the only equivalent of those random shows now days is spongebob, tho i dont really watch kiddy cartoons nemore.

 

Neways regarding anime, dont judge it by what makes it to america mainstream, eg poke/digi mon, dbz, yugioh etc.. , the real good ones are aimed at an adult audience and are some of the best series ive seen. I only got into anime lately and ive really enjoyed cowboy bebop, samurai champloo, full metal alchemist, gto. Some of those on adult swim are good, but sometimes the voice acting is not up to par.

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The Animals of Farthing Woods.

 

 

I laughed when I read that. I mean, what kind of name is that for a cartoon.

It looks like one of those cartoons that would bore the hell out of me when I was a kid, and the name is just hilarious. Farthing? Farting? :/

And anime these days sucks too.

 

Simply put, only cartoon I like these days is Fairly Oddparents. That's it.

 

*shrugs*

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I remember that Animals of Farthing Wood when it was first aired in the UK, it was a huge hit if I remember right, I also remember it being pretty depressing in places, for a kids show.

 

Maybe cartoons in the past just seemed better because you were younger, its kind of hard to tell. Seemed like a lot of ones these days are pretty bad, but maybe we only remember the classics from the past. It could be the same with most things, like films and such. I do think the Simpsons has really dropped off in quality in recent years, but maybe its just me.

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I don't know, I still think Farthing was decent at best. Not some be-all-end-all of animation. In my opinion Maya the Bee was a much better show than it. Don't get me wrong, it's good, but not THE BEST cartoon ever made or anything.

 

And Power Puff Girls is a much better show than you make it out to be. Just because you don't get references doesn't mean it's some retarded low-level crapfest.

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Some time ago the State TV channel in Norway, NRK, started sending re-runs of the excellent series The Animals of Farthing Woods. It's a fantastic epic about a pack of animals and rodents and other life-forms (like a snake), led by a wise fox, that flee the human destruction of their forest for a new home in a fabled park that I admit I do not know the English name of.

 

Each episode presents totally new challenges and discoveries. The characters all have different personalities. The drawings are downright incredible, with detailed backgrounds and animals that move in a "real" way. For example, when the fox was tired, it ran in a different way than when it was fresh.

 

I couldn't find many pictures from the series, but just look at this owl:

farth_16.gif

 

When I wandered into the kitchen and saw to my great surprise that the fox and his gang was on the screen again, I got to thinking: Why is it that kids of today are naïve enough to put up with poorly drawn, low-quality cartoons like Craptoon Networks' Dexter's Laboratory? Or the Powerpuff Girls? Why has cartoons been allowed to decline from the quality of Farthing Woods to the horror that is Dexter's Lab? When I first saw it in Houston I was simply shocked at how it was such a popular series when it was so horribly made.

 

Its problems? Every goddamned episode is nearly identical. The characters are so devoid of quality that it scares me. Attempts to teach kids about morals are so obvious and cliché that it makes me gag (instead of subtly hidden like in Farthing Woods and The Lion King).

 

This is why certain countries have banned commercials directed towards kids: Children accept anything, no matter how poor it is, as long as it meets a certain low standard. All Craptoon Networks has to do is pump out a million mainstream episodes of Dexter's Lab and broadcast them. Instant $. Disney's movies are still fairly good (just "fairly"), but I have a feeling they might go down, too.

 

D. E.

 

i agree to a certain extent. lost cities of gold? mysterious cities of gold? i can't remember the name, but it was bloody awesome. but there are a lot of good cartoons out these days, as have already been mentioned - zim, and to an extent stuf flike powerpuff girls.

 

i don't like the way cartoons are going these days though, i agree. i almost wish that there was the old wholesome attitude taht used to be in animation 10 years ago, but also, as the the times these things change.

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I think Fox was the heroic leader, but badger was the wise old mentor-type with the life lessons. If he was in a film he'd be played by Morgan Freeman.

I actually remember reading all the books for Farthing Woods (you guys new it was based on a series of books right?) They got a bit convoluted once Fox's kids started causing chaos. I think I lost interest in the cartoon well before that... but I definately don't remember the animation being anything special.

 

Having looked back at a number of 80s cartoons the animation SUCKS in nearly all of them... the few that made an impression on me for either their great animation (battle of the planets, thunderbirds 2085(?)) or great stories (Mysterious Cities, Dogtainian) all turned out to be japanese in origin in some way. Of course I didn't realise that at the time, but i was smart enough to know they were better.

Try watching Thundercats or He-man or Centurions now.... terrible animation, bad perspective, low resolution, repetetive plots designed to sell toys. And with blatant kid-programming heavey handed morals shovelled into every episode. Urgh.

 

I'll take the clever references and adult humour of Powerpuff girls, Ren and Stimpy or Invader Zim over that any day.

 

PS/ Now I wish i hadn't even mentioned Anime... I knew you guys would start fighting about it... seems to me that ruling out a whole diverse industry is daft (whether it is "all US movies suck" or "all japanese animation sucks". After all you can hardly compare Spirited Away to Trigun to Hentai.

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