Does America have a bias against animation?

I stopped watching cartoons in 2010 and I never looked back. I've been discovering old shows I missed the first time round instead.

In Western animation old stuff generally is on the same footing as the new stuff. Anyone who says "the old stuff is better than the new stuff" or "the new shows are superior to the old" is pretty much blind to the truth. There is crap and greatness in every era. This applies for most other mediums.

It's doing something different from AT, but that's the nature of creator driven stuff. It does seem interesting, I have to admit. The musical score apparently features musicians from the LA revivalist scene who I've known about for a while.

Now, if they got some people from the San Francisco revivalist scene I'd have watched it by now.

I suppose that's fair. I suppose I'm more inclined to get into the new stuff than the old. Maybe. I don't know.

For me, my problem is really the fatiwue of having backlog for games, books, movie and tv shows as well as having a bad habit that I don't really know when I started but I just can't sit down and pay attention to the movie or book I'm seeing/reading unless I'm with people or at the movie theater.

I have a similar problem. It's why I can't get into netflix or hulu most of the time. I just feel too antsy to sit down and watch something. The feeling has decreased in the past, but I still have that problem.

Let me say that Over the Garden Wall is definitely worth it. I'd describe it as whimsical rather than serious, though it has some real darkness in it as well. Watch it, if you get the chance. You'll be glad you did.

I keep hearing it's good, and the fact that there's extended tributes to silent animation and Max Fleischer, plus the fact that they got musicians from the LA revivalist scene to play on the score, has made me willing to check it out... Eventually...

In any case, the fact is, just because there's so much more out there doesn't mean you shouldn't expand your horizons, serious animation or not. You could do something like find Jerry Beck's book on the 50 greatest cartoons and watch every cartoon listed in it, even the runner-ups.

And the same goes for most other mediums. Sure, you're at the comic book store to fuel your superhero obsession, but they just got in that re-release of Marvel's attempt at underground comics... Maybe you should check that out.

edited 22nd Apr '15 5:00:02 AM by Aldo930

Another interesting non-action animated work is The Illusionist. There's much to criticize in it, from the title itself (the main character is not an illusionist, he's an up-close magician, and while the film is French the problem isn't a case of sticking an incorrect English title on a French work; the title in French is L'Illusionniste) to the fact that, watching it, you realize there's really no reason why it needed to be animated. It's lovely, beautifully done, but nothing in it couldn't have been staged easily in live action. For all that, it's a sweet little story and worth seeing.

Me Too.

The same words have often different implications in different languages. In German the words "Illusionist" and "Magician" are nearly interchangeable.

To robbery a lot of things could be in a different fomat if the companies really wanted for it. The walking dead show could have been animated, pokemon could have been live action since the begining, etc. If the company wanted the story to be animated sure let them. But to certain stories tend to lend themselve better to be expressed in a particular style of storytelling over another style? Yes but it doesn't hurt to try to tell that story in a different format to see how it goes right?

Ps could someone please tell me why my posts say the wrong time for when I edited them. I put my account for New York time zone but the post said 5 something but I posted it like at 8.

edited 23rd Apr '15 5:20:08 AM by Floatzel

If you edit a post, it always lists the time according to California's time zone, rather than whatever time zone you're in. It's just a bug that's never been fixed.

Oh certainly. The ultimate deciding factor over whether or not something is animated should be whether or not an animator wants to animate it.

Back to the question of this thread, I think it animation has it's peaks and low time. The 90s were simply THE animation decade. The disney renaissance, cowboy bebop, disney cartoons, animaniacs, etc. But I think for this generation, I think its this decade that cemented that animation is for younger kids. The animated stuff that the mainstream knows about were aimed either marketed for family or afternoon/saturday morning cartoon and we all know who those were. Sure they were very good and most aged well enough, but the parent, grandparent, older cousins, aunts, and uncle really didn't sat down with the kids to watch the shows with them. So this has the effect of the adults or young adults to attach animated stuff to the younger members of the family. But I will bet you the kids that grow up in the 90 when we become the working generation and have a say in the market will have a different mentality when it comes to animation and probably bring it back. But the problem is that the younger generation grew up differently as well. They grew up when either cg was getting a hold of the market or became the market as is now. So you will see a generation that grew up with animation and are in control of the product and the consumer growing up on cg and a different style of shows all together. For example, I remember a video of someone showing ducktales to kids. I think only one kid vaque knew the triplets and none knew about scrooge. Don't quoye me on it so.

From the beginning of the medium - at least since the mid-30s, animation has been seen as a kids' thing. People like to claim that theatrical animation was for everyone, but most of the Disney and WB characters were merchandised to kids.

Since the 90s at least we've at least gotten people to accept that adults can enjoy cartoons made for them; cartoons in primetime have made a comeback far bigger than their original run in the 60s.

Still, a parent who gets to watch TV with their kids will probably find a show to enjoy on its own terms. My own mother became a fan of Sponge Bob when it was new, and later on, Courage and Billy And Mandy.

There's another good reason why animation in the 90's was great. The execs were either clueless as to what the shows were doing and never bothered to take them off the air for seemingly petty reasons, or simply got out of the creators' way. Now they're getting their uncreative hands on everything.

edited 24th Apr '15 4:51:00 PM by kyun

To be fair, Nick and Cartoon Network - and more recently the Disney Channel - have always had a commitment of sorts to creator-driven animation.

Even the execs had some influence back in the 90s; it was just seen in the kind of shows they green lit. Note how many wacky series with touches of gross out humor Nick aired after Ren And Stimpy put them on the map for good.

One practice of Nick's I will never get is why they turn down stuff that would be different from their usual programming (The Modifyers), yet take stuff from the internet (Fred, React to That, Breadwinners). I know Nick has always been a more "play it safe" network, but they are turning interesting concepts.

Fun fact: Adventure Time and I believe Ed Edd n Eddy were initially pitched to Nick, but they were turned down.

To be fair, Pendleton Ward had had no experience in animation when he created the short; he later got it working on Flapjack.

this is a bit off topic, but since we are talking about networks picking up shows and not picking up shows I will bring it up. I never understood why many franchises or a series that had many forms like Konamj for the first and G Undum for the later, seem to all be under one company so crossover can be easy but when brought to the states they go to like a bunch of different companies and so when a crossover game or show get made it can't be brought over because the shows are managed by too many companies. Also I can understand the trops no export for you to some degree usually if they know it's not going to be a market the tinkle rubee game but why does it so prevalent?

Also remeber when posted how you could tell by the artstyle when a movie came out. So I have a thing now to see if people could guess when the older disney movies come out usually dumbo and snow write and the such. Well one friend thought snow write came out 2000, my organic tutor thought 90s and another friend thought it came from the 50. I think dumbo and Pinocchio had the same general type of answers to it as well. They always are surprised about Snow White came out in 39 and dumbo and Pinocchio in the 40s.

You can edit instead of multi-posting, especially in such close quarters.

I was thinking about it but i didn't for some reason . Sorry about that.God why do I ramble in my posts.

Why not? They're your posts. Ramble away.

I'm generally pretty good about determining when a film was released, based on film quality and style. I've known people, though, who don't like watching older movies (at least old movies in color, as black and white seems to age better and appear sharper) because of the picture quality.

edited 25th Apr '15 11:17:58 PM by Robbery

I think it might be a "cheesy" or "cheap" feel from older movies for lack of a better term. It's like the n64/ps1 or some pc games like myst. Acceptable or out right beutiful for the time, but by today's standerds it something you just can't get away with without looking either VERY lazy or your very first game for your first computer class final. And also about the black and white, it does seems sharper and more emotional. I think it was just the technology of the time in terms of color that makes movies have their age weight more than black and white.I will bet you that if dr. Strange love or the original triwlight zone was in color it would have felt its age either a lot more or actually aged at all. It's like cel shading in video games. They tend to age better than other games in term of style. Like jet side radio which if I didn't know better really would have though was a ps2 game and wind waker especially compared to twilight princess.

Ps sorry about always bringing up Vidio game examples I will always consider myself slightly more of a gamer than a movie lover.

edited 25th Apr '15 7:37:44 PM by Floatzel

Frankly, I always found aesthetic judgements like that to be kind of shallow.