Early Installment Weirdness in Western Animations

I thought it was okay, but that's it. It's not very memorable to me. It's just kinda like a filler episode in a TV series—not too bad, but not really essential.

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I think I liked Shrek the Third, but you know, I really don't remember it.

The first Shrek didn't have Puss, so I have to take points off for that.

Loves feel-good animation a whole lot.

Like I said, it's not really very memorable.

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It started okay, but it lost more and more steam as it went on, until the pathetic way to dispose of the villains happened, and it hit rock bottom.

All I remember is "Live and Let Die" and Justin Timberlake.

Oh, and "Immigrant Song" being the call of the wild.

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I of course have a bunch of Nickelodeon examples. People already mentioned the first season of Spongebob, so i'll just reaffirm: When I was like... 8, I merely judged the show based on its quality of animation, not the content of the episode, so understandably I preferred Seasons 2 and 3, which are arguably two of the funniest, best written, and wonderfully animated seasons of any children's animation ever. The first seasons animation was a lot duller, characters didn't act with as much energy, and many of the colours were muted. But what came with the shows Decay and of course getting older, I saw the first season on the same level as the next two. It may not have had as much energy, but the writing was still great, and there was little to no Flanderization. Fairly Odd Parents, mainly characters and animation, and plots too. Cosmo and Wanda seemed to be on the same level of intelligence, and Timmy's parents actually cared about him, as opposed to being horrible parents and Too Dumb To Live. Shoddy animation was only noticeable in the first season I believe. The next ones got the colors and stuff up to par, but still lacked an energy that later seasons would have, but that might also be because of the voice acting, which became more energized as the series went on. And then Jimmy Neutron. Being Nick's first CG Show, I have to say, the animation even from the early seasons still holds up today, even compared to later CG stuff they did. But the show really suffered from a lack of epicness. IMO, the show was best when it was at its most chaotic and had the most ridiculous plots, which is why I think the later seasons are so great.

edited 28th Apr '13 4:53:56 PM by KaijuXXX

See, I'm not a monster. I'm just ahead of the curve.

Dude, break up your thoughts into paragraphs so it's not just an illegible wall of text.

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I would if I didn't have to spend a half hour failing to figure out the markup for indentation.

See, I'm not a monster. I'm just ahead of the curve.

I admit that Jungle Cubs was kind of a Guilty Pleasure for me way back in the day, mainly because for some reason I found its version of Bagheera adorable. That said, that only really lasted for the first season, as the second game him a completely different voice and mannerisms. But the baffling thing is, while this arguably made him closer to his film counterpart, Louie also got a complete makeover that made him look far less like the film version.

edited 28th Apr '13 7:06:42 PM by TheGunheart

Kablam! was also a notable case. Animation in most of the shows was pretty subpar, the Offbeats in hindsight were a noticeable absence, and Henry and June almost had the reverse of what their personalities would jell into.

Still, the show was excellent enough that they're not all that bad to look back on. Though season 2 and the first half of 3 were the best in quality in my opinion.

By the end of 3 and what's been released of 4, June's sadist tendencies were much more visible, only a few of the original shows survived further requiring more one-offs and music videos to fill the time, and a lot of the querky humour and intelligence was fizzling out.

Twentington - yeah, I think it's Family Video that still has a store very close by to where I am.

^^ In Kablam, Henry and June essentially changed personalities by the season. It's really weird, but not something I noticed as a kid.

• Season 1: June is a semi-Genki Girl Cloudcuckoo Lander, and Henry is the easily exasperated Cloud Cuckoo Landers Minder. Both are known for quipping on a dime, and both were subject to jokes and slapstick.
• Season 2: Henry is The Comically Serious Jerk with a Heart of Gold and a Butt-Monkey, whereas June is an even bigger gold hearted jerk with a penchant for mean-spirited messing with Henry, who tends to be so smug that the audience is intended to feel he deserves it. June is the only one with a decent sense of humor, and isn't allowed to be the butt of jokes. Their dynamic is totally different.
• Season 3: Henry's personality is exactly the same, but now the joke is usually that June is the only one who doesn't mess with Henry - instead sitting on the sidelines, usually making quips about it. June is still the only one with a sense of humor, and is sometimes but only rarely the butt of jokes. The character dynamic is different again (it can be seen as a mix between the first two, but is also totally opposite in some ways).

I dunno why that stuck with me after I noticed it, but I guess it's mostly because it's one of the few times I've ever seen a show that isn't professional wrestling totally change character dynamics and characterization so many times, without something akin to character development or a kind of evolution. Because of how by-the-episode the show was, it felt like the characters' personalities changed like dimes. I mean, I remember all three types being funny, but still...

edited 28th Apr '13 10:16:07 PM by KnownUnknown

"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.

You can't indent on here.

Just

do

this.

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Double carriage returns are fine,
but all single carriage returns get eaten?

Yeah, it's weird how Henry and June pretty much switched personalities. speaking of, don't expect to find about a third of the episodes. Damn you Nick, release them on dvd already before you lose the tapes.

I've been able to find most episodes online somewhere or another, at some time or another. Granted, less recently then previously.

edited 28th Apr '13 10:47:47 PM by KnownUnknown

"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.

I thought that there were only two episodes that were completely missing?

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There are more erratic cases of character changes, especially Depending on the Writer (did writers change between seasons, if so it may explain a lot).

Rufus and Amberley of The Dreamstone were similarly erratic examples. A different co writer was used nearly every season. In the pilot they are more the main protagonists with more distinct personalities (Cloud Cuckoo Lander Badass Normal and Hot-Blooded Adorably Precocious Child). For the rest of the first season, they are nuanced into Hero Antagonists with more generic Cheerful Child personalities. The second season portrays them mostly as incompetent Fools. The third season seems to portray them as more intentionally self righteous, and sometimes getting lightly rebuffed or punished for it, while near the fourth season they are more pragmatic and seemed to lean back more into their old personalities from the pilot.

edited 29th Apr '13 3:39:25 AM by Psi001

Spider Man The Animated Series was a lot more episodic in the first season. Which is odd, considering how it's known for being an arc-based series. I think the first real story arc was probably "The Alien Costume". And after that, stand-alone episodes were rare. The animation took a pretty big hit, though.

edited 30th Apr '13 2:13:56 PM by DrFurball

Weird in a Can (updated M-F)

Tell me about it; you could make a drinking game out of all the times you'd see Spidey do that same swinging kick. More heinous since he couldn't punch anybody.

Of course, don't you know anything about ALCHEMY?!- Twin clones of Ivan the Great

Or how many times he swung past the panning same city skyline background, even when he wasn't anywhere near any skyscrapers.

"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.

Was it worth the cheaper animation for storylines though?

Actually... yeah. The animation got fairly shitty at times, but the storylines were very good, even with the often cheesy characterization and hammy, hammy acting.

And the animation wasn't terrible all the time (though it did go from good to bad several times within a single episode). "Goblin War" and especially "Turning Point" had some of the best animation in the series for some scenes.

"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.

The stories took a very big hit when Spidey became a guest star to his own rotating guest stars, and he took a level in loserdom. Really, even when factoring the typical Parker Luck, he became as much of a punching bag as Comic Strip Spidey, and it ended up looking like he couldn't get anything done on his own.

It's a minor thing, but I don't like how Zoidberg has teeth in the early episodes of Futurama. And all the characters voiced by Billy West have slightly different sounding voices in the post-return episodes. I got used to it, but it still weirded me out for a while.