Mean-spiritedness in cartoons

With all the talk I've heard about supposedly mean-spirited or sadistic cartoons like Cat Dog and Herman And Katnip... Well, after having seen episodes of both, I just don't understand why.

Sure, there are parts that are downright sadistic and mean enough that even I could notice but they are far and few between. Take, for example, this Herman and Katnip cartoon:

For a show that was supposedly the inspiration for Itchy and Scratchy, most of the gags feel like something from a Tom and Jerry cartoon. No blood, no death, Katnip is fine in the next scene... I just don't get it.

Or, say, this, which Jerry Beck called one of his favorite "bad taste" gags:

[[youtube:tg_v16kIcVc]]

Again, I don't get the meanness. So does anyone have opinions about what mean-spiritedness is in animation? When do they go too far? Anyone want to enlighten me?

...All the talk about Herman and Katnip? Where? Didn't know there was such a ressurgence for a Tom And Jerry clone from the 50s...

Anyway, the answer's simple. it's called Slapstick. To quote the article "Slapstick is essentially physical Comedic Sociopathy"

I mean. Why are you so focused on cartoons at all? Never watched the Three Stooges, Laurel And Hardy. Why the focus on animation. It's not like Animation is the only one to use Slapstick.

I think it's important to make distinctions about different types of 'mean-spiritdness'.

I believe 'everything is fair' regarding characters who are supposed to be enemies, or even Vitriolic Best Buds who still are shown as not receiving psychological damage from their mutual dickery (Teen Titans Go). Without the Spies being complete jerks to each other, the comedy of Spy Vs Spy wouldn't work at all. Tom and Jerry don't ask or give each other any pause, and their whole style of comedy relies on that.

On the other hand, the meanness falls into Dude, Not Funny! territory when it becomes abuse. When you can clearly set one character as 'the victim' and the other as 'the victimizer' rather than 'enemies who are at constant odds', the whole thing falls apart. It just becomes an exercise in sadism. This gets even worse when the 'victim' is a character who is supposed to be the Audience Avatar (keeping in mind most of these works are aimed at very young people) who receives abuse or neglect from those who are supposed to be their relatives or protection figures, bringing Unfortunate Implications to the table.

edited 4th Nov '13 1:44:08 PM by NapoleonDeCheese

OK, "things I've heard from 1 to 10 years ago" about Herman and Katnip. That'd be more like it. I will agree with you that it was pretty much a Tom and Jerry clone.

But I want to know, where does slapstick cross the line into downright sadism? After all, there's a lot about Cat Dog, the other show I mentioned, being mean spirited, while most of the violence was slapstick.

As for Laurel and Hardy, the Three Stooges, etc. this is the animation board, is it not?

I think Cat Dog falls more into the 'sadism' category. The abuse isn't over the top and karmic enough to Cross the Line Twice- rather, it stops flat at the line where you simply go 'okay, they're just screwing with this guy.'

It doesn't help that the abusers aren't charismatic enough. Even when Tweety is being a dick to Sylvester, he retains enough quirks to make him at least iconically tolerable, while the Greaser Dogs are just generic bullies with nothing that makes them Love to Hate.

I wouldn't actually say it was THAT sadistic. I did rewatch the show; the Greasers are far more developed than, say, the Kankers from Ed, Edd n Eddy. While at first, they were simply generic bully archetypes - the Leader, the Chick, and the Idiot - they were fleshed out as the series went on. (It also helped that they were never really overused, only appearing in about a third of the episodes as antagonists.)

We were also never supposed to be on the side of the abusers - we were on the side of the abused!

I do think Lube is pretty funny, though...

The Kankers, though... The Kankers were NEVER fleshed out at all. Ed, Edd n Eddy was arguably more mean spirited than Cat Dog ever was.

The comparison, by the way, is flawed: we were always supposed to root for Tweety and boo Sylvester. The Greasers were villains, and we were supposed to sympathize with Cat Dog when they get beaten up.

Am I the only one who sees this?

The thing is, making the character we are supposed to root for too downtrodden and abused eventually ends up creating Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy.

And Cat Dog did win against the Greasers in quite a few episodes ("Rinky Dinks," "Cat Dog's Booty") or come out unharmed. The same applies to Rancid Rabbit and Winslow.

This, by the way, is why I feel Ed, Edd n Eddy was so much more mean spirited - the Eds never won, ever, even when they should have.

Ed Edd n' Eddy's Big Picture Show says hi.

Speaking of which, is everyone else simply watching a different show than I am? I watched nearly every episode of Cat Dog, and the slapstick really was somewhat over the top.

It's like I'm seeing Cat Dog fight against Toothpickhead and you're watching the Greasers realistically brutalize Cat Dog for 11 minutes.

That was the finale, and it does prove my point - aside from that, how many episodes of Ed, Edd n Eddy have them winning?

(Cat Dog, by the way, also gave its protagonists a happy ending for its finale - they meet their parents. The show actually is a parallel to Ed, Edd n Eddy in quite a few ways.)

Often they DON'T deserve to win, but a few times one or more of them makes it out of their latest failed scheme in one piece. I recall one time, Eddy just walked away from the chaos that ends every episode to go watch TV.

You're right; this was an extreme minority, though. There were many episodes of Cat Dog that had them winning or unharmed, but not too many of Ed, Edd n Eddy.

Actually, speaking of which, Ed, Edd n Eddy also fits under Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy. It's a wonder nobody has yet added it...

After all, few of the characters in the show are truly sympathetic; the one character that is, Edd, is beaten up at the end anyway; Kevin and Sarah, the worst of the bunch, often get away scot free with everything they do...

I have no idea why anyone could say they like this show and yet hate Cat Dog for the exact same reasons.

edited 4th Nov '13 3:07:45 PM by Aldo930

Ex-Fucking-actly. Nothing more I can say to that.

There's a certain show, that's way more mean-spirited than both of those actually legitimately decent shows... I'm quite infamous for bashing it, too - but not without good reasons... It certainly belongs on here, though!

I actually like Ed, Edd n Eddy. The problem is, though, Cat Dog has been bashed on so much and so often that it's just sickening, and I've decided to at least point out the hypocrisy.

What's the show that's more mean spirited? Can ya give a hint at least?

I agree that people are really stupid about political correctness in TV shows. That's not a dig at "casual" racism or anything that used to permeate animation from Disney and Warner, it's a dig at how unbelievably anal channels and parents are nowadays about slapstick.

There are some gags we're never gonna see again - like, say, Bugs Bunny being chased by a screaming bullet, hiding in a barrel and putting up a sign which the bullet follows - back to Elmer Fudd. And you're very unlikely to see anyone get conked on the head, even in a fairly darker young adults story dealing with a fantasy mafia type of thing, where the protagonist would probably get hit if not shot.

Family Guy may be an exception, as is American Dad - and honestly, that's what I like about the shows when I watch them. I mean not even Looney Tunes, the franchise that took Comedic Sociopathy and slapstick levels to an all-time high which has never been matched, does slapstick any more. Tom and Jerry is dead and buried and will likely never be revived in its format. I think the only modern animation to achieve the same degree of wackiness and slapstick would be Oggy And The Cockroaches, and the majority of it was from the 90's - with a new season in 2007 and a movie released this year, but compared to the massive Warner Bros. archive it's nothing.

In case you haven't noticed, I'm a big fan of animated slapstick. It didn't birth a generation of psychopaths, and I fail to see how it would do that now.

Ninja'd there. Oh well.

As I was saying, I don't watch either of those shows much anymore, but I'm still more proud to have them in my cartoon/anime collection, than what I'm getting at. These 4 shows make Cat Dog and Ed Eddn Eddy look tame in comparision... Once you've met any of the characters from these examples, you'll be wishing death upon them after sitting through even 5 minutes of the shows they're on:

1)Kid Vs Kat - A disaster maker for cat lovers/fans everywhere, not helped by overly insipid characters, writing, and art-style that make this such a disaster! Cliche Kid show BS that Canadian animation is maligned for today as its most repugnant and reprehensible. Like #4, it shouldn't have lasted even 5 minutes!

2)The Buzz On Maggie - Tried to do what Ed Eddn Eddy did - and utterly failed to realize characters need to be engaging, so do the setting, writing, and animation, IN ORDER FOR US TO GIVE A SHIT.

3)A Kind Of Magic - Obscure, but for good reasons; basic emulation of everything wrong with late seasons of Family Guy and The Simpsons, while dragging certain Disney references through the mud for BS reasons. Rarely a happy ending to be had and the characters themseelves, due to their unpleasantness or stupidity deserve what they get, IMHO. Too bad it ain't entertaining at all.

4)Eliot Kid - Also Obscure, but just as shitty. A basic example of how you do not do a show about a kid with an overractive imagination, or anything focusing on a little kid character in general, unless you want your audience pissed off in the end... Worse still, this kid never succeeds or wins at anything to endear us to him, making it worse than Cat Dog 's and Ed Eddn Eddy 's weakest points combined.

edited 4th Nov '13 3:40:43 PM by TheShopSoldier

Political correctness? What?

I did see a few episodes of Kid vs. Kat. It was mostly average at best. The others, well, no idea. Are any of those THE show?

edited 4th Nov '13 3:43:32 PM by Aldo930

Ed, Edd n Eddy was mean-spirited in the sense that it had no different levels of punishment for "the mastermind", "the guy who does what you tell him because he doesn't know any better", and "the spineless guy who tries and fails to keep them in line." I often thought at the end of such episodes, "what did Edd do?" and to a lesser extent, "what did Ed do?"

CatDog was about as mean-spirited as its near-contemporary, Sponge Bob Squarepants, possibly less, since while both shows tried to argue that the Grumpy Bear characters deserved to be harmed, CatDog did so less consistently. Cat was played less sympathetically than Dog but more than most of the people who hurt him.

I personally find most slapstick somewhat mean-spirited. In fact, the only slapstick show that didn't ever make me feel that way was Goof Troop. Ironically, it all starts with bullying. Pete torments cowed PJ and stupid Goofy, the nicest people around. This makes it extremely funny when he becomes victim to slapstick because he totally deserves it. Meanwhile, because Goofy and PJ are nice people, they don't (usually) attack Pete, thus sparing them from Designated Hero problems. Instead, Pete gets punished by the universe itself. Finally, despite PJ and Goofy being abused for no good reason, the show does not play this as a joke. PJ is hardly ever played for laughs on the show, especially when he's in focus, while Goofy typically is—but not when he's being successfully abused. In fact, Pete's abuse of Goofy helps us to see a serious side to him.

I liked Ed, Edd n Eddy, but I always hated how the Eds lost in the end.

Nobody has ever brought this up when talking about Cat Dog. You're the first, and for that, I salute ya. Since Cat was one of the main protagonists, by the way, you were supposed to like him. Winslow, Rancid, and the Greasers were never portrayed as anything but antagonists.

Slapstick is funny because of the misery. That's my philosophy.

I think it's often a case of people thrive on karma, which a lot of times has to be done very intricately. You have to make sure it's just enough so the character isn't a Karma Houdini, and not too excessive so it comes off as Disproportionate Retribution. Also you have to make sure no other character avoids the end of karma (or even worse make the 'hero' seem like they deserve it) otherwise it looks like a Double Standard.

Cat Dog was designed to be sadistic, it's maybe not executed in the most witty or funny manner (and sometimes just playing abuse alone as funny) but the cruelty was intentional. The only time it seemed unintentionally warped was usually concerning Dog, who was a tall order Idiot Houdini, yet whenever Cat acted inconsiderate to him at even a fraction of the same level as vice versa, the story seemed to rather earnestly hand Cat and only Cat An Aesop and Dog was back to his old selfish antics. The fact Dog was usually an enormous hypocrite in these cases didn't help.

Spongebob Squarepants is the same, but at least the odd times Spongebob is the Butt-Monkey they usually often play it as karma, or make clear Squidward is genuinely taking things too far. "A Breath Of Fresh Squidward" for example pretty much Lampshaded Spongebob couldn't take what he dished out.

I think a lot of the mean spiritedness in cartoons is annoying more when it seems the writers didn't mean to place it in, and the sadism is meant to be karmic. eg. instances such as when Jerry or Herman won despite being portrayed much more callous than Tom. Sylvester was prone to this a lot too. (I think cartoons by that point were just expectant that the audience see the cat as the villain it had become that prominent a formula, so sometimes underplayed the 'he started it' aspect, it's hard not to think of Itchy And Scratchy as a parody of this treatment).

The Dreamstone is a particularly nausiating example of this. The heroes are played off as bastions of goodwill and the feud is played off as very black and white, but it's based completely on suspension of disbelief. The baddies have the same greyness and face the same Misplaced Retribution as Ed Edd N Eddy and the heroes actually have a ridiculously meager form of provocation and are usually much more willingly sadistic than the villains, but it still seems like the narrative plays them a fully deserving to win about 99.9% of the time (and even that 0.1% is very shrewd about it) albeit with little substance outside an excessive And That's Terrible speech. The fact the writers blatantly didn't give a shit about writing the heroes the large majority of the time only exacerbated this.

That to me is far more frustrating than the above shows, where the outcome is cruel, but is intended to be.

edited 4th Nov '13 5:39:16 PM by Psi001

Again, with Cat Dog...

The main reason I am not going to blame Dog for dragging his brother around is because he is a dog. A dog will chase a vehicle out of pure instinct; since Cat's attached to his brother, well...

I don't think it's as black and white as that. There were quite a few episodes where both Cat and Dog were in the wrong, and the lesson was that they needed to make up and stop fighting. I can remember about one episode where Dog was the villain - "Work Force," the Kavity Krunch episode.

Cat Dog also won quite often - in about half of the episodes, I think. Where they lost, sometimes Cat would be thrown a bone, e.g. in "Dog Ate It."

That's all I'm going to say and all I think can be said.

Anyone want to mention where Dog's hypocrisy had shown through, as Psi001 said? I can only remember two instances, and in both, I felt Dog's anger was somewhat justified: "New Leash on Life," where Cat basically lied to Dog that he'd go to the pound unless he put on a leash; and "Fred the Flying Fish," where Cat had sold an animal off to be mistreated.

edited 4th Nov '13 5:47:42 PM by Aldo930

Psi001: As much as I disagree with you about Cat Dog, I may have to agree with you about The Dreamstone, even though I've never seen the show.

In Cat Dog, Cat is at least supposed to be seen as a protagonist, and Winslow, Rancid and the Greasers are clearly antagonists. When your protagonists are worse than your antagonists, you have definitely screwed up.