Mean-spiritedness in cartoons

I do agree Cat Dog was at least open to the callousness at times, and broke the formula enough to make some cathartic exceptions. There are some shows that never make that exception. At the end of it though, I feel they tried to make Dog more sympathetic than Cat most of the time (and if we can't punish Dog for being a dog, why does Cat and so many other cartoons get punished excessively for being a cat?)

Tom And Jerry doesn't really bug me as much, since the writers at least acknowledged Jerry was capable of being an asshole and often intricately punished him or even let Tom win to show the karma worked both ways. I could take the odd time he won undeservedly because I knew it was the exception not the rule.

Most of The Dreamstone is on Youtube. It's mostly at it's worst in Season One (Blob's Incredible Plan is a standout example of this). It seemed like they were trying to balance things out properly by about the end of Season Three, making the heroes more pragmatic and giving the baddie a legitimately nasty motive, if to a more subtle degree than what was really needed, and it still didn't really call out the fact the unwilling minions' abuse was rarely ever karmic. The nearest to the heroes ever being punished for being more vindictive than the Urpneys was The Dream Beam Invasion, and it's a far more petty punishment than a single instance of slapstick the Urpneys suffer every episode (the heroes were pretty much immune to slapstick violence).

edited 4th Nov '13 6:29:51 PM by Psi001

The problem is, though, Cat never really acted on his instincts like Dog did. He had a fear of water, but he never chased Winslow. He was simply more civilized than Dog, and thus knew exactly what he was doing when he did what he did.

There was an episode dealing with their instincts, by the way - "Guess Who's Going to Be Dinner?"

edited 4th Nov '13 5:57:19 PM by Aldo930

It might just be because I only have memories of the early episodes, I don't know if the later ones toned it down. "Tresspassing" however I remember as being a very mean spirited episode where Cat got punished for Dog being a complete douchebag.

I just never took to the Idiot Houdini formula. At least not to the point of ruining lives. We don't give people a pass for murdering or harming people in real life because they have something wrong with their head, and we certainly shouldn't enable them to do it. It also bugged me how Dog suddenly became a whole lot more lucid and aware of his surrounding when Cat was doing something bad.

edited 4th Nov '13 5:59:50 PM by Psi001

Yes, that was a terrible, terrible episode. Interestingly, the writer of that episode, Mike Allen, seemingly never wrote any other episodes.

Do check out the later episodes; the two written by Dan Povenmire ("Silents Please" and "Kooky Prank Day") are among the show's best episodes. On the other side, "Cat Dog Candy," while the bulk of it was funny, had a crappy Ass Pull of an ending.

I don't know. Aside from when he was chasing the garbage truck, Dog never tried to torture his brother. He actually liked his brother, and the same with Cat - there are some really heartwarming moments where Cat sticks up for Dog...

edited 4th Nov '13 6:02:27 PM by Aldo930

As said I won't say the show didn't play away from the mean spiritedness, there were a lot of times things were karmic and Cat either got a bone thrown or genuinely was being a complete dick (the episode with him eavesdropping on everyone comes to mind and was pretty amusing). It's just I guess on average I felt Dog and other jerk characters got a free pass too often and not always with a witty enough outcome.

As said a lot of instances Cat suffered were the fault of Dog's stupidity (eg. the pool episode, instances with the mailman, which again the episode usually sided with) and unlike many other examples he was rarely remorseful, which made him seem more like a selfish child than simply too spacey to notice his errors. The pilot also had Cat just want a breather from his exasperating life, until Dog sulks and guilt trips him into having things his way. Not even a compromise or an attempt to be more considerate to Cat as well, just Dog doing things as he wants again.

edited 4th Nov '13 6:06:49 PM by Psi001

I don't know - even in the earlier episodes, there are quite a few occasions where Winslow or Rancid gets punished - "All You Can't Eat," "Brother's Day," "Escape from the Deep End."

The Greasers, for whatever reason, never got punished as much, but this was rectified in the later episodes.

"Cone Dog" was a rather funny episode, I'll say.

I probably remembered the pilot differently - Dog just shut up for when he was in the Cat suit, and Cat came to the realization he liked his brother better on his own. As for the mailman episode, any sympathy I had for the mailman kind of went out the window when he made fun of Dog in his own home. I was waiting for Dog to rip off his pants.

edited 4th Nov '13 6:08:33 PM by Aldo930

I didn't say they never got punished, just I didn't think they did on enough occasions, compared to say, Jerry, who got punished far more often than he got a free pass (and even then Tom got a few unwarranted wins to show this was indiscriminate).

It was started by Dog harassing the mailmen in the first place, and being quite smug about it. Cat was also frustrated for the obvious reason he never got mail. It was hard not to see this bullying as a taste of his own medicine, even if giving him a Heroic BSoD was admittedly perhaps a bit too far.

edited 4th Nov '13 6:10:59 PM by Psi001

As for Dog never being remorseful, well, it wasn't like he didn't suffer with Cat when they got into trouble. The two were attached.

I can take or leave the antagonists being punished; in an episode like "Pumped" it wouldn't have worked.

I think you miss the fact that the bullying wasn't done because Dog tried to rip off the mailman's pants. He did it for no reason at all, just to be a jerk, and this was done as the icing on his Heroic BSoD. Not so much a taste of his own medicine as kicking a man when he's down.

edited 4th Nov '13 6:15:03 PM by Aldo930

Wasn't the whole premise of whenever Dog angered someone like the Greasers that they always attacked Cat while Dog came out unscathed (usually looking nonchalantly at the Big Ball of Violence just avoiding him)?

It still came off like Dog kinda had it coming though. It's like how Animaniacs has the Warners harrass a Jerkass, despite never being provoked themselves or even witnessing their cruelty first hand. They just seem to be props of destruction almost comically sent to put them in their place.

edited 4th Nov '13 6:15:52 PM by Psi001

There were quite a few occasions when both of them were beaten up. Besides, Dog was often running at the time, and the Greasers probably grabbed the end that wasn't running. So it makes sense to me.

With the Warners, the antagonists were usually colossal jerks. Dog, however, was just acting on his instincts. Dogs chase mailmen. It's a fact of life. Again, I am not going to blame anyone who acts on his instincts.

edited 4th Nov '13 6:19:04 PM by Aldo930

Again, it may be because I watched more of the early episodes (a lot of slapstick series tend to be similar early on, being a tad more mean spirited before writers start to work out the plot and karma, as said The Dreamstone tried to fix things later and most of Tom And Jerrys rough edges were in the early shorts), there were still a few too many episodes that rubbed on me the wrong way. There are far worse shows however, I will give you that.

Well tell that to the endless Golden Age writers that crapped on cats for being predators.

edited 4th Nov '13 6:22:25 PM by Psi001

Which episodes rubbed you the wrong way?

With some episodes, though, they attempted to have Cat be a hypocrite ("Curiosity Almost Killed the Cat") and/or go too far in trying to make Dog behave ("Safety Dog").

edited 4th Nov '13 6:28:04 PM by Aldo930

I've already told you a lot of them, there's probably a lot more if I jog my memory.

Cat Dog is really no different than any other cartoon. There's good episodes and, of course, some absolute stinkers. (I believe for about every 13 episodes a show makes, there's one that sucks. Cat Dog had 65 episodes, so that amounts to 6 half-hours that are terrible.)

I actually think Cat Dog was better in some respects about Idiot Houdinis because since Cat is attached to Dog, when Cat gets in trouble, he does too. Both of them get thrown in pool prison, both of them get thrown in the pound because Dog peed on the dog catcher's leg...

edited 4th Nov '13 6:34:37 PM by Aldo930

Oh, and maybe you'd like the episode where Dog has to become a mailman and actually does get a taste of his own medicine, as every dog in Nearburg chases after him.

Having a setup that leads to Cat getting in trouble with Dog doesn't help much, especially since it still often depicted the instigators of these punishments not giving a crap about this aspect, they rarely punished Cat only because their situation meant they didn't have a choice, if anything they enjoyed tormenting him more than Dog.

The Urpneys similarly had a feasible dynamic that got them caught in the wrong doings of another, it still didn't stop their abuse seeming unfair and more enforced stupidity or apathy from the heroes. We could argue even Ed Edd N Eddy had some excuse since the people that punished them indiscriminately were bullies who hated their faces anyway.

Out of many similar dynamics to Cat Dog, I always thought The Ren And Stimpy Show done it rather well, since while Stimpy often got Ren in trouble, Ren was an abusive jerk who often made sure Stimpy never got away with making his life hell, thus avoiding the Idiot Houdini dynamic and succeeding in making the treatment two way.

edited 4th Nov '13 6:54:59 PM by Psi001

In the aforementioned pool episode, I don't remember Cat suffering any worse than Dog did. In fact, Cat actually wanted him to be there to make sure he could learn some rules. By the time Dog had a breakdown, though...

Yes, Ren and Stimpy was great.

and Not a fan of Ren And Stimpy myself, but with what you both pointed out... We can see why it has more fans than the show you're both arguing about right now....

By the way, Aldo, all those shows were that show I was talking about - to mean spirited for its own good and with nothing of value to offer to make up for it, either!

However this may be partially why the Games Animation episodes aren't liked as much, since they lean into the sadism territory a bit more than the Spumco ones, with less redeeming or heartwarming moments and the slapstick abuse being more overemphasized (eg. Ren became more a Jerk with a Heart of Jerk while Stimpy became more Innocently Insensitive than before). It still isn't nearly as bad as some of the mentioned shows however. I could argue later Spongebob played the 'sadism for the sake of sadism' more than Ren and Stimpy did.

edited 4th Nov '13 7:11:42 PM by Psi001

You can argue that something has very little fans if you look only in the right places.

The general public seems to have received Cat Dog rather well, to the point that it has about 3 million likes on Facebook (which I'd consider a good barometer of something's popularity). Ren and Stimpy has only about 1 million.

I always thought the Games episodes were hated in their day due to obsessive John K. Fan Dumb. After Adult Party Cartoon, though, they've seemingly been vindicated.

As said elsewhere on this thread, I consider Ed, Edd n Eddy a more mean-spirited show than Cat Dog ever was... I literally have no idea how someone could hate the latter but not the former.

edited 4th Nov '13 7:21:47 PM by Aldo930

I think it was a bit of both, along with slight script and animation degradation. I think after John K's recent shenanigans, people have started to look at the issues with the Games ones more professionally. There was a slight decay, but not nearly as much as made out to be.

Ed Edd N Eddy did admittedly play the 'everyone rags on this character and gets away with it' shtick more thoroughly than Cat Dog. This might have been partially due to the fact that the Eds were meant to be an avatar for the creator. Looking at episodes like "Your Ed Here", the whole message seems to be "my childhood sucked, your's probably will too".

Maybe it helped there were more episodes that just focused on the Eds doing stupid stuff or getting into trouble via their own doing, with the other disliked characters rarely seen. Otherwise maybe it's just some thought the execution was more funny. I remember watching some Cat Dog episodes and thinking they were more corny than amusing.

edited 4th Nov '13 7:31:20 PM by Psi001

You know, there is admittedly a good parallel between Cat Dog and Ed, Edd n Eddy - both are shows about characters who get ragged on by everyone, both started around the same time, both lasted for 65 episodes, and both ended with a movie that finally gave the heroes a well-deserved happy ending.

To be sure, but there were episodes that featured Cat Dog not getting into trouble with the Greasers or Rancid. These, I think, made up about a third of the episodes.

I don't really think they were "corny." Corny and mean-spirited don't go well together. Which episodes did you think were corny?

The main reason that Cat Dog is (apparently) less popular than Ed, Edd n Eddy, in my opinion, is that it didn't run as long.

edited 4th Nov '13 7:34:40 PM by Aldo930

As said, in the end it might just be execution. It's possible to make sadism funny if played out radically enough so maybe Ed Edd N Eddy was surreal enough to avoid that (or alternatively just had plenty of redeeming episodes to balance it). There are still lots of episodes that were despised by the fanbase with a passion.

South Park for example is a rather mean spirited show but, aside from a few episodes (Stanley's Cup and Jared Has Aides stand out) I tend to think it's moderated enough by the humor value compared to the likes of Seth Macfarlene's work at times.

I dunno, maybe not corny per se but I just thought some of the dialogue in Cat Dog wasn't that funny, Dog in particular came off annoying to me, not just the Idiot Houdini part, but how juvenile he was and Tom Kenny's rather irritating voice for him. Spongebob has a similar problem, but they manage to hit some good gags more often.

edited 4th Nov '13 7:38:08 PM by Psi001

Some of the dialogue, I will admit, wasn't that funny. You don't strike lightning every time.

Cat was easily the funnier of the two, being the Hardy to Dog's Laurel. In fact, this is what the show reminds me of - An animated Laurel and Hardy.

Lube was pretty hilarious, though, and Mr. Sunshine and his Ben Stein-style delivery was pretty funny.

The show had quite a few inspired ideas - it may be the only cartoon ever to parody "All About Eve."

As said there were funny moments (I remember thinking the one where Cliff is a ballet dancer to be hilarious), just maybe it wasn't as consistent about it as Ed Edd N Eddy to a larger majority.

I do see similar negative similarities however, Ed in particular got more monotonous, and little more than a bunch of non sequiturs that were only occasionally funny or remotely clever. Mean spirited cartoons tend to be bad for stupid characters.

edited 4th Nov '13 7:45:34 PM by Psi001