El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera

How does this show not have a character page yet?

I think its largely based in how obscure the cartoon is (which is honestly really sad since El Tigre is super underrated). That being said, I think there are other places to take this discussion, but perhaps someone who is more familiar with the show can start a character page.

I thought it was kind of a Mucha Lucha-inspired thing, but then again I only saw one episode.

El Tigre has very little to do with Mucha Lucha conceptually, beyond (in a very general sense) both being inspired by aspects of Mexican culture.

edited 5th Nov '15 6:38:52 PM by KnownUnknown

Were the creators of Mucha Lucha Hispanic, though? The creators of El Tigre were...

In any event, I enjoyed the show, as much as I saw of it anyway. It was entertaining and had a neat sense of design.

Well there was a lot of Spanish-speaking in it and it looked primarily Mexican in inspiration.

The creator of El Tigre was Mexican-American, if I remember correctly. He directed The Book of Life, which was also him showing off Mexican culture.

Neither Lili Chin nor Eddie Mort are Hispanic - Eddie Mort, who's idea is seems to have been, was English and pitched the show in Australia. It seems like they were just interested in lucha libre.

Which makes sense - Mucha Lucha was mostly a lucha themed comedy superhero show, whereas El Tigre has a lot more noticeable cultural imagery and mythology.

edited 5th Nov '15 8:48:52 PM by KnownUnknown

If I remember right, the creators of El Tigre did one of the commentary tracks on one of WB's Fleischer Popeye collections (where Popeye goes to Mexico, natch); I think El Tigre had already been and gone by the time it was released.

I wouldn't fully say it was spectacular or anything, but it definitely did deserve to last more just one season, for sure! There was just a lot that it did do right that I didn't see at first with an otherwise mundane setup of going to school, for example.

Seriously, this was one of Nickelodeon's best and most creative - looking shows at the time, so it's more than a shame it never took off like it should have...

Yeah the couple who made El Tigre went onto to make the The Book Of Life. You can immediately tell that they made the latter as their style is very very recognizable.

I liked El Tigre, probably one of the few comedic superhero type shows that I found pretty funny

edited 7th Nov '15 1:11:14 AM by Bleddyn

I just really liked El Tigre on a conceptual level even excluding all the Mexicana evident in the end design (of course, all the Mexicana stuff made it even better). The idea that the family has one generation of being a superhero and one generation of being a supervillain with Tigre/Manny not knowing where he falls is actually a really interesting basis for a story (and allowed - which is strange for a kids show - for the main protagonist to be a straight up bad guy or do bad things in an episode). Some other aspects are also interesting for when it came out, like the main characters parents being divorced.

Also apparently according to Word of God, Manny and Frida are descendant from Manolo and Joaquin from Book of Life, which is adorable.

It had a really cool concept and creative direction and art design, I'll agree, but I just don't think the writing was up to snuff as much as it should have been. Some episodes were great. A lot of episodes were good. Plenty were pretty meh to bad.

I thought it was interesting what they did for the finale of the show, having people vote on whether Manny went with good or evil. Personally, I preferred the evil ending (it was one of the best ways to end a show I've ever seen, and if you haven't seen it, I highly suggest you seek it out, as it is highly entertaining)...buuuut it was kinda a foregone conclusion that the kiddies would vote good.

Aw hell lemme just show it to you:

That would have been a better end. I always wanted to find the evil side of the series.

I'm sorry - sorry that that may have been the better ending right there. It's just a shame they're pretty much gonna die right there - they're too old to fight, unfortunately. Especially White Pantera and Puma Loco, who should be dead from being imprisoned like that.

That aside... Yeah - I can seomwhat that the evil ending was the better one - for a show like one, of course (I couldn't see this working out, elsewhere.). El Tigre (and Frida) proved THAT is why you don't underestimate them. Ever.

I don't think that was the finale episode. The finale was the one where they have to abandon their super power duds because of some law that was passed.

While I do love the show, I do agree that the writing was the best at times. I had a similar problem with Book of Life. I think that both works are really great in a lot of areas, but my problem with them lies with the humor. Sometimes it can get some good laughs out of me. Other times... It's kind of awkward and not funny.

*Wasn't. Yeah - I think had it lasted longer than one season, the writing could have improved royally, had they brought on some new talent and/or gotten more resources to work with with what they already had.

Jorge R. Gutierrez has always seemed to me to be a "Style over Substance" type of fellow. My major grievance with Book of Life is generally with how stock most of the characters are (though it got love triangles done right in that it was actually bearable) and how a number of the humorous moments did not hit the mark.

With that in mind, including that movie for example (which I have yet to really see, to be honest - somewhat sobering as that sounds...) - yeah. I'm almost kinda glad Carmen Got Expelled didn't get made - I couldn't see it being a good full-fledged cartoon, knowing this (and certain other trappings hindering it!).

I'm not saying that the man can't do comedy, but at times the humor of his works seem a bit juvenile and/or weak(Like the Mariachi Bros in Book of Life). I do think his writing shines in other areas. Plus I don't think all of his humor is bad. Just that his comedy can be unfunny at times.

I still haven't seen Book of Life, but I've heard nothing but good things about it. Been meaning to watch it for a while now. Probably good to support it either way, since more cultural diversity (i.e. not just stuff that's solely American- or Japanese-inspired/styled) in animation is something we definitely need.

Style over substance does seems to be his trademark if El Tigre is reminiscent of the rest of his work, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Could be abated by having a cowriter who's better with character stuff, perhaps. Like I said, only going off of El Tigre, but his stuff seems to fall into a lot of standard kid show traps in terms of how the characters are written. I love everything that surrounds that, though.

also I could've sworn that episode was the finale, my bad then.

edited 10th Nov '15 5:21:50 PM by Odd1

Nah... No biggie.

While I find some of their antics more obnoxious than funny, they had some pretty great moments. ("We've already been to four bars! Twice!", the whole "wooing song" scene with "Just a Friend" and "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?")

Agreed. There probably are some worse instances that I'm not thinking of. Though the Wooing scene got a little ruined because of the "Just a Friend" part being overplayed in ads for the movie.