Okay, I just saw the first couple of episodes of the Big Nate cartoon, and so far it's pretty good.
It's very faithful to the source material and offers a lot of laughs and excitement for fans of the comics. And not only that, but it even makes some changes from the comics that I think work better. For example, Mrs. Godfrey outright hates Nate and enjoys making him miserable with writing him detention slips. In the comics, Mrs. Godfrey constantly goes back and fourth with being a reasonable authority figure who is fair when it comes to punishing Nate, to an unreasonable jerk who treats Nate unfairly though singling him out and giving him detentions for the most pettiest reasons like stretching in class, which ends up raising the question if she hates Nate and enjoys making him miserable. There's just really no consistency to her character, but there is in this show by just simply having her outright hate him and making her an all out Sadist Teacher.
The characters are funny and are also likeable, too. Dee Dee is probably my favorite character in this show because there's a lot of personality and depth to her oddball tendencies and moments of anxiety that I could personally relate to, and she also gets a lot of funny moments from her.
The animation is also really good and does a good job at giving itself an identity to stand out amongst CG animated cartoons, and they cleverly do so by imitating stop motion animation while throwing some other forms of animation in certain comedic and actions scenes for variety and excitement.
There were a couple of problems that I did have with this show, though. The big one is the gross out humor. There was one episode that I didn't like because the main comedic gag of that episode was every character throwing up on screen after eating tainted pizza, and it was just gross and not even the slightest bit funny. Another problem was that they brought back the Nate & Jenny romance storyline, and I did not miss that storyline after it was dropped from the comics in 2016 because it was so static and did nothing but bring out the worst in Nate's character. Though, granted, they do put in a bit of self-aware jokes to the fact that Nate loves Jenny for really no reason. Also, a couple of characters like Randy were given really bad casting choices and those voice actors were directed to give very poor performances that are just so annoying. And also, Gina, one of the most well known characters from the comics, is pretty pointless in this show. She's not really given that much screen time in episodes where she plays a major role in and ends up feeling shoehorned in, to the point where you could just cut her out and the episodes would pretty much be the same.
Overall, this is pretty good adaptation of Big Nate so far, and I really can't wait to see where the show will go from here and I hope it will be successful enough for Nickelodeon to keep it going for a couple of years.
WesternAnimation Thoughts on the First Couple of Big Nate Episodes
Okay, I just saw the first couple of episodes of the Big Nate cartoon, and so far it's pretty good.
It's very faithful to the source material and offers a lot of laughs and excitement for fans of the comics. And not only that, but it even makes some changes from the comics that I think work better. For example, Mrs. Godfrey outright hates Nate and enjoys making him miserable with writing him detention slips. In the comics, Mrs. Godfrey constantly goes back and fourth with being a reasonable authority figure who is fair when it comes to punishing Nate, to an unreasonable jerk who treats Nate unfairly though singling him out and giving him detentions for the most pettiest reasons like stretching in class, which ends up raising the question if she hates Nate and enjoys making him miserable. There's just really no consistency to her character, but there is in this show by just simply having her outright hate him and making her an all out Sadist Teacher.
The characters are funny and are also likeable, too. Dee Dee is probably my favorite character in this show because there's a lot of personality and depth to her oddball tendencies and moments of anxiety that I could personally relate to, and she also gets a lot of funny moments from her.
The animation is also really good and does a good job at giving itself an identity to stand out amongst CG animated cartoons, and they cleverly do so by imitating stop motion animation while throwing some other forms of animation in certain comedic and actions scenes for variety and excitement.
There were a couple of problems that I did have with this show, though. The big one is the gross out humor. There was one episode that I didn't like because the main comedic gag of that episode was every character throwing up on screen after eating tainted pizza, and it was just gross and not even the slightest bit funny. Another problem was that they brought back the Nate & Jenny romance storyline, and I did not miss that storyline after it was dropped from the comics in 2016 because it was so static and did nothing but bring out the worst in Nate's character. Though, granted, they do put in a bit of self-aware jokes to the fact that Nate loves Jenny for really no reason. Also, a couple of characters like Randy were given really bad casting choices and those voice actors were directed to give very poor performances that are just so annoying. And also, Gina, one of the most well known characters from the comics, is pretty pointless in this show. She's not really given that much screen time in episodes where she plays a major role in and ends up feeling shoehorned in, to the point where you could just cut her out and the episodes would pretty much be the same.
Overall, this is pretty good adaptation of Big Nate so far, and I really can't wait to see where the show will go from here and I hope it will be successful enough for Nickelodeon to keep it going for a couple of years.