Several of the season one characters from Total Drama Island and Sierra from the third season have undergone some significant character change over time. YMMV on whether this was for the better or not, of course, though most people probably agree that what happened to Ezekiel was pretty bad.
Misanthrope SupremeBrock Samson gradually evolved from an angry psychopath to a much more calm, stoic character (though he still loses it every now and then). I like the new Brock more, since the old one was kind of one-note.
The massive change in characterization between Batman The Animated Series and The New Batman Adventures has always bothered me, particularly in Bats himself, who I feel simultaneously lost his compassion and everything that made him a three dimensional character (pretty much full of two dimensional "grittiness" instead).
Then Beyond came along, and took TNBA's Bruce Wayne and fleshed him out, resulting in an old Bruce who, while cold and alone, was far more human than TNBA made him - they actually made his character change sort of feel natural. And Justice League came along and fused both that characterization and Batman The Animated Series' more judiciously goodhearted characterization into a nice whole.
I think over the course of the DCAU there's no one who went through as much characterization change as Batsy, which does make sense when you think about it.
edited 12th Oct '11 10:04:19 AM by KnownUnknown
I've noticed that most of the guys on Regular Show seem to have de-Flanderized. Muscle Man is less of a jerk and he no longer says "MY MOM!"; Skips doesn't always have the answer to everything; Benson is more sympathetic and doesn't always yell at Mordecai and Rigby over everything.
Also, I know I've promoted the show to the moon already, but Birdz manages this in the course of 13 episodes. Sleepy Bat and Eddie develop a bit of chemistry as opposed to Sleepy just sleeping all the time, and Mr. Nuthatch goes from a paranoid, Wade Duck-esque wreck to a happy, confident Cloud Cuckoolander.
Fry in Futurama went from an Arthur Dent-esque outsider into a clone of Homer Simpson after the first season.
More Buscemi at http://forum.reelsociety.com/A lot of adult shows seem to be evolving themselves according to Rule of Funny and Sadist Show qualities, meaning somewhat erratic acting Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonists galore. Family Guy seems to be key example of this, and a possible pivot for it, going from wacky and random yet somewhat consistant and sympathetic characters to completely dependant on the gag (though given it's increased usage of Dead Baby Comedy you can guess how many characters are still sympathetic).
American Dad, though slightly more toned down, has perhaps one of it's most extreme examples, Roger Smith, originally a Cloud Cuckoo Lander Jerkass Woobie evolved into a completely sociopathic 'personified id' whose near every action and quote seemed to enthasise how out and out vile he is (I've only got to Season Five so far, but I've noticed some of the show's Flanderization seems to have been reversed, Roger and Francine are slightly tamer and Stan is back to being the more consistant Jerkass of the family (albeit still usually redeemable), anyone who has seen Season Six and Seven tell me whether this trend is continuing?).
Perhaps one of the most iconic (or infamous) character evolutions is Daffy Duck, who under Chuck Jones' pen, evolved from a slightly bombastic Cloud Cuckoo Lander into a pompous Butt-Monkey. Both his and Bugs' tamer personalities did seem to start a defining change in WB's writing. The Screwy Squirrel types that were used constantly in the forties seemed to get slowly fazed out with more focus on 'winners vs losers' scenarios.
edited 12th Oct '11 4:34:13 PM by Psi001
How about Sokka and Zuko?
Zuko was a monotonic Anti-Villain who was nearly bald,...then he grew more hair and it went through so many styles as he changed moral ideas and finally ended with a magnificent hairdo as a symbol of a complete Heel–Face Turn and royalty. Oh and his voice evolved
Sokka used to be the Butt-Monkey and Comic Relief before the reached the North Pole. Likewise he had the face of a child as well. Then his face got larger and by Book 3 looked much like a mans,and likewise he pretty much became the strategist of the team at that point.
I think his surname Smith was meant to be a play on CIA confidenciality (rather surprised they didn't just go with John Smith).
Stan himself has sorta flipflopped in personality, going in and out between a sociopathic bigoted Jerkass and a well intentioned Jerk with a Heart of Gold akin to pre Flanderization Homer and Peter. From my most recent viewing of the show, the most consistant change seems to be that the characters are far more likely to have to face their shortcomings, either through Aesops or heavy karma, making them more sympathetic. Even Roger seems to be less of a Karma Houdini in Season Five. As said though I've yet to check out Season Six (which for some reason is what the UK labels Season Five) so I don't know whether this is consistant.
Rufus and Amberley of The Dreamstone were intially more whimsical lead characters with more disguished personas in the pilot episode (Cloud Cuckoo Lander and moody Linus respectively). In most of the later episodes they undergo what can be best described as mix of Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny's evolution, being diluted into perpetually cheerful and innocent Everyman characters that are played more as Hero Antagonists for the Urpneys. They also seem to lose most of their competance with almost all of their victories owed to luck or a well timed Villain Ball. A call back is made every now and then, but they rarely have the same abrasiveness and sympathetic spotlight they had in the pilot.
This is also an example that seems to take an effect on the tone of the show. The pilot while still whimsical, is slightly darker and more climatic, and having the odd poignant moment (Rufus' neuroses come off as borderline Tear Jerkers at times). The rest of the series, due to having the Urpneys more as the main stars, plays more akin to a zany Road Runner vs. Coyote (or perhaps more accurately Sheepdog vs Wolf) type scenario.
I think Tale Spin has particularly intriguing changes to The Jungle Book cast, especially due to the Anthropomorphic Shift. Shere Khan for example evolves from a playful straight-out villain to a deathly serious Lawful Neutral that will take sides depending on which one benefits his profits (and nobilities) the best. His incarnation in The Jungle Book 2 almost comes off as a Composite Character of both, once again a clear villain, but having the Talespin incarnation's higher focus and more serious and intimidating attitude.
edited 13th Oct '11 2:45:24 AM by Psi001
I mentioned on the trope page that Beavis and Butthead in most of the later episodes are vastly different from how they were in the first two (and a half) seasons. Originally they were pretty much chaotic misfits who wanted to see things get destroyed, they were way more active in violent activity, and they were actually a bit clever in setting up their pranks.
For the rest of the series though (possibly due to network pressure after the controversies) they were pretty much total morons, spend more time making sex jokes, don't really cause much chaos anymore (on purpose, at least) and most of their plans absolutely backfire. If you looked at the script of something like a season 2 episode and compare it to one of the later ones it's like reading about completely different characters.
The apparent rise in popularity of the Idiot Hero is what became more memorable to me as a change. Nowadays, it's a lot more likely for the protagonist of an animation to be a naive, kindhearted, moronic fool. Not that this is always a bad thing, but there seems to be a lot of them lately and I'm not exactly a fan of this particular type of hero.
Please don't feed the trolls!
I think it varies, a lot of heroes start of vaguely dim witted and quirky, but still somewhat competant in their own way, before devolving completely into useless buffoons reliant on luck or more competant assistants to do all the hard work. Inspector Gadget and Rufus if I remember correctly started this way but devolved very quickly. I think Sonic started to suffer this a bit in Sonic Sat Am too due to their overusage of Sally.
It's older than you think however. Speedy Gonzales actually got rather naive and dim witted in his later shorts in the sixties, though this was not so much in the sense of making him incompetant as just not being an Invincible Hero anymore.
I admit recent shows take stupid as an overwelming trait at times, eg. Spongebob, Homer Simpson, Peter Griffin (who is now officially retarded). It's fun in balanced doses but in such an exagerrated manner it comes off as rather obnoxious and irritating.
edited 5th Dec '11 4:30:13 AM by Psi001
Nearly every character save for Grandpa Max (who just went Out of Focus) changed between Ben 10 and Alien Force due to a Time Skip and changing of show-runners. I'm one of those of the opinion that the changes...were none too good, to say the least.
In a more positive example, in Code Lyoko the four heroes in the real world (Jeremie, Ulrich, Yumi, and Odd) could frequently delve into Protagonist-Centered Morality Designated Hero territory during the first season, while on the flipside, Aelita was way too nice and soft-spoken. From the second season and onward, Jeremie and the others got their act together and became more consistently likable protagonists, while Aelita, though remaining a nice girl,developed more of an attitude that made her more fun.
And Justice League came along and fused both that characterization and Batman: The Animated Series' more judiciously goodhearted characterization into a nice whole.
And then he lost it sometime in the show's second season, becoming the two-dimensional dark and edgy Jerkass he was in TNBA again. Sigh.
edited 5th Dec '11 10:18:42 AM by ManwiththePlan
I left The Fairly Oddparents behind after Mr. Crocker became over-obsessed with failing grades and believing in fairies.
Magic people, voodoo people!Arnold is FAR more child-like and immature in the first season of Hey Arnold compared to the later seasons
As were Stan and Kyle in South Park and Lisa Simpson.
Arnold was a much more humanized character in the early seasons, he was spacey, far more neurotic and was often handed as many Aesops as he dished out. He was arguably the one character that actually got less developed as the series went on.
There actually seem to be a lot of cases where the main character gets duller than their supporting cast the more the show evolves.
edited 10th Dec '11 6:08:25 PM by Psi001
I enjoy(ed) Hey Arnold!, but even I knew its titular character was lacking growth/development because of how he was becoming some kind of guardian being. Though this did encourage the show to develop most of its other characters for the better - so I can't begrudge this completely.
I left both Fairlyoddparents and Spongebob Squarepants behind when their dis-respective shows stopped having any sense of dimension to their characters, all for the sake of unfunny/half-assed joke & pun creation wherever possible. It's like they're whole existence (no matter whom it was) became they do something stupid, then do something stupider to solve the problem, thus creating a bigger one with no sense of effective/positive resolve. In fact - that's what fucked over Cat Scratch as well with its main characters...
When are people going to learn that sacrificing character development for some lame-ass jokes and/or puns only ruin a show for everyone watching?!
edited 10th Dec '11 6:17:32 PM by LostAnarchist
This is where I, the Vampire Mistress, proudly reside: http://liberal.nationstates.net/nation=nova_nacioRule of Funny has very mixed results, (especially if it's blended with Dead Baby Comedy), mainly because wide audiences have such a varying range of what is funny or not.
Family Guy is like the epitome of this. They completely warped the cast for the sake of dark humor (and still do at a frequent basis for single isolated gags) and as a result it's one of the most Base Broken shows out there, with modern day-The Simpsons close after.
edited 10th Dec '11 6:31:52 PM by Psi001
Samurai Jack sort of did this with Aku. In the earlier seasons he was shown as a very serious threat and pretty evil dude who at times even managed to one-up Jack. Later on however he was portrayed as a lot less terrifying, more petty and taken a bit more lightly, though it wasn't necessarily all for the worse since he was still entertaining.

Basically a discussion for evolutions or alterations to a character (or entire cast) in western animation that you think are highly pivotal (either personally or as a whole to it's respective series or the animation genre as a whole).
Can apply both in personality changes (eg. Flanderization, Character Development, very erratic cases of Depending on the Writer) or cosmetic design changes (eg. Art Shift, similar extremes of Depending on the Artist).
Note this isn't a thread just to complain about implied Character Derailment or They Changed It, Now It Sucks!. Changes can be both positive or negative. If you believe it had a negative effect then feel free to state but please be constructive.
edited 12th Oct '11 6:42:37 AM by Psi001