Animation Wednesday: Gravity Falls
People have kind of a weird perception of Disney. Specifically, everyone hates them, but no one knows why. News that Disney has bought entertainment properties like Marvel or Lucasfilm is always met with groans and hand-wringing, but Disney’s done alright by Pixar, The Muppets, and their other acquisitions. People derisively refer to “Disney kids stuff” but wax poetic about the animated films of the 90s. Even their TV offerings like DuckTales or Chip and Dale: Rescue Rangers, which don’t quite hold up under a modern eye, are the subject of countless Facebook pages and tumblr blogs about how “the golden age of cartoons” is over. (False. Just check the Animation Wednesday category. Cartoons are only getting better.) I think a lot of it has to do with conflating the Disney Channel teen sitcom brand (Hannah Montana and the like) with the rest of the global media corporation that is Disney. If we’re going to claim that anything owned by the corporation is “Disney,” then that makes No Country for Old Men a “Disney movie.” I guess what I’m saying is that a movie or TV show being associated with Disney doesn’t make it something saccharine or lowbrow. Case in point: Gravity Falls!!
Animation Wednesday: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012)
This post is part of the Animation Wednesday series, a regular column which looks at animated TV series and movies of the past, present and future.
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are older than I am. Conceived in 1984 as a parody of current comic trends (particularly those of Frank Miller), the resulting movies and TV series launched its heroes to international stardom. The adventures of Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, and Michelangelo were the biggest thing in the world for children in the early 1990s, rivaling Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny in name recognition. Since then, there have been numerous reboots and remakes, from an early 2000s cartoon to a CGI feature film. With the threat of a Michael Bay movie looming on the horizon, you might think that all of the juice has been squeezed out of this admittedly flimsy premise. But as Nickelodeon’s new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles take proves, there’s still some new tricks in this old dog.
Animation Wednesday: Adventure Time
This post is part of the Animation Wednesday series, a regular column which looks at animated TV series and movies of the past, present and future.
While I was posting about Regular Show, Adventure Time was unquestionably the elephant in the room. Adventure Time is one of the most popular cartoons on Cartoon Network, nay, on television, and has achieved probably the largest crossover appeal among adults of any children’s cartoon currently running. (The only competition I can think of would be My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, but Adventure Time has greater mainstream popularity outside of its fandom.) It’s emblematic of if not a revolution, at least a movement within children’s animation towards clever, distinctive design work, created by indie animators and zine comic artists to satisfy themselves, not their corporate bosses. Why had I jumped to Regular Show while ignoring Adventure Time?
Animation Wednesday: Regular Show
This post is part of the Animation Wednesday series, a regular column which looks at animated TV series and movies of the past, present and future.
Absurdism is in. I suppose, in a way, that’s always been the case. Looney Tunes and early Disney stuff featured talking animals beating each other up. But for a long time, cartoons have stuck to a high concept and tied most weirdness back to the premise. Shows like Animaniacs or The Powerpuff Girls featured their share of strange characters and situations, but things flowed naturally from the premises (zany cartoon characters causing a ruckus and preschool superheroes fighting parody bad guys, respectively). Show which got weird for weirdness’ sake, like Ren & Stimpy or Cow and Chicken, struggled to find audiences. I’d place Spongebob Squarepants as the first show which involved jokes that were as much non-sequitor oddities to puns and punchlines that really caught on. Since then, randomness has been the word, and while the biggest of these shows (and probably the subject of a future post) is Adventure Time, the one closest to my heart is Regular Show.
Regular Show follows the ersatz adventures of Mordecai and Rigby, two twentysomething slackers who happen to be a blue jay and a raccoon, respectively. They work as groundskeepers with Benson (a gumball machine), Muscle Man (a fact green guy), High Five Ghost (a ghost), Skips (a yeti), and Pops (a lollipop…shaped…guy?). Most episodes revolve around their attempts to take care of a basic chore, or go perform some kind of activity. These inevitably result in trips to space, summoning monsters, time travel, and the like. Why?
Animation Wednesday: The Spectacular Spider-Man
This post is part of the Animation Wednesday series, a regular column which looks at animated TV series and movies of the past, present and future.
Sometimes I think about doing a kind of a backwards version of Animation Wednesday, where I list terrible cartoons of the past, present and future and explain why they suck. I do a rundown of a couple of notably bad ones in the future, but generally I try to focus on stuff I like, so people who are interested in animation have some good recommendations. But for this post, I have to focus on something pretty bad to lead into something really good.
Animation Wednesday: The Legend of Korra
This post is part of the Animation Wednesday series, a regular column which looks at animated TV series and movies of the past, present and future.
As you may recall, I’m a pretty big fan of the original Avatar: The Last Airbender animated series. So when I heard that Nickelodeon would be airing a sequel series, set 70 years after the original, I was equal parts excited and nervous. There weren’t any glaring problems. The creators who worked on the original series were all coming back, and the integrity of the project hadn’t been affected by the abysmal movie adaptation. But one of the strongest things about the series was the fact that it had a beginning, middle and end, and that the story followed a logical progression dictated by story needs, as opposed to being used to sell things. This new series would need a strong sense of place, interesting, relatable characters, and a compelling conflict to live up to the standard set by A:TLA.
Well, four episodes into The Legend of Korra, and I can pretty confidently state that it doesn’t only live up to the standard, it may actually exceed it. The Legend of Korra is a beautiful, intriguing series which firmly stands on its own while referencing the greater framework of the Avatar universe. There’s plenty in it to reward old fans, but it’s accessible enough for new viewers to jump on.
Animation Wednesday: Runaway Brain
Mickey Mouse is the most well-known cartoon character in the world. I don’t have a statistic for that, but I feel pretty confident in that claim. He’s the face (often the silhouette) of one of the biggest entertainment corporations on the planet, and is sold aggressively to kids around the world. However, a funny thing happened to Mickey Mouse along the way: he stopped growing. The character was developed from his roots as a prankster to a bland corporate symbol. He’s struggled to maintain relevance because Disney’s effort to make sure he’s inoffensive and relatable have left him devoid of conflict. It’s hard to make an audience care about him. That’s why Donald Duck, Goofy, and Scrooge McDuck have all seen success in television series, but Mickey has struggled to reach audiences. It’s the same problem Warner Brothers has had with Bugs Bunny for a while too, although the new series seems to be helping.
Boring, probably.
That’s not to say that there haven’t been bright spots. The recent Epic Mickey video game captured a lot of the simple aesthetics that made early Mickey cartoons engaging. And of course, there’s the topic of this post, 1995′s Runaway Brain. Through the magic of YouTube, I’ve embedded it here in its entirety, so you can watch it after the jump.
Animation Wednesday: Avatar: The Last Airbender
This post is part of the Animation Wednesday series, a weekly column which looks at animated TV series and movies of the past, present and future.
Nickelodeon had a pretty prolific output in animation during the early 90′s, with a number of series running for many seasons and movies, including Rugrats and Hey, Arnold! Their shows were critically acclaimed, but all of them were pretty firmly rooted in broad comedy. So when Avatar: The Last Airbender premiered in 2005, some people were understandably skeptical of an anime-influenced fantasy series from a company well-known for bathroom humor.
But here’s the thing: Avatar: The Last Airbender is, in my opinion, the greatest animated series of all time.
Animation Wednesday: Green Lantern: The Animated Series
This post is part of the Animation Wednesday series, a regular column which looks at animated TV series and movies of the past, present and future.
I was a bit nervous about Green Lantern: The Animated Series. For every bit of news which got me excited, there was one I wasn’t sure about. Green Lantern cartoon!! But with the Red Lanterns as the primary villains. Bruce Timm of Batman fame designing characters!! But for CGI. There was also the overarching fact that the show was pitched to tie into the Green Lantern film’s buzz, so there were presumably going to be similarities and connection points for new fans. My lack of enthusiasm for the movie is well-documented.
Animation Wednesday: Spirited Away
This post is part of the Animation Wednesday series, a weekly column which looks at animated TV series and movies of the past, present and future.
Hayao Miyazaki is an auteur. His name, and that of his production company, Studio Ghibli, is synonymous with beautiful, imaginative anime films. I could devote an entire series, even an entire blog, to a discussion of his work and its influence. For this week’s Animation Wednesday, though, we’ll settle with my favorite of his films, Spirited Away.
Animation Wednesday: Justice League: The New Frontier
This post is part of the Animation Wednesday series, a weekly column which looks at animated TV series and movies of the past, present and future.
On some level, all stories are a product of their times. Authors are influenced and inspired by the events and cultures they experience, and their works react to them. This is kind of a problem for long running serial fiction, in which the characters must stay perennially young and fresh. Superman spun out of the Great Depression, partially as Siegel and Shuster’s voice of the common man. James Bond was created as an idealized version of Ian Fleming’s experiences and ideas about the Cold War. John McClane draws from the grit and guts of the early 90s. But without these contexts, without the KGB for Bond to fight or the Nazis for Captain America, the characters often float aimlessly, robbed of their reason to exist.
That’s why stories like Justice League: The New Frontier are so fantastic. New Frontier, adapted from Darwyn Cooke’s DC: The New Frontier graphic novel, tells the story of the formation of the Justice League in the context of the 1950s, when many of the characters were created. Although it’s narrower in scope than the graphic novel, it still manages to feature an impressive cast of characters, including Superman, Wonder Woman, Martian Manhunter and more. The plot follows the rise of a second generation of superheroes, after the Justice Society of America was forced to disband by the McCarthy hearings. It intertwines the origins of the Martian Manhunter (Miguel Ferrer) and Green Lantern Hal Jordan (David Boreanaz) with the larger threat of the mysterious Centre (Keith David).
Animation Wednesday: Halo Legends
This post is part of the Animation Wednesday series, a weekly column which looks at animated TV series and movies of the past, present and future.
I like a lot of different things. I like the Halo video game series, and the accompanying fiction, be it the campaign modes, books, comics, or anything else. I like expanded universe stories, stories set in the world of a popular series like Star Wars or Star Trek which spotlight minor or new characters and events from the main series. I like animation (obviously). And I especially enjoy when something brings my various interests together, like Halo Legends.
Halo Legends, like The Animatrix and Batman: Gotham Knight before it, is an anthology of anime short films set in the continuity of a larger series. Here, that series is the Xbox sci-fi FPS series Halo, which chronicles the battle between Earth’s military and the alien alliance the Covenant through the eyes of John-117, an armored super-soldier known as the Master Chief. While Master Chief is the focus of one of the seven shorts (The Package, a stylish, candy-colored CGI action piece), the rest of them center around other soldiers and their lives (and often deaths). Almost all of them are new material, rather than adaptations of previous stories, and it’s interesting to see the different takes on the source material.
Animation Wednesday: Sym-Bionic Titan
This post is part of the Animation Wednesday series, a weekly column which looks at animated TV series and movies of the past, present and future.
Animation is a funny industry. It’s primarily marketed towards children, and often used to market toys and other products. This means that a lot of shows are kind of factory-assembled, designed to cash in on current trends and hold kids’ fleeting attention spans. This is all fine, of course. I’m not going to insist that every show be a thought-provoking, high-production tour de force with deep content for any age group. But it does mean that there’s not always a lot of room for experimentation, and the kind of personal visions of directors that film or television allow for.
Genndy Tartakovsky is one such director. Tartakovsky has had a rather prolific career at Cartoon Network, creating 2 Stupid Dogs, Dexter’s Laboratory, and The Powerpuff Girls with former CalArts classmate Craig McCracken. All three shows were highly successful, and Tartakovsky expanded his style to action cartoons Samurai Jack and Star Wars: Clone Wars. These also found critical acclaim, and in 2010 Tartakovsky premiered his latest animated series, Sym-Bionic Titan.
Animation Wednesday: Young Justice
This post is part of the Animation Wednesday series, a weekly column which looks at animated TV series and movies of the past, present and future.
DC has a strong track record in animation. Batman: The Animated Series revolutionized superhero cartoons with its clean designs, quality writing and powerful atmospherics. Justice League and Justice League Unlimited told long-form story arcs in an engaging, approachable way and featured a laundry list of obscure characters and homages. Teen Titans adapted an older comics series as an wild, anime-influenced action-comedy. It’s reaching the point where it’s hard to imagine what new takes WB Animation Studios can come up with that haven’t been done before.
They can come up with Young Justice, that’s what. Young Justice is unrelated to the late 90s comic series of the same name, or mainstream comics continuity at all, for that matter. It follows the adventures of a covert-ops team of sidekicks in a world where superheroic exploits are a relatively new thing. The team consists of a mix of classic characters like the original Robin and Kid Flash and more recent additions like Superboy, Miss Martian, and a new Aqualad and Artemis. They operate out of an old Justice League headquarters and take various secret missions assigned to them by Batman and Red Tornado, the team’s house-parent. It’s an interesting premise which recalls several comic series while still remaining new and surprising.
Animation Wednesday: Batman: The Brave and The Bold
This post is part of the Animation Wednesday series, a weekly column which looks at animated TV series and movies of the past, present and future.
Let’s talk about Batman for a second. Batman means a lot of different things to different people. On the one hand, it’s the story of a boy, orphaned by violence at a young age, who grows up and dedicates his life to fighting crime, using the vast resources and skills he’s developed. On the other hand, it’s a story about a grown man, a millionaire ninja detective, who dresses up like a bat and goes out to beat up crooks at night, often accompanied by children. There have been a lot of different takes on Batman since he was first created in the 1930s, with varying levels of seriousness, camp, pathos and self-awareness. One that falls on the lighter end of the scale is Batman: The Brave and The Bold, which is in its third and final season on Cartoon Network.
Animation Wednesday: Archer
This post is part of the Animation Wednesday series, a weekly column which looks at animated TV series and movies of the past, present and future.
Parodies are a strange thing. They sound easy enough. Pick a genre, play up the clichés and tropes, draw attention to the more ridiculous aspects, go home at noon. But for a parody to really succeed they require something a bit more complex: a genuine love and understanding of the subject matter. As I mentioned before, this is what makes some shows and movies work, and others crash and burn.
Animation Wednesday: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood
This post is part of the Animation Wednesday series, a weekly column which looks at animated TV series and movies of the past, present and future.
I’ll begin this week’s Animation Wednesday by stating that I like anime. Anime, for those who don’t know, is a diverse genre of cartoon from Japan. It’s known a basic style and set of conventions, and anime shows can be everything from comedies to romances to supernatural horror to hard, jargon-heavy sci-fi (and often more than one at a time). I grew up during the 90s, which was, thanks to Pokémon, really the sweet spot for selling imported anime to kids. I watched everything, even stuff that wasn’t very good, from a story, animation, or dubbing standpoint. If it was anime and it was on Kids’ WB! or Cartoon Network’s Toonami, I watched it. I eventually grew out of this phase, and learned to appreciate quality work and skip sub par shows, but it left me with a strong affinity for Japanese cartoons, which I’ll probably expand on in future posts.
But even if I didn’t watch a lot of anime on principle, I would still probably recommend Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. It’s a science fantasy series set in an alternative early 20th century where the use of alchemy drives scientific and military achievements. The story centers on Edward and Alphonse Elric, two young alchemists who work to restore their bodies after a botched attempt to return their mother to life. Their adventures are framed in the larger universe of their country, Amestris, and its war with Ishbal, another nearby country. The series has a large cast with a lot of well-developed, complex characters.
Animation Wednesday: Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated
This post is part of the Animation Wednesday series, a weekly column which looks at animated TV series and movies of the past, present and future.
There’s nothing new about franchises. Sequels, remakes, and “reimaginings” are an established part of the television and movie landscape, and if something was an animated series, you can expect a live action/CGI version in theaters sooner rather than later (see The Smurfs for one of too many examples). The idea here is that it’s much easier to sell audiences on what they already know they like, versus an unknown quantity (I think it’s also much easier to sell studio execs, who are now a bunch of aging Baby Boomers, on what they know they like, hence the multiple live-action Flintstones movies). Most of these movies or shows either tank or quietly fade away, remembered only in a Wikipedia subsection.
Once in a while though, a remake really knocks it out of the park. It takes the best parts of a series and offers a new, exciting perspective which makes the show a genuine hit in its own right. That’s what happened with Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated.
Animation Wednesday: Ugly Americans
This post is part of the Animation Wednesday series, a weekly column which looks at animated TV series and movies of the past, present and future.
“Cartoons: They’re not just for kids anymore!!” has to be one of the most overused sound bites in the past decade. It conveniently ignores both the animation boom (and subsequent oversaturation) of the 90s and cartoons like Betty Boop or Looney Tunes, which were written just as much for adults as they were for children. Most of the best-written children’s animated series appeal to adults as well, either through subtly clever jokes or subject material that resonates. Still, it is true that the growth of cable has produced a wide variety of newer cartoons aimed at older audiences, chief among them Ugly Americans, which starts its second season tomorrow night on Comedy Central.
Animation Wednesday: The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes
This post is part of the Animation Wednesday series, a weekly column which looks at animated TV series and movies of the past, present and future.
Marvel has a somewhat shaky track record in animation. Unlike DC Comics, who have the might of the Warner Bros. Animation Studios on their side, Marvel has struggled with adapting their characters in animated form, and for every hit (like X-Men: Evolution or the criminally underappreciated Spectacular Spider-Man) there’s a list of misses (Fantastic Four: World’s Greatest Heroes or frankly anything they put out in the 90s). However, they seem to be turning things around lately, and their recent acquisition by Disney probably won’t hurt their cash flow for project development either. One of their more recent examples of doing it (mostly) right is The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, which is currently in its second season on Disney XD.
Animation Wednesday: The Looney Tunes Show
This post is part of the Animation Wednesday series, a weekly column which looks at animated TV series and movies of the past, present and future.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one: two roommates, one friendly and outgoing if a little goofy, the other self-centered and buffoonish, share a suburban house. Every week, they deal with a number of problems, from crazy girlfriends to freeloading neighbors to high school reunions. But this isn’t a midseason replacement on ABC. The roommates are Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, and the show, The Looney Tunes Show, is running its first season on Cartoon Network.
The show is part of an effort by Warner Brothers to update their Looney Tunes franchise and keep it relatable and engaging to new viewers. (Disney is working on a similar campaign with Mickey Mouse, starting with the Epic Mickey video game.) The most recent attempt was Loonatics Unleashed, a cartoon which reimagined the characters as edgy superheroes fighting monsters in the future. It bombed, and a couple of years later, we have this new show.
Designwise, TLTS stays pretty close to older Looney Tunes, with some streamlining. Daffy in particular looks closer to earlier cartoons, while Bugs has been rounded down around the edges. Secondary characters are mostly the same story, with Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner being the main exceptions (and I’ll get to them later). Some have been adapted quite a bit to the new setting, and while it’s a little jarring to see Elmer Fudd as a news reporter in a shirt and tie, so far the more dramatic leaps have paid off.
