Unconventional or unpopular opinions you have (re: animation)

[John Pannozzi]

Same producers and studio though.

Besides, I answered to Ace who used the word ripoff first for claiming another series ripped Spongebob and who you left completely out of the picture

And Snorks, like the Smurfs, was based on a Franco-Belgian comic series (albeit with the Snorks being a far less well-known property than the Smurfs even in both properties' pre-Hanna-Barbera iterations)

 

[JMTV]

That's just as annoying as people who would say that Zoe Trent from The Hub's Littlest Pet Shop was a ripoff of Twilight Sparkle from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, despite these 2 characters being nothing like one another beyond having similar color schemes and both series being a produced by Hasbro

And it’s very ironic giving that Nicole Oliver (the voice of Zoe Trent in LPS 2012) was voiced Princess Celestia in FiM.

 

[Ace]

To be fair I've seen shows more similar to each other than Coconut Fred and Spongebob. At least Fred being some kind of reality warping god who materializes things with his thoughts made the show a bit different.

There's the whole Seth MacFarlane trilogy (or tetralogy I forgot about Bordertown). Not to mention all the clones of Family Guy not made by Seth MacFarlane. The Brickleberry/Paradise PD/Farzar trilogy. Not to mention RBUK was called a ripoff of UniKitty (which to be honest I think more of coincidence of them coming out at the same time).

 

[Petran Markou]

Yeah, folks are being a little too loose with the language. 'Ripoff' is one of those words like 'classic' or 'genius' that people toss around far too liberally. Two shows sharing some aesthetic or cosmetic similarities doesn't automatically make one a ripoff of the other, as you'd be hard pressed to find an idea that absolutely no one has done before. Ripoff is a potentially libelous term which people should refrain from using unless there's unequivocable proof of such.

only the courts can decide, since no author will admit it.
Freakazoid had some issues too with the comics author whose work was an inspiration to the series , according to P. Dini who talked with him. Yet he remains uncredited

 

[John Pannozzi]

only the courts can decide, since no author will admit it.
Freakazoid had some issues too with the comics author whose work was an inspiration to the series , according to P. Dini who talked with him. Yet he remains uncredited

You mean how Mike Allred's Madman comic books inspired the design of Freakazoid?

Yeah, there's no bad blood whatsoever between Allred and the creators of Freakazoid (Bruce Timm being the one who designed Freakzaoid, not Paul Dini, FYI).

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

 

[Fone Bone]

In hindsight, critics have decided that the much maligned The New Batman Adventures episode "Critters" is actually pretty good. I agree with that assessment of "Pretty good". But that's as far as it goes. The talking goat is pleasurably freaky, and I DO believe that anyone who turns up their noses at Batman fighting giant mutant bugs has no business watching cartoons to begin with. But it's a pretty good, SOLID episode. Despite favorable judgments it's received years later for being So Wrong And So Right At The Same Time, it's never gonna hold up to the best of Batman: The Animated Series. Although to be fair, that's true of any given episode of TNBA, which is probably why I always feel the need to defend it.

Further unpopular opinion: It's probably a better episode than Over The Edge. Granted, I am an outlier in believing the latter episode is overrated, but the more I watch Critters, the more I like it. The more I watch Over The Edge, the LESS I like it.

 

[matbezlima]

Critters is really supposed to be a quirky, fun enjoyable episode. I like when super-hero shows allow themselves to sometimes relish in their own conceptual silliness, that's part of the magic of comic books really (episodes like Kid Stuff and This Little Piggy from JLU are awesome examples of this). Do I love Critters? No, but it's a fine, harmless watch.

Random topic: I have an idea of someday making a thread dedicated to suggest amazing video essays on animation, and amazing YouTube channels on animation. Channels that really know their stuff, and that sometimes really explore the wide world of animation in the entire world instead of just the most obvious stuff, top 10s and such. I'm thinking this as I'm watching right now a video by a YouTube channel called STEVEM, it's a video about Isao Takahata, a key figure in not only Ghibli, but in japanese animation history in general way before Ghibli was even an idea, and it's wonderful.

 

[Sparklefan1234]

I'll say this but I find "Grift of the Magi" to be the best Christmas special of The Simpsons.

My favorite Christmas episode of The Simpsons is "'Tis the Fifteenth Season".

I don’t know if that episode is unpopular or not.

 

[Antiyonder]

I love the childlike wonder and wish fulfillment of having kids and/or teens as heroes beating adults and saving the world. And I also love when said characters feel like kids and/or teens. I think ATLA did that extremely well. Yet I have found people complaining about ATLA's characters, specially Aang in early Book 1 as too "childish, impulsive, obnoxious, unfocused, corny". He's a kid, for ****'s sake, and everyone slowly matures in the show. He's charming and likeable, he just wants to have fun, I don't get the hate.

Some people just don't like kids and teens as MCs in any media, I guess, unless you write them just as mini-adults.

I would also like to say that no one acts mature all the time. Many people, specially kids and teens, can be surprisingly mature sometimes, and surprisingly childish sometimes. I see that a lot in myself, I always was like this, and still am.

I'll someday make an entire rant on the prejudices against kids' shows and kids' protagonists.

1. In fairness I would say the only problem is having the lead or majority of the cast being a mandated thing, but yeah.

Even if the mandate is done almost all the time with all ages or kid shows, quality material is still able to come whether serial (The Owl House) or episodic (The Ghost and Molly McGee) and getting hung up on the leads being the usual kids or teens is the opposite mistake that higher ups make.

2. Yeah some of that hate is arguably even "My generation and elders were perfect". Arguably a perfect person would succeed in raising a perfect kid, but yeah...

As a variation on the problem, among the matters of quality comparisons, it's another reason why say The Spectacular Spider-Man wins for me over Ultimate Spider-Man.

Mind you like Man of Action's Ben 10, it is likely a by product of being episodic, but USM making Peter not only more like a Ben 10 type kid? Well:

A. As some say, kid or adult, some writers don't understand how to do multi-layered characters think a character has to be totally unlikable to make their growth impressive. Failing to consider that the audience needs a reason to care about them.

B. Well Spectacular, much like the Lee/Ditko comics had Peter and other teen characters being flawed and even being unpleasant yes.

But it didn't feel like a hatesink against kids. Ben Tennyson and kids like him feel less like making a flawed character who happens to be a kid and more of a "Kids these days with their eyepads and wrap music".

Also ATLA I additional feel gets it right. It doesn't feel like the creators slamming kids.

3. Most relevantly albeit only unpopular as opposed to being controversial and why Aang is as flawed as he is?

It's funny. There could have been discussions that I missed wayback in the day that it was recent, heck I overlooked it myself.

But another highlight of the show and one I didn't see addressed until Doug Walker's V Log?

ALTA questioning the Chosen One trope. Now you don't always have to omit such or deconstruct it if say a story is more fluffy and free of angst.

But in a story that does try to take itself seriously, yeah giving the kid praise/worship for something they didn't do yet if not giving them an immediate swelled head is going to be an invitation for stress like nothing else.

Shown especially with Gyatso objecting to the other Air Nomads telling Aang that he is the Avatar which even as the show demonstrates at least lets them live 16 years without that info.

Heck as some point out with Nimh 2, the Chosen One prophecy itself is what lead to the actions of the villain of the film. Yet the movie doesn't recognize that such worship was problematic.

 

[DogBoneController]

More animation production moving away from California is a good thing.

 

[Zanneck]

More animation production moving away from California is a good thing.

I'm more than confident the next cycle of Good American animation will not be from California. And that's all for the best. I'll take a long time, and we will all need to participate to make it work, however.

 

[[classic swim]]

More animation production moving away from California is a good thing.

Seconding this. Jobs should have been made easily accessible a long time ago.

Unless you truly are reaching for the stars, you shouldn’t have to self-exile thousands of miles from your friends and family just to obtain the career you want.

 

[SuperSuck64]

Writers are the most important and underappreciated workers in animation and the fact that both the industry and community completely ignore them and treat them as expendable is appalling. No amount of gorgeous animation and appealing character designs can compensate for lack of story, something nearly everyone agrees with including veterans of the industry, yet nobody ever wants to hire a writer or are interested in their work unless they can also draw and animate their ideas. I get how some show creators have a specific vision for their work and thus don't want just anybody meddling with their baby, but nobody ever seems to have any interest in an artist's storytelling ability and only care how gorgeous their art is. Plus, just because you can come up with an idea and draw art for it doesn't mean that you can create compelling plots and write good dialogue. Even with those old Roadrunner and Tom and Jerry cartoons, someone still had to come up with all those gags for the animators to draw (especially in the latter's case given those shorts typically had some sort of plot whereas the Roadrunner shorts were nothing but a collection of interchangeable jokes).

I strongly believe John K. and his "cartoons should be drawn and not written" philosophy is partially to blame, but just like Channel Awesome and the "angry reviewer" style, despite everyone rightfully turning their backs on him and denouncing his opinions and works this mentality still plagues the animation world, and combined with the indie pilot scene making animatics and storyboards look paltry by comparison it's only made things worse for people who want to write for animation but don't have the means to animate their scripts. It doesn't matter how original your idea is, how fleshed out your characters are, how smart your writing is, or how well you can compose a scene; if you can't turn that into a fully-fledged animation that would make Don Bluth seethe with jealousy, nobody will ever give you a chance despite how integral a writer's job is.

 

[aegisrawks]

This is your best post and I agree massively.

 

[Zanneck]

Writers are the most important and underappreciated workers in animation and the fact that both the industry and community completely ignore them and treat them as expendable is appalling. No amount of gorgeous animation and appealing character designs can compensate for lack of story, something nearly everyone agrees with including veterans of the industry, yet nobody ever wants to hire a writer or are interested in their work unless they can also draw and animate their ideas. I get how some show creators have a specific vision for their work and thus don't want just anybody meddling with their baby, but nobody ever seems to have any interest in an artist's storytelling ability and only care how gorgeous their art is. Plus, just because you can come up with an idea and draw art for it doesn't mean that you can create compelling plots and write good dialogue. Even with those old Roadrunner and Tom and Jerry cartoons, someone still had to come up with all those gags for the animators to draw (especially in the latter's case given those shorts typically had some sort of plot whereas the Roadrunner shorts were nothing but a collection of interchangeable jokes).

I strongly believe John K. and his "cartoons should be drawn and not written" philosophy is partially to blame, but just like Channel Awesome and the "angry reviewer" style, despite everyone rightfully turning their backs on him and denouncing his opinions and works this mentality still plagues the animation world, and combined with the indie pilot scene making animatics and storyboards look paltry by comparison it's only made things worse for people who want to write for animation but don't have the means to animate their scripts. It doesn't matter how original your idea is, how fleshed out your characters are, how smart your writing is, or how well you can compose a scene; if you can't turn that into a fully-fledged animation that would make Don Bluth seethe with jealousy, nobody will ever give you a chance despite how integral a writer's job is.

1000% BASED AND CORRECT, M8. Hope you don't mind me stealing this from you. It's your best damn post ever, Honestly Enough, like @aegisrawks already said. It just Bears echoing. All good ideas and words to live by that are worth that bear echoing, dangit!

Pessimism aside, THIS is definitely something that needs to change - more respect for animators and especially those writing things alongside those animators.

 

[Ace]

I agree wholeheartingly with anyone who said too much of the entertainment business is in California. Branching off to different communities epecially into places where people can afford to live at a modest wage isn't that hard. It's especially true with the fact so many things can be done remotely and you can communicate instantly across the country or across the world even. There's really no excuse not to having offices in different regions to get more talent. Have zoom meetings with different parts to see if everyone is on board.

Writers are the most important and underappreciated workers in animation and the fact that both the industry and community completely ignore them and treat them as expendable is appalling. No amount of gorgeous animation and appealing character designs can compensate for lack of story, something nearly everyone agrees with including veterans of the industry, yet nobody ever wants to hire a writer or are interested in their work unless they can also draw and animate their ideas. I get how some show creators have a specific vision for their work and thus don't want just anybody meddling with their baby, but nobody ever seems to have any interest in an artist's storytelling ability and only care how gorgeous their art is. Plus, just because you can come up with an idea and draw art for it doesn't mean that you can create compelling plots and write good dialogue. Even with those old Roadrunner and Tom and Jerry cartoons, someone still had to come up with all those gags for the animators to draw (especially in the latter's case given those shorts typically had some sort of plot whereas the Roadrunner shorts were nothing but a collection of interchangeable jokes).

I strongly believe John K. and his "cartoons should be drawn and not written" philosophy is partially to blame, but just like Channel Awesome and the "angry reviewer" style, despite everyone rightfully turning their backs on him and denouncing his opinions and works this mentality still plagues the animation world, and combined with the indie pilot scene making animatics and storyboards look paltry by comparison it's only made things worse for people who want to write for animation but don't have the means to animate their scripts. It doesn't matter how original your idea is, how fleshed out your characters are, how smart your writing is, or how well you can compose a scene; if you can't turn that into a fully-fledged animation that would make Don Bluth seethe with jealousy, nobody will ever give you a chance despite how integral a writer's job is.

Explains Ren and Stimpy's horrid pacing even in it's more acclaimed episodes. A lot of the best storyboard driven shows need to have some kind of basic outline to go by. Even a very loose one so you know where you're going and not making things up as you go along. Shows like Ed Edd n Eddy and Spongebob later did what Ren and Stimpy tried to do much better. There has some kind of balance of freedom given to writers and artists.

 

[Dantheman]

I wonder how much of that "they're going to make a funny version of Ren and Stimpy" by Roy Rooster in an episode of Garfield and Friends was Mark Evanier venting about John K.'s comments about cartoon writers, or how he genuinely felt about the show.

 

[matbezlima]

Writers are the most important and underappreciated workers in animation and the fact that both the industry and community completely ignore them and treat them as expendable is appalling. No amount of gorgeous animation and appealing character designs can compensate for lack of story, something nearly everyone agrees with including veterans of the industry, yet nobody ever wants to hire a writer or are interested in their work unless they can also draw and animate their ideas. I get how some show creators have a specific vision for their work and thus don't want just anybody meddling with their baby, but nobody ever seems to have any interest in an artist's storytelling ability and only care how gorgeous their art is. Plus, just because you can come up with an idea and draw art for it doesn't mean that you can create compelling plots and write good dialogue. Even with those old Roadrunner and Tom and Jerry cartoons, someone still had to come up with all those gags for the animators to draw (especially in the latter's case given those shorts typically had some sort of plot whereas the Roadrunner shorts were nothing but a collection of interchangeable jokes).

I strongly believe John K. and his "cartoons should be drawn and not written" philosophy is partially to blame, but just like Channel Awesome and the "angry reviewer" style, despite everyone rightfully turning their backs on him and denouncing his opinions and works this mentality still plagues the animation world, and combined with the indie pilot scene making animatics and storyboards look paltry by comparison it's only made things worse for people who want to write for animation but don't have the means to animate their scripts. It doesn't matter how original your idea is, how fleshed out your characters are, how smart your writing is, or how well you can compose a scene; if you can't turn that into a fully-fledged animation that would make Don Bluth seethe with jealousy, nobody will ever give you a chance despite how integral a writer's job is.

This is complicated. One thing I've randomly read about Tiny Toons is that animators and writers were consistently not in-sync regarding what they want.

About classic animation, there are many different cases. Tex Avery (the father of the Looney Tunes style, though his peak was at MGM) was his own gag-man for the cartoons he directed, with even the writers saying that most of the gags and story structure really came from Avery himself. To be clear though: Avery's greatest strengths were frenetic pacing, escalation and absurdist comedy. The characters in Avery's cartoons are, more often than not, just there as part of his set-pieces, with all of the humor coming from the gags and the animation themselves. Avery was not one of the best in drawing. His drawings were funny, but rough. And he was so aware of his limitations, so insecure, that for years he allowed animators to change his drawings in the final animation to the point that his own distinctive and funny style was severely watered down. It was only in the mid-to-late 40s that the animators in Avery's unit at MGM realized that they should clean up Avery's drawings just a little, to preserve their unique and hilarious Avery-ness.

Richard Williams in his book about animation, called The Animator's Toolkit, says that he firmly believes that being amazing at drawing is very important and often crucial. He mentions Avery as an exception that proves the rule, and even argues that Avery's burn-out in the 50s means that cases like him are really not sustainable at a long-term. But the story is more complicated. Avery had insane control over every aspect of his cartoon, to the point of having a mental breakdown on 1950, and really not finding much pleasure in doing cartoons anymore.

Now I'll talk about Chuck Jones. Fantastic director, unique and amazing style, had his prime in the late 40s and most of the 50s. But Mike Maltese was crucial. He was the writer of all great Jones' cartoons. Chuck Jones said that Mike Maltese was better than him at actually coming up with many funny gags. Mike Maltese also wrote many great cartoons for other directors, like Friz Freleng, and is often hailed as the greatest writer of Looney Tunes. He also help Jones grounded. Without Maltese, Jones' cartoons often slipped into being too slow and ponderous for the comedy to work.

That said, Maltese was obviously helped a lot by Jones' fantastic animation doing a lot of the heavy lifting for the gags. Same for other directors. When Maltese left Looney Tunes to work on TV cartoons, his work at those cartoons is far less remembered. The limited animation of TV, not to mention all the other problems with how draining and tiring the medium of TV was, didn't do his gags any favors.

 

[Classic Speedy]

Ideally there should equal importance between artists and writers. A good script IS important, but so are the visuals.

Not to defend that horrible person, but he was coming at it from the standpoint of starting in the business in the early '80s, when artists weren't given much freedom at all *, and the script was the ONLY thing that mattered. And the scripts that were made were largely terrible. Thing is though, scripts improved a LOT by the end of the decade, and into the '90s. One only needs to look at The Simpsons.

* There were those stories of him supervising Jetsons episodes in Taiwan and he had to fight tooth and nail just to get a few seconds of more expressive animation than what was usually allowed.

 

[KeldeoKitty]

Both Western Animation and Anime need to equally coexist to complement each other. Each of them has their gifts and I’d be sad if any or both of them died. Somehow the presence of Anime makes Western Animation more enjoyable and vice versa. I do think Western Animation has too many of generic preschool and slapstick cartoons but anime has too many generic romcoms and gritty, overly gory animations, and I feel like there aren’t enough anime featuring animal characters compared to western cartoons. I’ll admit Western Animation is not in a golden age in the 2020’s but neither is anime. While I think Western Animation peaked in the 2010’s so far, Anime already peaked in the 2000’s. In terms of the amount of interesting western cartoons and anime that get released at a time both are consistently on par, same for manga and graphic novels. And both mediums have impressive back catalogs of older animations that I look through a lot. I appreciate both forms of animation.

The thing is I’m not that into Live-Action aside from a few movies. Video Games I love certain segments of the medium but I’m not very fond of any system past the 3DS, I also tend to be too lazy to play through a lot of games and the presence of incomplete games with reliance on patches, DLC, and micro transactions is ridiculous and retro games are increasingly expensive to collect. Trading Card Games I like but I can’t always find players and it’s also an expensive hobby. That said Animation both western and anime overall is the one entertainment form I can never put down despite issues it’s had, it’s my safe zone.