Gosh darn it - according to Yahoo! Movies, John Carter has pretty much no chance of breaking even. So it flopped. Disney actually acknowledged that fact. Man, that probably means that Disney's not going to be making any sequels anytime soon. It doesn't make any sense. A movie as awesome as John Carter flops while Avatar became the highest-grossing movie of all-time.
Just so you know, Andrew Stanton, I thought that it was an awesome movie. Of course, that's why you leave the marketing to the people who actually studied marketing. I forget where I read it but I read somewhere that Andrew Stanton worked on a lot of the marketing. Yeah, the director should just work on directing a movie, not marketing it.
And also, I figured out why I don't like The Hunger Games. It might be unfair of me to say that because I never read the book, because I didn't want to (although my sister did make me listen to her read the first few chapters), but that's how I am. So the reason is because I couldn't really connect with the main character and this is even more of a problem since the novel is told from a first-person perspective. Because of this, you know that Katniss will win so there's less suspense. Now, I admit, I don't think that I could survive the Hunger Games. I'd probably be one of the first people to be killed, if not the first person. For this, I'd rather root for some of the other tributes, of whom the reader knows nothing and whose deaths are inevitable, as mine would be. Yeah, it's kind of strange, I admit. I am, however, looking forward to watching the movie in theaters on Friday. Not because I want to watch The Hunger Games in particular but because it's fun to see movies in theaters. If I had a choice, I'd go see John Carter again, but I made a promise to my sister that I'd go see The Hunger Games with her, in exchange for...something (I don't remember). But after watching a new trailer (the older trailers looked kind of cheesy), I think I don't really regret it as much now.
Yeah, just wanted to type about those things. The main topic of this post, however, isn't John Carter or The Hunger Games. It's the ever decreasing quality of animated T.V. shows. I'm writing this sentence that you're reading after having written the whole post and let me just warn you that this is an awesome post but I must admit that it's kind of incoherent.
You know what? The quality of kid's cartoons is unbelievably low these days. I remember back in the late '90s and the earlier years of the last decade when there were actually good cartoons. Now they all just seriously SUCK (yes, it was necessary to type that word in all caps). All of them. There are no good ones these days.
I think the reason why most of them SUCK can be, I think, explained by examining one show that was once on Cartoon Network (The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack) and one that is still running on Cartoon Network (Adventure Time).
I think I'll start with the latter.
I think there were three shows that were relatively new on Cartoon Network. In order from oldest to newest: Chowder, The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack, and Adventure Time. Adventure Time was probably regarded by Cartoon Network as a very important show, a hit that could get finally get them the ratings that they wanted. The two previous shows had failed. I'm going to type about Flapjack later on but here's my opinion about Chowder:
Not too long ago, I would have said that Chowder was alright. In retrospect, however, it wasn't alright. It was pretty bad. It was rarely funny. This, I think, is excusable because the show's creator, C.H. Greenblatt, worked as a writer on Spongebob Squarepants and The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, two of the most hilarious cartoons ever. Some of the jokes in Chowder just seemed to have been recycled from those two shows. For example, younger kids would probably have thought that it was funny when Chowder and Schnitzel are about to be attacked by man-eating fruits and Chowder tells Schnitzel that "I [Chowder] used your [Schnitzel's] apron to unclog my [Chowder's] toilet" or something. Fans of Spongebob, however, would probably have been reminded of something from the episode Graveyard Shift: when Spongebob and Squidward think that they are about to get killed by the "Hash-Slinging Slasher", Spongebob tells Squidward that "I [Spongebob] used your [Squidward's] clarinet to unclog my [Spongebob's] toilet." See what I mean?
Anyway, back to Adventure Time. Adventure Time is just not very funny because it tries to be completely random. Because the show's writers are trying to be random, they instead make the jokes very predictable. I'm serious. Go watch an episode and you'll see what I mean. I'd give an example but it's been months since I last saw the show.
Now, Spongebob is a hilarious show. At least, it used to be. As you might have guessed, it's my favorite cartoon of all-time.
Indeed, sadly it only used to be funny. Now, I think they should just cancel the show. I don't know what its ratings are like but I'm sure that they're nowhere near as good as they were before the movie. Of course, Spongebob is probably regarded by Nickelodeon's owners as their most important property. You might say that the most important show Nickelodeon ever aired was Rocko's Modern Life or Invader Zim or The Ren & Stimpy Show or Rugrats. I personally don't know much about those shows. I've watched two episodes of the first (I barely remember them) and none of the third or fourth. I do remember watching Rugrats and hating it. You might even say that the most important show that Nickelodeon aired was The Fairly Oddparents. I used to love that show too. I might as well also mention the third cartoon of that generation, Jimmy Neutron. I liked that show a lot too. The only thing is that it took me a long time to get used to the CGI animation. I always thought that the CGI animation looked weird and wondered why they couldn't just have used traditional animation. Not that I have anything against CGI animation in general or anything. Jimmy Neutron, however, kind of looked low-budget in comparison to the CGI movies that were being made by Pixar and DreamWorks that came out while it was airing. Still, it was a lot better than any new show that is currently playing on Cartoon Network or Nickelodeon.
Anyway, say what you might, Spongebob is still the most important show Nickelodeon's ever aired. None of other shows that I mentioned in the last paragraph have come close to being the popular culture phenomenon that Spongebob once was. Indeed, I feel very nostalgic for the pre-movie days.
The first season was already very good. You can see that the show had a lower budget back then but some of the first season episodes (like Help Wanted, Jellyfishing, Plankton!, Pizza Delivery, Home Sweet Pineapple, Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy, Pickles, Hall Monitor, Jellyfish Jam, Culture Shock, F.U.N., and SB-129) are the best the show's ever had. I did want to list all of the episodes of that season that I thought were exceptional, but the list would have been way too long.
However, I think that it was during the second and third seasons that Spongebob Squarepants was at its peak. Consider those two season the Generation II or the Johto Region of the show. Like with Pokémon, the producers of the show took everything the fans liked about the first season (Generation I or Kanto) and added a lot. Both the animators and the writers perfected their respective talents. Gosh darn it, if you want to know what my favorite episodes from those seasons are just see their Wikipedia pages. All of those episodes are awesome.
The movie was okay, I guess, but I'll type about it some other time. Maybe in the next post.
Alright back to Adventure Time. Adventure Time just desperately tries to be funny, by being random. It just fails so epikly (the adverb form of "epic", in case you couldn't tell). Mathematical! Seriously? Nope, not funny. I feel as if I'm being a bit harsh. Well, that's too bad. Am I saying that I'm funnier? No, that's not what I'm saying. Not at all. I'm only saying that Adventure Time is not funny, that's all.
Now that I'm done bashing Adventure Time, I think I'll move on to The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack.
Flapjack was the best of Cartoon Network's New Trio (that's what I'm going to call those three shows now). It wasn't hilarious. It wasn't even that funny. The 11-minute stories usually didn't make any sense (for example: in one early episode, the candy store owner is looking for the last X-marked candy wrapper. That last wrapper will finish the map that he needs to get to Candy Island. Flapjack ripped up that wrapper and gave him one that he (Flapjack) drew an X on. Peppermint Larry (the candy store owner) ended up on Pickle Island. But why did he need that wrapper? Why did it make much of a difference if it made up only a very small portion of the map?) The reason I'm saying that it's the best of the three, however, is that it had the most potential of the three. I'll explain why in the following list.
Now, here's the part of my post that you should pay close attention to if you're a Cartoon Network executive. Alright, I know that the chances that anyone, let alone a Cartoon Network executive, is reading this web log is very low but here are my two ideas for how to whip the network back into shape:
1. If you're going to import shows, import them from Japan.
I don't have anything against Canada. It's a pretty cool country, I know because I've been there. Their animated T.V. shows, however, are of pretty low quality. Just take a look at Johnny Test. It's just a clone of Dexter's Laboratory (an amazing show that Cartoon Network once aired). I mean, seriously, it's just about a kid who is used as a test subject (Get it?) for his sisters' experiments. And it's not funny, unlike DL, which was hilarious. I did like Total Drama Island and Total Drama Action quite a bit, I must admit. The only thing, though, was the artwork. Now, I hate to criticize artwork in T.V. shows, because I personally can't draw, but that was my opinion. I would have liked those shows even more if the art was as good as, maybe that in Johnny Bravo. The shows are similar in appearance (okay, not so much) but there's this Johnny Bravo is more aesthetic. Anyway, Canadian shows generally have this low-quality feel to them.
I admit that I'm not that much of a fan of anime but there are many kids who love anime. I'm not saying that Toonami should be brought back. Many anime fans loved Toonami and stopped watching Cartoon Network because of a lack of anime shows. Just bringing back Toonami won't solve anything, though, because it just won't be the same. Instead, try to import other anime. (The plural of "anime" is just "anime", right?) And I mean, other than Pokémon. That franchise is like Spongebob. It's worn out now. Some shows like Ben 10 might have tried to replace true anime shows but they just can't succeed. I did like Ben 10 but the series is just childish now. Okay, the original show was too, but less.
Get some shojo, or whatever (I don't know much about anime jargon), to attract the elusive tween girl demographic. It helped manga publishers get a foothold in Europe and then go on to publish other manga for all demographics (to the extent that manga series are now as popular as Asterix and Tintin).
2. Don't be so quick to cancel new shows.
Flapjack was expected to get high ratings. It got a lot of advertising early on. When the show failed to meet expectations, there was almost no marketing. If it wasn't for Wikipedia, I wouldn't even have known when the series finale was airing. I watched that finale and I must say that I thought that Flapjack deserved a much better final episode.
Look at how well Adventure Time is doing despite it being a horrible show. It got (and still gets) a bunch of marketing, throughout the good times and the bad times, apparently.
And now another list, just for Flapjack, in case anyone's planning to bring it back:
1. Get rid of the whale.
Bubbie wasn't at all essential to the show. Roz Ryan did a good job of voicing the character but besides taking Flapjack and K'nuckles places, what did she do? The show would have been a lot better if K'nuckles was a real adventurer. I know that the joke is that K'nuckles is a pirate who doesn't do any adventuring, but if he had his own ship...think of all the possibilities that could create. They could travel to strange lands with Bubbie, but instead of whale, if they had a ship they'd have a crew. And the crew could be funny.
2. Lower the emphasis on candy.
Seriously, I know that the main goal that Flapjack and K'nuckles have is to get to Candy Island and all that, but seriously, why all the emphasis on candy? To make it safer for kids? Remember who the target audience is. A show like Flapjack shouldn't even be directed towards kids in the first place.
3. Don't let the humor depend so much on the characters' face expressions.
Much of the humor came from the juxtaposition of the innocence of Flapjack with the grotesqueness of the other characters. Sometimes, however, the jokes that rely on the characters' appearances and face expressions can be unbearable. There's nothing wrong with a cartoon relying on visuals but the best jokes, as everyone knows, are spoken.
4. Add some female characters.
Yeah, seriously. Why not at least try to get girls to watch the show by having more women in the show? That might work out. Targeting girls with comics that had female characters worked for the European manga publishers.
Now, am I saying that Cartoon Network can be as amazing as it was during the Platinum Years, when shows like Johnny Bravo, Dexter's Laboratory, The Powerpuff Girls (yes, I watched that show and I liked it), Grim & Evil (which went on to become The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy), Courage the Cowardly Dog, and of course Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy (which happens to be my favorite cartoon that was ever shown on CN)? (Yes, I do realize that some of those shows were aired with years in between each other but I'm still going to call the years of the late last millennium and the early this millennium the Platinum Years.)
No, but Cartoon Network has nowhere left to go from here but up (at least, I hope so).
Well, that's all for today. Next Post: The Spongebob Squarepants Movie and Cartoon Network vs. Nickelodeon vs. Disney Channel (and why Phineas and Ferb isn't the new Spongebob (besides the obvious) like some T.V. reviewers are saying).
Oh yeah, let me just say that I do know that there are problems with fonts and font sizes in this post but I don't really feel like fixing those problems. Stupid Blogger. Sorry Google.
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