I'll be on a roll today as I try and review a ton of shows in a short time.... No really, I'll start with Teen Titans Go.
Teen Titans was originally a psuedo anime super hero show that is very well fondly remembered back in the days of Toonami, exploring the lives of Robin, Starfire, Beastboy, Cyborg and Raven, while very compelling with it's action it also had a good mix of dark drama and oddball comedy and any fan of the show would love to see this come back yet this remake that they chose to bring back is nothing but oddball comedy to the extreme to the point where you can't really call it a Teen Titans show; it really was a strange choice yet in a crazy roundabout way this is still a good cartoon.
Yes I can see all the criticisms, yes some of the jokes are somewhere between juvernile and WTF, yes it does feel like a kids show yet they sprout references aimed at my age group and yes the characters do feel badly dumbed down, and yes compared to the original there's no comparison.
Yet I actually like it. Despite all the heavy criticism this show gets I really don't hate it, it's a reminder of the cartoons of old when all you really want to do is laugh and not need a degree in storytelling to even pass the most caustic of critics, simple pleasures has it's place alongside strong storytelling and sometimes the only way that works is with a familiar property like the Teen Titans, and look on the bright side, the Marvel equivalent to this show is the Super Hero Squad Show which is a million times worst than this.
Progressing onwards with the tributes we come to those we lost from July-September.
Dick Jones 1927-2014
Veteran voice actor who voiced Pinocchio in Disney's adaption among hundreds of other roles.
Shuusei Nakamura 1935-2014
Veteran voice actor whose credits include Star Blazers and Gatchaman.
David Weidman 1921-2014
Animator whose works included Popeye and Wacky Races.
Scott Ciencin 1962-2014
Novelist who wrote novel adaptions of Kim Possible, Transformers, Buffy & Angel, Jurassic Park and Silent Hill.
Liz Holzman 1953-2014
Award winning Film Producer, Director and Writer whose works included Animaniacs and Pinky and the Brain.
Buster Jones 1943-2014
Veteran voice actor whose credits include Doc from GI Joe along with roles in Captain Planet, Tranformers and Real Ghostbusters.
Douglas E. Smith 1960-2014
Video Game Designer of Lode Runner and one of the pioneers of Level Editing in games, also key player in the localization in the west of the Secret of Mana series and Chrono Trigger.
Robin Williams 1951-2014
Legendary Comedian whose roles include the Genie in Aladdin, Fender in Robots, Batty in Ferngully and Ramon in Happy Feet among many other memorable film roles including Patch Adams, Flubber, Good Morning Vietnam, Hook, Good Will Hunting and Mrs Doubtfire.
Stan Goldberg 1932-2014
Comic Book Artist who worked for Marvel and Archie Comics. Also helped design the default color schemes for the Fantastic 4 and Spiderman.
Iemasa Kayumi 1932-2014
Veteran Voice Actor whose Japanese Dub roles include the films of Frank Sinatra, Donald Sutherland, Christopher Lee, James Stewart, Ian McKellen and David Carradine. Also voiced numerous anime roles.
There is an uncomfortable trend at the moment in the animation industry simply referred to as the remake or the rehash in other cases, this is taking a popular cartoon from eons ago and remaking it for a new audience but some of these so called remakes aren't really up to scratch and here are a few examples in what doesn't work.
The movies are terrible at this especially when each of these rehashes use CGI combined with live action; this is true with Yogi Bear, Alvin & the Chipmunks and the Smurfs, all of which are icons in their respective countries but as movies shown in this style it really doesn't work; and now that Disney want to try it, guess which franchise they're going to attempt this with.
Yep Rescue Rangers, a show which has no right to be involved in this type of animation to begin with considering there is only one prominent human character in the cartoon.
Warner Bros are really guilty of this, their recent rehashes of Scooby Doo & Looney Tunes does little to keep it's audience, in fact their problems are more to do with messing with the formula. Scooby Doo tried to go all contemporary by attaching an origin story and a complex plot to the simple chase villains dressed up as ghosts, Scooby Doo never had any problems adapting with the times providing it kept formula but has a hard time outside of that. In the case of Looney Tunes and probably Tom & Jerry as well, they suffer from being politically incorrect for modern audiences, the jokes and gags that were acceptable in the 40s & 50s are not so acceptable now so modernizing wasn't kind to them, in fact some say that the likes of Bugs and Daffy are too domesticated to be funny anymore.
Strangely enough classic American cartoons are also involved in rehashes with the likes of Rocky & Bullwinkle along with the very recent Mr Peabody & Sherman. Both of which are ancient by today's standards but makers insist on bringing it into CGI and making a film about it.
More recently we also have the likes of Pac-Man and Sonic coming back in CGI series and both sound like a desperate bid to regain fans when both franchises are practically dead in today's market. Even Powerpuff Girls are getting the same treatment as they return in their own CGI series but the makers insist the formula is still the same.
Remakes aren't all bad, Thundercats was actually good, if not better than the original, it is possible to remake things without ruining it. Other shows such as Ninja Turtles and Biker Mice from Mars both managed to survive being remade and improved as well.
So yeah, in most cases remakes and rehashes aren't exactly good for the industry, the idea of fixing something which isn't broke isn't always the best course of action to try and revive a long forgotten franchise. Only a small minority seem to succeed in this regard but as time moves on and nostalgia seems to only get more popular by the second, it's only a matter of time before I end up re-watching my whole childhood in CGI.
So why is a good show axed when bad shows still get season after season?
Well these examples may put a few things to rest.
1. Invader Zim
Everyone's favorite psychotic alien in one of Nicktoons darkest & funniest shows of all time.
Why Cancel?: Nickelodeon claimed it was low ratings, the real reason was that Invader Zim frequently broke its budget and became too expensive for the Network to make.
Aftermath: It's staff would later be hired for Avatar the Last Airbender.
2. Class of 3000
A performance arts college led by Andre 3000 of OutKast. Decent animation and decent music.
Why Cancel?: Cartoon Network claimed it was too expensive to make, the real reason came when Andre 3000 was sued for plagiarism which ultimately sealed it's fate.
Aftermath: It was the last cartoon to be made under the old Cartoon Network banner which led up to the events of the 2007 Boston Bomb Scare which cost former head Jim Samples his job, what followed was a few years of crap Cartoon Network.
3. Warner Bros 90s Cartoons
Freakazoid, Animaniacs, Pinky & the Brain, Hysteria, all of Warner's finest from that era.
Why Cancel?: Some guy named Jamie Kellner decided to scrap the range claiming it wasn't right for the channel's image to have cartoons appealing to grown ups. Ironically this also happened to the Avengers cartoon.
Aftermath: Warner Bros have not been the same since.
4. Cancelled without reason
Danny Phantom, El Tigre, Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go, Juniper Lee, American Dragon, Young Justice, Megas XLR, Swat Kats & Samurai Jack.
Why Cancel?: In some cases poor time slots, in others it simply dropped off the channel for no reason. For Swat Kats, Ted Turner claimed it was too violent. Samurai Jack's chances look slim for a comeback following Mako's death and because Samurai Jack needs his voice but not other voices it poses quite a problem.
5. Gargoyles
Core of Disney's epic run of tv cartoons in the 90s.
Why Cancel?: Fell out of Disney's favor and ended up being drawn by a different animation house.
Aftermath: Disney seem to do this a lot with these kinds of shows, the same fate befell many of the shows I've mentioned along with the likes of WITCH & PB & J Otter.
6. Adult Swim Cartoons
Anything not Venture Bros or Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
Why Cancel?: Adult Swim is too poorly run to sustain cartoons properly, some never made it pass episode one. In the case of Titan Maximum which had better ratings than many of it's staple shows, creator Seth Green felt that Robot Chicken was more important.
7. Classic British Cartoons
It's worthy of note that many of our classic cartoons, mostly stop motion shows like Postman Pat, Bagpuss & Camberwick Green are notoriously short.
Why Cancel?: They were never cancelled, the shows were really that short.
Wallace & Gromit our best cartoon has only had four episodes, one movie and numerous shorts in 24 years and it frequently wins awards no problem.
Explain: We British don't do filler, also helps that British shows tend to have all episodes filmed in a series before broadcast.
8. And an Anime Example
The original Gundam Series
Why Cancel?: Surprisingly poor ratings cut the show to 39 episodes forcing creator Yoshiyuki Tomino to improvise an ending.
Aftermath: Rerun figures were better and with new editing and cuts was redone into a film trilogy before Zeta Gundam's release.
Back to obscure movies played when Cartoon Network tried to show films, this time it's a German animated film released in English by Warner Bros called The Fearless Four.
It starts with a dog named Buster voiced by James Ingram who's been driven out of his home for not being a proper dog and getting placed in the pound.
Then we join Fred the Donkey voiced by B.B.King who's been made redundant by a robot centaur with a sweet singing voice.
Then we join Gwendolyn the Cat voiced by Oleta Adams who's been driven out of her home by her late owners obnoxious relatives.
And finally we join Tortellini the Rooster voiced by Zucchero who's been driven out of his home for too much sex. (Look that's whats been implied by the scene just go with it)
The four animals some how meet up and decide to form a singing quartet as they journey to Paris to find their fortune only to stop in Bremen on the way and get scouted by an evil food company called Mix Max; they are made to perform the Mix Max jingle in order to increase control over Europe, I don't know, it makes no sense, the main villain looks like that guy from "Series of Unfortunate Events".
The group rebel with an awesome song, one of many awesome songs throughout the film, it is a musical after all and win against the villains, the film ends as Gwendolyn finds out that she now has ownership of her owners mansion and turns it into an animal home.
Okay verdict on this film is simple: good music, silly plot, overly dull color scheme, somehow manages to mold computer graphics well despite being a 90s film and decent English dub despite being all voiced by professional singers.
If you've even heard of any of the singers voicing the animal characters then you've won a cookie.
Compared to the Scarecrow I covered last time, The Fearless Four has better production but the plot is a bit silly and can be seen as a vegan's revenge story seeing as the underlying message seems to be that meat producers are evil and everything is better with singing.
The film is fairly obscure so don't expect to find much beyond it's original German release, I had trouble finding any information about this film in English so I'm doing this review on memory.
Overall it's a nice little distraction but nothing memorable about it beyond the songs.
