Hi I'm Dranzerstorm
You may remember me as a regular contestant on the caption battle contest.
Welcome to Retro Retrospective, my world dedicated to the old guard of the Otaku world; expect some reviews of the old & obscure, and in-depth geeky knowledge with the occasional top ten and I now have a logo.
Little info about me
Well I'm British and I'm in to all things animated and nostalgia.
I've grown up with every cartoon going and have watched hundreds of anime.
Oh and to answer a question I was asked once, no I don't wear glasses in real life, I would wear Loke's sunglasses though.
I mentioned before about popstars and how much they did in anime including Avril Lavigne's shameless manga series or TATU's failed anime movie but in the cartoon world, it's a little more tricky. Most stars don't tend to enter the cartoon world apart from guest entries in The Simpsons or a show of equal value, as for cartoon pop shows, they are even rarer and judging by this subject, there's probably a good reason, so allow me to apologize for this one on behalf of the British Public, for this is the V-Birds.
The idea began as a promo in about five or six parts revealing more each time, it was about a group of girls sent to earth as punishment for refusing to dance for some event. They are sealed inside a dance machine and will forever spend their days dancing to the tunes of the kids who play said machine, see for yourself how bad this is, especially in animation terms.
The sad thing about this promo is the amount of faith that Cartoon Network UK had in the whole project, but the two major things they overlooked are so simple it's insulting.
1. The Pop Music Industry would never accept a virtual idol at the time who wasn't the Gorillaz. The simple fighting the juggernaut theory of failure.
2. The target audience were tweens who don't watch cartoons.
This wasn't just a failure by Cartoon Network, it was a high profile costly failure that pretty much killed off Cartoon Network's popularity for much of the 00s before Ben 10 came along to save them, although you American's probably experienced Cartoon Network's downfall differently. In this country we blame the V-Birds.
But there is a sense of what could've been, thanks to modern technology and people's interest, this youtuber cleaned up the music video for the bands only single.
It's much better to look at and with Hatsune Miku turning Virtual Idol into a much bigger industry, there is room for a comeback but you're going to need some retooling and better song writers.
A normal schedule for a cartoon channel during weekdays is prime time mornings and afternoons but what about midday? The realms of midday cartoons was an unusual zone for anyone who's ever been off sick from school and all that was on was the most bizarre cartoons you could ever see. No idea what you Americans had but when I was young I had the Fruitties.
Fruitties is a Spanish cartoon from the late 80s about the adventures of a group of fruit, not to be confused with or associated with Christian cartoon show Veggie Tales. My memory of this show is sketchy at best as the only name I remember is Roly the Pineapple, I recognize the cactus & banana along with the human girl and a number of different songs which covered most of the plot.
Speaking of which 2 minutes 28 Seconds is stupidly long for an opening sequence, but then again most of my memories about this show were that the episodes felt like they lasted longer than they really were.
The thing about being sick while watching this and the Magic School Bus gave the impression of a mushroom trip, they seem so weird and likeable that I couldn't possibly hate them, in fact one of the best memories I have of this show that stands above all else is the character theme song for Roly the Pineapple. If the episode was about him, guarantee you'll here this song.
The Fruitties are on DVD in it's native Spain and clips from the episodes are easy to find on Youtube, there is no English DVD release, and the closest it got to America was Brazil.
Share your thoughts on this and tell us what you watched when you were ill from school.
Regular readers know that I like to use as many obscure titles as I can for reviews, often they are OVA shows like Jewel BEM Hunter Lime & the Debutante Detective Corps; on the other side of animation, big projects used for discovering talent ...
Anyone of my generation will know that the introduction of children's cartoon channels made watching TV a million times easier than trying to watch after school runs of popular shows and seeing as we've lived through the entire life spans of the likes of Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, Fox Kids & Disney Channel, we were given our moneys worth with the amount of cartoons that existed especially on Cartoon Network who started with much older stuff long before they had the funding to make their own cartoons, most of what they got was Hanna-Barbera cartoons of either talking animals with ties or crime solving teenagers and dogs with speech impediments from the 70s, we had Looney Tunes & Tom & Jerry and being from the European region I had a bunch of their stuff as well, (More on that in the future) But around 1992 after Hanna-Barbera finished releasing more older kid orientated 2 Stupid Dogs & SWAT Cats, the current president pitched an idea to stakeholders Turner releasing a large number of shorts from upcoming creators in a sort of succeed or fail system in the hopes of coming up with new ideas to take on rivals Nickelodeon who at the time had just finished powerhouse cartoons Ren & Stimpy and Rugrats.
In 1995 the What-A-Cartoon project was born.
It all started with the Powerpuff Girls, Dexter's Laboratory & Johnny Bravo, three shows that defined Cartoon Network of the 90s, there will be reviews of these later along with Cow & Chicken and a few others but the shorts I really want to talk about are the ones coming from creators that would play a huge part in the future of cartoons as a whole.
The first one Pfish & Chip and Gramps was created by Butch Hartman who would later go on to create Fairly Odd Parents for Nickelodeon. Hartman began his career as a small time artist for Don Bluth film American Tail. After a few slightly bigger roles for Dink the Little Dinosaur & Piggsburg Pigs, his more significant roles in the industry fell into place as an animator and writer for the run of Cartoon Cartoons before being poached by Nickelodeon for the similar named project Oh Yeah! Cartoons where he pitched the idea of Fairly Odd Parents which is still running strong despite the growing demand for everything to be a kids sitcom. Danny Phantom & T.U.F.F Puppy are also Hartman's work.
The other short Larry & Steve is even more significant as it was the prototype for Family Guy which is of course the work of Seth MacFarlane.
Looking back I would never guess in a million years that this would become one of the world's most successful adult cartoons but the proof is in the voice work and mannerisms of Larry & Steve themselves. Not bad for a college project. While Family Guy, American Dad & Ted are among his most well known works he was also a writer for the Ace Ventura cartoon and provided numerous support to Cartoon Network's shows as well.
With the next generation already here to continue the legacy left by What-A-Cartoon such as Man of Action, Pendleton Ward & Lauren Faust to name but a few, were in good hands for the future and hope that lightning will strike again.
Lets face it, cartoons these days are lousy, whether it's me getting older, a lack of ideas, nothing left to surprise me or just plain bad, but some manage to buck the trend and actually be so awesome that in some cases they become legendary. So here's a selection of the top ten best modern cartoons. The rules are that each show must have been created from 2007-Present day and must still be active on TV in any form and any nation, and the usual rule, I have to have seen it. So to begin. oooooohhhhhhhhh!
10. Phineas & Ferb
The enthusiasm for this series has died in recent years but it's still one of the most creative cartoons in recent years with an arrangement of catchy music and a Platypus in a fedora.
9. Dragons: Riders of Berk
While it maybe another Dreamworks cash-in cartoon, this show is based on my favorite Dreamworks film "How to Train your Dragon". With the same humor and humanism of the film this series is worth a watch.
8. Thundercats Reboot
The fans of the original are a hard lot to please to the point where they released both new and old action figures at the same time but the remake at the risk of being unpopular is actually more superior than the old series. The show benefits from modern storytelling and better art styles while the original continues to show it's age.
7. Ultimate Spiderman
I should hate this series but the humor and styling of comic group Man of Action, (Basically CLAMP for boys) really breath life into a franchise which at times has been incredibly boring and mediocre.
6. Kick Buttowski: Suburban Daredevil
Finally a protagonist that looks awesome, has an awesome voice and doesn't become a cliche, even the bumbling sidekick is more of an actual sidekick than a cliche. Original ideas do still exist.
5. Adventure Time
What you say is what you get, and that's exactly what you get from Adventure Time, the most fun you can get from a boy and his dog you'll ever have. A few bold ideas and a nod to the fan culture of today, you'll be relieved that the next generation of kids will be awesome for watching this.
4. Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes
I have a strong pet peeve about pseudo anime art styles used in western cartoons but after seeing this I feel it can make things better. A strong emphases on action and the same charisma & character as it's counterpart film along with an awesome opening theme, the Avengers is the first super hero cartoon since Batman & X-Men to break the mold.
3. My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
I didn't get it at first but after seeing a few episodes, it's become a must watch and all they had to do was not take itself too seriously and treat it's audience like humans rather than a bunch of gullible kids buying toys. It may have created some surprising results but none the less My Little Pony is the most fun you'll have watching a cartoon whether you're male or female.
2. The Amazing World of Gumball
Creating a surreal world that you won't question is a tough job and in all forms, Gumball should be terrible, but clever "British" comedy writing, a well selected voice cast and some of the worlds most unique characters make this the most creative show ever.
1. Regular Show
But nothing compares to how good Regular Show is. Fuse together Spongebob & Ren & Stimpy, take a dash of Beavis & Butthead and cook to the sounds of the 80s & 90s and you get a cartoon which appeals to my age group in both nostalgic value, weirdness and down right awesomeness that made many of it's predecessors a household name. A blue jay and a raccoon have never been so entertaining.
So there's the best cartoons list, I would do a worst list except it'll take me a long time to shift through the crap we got and trust me there's a lot of crap.
