Are today's cartoons losing the charm and intricacy they used to have?

Question

Remember the era of Yogi Bear? of Bugs Bunny, of Huckleberry Hound? The old MGM Tom&Jerry? Cartoons till the nineties had so much more than humor and anthropomorphism packed into them. While they did make the kids laugh, they also had what it takes to entertain adults alike with well-crafted dialogs, a "boom" here and a "thud" there. Today you have the utterly-meaningless fantasy cartoons like Pokemon, BeyBlade, Japanese Robot cartoons, senseless CartoonNetwork-made cartoons which are next to scribbles with groase dialogs and too much of weaponry, firepower, depiction of fierce battles etc. Will the real "cartoon" survive this era? Or are we better off watching Boomerang?

Answer 1

It's an interesting question which deserves a thoughtful answer.
Cartooning seems to go in cycles: the Warner Bros years of inspired insanity (the 1930s to early '60s) degenerated into the formulaic rubbish of the '70s. Storylines were recycled; the illustration itself became simplistic; as did the limited characters presented.
Hanna-Barbera started well, but they too dropped in quality, as did the work of other studios.
The advent of computer-assisted cartooning was exciting for a while - as was the 'birth of quirk' with classics such as "Rocko's Modern Life" and "SpongeBob Squarepants" (sic).
There are still great cartoons around: Nickelodeon has a few.
As for the rubbish pseudo-anime like "Pokemon" et all, I'm afraid that just as such tripe as "Masters of the Universe" and "Transformers", they are simply there to create sales of dubious product.
I'm not saying they're ALL bad: mostly it's a matter of taste. I like "Daria" and "Rugrats" a lot, even as I pine for non-PC gems like "Popeye" (the Max Fleisher originals)!
Still, I've always preferred comic strips or graphic novels - just got Jeff Smith's "Bone" in one monster volume, all 1331 pages of it... aaah...

Paul

Answer 2

Im a 21 year old new media and animation student and i've spend most of my life watching cartoons. Bugs Bunny being my favorite of all time. I still watch cartoons all the time and there is definatly a giant drop in quality. There are very few cartoons now that have the same charm as the old school ones. A lot of it, i think, is theres such a demand for childrens cartoons anything will get made, no matter how bad it. and anime, i hate anime, like, its the same thing over and over again. not to say all anime is bad, but the pokemon, dragonball z, you gi oh, all that crap, its the same thing over and over again, ENOUGH!
there are some great cartoons that might look terrible but have great writing, Home Movies being one of them. and of corse Futurama is hilarious and The Simpsons is classic, but they dont have the same charm as the originals.

Answer 3

Well it's mixed. Whit and humor can still be found but you have to look far and wide. Most cartoons are cookie cutter time-filling fluff so networks can market comercials and sell their stuff. A good family cartoon it's CG, but it's on PBS called Piggleywinks it's good. Melbrooks does the voice for Whilley the sheep. There are other good CG cartoons that are also good and are family orientated, but I think the days of hand animated art and slap-stick mindless fun are over. They always have to put a soical-comentary in everything when all people want is to be entertained without having to deal with real-world garbage.

Answer 4

As always the choice rests with us. We adore or abhor. Everything now depends on viewers' rating. We are mature and are distinguish between good and bad cartoons but majority of children are no mature, like a hungry person they swallow every cartoon. These cartoon networks keep on chasing the children with goodies with equally health-hazard food items and will never allow them to forget. Actually senseless violence should be ridden off from the cartoons. There have been many nice memorable nice cartoon movies recently and did brisk business leading to more and cartoon movies on other subjects from mythology and folklore.

Answer 5

yeah, obviously! Nowadays, cartoons are the best way of entertainment for the young children. Today's cartoons consists only of the violence, misbehaving with the elders, and the other craps. These things affect a child's mind so much that they have started behaving similarly like that of the cartoon characters. I am fed up of these things shown on the cartoons. Even i suffer since recently my younger brother started behaving and arguing with my mother like Shinchan- a cartoon character shown on the Hungama TV. These cartoons are loosing the charm and intricacy they used to have!

Answer 6

In addition to the ones K-P mentioned, other favorites of mine were Foghorn Leghorn, the big Rooster that protected the hen house. And Pixie & Dixie the two little mice and Jenks the cat that was always chasing them and saying, "I hate those meesas to pieces."
Or Wily E. Coyote trying to run down The Roadrunner. Does anyone remember Snidley Whipslash & Penelopy Pitstop?
Or Crusader Rabbit? Donald & Daffy Duck, Heckle & Jeckle, Chip & Dale? No question about it, the really-really great ones are in the past.

Answer 7

u r absoulutley correct i'll go with u. the elegance and the charm in the cartoon of the nintes have been crushed by the senseless pokemon and other japenes cartoons. these people are realy gone nuts.those fools bring some sensles cartoons that goes 9over the head.

i am telling this even though i am a kid just becoz this is the goddam truth

Answer 8

Saturday morning cartoons never held much appeal for my mom and dad. My siblings and I, of course, had our favorites. We watched Bugs Bunny for the witty slapstick that only Warner Bros. seemed capable of at the time. We enjoyed "Transformers" because it was the epitome of science fiction for our young minds. Cartoons like "Cops" and "Jem" were the elementary equivalent of a soap opera.

Over time, the innocence of many cartoons has come into question due to the rise in political correctness and the overzealousness of certain groups to play God with universal parenting tactics. In the wake of the appropriateness question concerning children's cartoons, a whole new genre of animation has been spawned: the mature cartoon.

It started with "The Simpsons," the first adult cartoon to really hit the airwaves in a big way. When Matt Groening sketched his first shorts in 1987, I doubt if he knew how successful it would be, or how a couple decades later there would be an explosion of cartoons made specifically for a mature audience. Today we have "Family Guy," "South Park", and "Drawn Together", not to mention the variety of Adult Swim shows on the Cartoon Network.

It's a mix of factors that make these shows appealing to us as adults. First, there's the "kid" factor. Whether they're made for the younger generation or the older one, cartoons are still connected with youth. Kenny might have died in every episode of South Park's first season, but it was still a cartoon. In watching the animation, adults are given the best of both worlds: the ability to watch the R-rated stuff they were denied as children with the whimsy that cartoons brought to them in the first place.

There's also the absurdity factor. A live action film that does the things a cartoon does comes across as B-rated and low budget. When animated, it's funny. A talking dog and a diabolical baby don't work in a movie. In "Family Guy" they add laughs to the show, making matricide and bestiality funny. Talking food just doesn't happen. To even try it with live action is to bring about flashbacks of killer tomatoes. In "Aqua Teen Hunger Force," a shake, a piece of meat, and an order of fries seem to hold the keys to the universe. Or at least a half hour of entertainment.

Pop culture and the need to belong to something have a part in the whole adult cartoon phenomenon as well. Beyond personal enjoyment, it gives us something to talk about with our friends and co-workers. It gives us private jokes and one-liners to use over and over again for comedic purposes. For those who need something to debate, it gives us a complete lack of political correctness to draw upon, as well as a level of offensiveness you rarely find in a sitcom.

Does the popularity of adult cartoons reflect on us as a society? Yes, but not in necessarily a bad way. Many of them show us some of our own issues. The creators of "South Park" have tackled almost every offensive subject there is with no apology. Many of this cartoon's topics are enough to spark protest, but for someone who really watches them, they also make a point. Whether the viewer agrees with that point is a different story.

Adult cartoons and the fact that they're so widely watched is a sign that there's a percentage of society that's okay with not being taken too seriously. This sample of the population can enjoy an outrageous sense of humor that pushes the bounds of taste and offensiveness. When we feel that life is being taken too seriously, these animated shows give us a laugh and allow us to let down our guard for a half hour at a time.

With what seems like a new adult cartoon popping up every year or so, it doesn't look like a trend that's going to go away anytime soon. "Family Guy" was actually resurrected after being cancelled, a sure sign that the public takes their cartoon viewing seriously. The Cartoon Network's Adult Swim was ranked the #1 ad supported cable line up in 2006 in several delivery categories, including adults 18-34 ("Adult Swim Dominates Young Adults in 2006 on Ad-Supported Cable Second Year in a Row." Time Warner 19 Dec.2006. 20 Jan. 2007).

Adult cartoons range from plain ridiculous to outright witty. If you've yet to take the plunge into mature animation viewing, give it a shot. You might find it enjoyable and the adult content wrapped in a cartoon might give you that nostalgic feeling of being a kid again...only this time getting away with something fun.

Answer 9

We are in fact not finding originality/stuff in the cartoons. The artists in my opinions are not doing justice with conditional freedom in the working conditions in the News papers. RK Laxman in English, Bapu, Mullapudi Ramana in Telugu I personally rate high. Any how there is a truth in the question by and large in all languages.

Answer 10

RE: Why are comic strip shows so trippy those days? i replaced into observing some comic strip community basically the different day, and there have been those short 15 minute comic strip shows operating. I watched all of them and they were exceedingly exciting, very strange and trippy. I laughed exceedingly nicely on them, I laughed more beneficial in quarter-hour on comic strip community than i did in the finest 5...