Western Animation - Discuss American, Canadian, and European cartoons here (or just bitch about wokeshit, I guess)

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Yeah what the hell was up with that? People in the comments and retweets are saying “well it’s to show kids that things don’t always work out, especially in relationships”. I dunno about that, maybe I’m just too used to cartoons being used as the creator’s therapy session. Like how a bunch of them had prom episodes to live out the prom they’d “wanted”.
 
Grand Duke Snowfall said:
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Yeah what the hell was up with that? People in the comments and retweets are saying “well it’s to show kids that things don’t always work out, especially in relationships”. I dunno about that, maybe I’m just too used to cartoons being used as the creator’s therapy session. Like how a bunch of them had prom episodes to live out the prom they’d “wanted”.
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That shit that turned young me off of both Adventure Time and Regular Show. That melodramatic crap was the opposite of what I wanted to see in a cartoon.
 
This is why (when I was little) all I watched were classic cartoons, I never got into most of the new era cn shows, I had a couple spongebob dvd's (and even then they were the early seasons) but mostly classic shorts and hanna barbera stuff like the flintstones and the jetsons. I think the only "modern" show I liked when I was a kid was tom and jerry tales, now..... not as much, I appreciate the classics a lot more considering how much they butcher it now.
 
The Great One said:
This is why (when I was little) all I watched were classic cartoons, I never got into most of the new era cn shows, I had a couple spongebob dvd's (and even then they were the early seasons) but mostly classic shorts and hanna barbera stuff like the flintstones and the jetsons. I think the only "modern" show I liked when I was a kid was tom and jerry tales, now..... not as much, I appreciate the classics a lot more considering how much they butcher it now.
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Being an 80's kid, I had a mom who bought me tons of Public Domain VHS tapes of all sorts of old material to watch, I think it made me the way I am, with all the dated things I viewed in my youth. To this day, these two cartoons stick out in my mind as given me some idea of how the world worked.

Incidentally, a new Blu-ray came out recently of this studio's work containing new transfers from the original negatives of these cartoons.
 
Grand Duke Snowfall said:
View attachment 8973208
Yeah what the hell was up with that? People in the comments and retweets are saying “well it’s to show kids that things don’t always work out, especially in relationships”. I dunno about that, maybe I’m just too used to cartoons being used as the creator’s therapy session. Like how a bunch of them had prom episodes to live out the prom they’d “wanted”.
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This began with Gravity Falls' Season 2 and it got worse from that point. Writers write what they know, and you can guess that none of them had a happy relationship (if any). Meanwhile, 90s and 80s cartoons DID have happy couples here and there.
 
Grand Duke Snowfall said:
View attachment 8973208
Yeah what the hell was up with that? People in the comments and retweets are saying “well it’s to show kids that things don’t always work out, especially in relationships”. I dunno about that, maybe I’m just too used to cartoons being used as the creator’s therapy session. Like how a bunch of them had prom episodes to live out the prom they’d “wanted”.
Click to expand...
Not sure about the others, but Adventure Time ended up working out in my view.

A lot of AT was Finn's growth as he matured with time, Flame Princess ended up being a lesson in maturity for him. I actually like how they went back to it in later seasons. Finn apologizes to her in Season 5, but he is still clearly oblivious to the full damage and seems to just be trying to get back together. He returns in later seasons and is then able to further reflect on what went wrong and amend properly.

Finn takes his dating struggles as growth points, which becomes more obvious when you get into the later half. Bubblegum was an ideal, but the age gap was very clearly a hurdle, and I like that the show made a point about how there is an inherent difference between an adult and a child that makes the relationship infeasible. FP was Finn's pre-teen years of not understanding relationships, and he came out hurting the person he cared for. It was used again to show Finn hasn't fully developed yet and still has a lot of growing up to do. All this then culminates into Huntress Wizard, where Finn is now a more full person able to operate on slower, more healthy terms.

Grand Duke Snowfall said:
well it’s to show kids that things don’t always work out, especially in relationships
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It honestly isn't a bad lesson and judging by the Disney adults that think Prince Charming is real and a perfect relationship is around the corner, is something I honestly do think is necessary at times. Reality is, some things don't work out and not all relationships last. You have to learn how to deal with potential issues and be able to walk away if something isn't a fit.

From a purely story perspective, it is good for character growth. A failed relationship could be the doorway to a more fitting one and a way for the character to learn their own faults and grow before the perfect match or fully understanding themselves.
 
Trilby said:
I had a mom who bought me tons of Public Domain VHS tapes of all sorts of old material to watch
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Same here. The VHS Player was my favorite machine as a kid and I had a HUGE collection of VHS tapes to watch whenever I wanted to in my room. Most of them were Merry Melodies / Looney Tunes stuff. I had a couple of Popeyes. Everything else was shows my mom recorded from the TV, and she was smart enough to pause the recordings during the commercials, so I had things like Tiny Toons and The Mupper Show because of her.
 
Basic Blond Boy said:
Not sure about the others, but Adventure Time ended up working out in my view.

A lot of AT was Finn's growth as he matured with time, Flame Princess ended up being a lesson in maturity for him. I actually like how they went back to it in later seasons. Finn apologizes to her in Season 5, but he is still clearly oblivious to the full damage and seems to just be trying to get back together. He returns in later seasons and is then able to further reflect on what went wrong and amend properly.

Finn takes his dating struggles as growth points, which becomes more obvious when you get into the later half. Bubblegum was an ideal, but the age gap was very clearly a hurdle, and I like that the show made a point about how there is an inherent difference between an adult and a child that makes the relationship infeasible. FP was Finn's pre-teen years of not understanding relationships, and he came out hurting the person he cared for. It was used again to show Finn hasn't fully developed yet and still has a lot of growing up to do. All this then culminates into Huntress Wizard, where Finn is now a more full person able to operate on slower, more healthy terms.
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It's too bad that the show sucks.
 
Grand Duke Snowfall said:
View attachment 8973208
Yeah what the hell was up with that? People in the comments and retweets are saying “well it’s to show kids that things don’t always work out, especially in relationships”. I dunno about that, maybe I’m just too used to cartoons being used as the creator’s therapy session. Like how a bunch of them had prom episodes to live out the prom they’d “wanted”.
Click to expand...
I think there's a few reasons,
1. Writing about love lost is probably a lot easier to convey and to understand from an audience perspective since a lot of people have dealt with it (or more likely a cringy version of it where they pine after someone who doesn't return their affection).
A lot of the people making those shows at the time were broke 20 something's living in CA, and for most people at that age the most emotional thing they've experienced would be a relationship not working out.

2. Writing stories about falling in love, building a healthy successful relationship, how that love impacts decision making, and ultimately having it work out, isn't easy, especially from the perspective of a main character.
Most successful relationships in the older animated shows/movies is portrayed from the perspective of parents, extended-family, neighbors or other members of the community.
I can imagine it's difficult to write a story involving actual intimacy and how that might affect a characters actions when you've never experienced it.
Everyone can remember a moment when they were sad or depressed, how it made them feel, how it might have affected them at the time.
Less people though can remember an intimate moment with someone they love, how they felt in the moment, and whether it be a year, 5 years, or 10+ years look over at the same person they felt that for still with them, still in love.
 
Celebrate Nite said:
Same here. The VHS Player was my favorite machine as a kid and I had a HUGE collection of VHS tapes to watch whenever I wanted to in my room. Most of them were Merry Melodies / Looney Tunes stuff. I had a couple of Popeyes. Everything else was shows my mom recorded from the TV, and she was smart enough to pause the recordings during the commercials, so I had things like Tiny Toons and The Mupper Show because of her.
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And there you go calling it a "VHS Player", it's always been "VCR" to us elders. (:_(
 
The Great One said:
Well at least it wasn't a vcp (yes that's an actual type of product, a vcr without a record function: VideoCassette Player)
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I know, those sucked if that was all you had and wanted to record something at the moment.
 
Irregardless said:
I think there's a few reasons,
1. Writing about love lost is probably a lot easier to convey and to understand from an audience perspective since a lot of people have dealt with it (or more likely a cringy version of it where they pine after someone who doesn't return their affection).
A lot of the people making those shows at the time were broke 20 something's living in CA, and for most people at that age the most emotional thing they've experienced would be a relationship not working out.

2. Writing stories about falling in love, building a healthy successful relationship, how that love impacts decision making, and ultimately having it work out, isn't easy, especially from the perspective of a main character.
Most successful relationships in the older animated shows/movies is portrayed from the perspective of parents, extended-family, neighbors or other members of the community.
I can imagine it's difficult to write a story involving actual intimacy and how that might affect a characters actions when you've never experienced it.
Everyone can remember a moment when they were sad or depressed, how it made them feel, how it might have affected them at the time.
Less people though can remember an intimate moment with someone they love, how they felt in the moment, and whether it be a year, 5 years, or 10+ years look over at the same person they felt that for still with them, still in love.
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3. Most of these 'failed relationship' arcs just lead up to the real endgame (exception being Mordecai I think but they gave Rigby a good relationship to balance it out). Finn gets Huntress Wizard, Ben 10 gets some indian chick, Dipper is implied to have moved on to Pacifica (and him not getting an endgame is fine since he's literally 12), Danny Phantom moved on from Valerie (and his popular girl crush) to Sam, in Avatar Katara first has something going on with that Jet dude before being endgame with Aang, Beast Boy/Terra/Raven love triangle, etc etc etc.

Its just an easy way to add some kinda conflict and more buildup to the real thing.

Tho that could be considered 'problematic' in its own way, since youre introducing a character just to be dated and usually pretty much discard them the moment the relationship is over (and a lot of these characters are black/brown getting replaced with a pale person lmao, people are still mad about Amber getting turned black only to still be replaced with Eve).
 
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