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

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You ever notice how Easter specials aren't really a thing? There was the requisite Peanuts special. Rankin-Bass's Here Comes Peter Cottontail, with Casey Kasem and Vincent Price. But what else was there?... Not much.

(In the spirit of ecumenism, though, I shouldn't omit the Rugrats Passover episode, perhaps the only one of its kind.)
 
I think the only time you see an Easter special is when you tune in to a Christian-run channel, but even then, I think they just play Richard Rich's He Is Risen over and over.

Speaking of, I think Richard's a bit underrated (and perhaps a sad figure) when it comes to animation. He's quite talented, but he seems to really only be known for animating and directing many Bible stories, American Hero Classics, and the infamous The King and I. The latter I think was what nearly bankrupted his studio or something, and even then I haven't seen anything new from him in years that wasn't Alpha and Omega and Swan Princess sequels.
 
Kari Kamiya said:
I think the only time you see an Easter special is when you tune in to a Christian-run channel, but even then, I think they just play Richard Rich's He Is Risen over and over.

Speaking of, I think Richard's a bit underrated (and perhaps a sad figure) when it comes to animation. He's quite talented, but he seems to really only be known for animating and directing many Bible stories, American Hero Classics, and the infamous The King and I. The latter I think was what nearly bankrupted his studio or something, and even then I haven't seen anything new from him in years that wasn't Alpha and Omega and Swan Princess sequels.
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He worked on The Fox and the Hound and The Black Cauldron at Disney in the 80s, but he was only one of the many directors. (I'd heard he worked his way up through the mail room or something.)

He has cornered the market on religious themed animation; he's done Mormon and Muslim stuff as well.
 
Steamboat_Bill said:
He has cornered the market on religious themed animation; he's done Mormon and Muslim stuff as well.
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He's LDS himself, so it was obvious he'd do Book of Mormon adaptations, but I didn't know he did stuff for Muslims. That's pretty neat.
 
sasazuka said:
Easter Is, the 1971 Lutheran animated TV special where Waldo the dog getting kidnapped and then escaping is an analogy for Jesus's Crucifixion and resurrection somehow.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=9Q_XBfva2No
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They churned out a bunch of these, there's at least two Xmas ones for instance!
731223-5Xmas.jpg

Still you ought to give them credit for getting some decent talent on these things. Not quite Davey & Goliath insipid.

Steamboat_Bill said:
You ever notice how Easter specials aren't really a thing? There was the requisite Peanuts special. Rankin-Bass's Here Comes Peter Cottontail, with Casey Kasem and Vincent Price. But what else was there?... Not much.
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Yeah, Easter hasn't been the mammoth powerhouse Christmas takes. There's been relatively few in my childhood I remember.

A Family Circus Easter
Bugs Bunny's Easter Funnies
Daffy Duck's Easter Show
The Berenstain Bears' Easter Surprise
Peter and the Magic Egg (featuring the PAAS crew)

The only GOOD Easter special anyone needs to see is this..

(In the spirit of ecumenism, though, I shouldn't omit the Rugrats Passover episode, perhaps the only one of its kind.)
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It is, though there's been quite a few others. I recall one that was clay animated.

Kari Kamiya said:
I think the only time you see an Easter special is when you tune in to a Christian-run channel, but even then, I think they just play Richard Rich's He Is Risen over and over.
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Pfft, probably. I had one of those tapes once in a machine and it chewed it up! It told me I didn't need to watch it!

Speaking of, I think Richard's a bit underrated (and perhaps a sad figure) when it comes to animation. He's quite talented, but he seems to really only be known for animating and directing many Bible stories, American Hero Classics, and the infamous The King and I.
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He even did a film on the prophet Muhammad.

Let that sink in!

The latter I think was what nearly bankrupted his studio or something, and even then I haven't seen anything new from him in years that wasn't Alpha and Omega and Swan Princess sequels.
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No doubt it's easier churning out surefire babysitting fodder.[/quote]
 
sasazuka said:
I don't know if I'd call it a "classic", but there was the 1982 A Family Circus Easter special with the voice of Dizzy Gillespie as the Easter Bunny.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=-tR5Qu1Upvg
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The only amusing part of that is noticing Glen Keane's name in the end credits! Yeah he helped! (though going by the initials for "animation", I'd say they sent this off to Korea).

Changing gears, I noticed someone decided to sperg about Johnny Test for a half hour (and I do mean sperg, like he didn't see a point in an episode where they spoofed Johnny Quest), I know a few people who worked on the first season when it was still being done stateside.
 
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I was only a little kid when the Family Circus special aired in 1982, and I don't remember it catching on as a perennial special, unlike the Peanuts Easter special. I remember seeing the Family Circus Christmas special a few more times, but, until the Internet let me confirm its existence, the Family Circus Easter special was one of those things that I couldn't remember whether it was real or just something I dreamed.

For the longest time, I honestly conflated the "Easter Bunny inside the Picture Egg" scene from the Family Circus Easter special with It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown so that, whenever the Peanuts one aired, I kept on wondering where the scene with the Picture Egg was. I might have assumed as a more cynical older child that it was cut for increased commercial time.
 
sasazuka said:
I was only a little kid when the Family Circus special aired in 1982, and I don't remember it catching on as a perennial special, unlike the Peanuts Easter special. I remember seeing the Family Circus Christmas special a few more times, but, until the Internet let me confirm its existence, the Family Circus Easter special was one of those things that I couldn't remember whether it was real or just something I dreamed.
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It did pop up on Disney Channel for a while. It even got a VHS release I recall seeing on the shelf, so someone bothered to keep it around.

For the longest time, I honestly conflated the "Easter Bunny inside the Picture Egg" scene from the Family Circus Easter special with It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown so that, whenever the Peanuts one aired, I kept on wondering where the scene with the Picture Egg was. I might have assumed as a more cynical older child that it was cut for increased commercial time.
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Ironically, the special gave me a dumb idea to go catching the Easter Bunny in the backyard like the kids did (hey, I was 5).
 
I'm glad classic Lorenzo Music-era Garfield never attempted to do Easter.

I unabashedly love Garfield's Halloween Adventure a.k.a. Garfield In Disguise for the greatest Garfield songs ever and the spooky pirate ghost segment, but even the Garfield Christmas special felt kind of superfluous with forced sentimentality and I don't think that even Jim Davis and Phil Roman could've stretched a thin "Garfield likes eating chocolate eggs and let's also do something with rabbits" premise out for a full 24 minutes.
 
sasazuka said:
I'm glad classic Lorenzo Music-era Garfield never attempted to do Easter.

I unabashedly love Garfield's Halloween Adventure a.k.a. Garfield In Disguise for the greatest Garfield songs ever and the spooky pirate ghost segment, but even the Garfield Christmas special felt kind of superfluous with forced sentimentality and I don't think that even Jim Davis and Phil Roman could've stretched a thin "Garfield likes eating chocolate eggs and let's also do something with rabbits" premise out for a full 24 minutes.
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What about the Thanksgiving special?
 
What idiot cancelled this?
They used audio from the first film for his dialogue, which probably would have gotten replaced later, but fuck this was beautifully animated.
 
I don't know why the Deadpool animated series was cancelled but I'd say the chances that it has something to do with Disney's purchase of 20th Century Fox are moderate to high, and not necessarily because Disney won't touch adult animation. It could be an early sign that Disney plans on integrating mutants and other characters associated with Fox's X-Men franchise into the main Marvel Cinematic Universe, so, while they weren't going to stop production on Fox Marvel productions already in an advanced stage of development, something like a Deadpool animated series that wasn't even in production yet beyond early animation tests could easily be shelved.

Or it could just be that a Deadpool series would have been too expensive to animate properly considering the size of audience they're expecting to attract on FX. Maybe if Deadpool 2 does well at the box office, Disney/Fox will reconsider the cancellation.
 
SteelPlatedHeart said:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=iVnzhISq0oY
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If only Rainmaker knew where to go.

EDIT: You can definitely tell the head of Rainmaker's merely cutting his losses and is re-positioning the series to kids for the same reason he's giving a middle finger to the longtime fans who are now the parents of said demographic.

EDIT: Noticed someone uploaded these, I haven't seen this since I was 5!
 
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