I feel like animation right now is a much less exciting environment than it was 5-6 years ago
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I feel like animation right now is a much less exciting environment than it was 5-6 years ago
calarts
That's cuz animation is dying because corporations realized they can just target the pre-k audience for easy money due to parents just plopping babies in front of a screen all day. Same reason why Youtube morphed itself into shallow clickbait with people making soifaces, to get little kids to click the videos.
Why make calm, thoughtful, informative kid's entertainment like Mister Roger's Neighborhood when we can make spastic flashy shit that turns kids hyperactive?
Because ADD kids can only watch 5 second YouTube Reels or TikToks max
Man Steven looks like he could choke Finn and Dipper to death here, why is everyone so short
because everything has ended or is close to ending
It is
I remember seeing the announcements for Amphibia, The Owl House, Mao Mao, Hirsch's new show, Glitch Techs, Infinity Train, Kipo, OKKO was just starting up, Victor and Valentino sounded promising, etc and it seemed like a new era was starting, but everything was cancelled in record time or turned out disappointing or never came out at all like in the case of Hirsch's Netflix show.
Amphibia which managed to avoid both fates still suffered from a breakneck release pace so it never felt like it settled in, it was over before you knew it.
>there were 927 days between the S1 finale and S2 finale of Gravity falls, i.e. 20 episodes
>there were 1062 days between the first and the last episode of Amphibia i.e. 58 episodes of all three seasons
Amphibia having a season a year is actually good, the problem is that it was surrounded by shows that either all came out at once or not as good in general. Right now the only thing from a few years ago still around is Big City Greens and Molly McGee. It's Pony is great and Middlemost Post is not terrible but their days are probably numbered. Gumball is supposedly coming back as a spinoff but maybe not anymore with the WB shake ups. All upcoming shows are just capeshit cartoons or pre-K shows.
On the adult side, Final Space and Ballmastrz cancelled. Rick and Morty is inconsistent to say the least, nobody talks about Lower Decks other than Star Trek fans, BirdGirl is sleep aid, The Great North is even bigger sleep aid, Bless the Harts cancelled, Duncanville cancelled, Inside Job will probably be cancelled since its on Netflix, Harmon's new Fox show is NFTshit, right now there seems to be nothing interesting there other than Tuca and Bertie, Solar Opposites, and Primal. Every other show is 10 to 15 seasons deep or more
>All upcoming shows are just capeshit cartoons or pre-K shows.
Some of the new action cartoons don't look half bad though, pic related. PPG is getting a spinoff/renewal by the original creator, Villainous and Vivziepop's shows are still around, Arcane is still around, Hilda was renewed for season 3, Cuphead TAS is not over yet, there's some new fantasy Amerinime or two in the works, and maybe "Harmony In Despair" will get picked up eventually. Is this really so bad?
I didnt know anything was going to come of Unicorn or the Witchverse, forgot they existed. What's that next to Unicorn?
>What's that next to Unicorn?
https://cartoonnetwork.fandom.com/wiki/Invincible_Fight_Girl
None of those seem promising, at least to me, when Amphibia and TOH were announced, there was a sort of hint of potential that they would take what AT, GF, and others were doing and one-up them by surprising us, even the isekai premises were more ambitious than most of what we had around that time. To me both of them delivered but are basically over now, and there are no upcoming shows that make me say "I wonder what they have in store", it feels like I've already seen all they have to offer without even seeing a second of their content. I felt the same way about Molly McGee and I was right, I love the show but it's not really picking up the ambition torch from the last generation.
Arcane is the only exception but that's a huge outlier and way beyond a standard Cinemaphile production and even then most of its potential to me comes from the fact we don't know if the show will have to follow the game or not i.e. if everyone who's alive in the game will make it alive to the end of the show.
>I felt the same way about Molly McGee and I was right, I love the show but it's not really picking up the ambition torch from the last generation.
Molly was created by some boomers who can't even draw (I'm not dunking on their art skills, they literally can't draw because they're mere writers), so I don't think it should be compared to most other cartoons.
Invincible Fight Girl looks promising, we havent had a wrestling cartoon since Mucha Lucha and this seems to aim higher than that did.
Everyone is doing easy content like "I watch every simpsons episode" for clicks. I think the only ones who seem to be interested in cartoons are Johnny 2 Cellos and ToonrificTariq, who ironically have a podcast together. There's also a few people who have an interest in a specific cartoon like that guy who's very into the Simpsons
Most of these look like crap
>another witch cartoon from Disney
Terrace must have taken this as a slap in the face.
>Hirsch's Netflix show
Wasn't that actually Inside Job or was there something else in the works?
>was there something else in the works?
There was something in the works for like half a decade before all the shit got shut down.
Couldn't you have bothered explaining why you think the way you do?
Like come on now, this was a terrible way to start a thread.
Lengthy OPs are a good way to get no one to open your thread these days, but the gist of it is that back then we had lots of good ongoing shows that had creative freedom and network support and weren't at the risk of being axed at any moment, and a crop of promising upcoming artists and showrunners that would make the next generation of those shows in the same vein.
It turned out the next generation was quickly crippled and extinguished by the networks, even veterans are struggling to get their shows supported, there are no promising upcoming projects on the horizon, and even if there were they'd be on thin ice with how cancel-happy the networks and streaming services are.
Look at the current line up of kid's animated TV and compare it to something from 5, 10, 15 years ago. The key thing you'll find is a push towards cuter, friendlier characters for a younger demographic.
The action cartoon is dead.
The physical comedy cartoon is dead.
Anything with an edge is dead.
Safe bets only from now on.
But that's only for the major networks. There's still a lot of interesting stuff going on in streaming, indie, and online spaces.
>Animation is dying!
>New thing comes out
>Animation is saved!
>New thing ends
>Animation is dying!
>New thing comes out
>Animation is saved!
>New thing ends
>Animation is dying!
>New thing comes out
>Animation is saved!
>New thing ends
>Animation is dying!
>New thing comes out
>Animation is saved!
>New thing ends
>Rinse and repeat
Jesus christ just wait for the New Thing to come out like we always do
The issue is that within the past 5 years the Netflix bubble burst, HBO Max is canning everything for tax writoffs and CN had to pivot to kids programing for ratings. This are actually different this time, having a worry about the future is valid right now.
Disney TV is also on a babby shit bender
They might be, but cartoons that skew younger like Big City Greens and Moon Girl arent quite the same as making shows that are supposed to be competing with Nick Jr.
No it's not, it's just companies trying to turn a profit like they always do
The same shit is gonna happen again where an animated flick or show is gonna become to new trendsetter like AT was for episodic cartoons or what GF and Star Vs lore heavy cartoons and then you'll see shows like them getting picked up
Primal season 2 is going strong, Genndy is making another show, McCracken is working on two old properties of his again and CN is working on more cartoon cartoons like way back when we were children
Plus you still have cartoons made independently like Helluva Boss and now Monkey Wrench which is getting funding for a second episode
We've been through this time and time again
Animation isn't dead just because there's a lack of things you like being made
I just think that people are shit at predicting things. Everything is shit if you let it be shit. I'm not holding my breath for the big one, but I'm not pretending that the world is ending.
I dont think animation is dead, I think we're in for a boring couple years. PPG and Fosters are probably a year or two off, Futurama doesnt come back until late 2023, the point is that nothing interesting is coming up right now and the market is more hostile than it was a few years ago due to cartoons we may be into no longer being as hot a commodity to those in charge.
We always have droughts in between good cartoons coming out, it's just something that's always gonna happen unfortunately
CN is currently doing a Cartoon Cartoons again which are just fancy pilots waiting to get picked up and Nick is doing something similar. You just lack any good will for newcomers
Anons are gonna say they look like shit until they end up watching them, because they're homosexuals
>shows by Genndy and McCracken are a sign of a healthy industry
In 1998 maybe, right now it means everything not made by a proven veteran is either shit or not being made at all
>McCracken is working on two old properties of his again and CN is working on more cartoon cartoons like way back when we were children
Which one like Fosters is being revived but transformed into another toddlershit show
Hell, 10 years ago was way more exciting. Regular Show and Adventure Time were still going well, Gravity Falls just kicked off, and in early 2013 SU and OKKO's pilots would air. In late 2012, Frederator was putting interesting ideas and shows out there and it seemed like independent YouTube cartoons were going to take off. Just purely on vibes, I feel like things started to deflate around 2018.
10 years ago was a transition from bad to great, 4-5 years ago was a transition from great to hopefully even better which is what makes me feel like it was better, all the good shows were still ongoing and there were lots of promising artists and their project ideas being tossed around, there's none of that now.
2010s felt experimental as they was always something there to try on, even if you was bored at one or two cartoons, there were always a variety to approach them and there wasn’t much of all of that SJW BS occurring, at least until around 2013-15. But once we rolled into the new decade, we would’ve assumed that there was a lot of new upcoming stuff to try, and they wasn’t on the verge of being canceled and scrapped left and right like what’s happening now. Now I believe once 2020s rolled in, everything shat the bed towards the point, everything is in shambles
Good times indeed.
the real shift was seeing Nick frick up Harvey Beaks and Disney frick up Wander Over Yonder and Milo Murphey's Law at around the same time. Veterans getting screwed over felt different
Don't forget that the cartoon community whither it be from YouTube Twitter or etc all seem to be dying fast most of them are reviewing non cartoons now like movies or video games
the cartoon community only talked about 5 cartoons and now they're all over.
Hence why i believe most of them like lsmark and saberspark were just larping as cartoon fans of adventure time gumball etc to piggybank of the fans and for sweet petreon bucks
But now after all those shows ended and there fans moving onto different content, those youtubers have been panicking about their cartoon review related content and are moving onto movies video games and even anime related reviews
this lol. This isn't 2014 tumblr anymore, there aren't any "fandoms" and the closest thing is just a bunch of ADHD gender-creative twitter spergs who see no difference between cartoons and video games and youtube and tiktoks.
The audience simply doesn't exist in a way that would allow better western animation to be supported anymore, so it isn't.
No wonder why many newer cartoons are moving away from lore and story centric cartoons
Amphibia managed to get a big fanom with no romance, but that seems to be an outlier right now, and even then half the fanbase only cares about the girls, unfortunately.
>Amphibia managed to get a big fanom with no romance
With the promise of romance
>even then half the fanbase only cares about the girls, unfortunatel
Online, it's more like 98%
Amphibia was greenlit years ago before the realities of the current zeitgeist really set in, and even then it was never anywhere NEAR as popular as shit like Gravity Falls and Steven Universe were back in the day.
You're right, I dont think The Simpsons would have an Amphibia reference the way it did Adventure Time or Gravity Falls
shippers are just really loud
>Amphibia managed to get a big fanom with no romance
It had Sprig and Ivy, then Hop Pop and Sylvia
Don't forget most of them moved onto anime starting in the late 2010s or even earlier at that point
We’ve been in a dark age since 2008.
Yeah everything was getting better and better throughout the 2010s. but then
>COVID ended theater viewership for about 2 years
>COVID also broke the back of Disney forcing them to close down Blue Sky, cancel several projects, release movies on Disney +
>Streaming Wars made studios not give a shit about their on air channels and things became stagnant
>Scandal ruined TBS's animated block entirely
>Netflix lost money and cancelled majority of their animated projects
>WB shit the bed by reorganizing their properties, canceling lots of things in the process, only to lose that from a Discovery merger a year later.
>Then Discovery cancelled all their remaining shit
>Nickelodeon tried reviving their properties, only to have a regime change come in and drop those to Netflix
>Then they decided to shift to a franchise only format with Garfield and Smurfs
>Pixar lost all their leadership to scandal
>Dreamworks was bought out by Illumination
Man covid really did ruined everything
Good lord it really was that bad.
I completely forgot about the ATnT WB cancellations, that's what got Final Space.
>Dreamworks was bought out by Illumination
wait what?
Comcast (Own Illumination) bought Dreamworks 6 years ago.
7 days from now it will be 6 years since that purchase was completed.
So that's why ive heard of a Illumination Shrek reboot. I thought that was just memes
I feel like the death of traditional weekly cable broadcasting and theaters is what makes everything feel off. Things being aired on streaming first feels forgetable, like direct to video slop, and the industry knows it. Actors are starting to add clauses that mandate their film being put theater first, Pixar animators whined about Luca being tossed to streaming, Netflix just dumps all the episodes in a binge format which doesn't allow for a fandom to grow as well, streaming doesn't bring money the same way theaters do. It's a weird transition period that covid accelerated.
Definitely. I think people underrate how important weekly new episodes of a TV show is to "growing the audience". It's not as intense an experience as binging an entire season at once, but it makes the show a much more constant presence in the audience's lives, and also creates a constant anticipation. Also the lack of weekly releases has basically destroyed talkback threads here, one of the pillars of board culture.
Binge culture felt so fresh and exciting when it first emerged, but I think a lot of it was novelty. It's refreshing when you can watch all of the first season of House of Cards or Daredevil in a single sitting, with no commercials, and it made traditional tv broadcasts feel antiquated. I think these shows still had a lot of discussion because they were "events" in their own right.
The only issue was, when every show is released binge style, the novelty fades and the viewing audience gets much, much more fragmented. With everybody trying to get their own streaming platform off the ground, we've had a glut of content, but it's also hard not to feel that quantity has long ago supplanted any notion of quality for the majority of these new programs.
Netflix, Warner Bros., Disney - if the big players are feeling the strain from content splurging, how well can the smaller players be doing? Things will hopefully stabilize, distributors will hopefully experiment and refine the means of producing and releasing shows to maximize impact, but it's probably going to b a long, painful transition, one we're only at the beginning of.
That's right, defo. miss when movies were a big spectacle that you could only see on theaters, now it looks like the bad animated movies are going to theaters to die for some reason.
The thing is, binge culture is largely over. Only Netflix still does it as far as Im aware. Disney, Amazon, Paramount and HBO are all doing weekly releases for their major shows. It makes people subscribe to these services longer, but it also keeps engagement within a fandom higher which is good for the fans who dont want to binge a show and then have it forgotten a few weeks later.
I agree and I seriously hope this doesn't turn out to be the new standard
Why do you even care? Isn't this an 18+ website? You should be watching real shows like Grey's Anatomy or S.H.I.E.L.D. or literally anything on ESPN, not this toddler shit. Grow the frick up. Cartoons aren't for you, they're for your children, assuming you have any.
I only like House and Scrubs as doctor shows
Haven't thought about Scrubs in years, except for the meme.