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As a counter-point to the anime thread, a western animation thread!

 

I've been watching Adventure Time recently. I watched the first season ages ago and didn't really think it was anything special, then finally gave it a chance again starting with "What Was Missing." Turns out it's really good! I think what I like best is the really gradual world-building that's going on. Any other show would insist on making it a big dramatic reveal that

the series is set on Earth 1000 years after a nuclear holocaust.

This show just kind of lets you gradually come to the realization yourself by making it gradually more explicit without really drawing attention to it. The recent "Simon and Marcy" really kind of hammered it home by

having the theme song from Cheers play a major role, firmly establishing that this was originally the same world we live in now.

 

Also Marceline is the best character and that episode with the fucking deer is the creepiest goddamned thing I've ever seen in a kids' show.

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Adventure time is pretty great. Also loved when they used kate beatons fat pony.

Totally unrelated, powered through a bunch of Archer. Dig it a lot. Obviously errs on the side of raunchy but pretty funny.

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I have to watch Adventure Time "elsewhere", because my American friends will post or even draw spoilerific fanart within minutes of the show ending.

 

The whole Ice King and Marceline thing in the past is heartbreaking, she had to drink the red of her plush monkey to survive.

 

The new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles show is good, but it's kinda strange why did "Chuck Norris" become a dog? Thing are so different from the original show and yet so similar, in the original show, they would put ice cream on their pizza and now they would make pizza flavored ice cream. 

 

The new Scooby-Doo is brilliant, except for the drama: 

Shaggy and Velma were together only from drama sake and when Freddy and Daphne broke up it was only fro drama sake's too...

 

I really hates that in the ending... 

the series when a 180º and ghosts were real and it turned into Buffy with them fighting a super powerful demon demi-god.... And when they won't they erased ALL their history!

Hot Dog Water girl is awesome!

 

 

The final show I'll talk about is Bob's Burger's, I really liked it at the beginning since it was just then in their street and they were "real losers", unlike other shows where Homer Simpson and Peter Griffin who seem to get into ridiculous hijinx they should be able to afford and see no consequences, here you see them live as poor as they are.

 

That is, until the second season, I even saw cutaway gag and slowly they are adding characters to their roster while ignoring the ones in the first season and the show seems to slowly turning into "Peter Simpson" show, but it still feels different enough for me to enjoy it.

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The new Scooby-Doo is fantastic, but I haven't seen the last batch of episodes they put out. I really love the background design on that show, and how it's simultaneously a tribute to fourty years of Scooby-Doo while also ruthlessly poking fun at it. Surprisingly dark, too. I remember being pretty shocked that the Chimera from the amusement park in that one episode

flat-out murdered two people in the cold opening. It's not directly addressed, but it's all but outright stated that they didn't survive.

 

I have to watch Adventure Time "elsewhere", because my American friends will post or even draw spoilerific fanart within minutes of the show ending.

 

The whole Ice King and Marceline thing in the past is heartbreaking, she had to drink the red of her plush monkey to survive.

I think it's just faded. Marceline got her long life and strange appearance from being a half-demon, but she didn't become a vampire until she was a teenager.

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I have been a lifelong Simpsons fan. It has been on the air longer than I have been alive, and I have been watching it at least since I was in Kindergarten.

A few nights ago, I marathoned all of (the currently released episodes of) Season 24. I am glad to say that the show seems to be getting better, in my opinion at least, than it was back in the Season 15-19 range. It's still not as good as the classic Simpson episodes, but there's an effort there that felt lacking in some seasons. 


I also recently started watching Adventure Time. I cannot believe how much I like it.

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I watch Gravity Falls with my cousin and enjoy it more than she does. It's one of those cartoons that targets both adults and children; it's sweet and funny and sad when it needs to be. It touches on growing-up (there's an episode centred around Dipper, the boy, realizing his voice is changing), what it means to be a sibling, the first crush.

 

There are loads of easter eggs strewn throughout, from hidden codes that seemingly hint at the overall storyline to, for example, a time traveler appearing in the first episode as a background character and then actually going there in a later episode.

 

It's not perfect - there's at least one joke aimed about disability that I thought sent a very wrong message - but it's generally very good.

 

Ridiculous joke.

 

Even the TV shows within the show are good.

 

Video game parody!

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Oh man, I had almost forgotten about that time Paul Robertson created all that pixel art for that video game parody episode of Gravity Falls... SO EPIC!

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It took me ages to be able to say "Starring Sturly Stembleburgiss as the Duchess and Grampton St. Rumpterfrabble as the irascible coxswain Saunterblugget Hampterfuppinshire" without messing it up, but it was worth it.

 

 

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Before Gravity Falls came out, I watched the intro on Youtube like a dozen times cos it's animated and sounds cool as fucking heck.

 

I feel like the writing on that one is a short skip n a jump away from being really the best.

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The latest Adventure Time was weird and kind of neat from a behind-the-scenes standpoint. The horse is named after James Baxter the animator, who also provided the voice and animated the horse itself as a guest animator. The end result reminded me of the movie The Last Unicorn, in which the unicorn character was animated at double the framerate of everything else.

 

Also, more of BMO's unsettling attempts to be human without actually understanding what that means.

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My favorite show of all time is Home Movies, I watched it again not that long ago and it was still just as much it was when I was in middle school, probably better.

Second favorite is Venture Bros which I'm currently re watching since the new season is starting soon.

I've also been re watching old Simpsons episodes, starting at season one. I forgot just how good they were, like I was always a big Simpsons fan, but the early seasons are just absolutely superb. I'll probably stop after season 9.

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I tried to watch The Simpsons from the beginning once, because well it's The Simpsons. My parents disallowed me from watching it when I was young, but whatever I did catch was enjoyable enough, I guess.

 

Season one was bleh, and so I never finished it or made it to season two. I decided it's not a show where I care about seeing everything. Or even most things. My opinion would probably be different if I hadn't been barred from watching it as a kid. I'd have a much larger appreciation for it. Sometimes that makes me sad.

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Nope, it's a brand new one that came out about last year I think... It's pretty good! 

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The thing I like about it is compared to modern comedy cartoons the early Simpsons episodes are also lot more about telling a story rather than creating a plot to mainly just facilitate jokes. There will be lots of times where there are opportunities to have a character say something funny, and I expect it, but instead they say something meaningful. Also instead of ending on a funny note all the episodes end with a feel-good moment, though that's not to say it isn't ever funny too.

On a related note, I feel like I should be sad that Futurama got canceled again as its another of my all time favorites, but since it's come back it feels like just a caricature of itself. All the characters are just boiled down to their most recognizable traits and it's super full of 2010's pop culture references that just seem out of place. It also didn't have anything on par with the super strong episodes from the original run like Luck of the Fryrish, Jurassic Bark, or The Sting. The only one that was close was the one with the time machine.

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What's it called? Mystery Incorporated?

 

 

That's the one! It's Scooby-Doo for people who both love and hate Scooby-Doo.

 

On a related note, I feel like I should be sad that Futurama got canceled again as its another of my all time favorites, but since it's come back it feels like just a caricature of itself. All the characters are just boiled down to their most recognizable traits and it's super full of 2010's pop culture references that just seem out of place.

 

This is the most egregious thing about modern Futurama for me. It feels like Fry is from The Present now, rather than specifically from 1999. It's like seeing that one episode of The Simpsons where Homer and Marge met in the nineties.

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Like the idea of a story arc. Plus there's loads to watch and catch up on! Nice one :)

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If you liked Adventure Time, then the guys other cartoon, Bravest Warriors, is free on youtube:

 

 

There's also Regular Show, which is ok sometimes, other seem to like it more. My personal favorite is My Little Pony, because how is this not simultaneously awesome and adorable?

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ssl1RxwMWNA

 

And while Futurama WAS incredible for a while, the last season really let it down, and I don't mind it being cancelled, it was time. The characters were explored, there were some episodes there (of a TV show! Which isn't my thing 99.9% of the time) that were as memorable as a great movie. If you've not watched it much of it is already up on Netflix. As is Avatar: The Last Airbender, which is basically the only good anime-ish show the west has ever put out. Though some of it was quite disappointing

 

I managed to be vastly disappointed not even in the character of Zuko but in the writing at the end of Season 2. It's just like they wanted some sort of conflict to continue regardless of how it happened, and so tossed away an entire two seasons worth of character and plot development buildup to do so. It felt directly manipulative and just sucked.

 

Unfortunately as far as I'm concerned you can skip the followup The Legend of Korra altogether.

Seriously, what a whiny brat she is. "Ahhhh boy troubles!" was every damned episode I managed to get through before quitting. I can appreciate characters having conflict, but the series got annoying really quick. Especially compared too its predecessor, in which any one of the main characters would have beat some sense into everyone involved in Korra in half a second, even just in attitude alone. Everyone felt much more confident and heroic in Airbender than the whiny sots in Korra.

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Unfortunately as far as I'm concerned you can skip the followup The Legend of Korra altogether.

Seriously, what a whiny brat she is. "Ahhhh boy troubles!" was every damned episode I managed to get through before quitting. I can appreciate characters having conflict, but the series got annoying really quick. Especially compared too its predecessor, in which any one of the main characters would have beat some sense into everyone involved in Korra in half a second, even just in attitude alone. Everyone felt much more confident and heroic in Airbender than the whiny sots in Korra.

 

It's all a consequence of them trying to trade up from a preteen to a teen core demographic. It's funny how the show is a lot more immature because of it. Tenzin's the best character, as the son of the previous Avatar, but he's mostly played for laughs, of course.

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Regarding Zuko:

You don't always do what's rational when you're going through serious familial issues. I'm fine with how he was handled on the whole.

Personally I liked Korra a lot, apart from the eleventh-hour plot twists about the villain. I'm really excited for the new season.

 

If you like Avatar in general, though, I recommend tracking down a French animated series called Wakfu. It's a little sillier and the animation is done in Flash rather than by hand (though it's easily the best Flash animation I've ever seen), but it's the closest thing to Avatar that I've ever seen in terms of tone and character. There's a special episode about the series' main antagonist animated by the Kaiba team from anime studio Madhouse that really has to be seen to be believed (though you shouldn't watch it you're close to the end of the first season).

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I will say that I really liked the music in Korra.  I remember actively noticing it in every episode I watched which for a TV show is not that common. 

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I'm catching up on the last batch of episodes from Mystery Inc. I've gotta' say, it's not the first time the show's done a subtle take on a classic horror film, but seeing this in a kids' show blew my mind a little.

 

 

eUPNZfX.jpg

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