Have cartoons gotten worse?

Have cartoons gotten worse?

Not talking just animation wise, but overall.

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Animation-wise? Yes definitely, the problem with Adventure Time minimalist artstyle and storyboard driven shows cause a habit of lack of consistency and less effort required to make a show. Any schmuck can get his art on the screen, whether or not it's particualrly talented.

Writing wise? I'd argue things have gotten better as more writers are now being able to experiment more. It doesn't always work mind you but now we have more storydriven and grandeur plots then usual.

Comedy? Same floor, higher cieling.

Action? Dark days.

Yes, but I don't think it's due to a deficit in talent or changing demographics or whatever. I think networks are simply more chickenshit than they've ever been. The shifts in the media landscape have made the already dubiously cost-effective medium of animation even more ponderous an option, so even fewer risks are being taken.

The people who made all the good old shit are still mostly out there. They're just not given the chance to do anything other than a carbon copy of some existing shit. The folks who sign the checks wanna play it safe.

The best you can hope for is a situation like Japan, where TV animation is used as promotional material for games/books/movies/whatever. But if the Disney-produced Marvel shows and the recent DC DTV movies are any indicator, that sure as fuck is no guarantee in regards to quality.

Haven't we already had this thread this week? Let alone this day?

We have a ton of threads every day, or at least every other day. Get used to it.

*tons of the same thread

...

This isn't a forum, newfag. Sup Forums has high traffic throughout the day. Threads come and go in a matter of hours, sometimes less. Not everyone sees them so duplicate threads are bound to happen.

>This isn't a forum
But it is, just an anonymous one

Mostly yes, they've gotten worse. Animation and art direction especially so. Budget's are pathetically cheap now.

Writing on the other hand has been mixed bag. It's gotten better and more "adult" with the comedy/nu-CalArts shows like Steven Universe Adventure Time, Gravity Falls and the like and in return they're no longer completely episodic but somewhat interconnected through a loose plot or narrative. But in return, action-oriented shows (especially original ones) have essentially died off as a result.

Overall, yeah, it's gotten worse.

No.

Everyday single day for years has been a thread about doomsaying current cartoons, give it a fucking break

Sup Forums uses an image board format. Not forum. Just because discussion sometimes happens here in between shitposting, doesn't make this place the same as CBR forums or some other hugbox.

The thing people don't get is that cartoons have been doomed since Steamboat Willie.

Well besides SJ, there are no action cartoons airing anymore, so, in my opinion yes

how about no because threads like these pose a good question. go complain about the constant barrage of black cock threads on Sup Forums.

Absolutely. Animation peaked when I, the person making this post, was 12 years old.

>Have cartoons gotten worse?

Yes and no.

Art style has seriously suffered. Not just because of "Lol cal arts", but the more important part is that very few shows are making use of their limited style. You could not have picked a better example than in the OP. Jack is extremely limited in it's animation a lot of times, just look at the recent episode and compare how often it's just a still frame or Jack is stock still when Scatbot is styling. Even so, it uses color and minimalist design to carve a distinct and memorable scene every time. Very few comedy show do this now.

In story progressing and CD, yes and no. We kind of peaked on stuff like Avatar the Last Airbender, or JLU if you want a more 'episodic' example with an overarching story, in those cases episodes had long lasting consequences that reached from the very first episode till the very end, characters evolved and change and went through arcs, and each self-contained story had a clear idea of how it fit into the grander story save some missteps. Action shows locked into a narrative that had progression after this, bucking the trend even BTAS fell into, and Young Justice, GLTAS, Tron, even yes Korra had all these traits, less episode by episode and always thinking about the season's story.

They weren't the first or the only ones in that timeframe, they sure as hell weren't the most popular, but the fact so many of them happened so quickly and together was a good sign. Things improved for action shows narrative.

But in the realm of comedy, yeah. They're finally progressing to have some semblance of plot in a few shows like SU or Star Vs. It's not direct, it's very padded and loose in a lot of cases, but comedy shows just almost never had a 'plot' before. Face it, the humor of Hey Arnold or Early Spongebob was not narrative driven. Comedy is finally almost catching up to a regular action show in plot, and hopefully things will keep improving.

There is less views and less budget. T.V. as a media is slowly dying.

For all the shit SU and AT get they definitely show better writing and more detailed and coherent lore and more adult themes and interesting experimental stories than shows did a decade ago, and even more compared to 2 or 3 decades ago.

Guess what, SJ(w) fan base has only been revived here for about a week and it's already worse than any other one save for SU.

Wish Cartoon Network would die already.

Can't we like SU for what it is AND like SJ for what it is? The only things they have in common are that they aired on Cartoon Network, star a male main character, and were made by Americans.

Time slot, characters, genre, themes, storytelling, episode length, number of episodes/seasons, air dates, cartoon generation, art style, everything else is different.

Why can't I like multicolored lesbians AND a samurai chopping robots in half?

We could of fixed it, it happen once before.

Both show were made in Korea and Genndy was born in Russia.
Also fujos with Voltron:LD.

If you asked me a question and we had a good discussion on it, and then you asked me the same question four-plus times a day, I'd stab you in the fucking throat and wouldn't stop until the cops found me hunched over the raspberry jam looking mess that was once you.

Fuck you.

Animation as a whole has kind of gone down the shitter since the 50s. There was a massive improvement in the 90s, especially with all the 2D features, but now in the 2010s they've mostly been replaced by CG and shows are much cheaper. It's still better than the 60's-80s but it's nowhere near what it used to be.

60s still tried, it was the 70s that was trash and things got better in the 80s.

Worse? A bit. I don't want to go full nostalgiafag, but the problem is that we see things lack serious experimentation with too much of a focus on comedy.

Though most of the problem really lies with Cartoon Network it seems. Netflix might be the savior of cartoons that we need and I really hope that the success of Samurai Jack's return leads to a new golden age of action and story-oriented cartoons.

Time to commit blasphemy, but Genndy's art style is unfitting for Action or serious scenes. The character designs are just too goofy. That river of death scene just doesn't have much impact at all.

To commit further blasphemy, Samurai Jack is the same as Danny Phantom by Butch Hartman. The art style does NOT work for serious themes in the story. Samurai Jack could have been monumental if Genndy commissioned a better character designer to breathe life into the story.

Netflix is only making things worse and in the end, if you are not making cartoons for what they are made for then you might as well do it in live action.

What we want is 40s grade animation back, the 80s & 90s did it.

I'm kind of hoping that Jack will do well so that we can get better animation for a more adult audience. I don't think it will literally save the industry but maybe it could get the ball rolling or start a trend

Someone told me that

Good animation = for kids
Bad animation = for adults

But I'm sure that is fake, Family Guy's market went nuts over Korra & Voltron:LD so that market does want good animation and that most of Korra's market was over 18 anyway.

The thing we want is to put Mir to shame, also modern kids show don't have good animation in them anyway so getting 40s grade animation back is a must.

You can start fixing the industry by reading this.

nice bait post OP

I love how you ask a vague question and then clarify that you mean the vaguest possible thing by it

fuck off retard

>Netflix is only making things worse

How so? They're picking up riskier stuff than the CN, Nick, Disney and the other networks, so it seems.

tmnt

Sonic Boom

Guardians of the Galaxy

Star Wars Rebels

Ben 10

Star vs. The Forces of Evil

Mighty Magiswords

rwby

Justice League Action

Adventure Time

Marvel's Avengers Assemble

Miraculous Ladybug

Vixen

steven universe sometimes

and the new spiderman that's coming out

But don't GoTG animated and Avengers suck tho?

And I thought AT, MM and Sonic Boom cater mostly to comedy?

Maybe if you stopped comparing a very small number of theatrical shorts animated animated by a single studio for showing before feature films to cartoons mass produced to sell merchandise. You can easily find top-notch animation today, you're just not going to find it on Cartoon Network or Disney XD.

That's bullshit though.

All of what listed, plus Voltron.

But granted most of a good deal of them are mediocre are bad. It's more like original action cartoons or new IPs are dead. Pretty much every action cartoon is some kind of reboot/spinoff/iteration/etc of a past or currently existing IP - Samurai Jack included.

Which further demonstrates how dead and creatively bankrupt the action genre really is now.

The writing has definitely improved, or at least been allowed to go in different directions more often then not.

Eh
Sonic Boom and Mighty Magiswords are very comedy oriented but all of the other shows user listed are action oriented

no Avengers and GoTG are fine its just guys that jerk off at every episode of earth's mightiest heroes think its bad

No, your just being a picky shithead who hates anything new

Spbp

Budgets are high, but how much of it goes towards what you see on the screen is another question, and then you have to take into account the skill of the creators and their overseas studio.

>Samurai Jack included.

No, it's not.

Samurai Jack is a limited series to conclude a story that never got to finish.
That's not the same as creating a brand new TMNT or Ben10 series.

Cartoons have always been shit with a few gems here and there released over the years.

And speaking of budgets, I found this:

powerhouseanimation.com/about/animgraph/

It lists very few shows so it's not that useful, but budgets for 2000s shows are higher than pre-90s show (adjusted for inflation). If there's a particularly high budget you can almost certainly attribute it to voice acting costs.

I wouldn't say worse but the fact that if you enter the field of animation you are basically setting yourself up for a life of pain and no credit. I'd rather become a game dev, where even if i get screwed over, chances are some niche group of basement dwellers will pity me.

Chart is out of wack, South Park does not cost $250,000 to make 1 episode and Fosters was only $10,000 a episode.

You've grown up. Biggest problem with all cartoons is all you grownup nerds demanding more from children's shows

Dude, we debunked this countless times.

>Which further demonstrates how dead and creatively bankrupt the action genre really is now.
If only there was a way to make an action cartoon without being a slave to franchising.

Someone post the comic!

You know the one...

It's ironic that an image mean to evoke the idea of current cartoons being terrible uses a screencap of Finn from like 7 years ago.

No, your nostalgia just remembers the best toons.

$250,000 is low by American standards, and the voice actors must be pretty well-compensated by now.

That Comic is NSFW, but heres the clean one.

Well yeah. When we get older cartoons are no longer for adults. We get used to the same lame old shitty half assed shit we had to swallow as children and then we see it when we get older and just not want to tolerate it anymore. Also we're in an era where they are actually trying new things and are shaping the future once again.

But one fact remains, regardless of how old you are. Regardless of how you much you love cartoons. There will always be some shows you love and some shows you hate and then most sane people will find certain shows harmless.We did this as children and we do this as adults and you all know this.

Can't seem to find the original with GIS.

$250,000 should net you a show around the level of Mir's network episodes of Korra ($200,000-300,000 a episode), heck Voltron:LD is only $60,000-90,000 a episode and that show is leaps and bounds above South Park which only uses $1000-2000 a episode.

Spongebob only cost $500,000 once, and that is for when they had to fly a man in a gorilla suit to Seoul and back to wack a sack so that they can rotoscope it as Patrick, the rest of the show is only $20,000-70,000 per short, $300,000 for the Patchy specials.

The budget means the total episode budget with everything included, not just the animation budget (and where are you getting the numbers for those?).

GIS had nothing to do with it, in fact the original lacked Smol Nozomi in it, it was about Fred getting out of the tub to avoid getting hit in the head with the paper (he did) and the Paper boy banging his wife.

We can't show that in a blue board so take the SFW version instead.

I am talking about the whole budget and I deal with project budgets all the time at my job (I'm on the inside).

>Spongebob only cost $500,000 once, and that is for when they had to fly a man in a gorilla suit to Seoul and back to wack a sack

Every source I've found for American TV animation budgets put them in the $500,000-2,000,000 range.

The episode literally had a man with a gorilla suit in it. You don't remember it?

Plane trips are expensive.
Not since years ago.

I would of never guessed that that scene had cost half a million to produce.

See.

Again, plane trips are expensive.

I'm going to take "every source I've found" over "I'm on Sup Forums and I'm an industry insider."

Animation wise yes it's all too similar

Writing wise no there was always good stuff and shit and it will always be this way

were there just NO gorilla suits in korea at the time?

They probably wanted to use a clean one.

This.

Yes. But at least we still have anime.

Just about.

While I'd agree that writing as a whole or as a process has improved I don't think there are many well written modern shows. Those that are are just on par with retro shows. The difference was the retro shows
a) never pretended they were anything special
b) actually had good writting more often than we seen in today's industry, abliet more derivative.

>implying SU isn't worse than both

I wish EMH was back. While it's whiny there's nothign wrong with upping your standards a little. Why shouldn't things be as good as EMH?

Not really.Admittedly we have shit like new powerpuff girls but shows like AT,SU and GF opened path for cartoons with ongoing plots.You can cry about how they are shit or whatever but they have made a mark,and if you dont like them,eventually you will get one you like BECAUSE of these shows.
May i remind you there was a time where 90% of the cartoons where wacky comedy and nothing else.Now we have shows with depth.
Let me put it this way.In the past we had whats new scooby doo,yet another basic scooby doo show thats the same as every other scooby doo show.But this generation we had mystery incorporated,a clever change to the franchise thats considered the best thing to come out of scooby doo.

Avatar came out before AT, SU and GF, and probably wasn't the first series with a plot. And do those three even have plots?

>animation has gotten worse
hanna barbara says hi

Ed Benedict & Dick Bickenbach were excellent, it's only when Joe Ruby, Ken Spears and Iwao Takamoto took over the company is when they lost it and even still Filmation was much worse.

What exactly is wrong with Hannah-Barbera? Of course a studio of the 70's would use the same animation-techniques and artstyles for cartoons THEY created, it's not like how it is nowadays where everything is bright pastel colors and chibified appearances with rounded edges.

I just leave this here.

How is this relevant to animations???

Color pallets.

Canada is where animation died, HB survived as much as they could on "limited but competent", but the Flash era just showed them it's easier to lower the public standard than continuing trying.
There's not Quality control jobs anymore in more mainstream shows because statistically nobody gives a shit anymore.
It's not even new, the 80's transformers and Gi Joe shows already proved that.

Why didn't you post one that had actual cartoons in it as an example instead of video games?

Japan will like to have a word with you.

Also...
>It's not even new, the 80's transformers and Gi Joe shows already proved that.
And then Gummi Bears, Original DuckTales and Bakshi Mighty Mouse fixed it.

It can be done again.

its all worse , all talent has left earth.
i dont blame them i would leave if i had a way.

I really don't know either way, but doesnt it seem like Japanese studios make a much better animated product per dollar than we do over here? I always hear about them having low budgets. Guess the voice actors are cheaper sometimes but i feel like we are bloated, paying a lot for people who don't give a damn.

>AT,SU and GF
Avatar ended several years before the earliest of those premiered, and there were actually a slew of cartoons with an ongoing plot in the 80's-90's, even if they often didn't last long. I mean fucking The 13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo, not minding the quality, was a show with a central plot and progression.

They pay their animators abysmal wages, that's how they keep everything so cheap.

Ok then I will.

Thankfully, not all studios are like this, in fact most of them are not like this, just the very low end one who are even cheaper then Korea.

I don't think you understand what good color is....

I do, I do this type of stuff for a living.

Crayon box colors = bad