Most of this shows ratings failures only happened because it was unfortunately released during the awkward transition period between all cartoons being pushed to XD and right before Disney pushed their streaming service (And streams is why Star got popular enough to be renewed for four seasons before the second even premiered).
If Wander was released at the same time as Star, would it have had a better run?
I'm sure you have a theory to explain why Gravity Falls went through the exact same period yet remained wildly popular, right user?
Because it's easier to remain popular than to start a new and gain a fanbase?
Insanely high ratings during season 1, very high ratings by Disney XD standards during season 2
>theory
hollywoodreporter.com
>Disney XD said that the two series reached more 100 million consumer views combined during 2016 across Disney XD's linear, digital, social and global platforms. Both shows air daily on Disney XD.
Don't deflect. Your theory is about WoY's failure, not SVTFOE's success.
Are you misreading "theory" as "fact" or something? Because speculation based on other information is what a theory is. Do you think it's a horrible one and that Wander failed entirely because it was a shit show or something?
I haven't expressed any opinion on it yet. I'm simply asking why this theory doesn't work for Gravity Falls, which went through the same thing.
Because it was released on Disney Channel and allowed to build a fanbase for years there before being shoved off to XD. By the time it got there, it was already so popular it would've done well regardless of which channel it was on.
Okay, you want my opinion? Fine, here:
WOY had a decent amount of time to build a fanbase on Disney Channel. Unfortunately, its first season was rather lackluster (mainly due to being episodic, which for this type of show nowadays is an enormous problem). Contrast this with GF, where the mystery started in the very first episode. BTW I don't think moving to Disney XD necessarily means it couldn't gain a fanbase anyways.
And your comment about SVTFOE and streaming is ill-informed. It is basically unheard of for a show to become popular through streaming, it's the other way around: popular shows get lots of streaming views once they have a fanbase, usually from TV. The main reason for this is that streaming isn't linear, so viewers generally have to seek out new shows to watch. And that's hard.
>Ratings constantly at 0.50 million
>Star Vs evil struggles to pull in .20 million
How the fuck is Star vs Evil getting a four season but this didn't get a third? This is bullshit.
>which for this type of show nowadays is an enormous problem
Teen Titans Go, Loud House, and Gumball disagree.
>Contrast this with GF, where the mystery started in the very first episode.
Gravity Falls was episodic, too. Just because it had a "Who killed Laura Palmer?" ongoing mystery in the background doesn't mean that each episode was connected through a sequential narrative. It was just as episodic as the original Samurai Jack where each episode were mini stories strung together with the overall theme of, "Get back to the past to fight Aku".
Because waifus and those Marco fujoshits.
You have to compare apples to apples, though. WOY's season 2 finale rating (which was also the series finale, meaning it should have got a boost) was only 0.33, while Star's was 0.40.
(Meanwhile, GF's was 2.47! Yes, on DXD too.)
>It was just as episodic as the original Samurai Jack where each episode were mini stories strung together with the overall theme of, "Get back to the past to fight Aku".
This is bullshit and you know it. Gravity Falls would regularly introduce major changes like new characters that would stick around for the rest of the series. The continuity in that show isn't just about the mystery.
TTG is hated for several reasons, but one of the most prominent is not having story arcs.
Yes, it's popular enough to keep getting renewed, but that's due to the "competition" these days. The original TT was FAR more popular back in the day, but it took actual talent to make, which is in short supply now.
Loud House is a literal joke, and Gumball is not very popular at all, comparatively speaking.
I feel like the issue was more due to shit advertising on Wander's end: Everyone and their mothers had heard of GF back when it was airing, while Wander got comparatively dick fucking nothing.
You are IMMENSELY overstating the use of plot and continuity in Gravity Falls. Just because it's greater than something like Aqua Teen doesn't mean it's some elaborate, complex ongoing story outside of the mystery of who wrote the journals and the couple of appearances with Bill.
New characters appearing and a town being built is world-building, but that isn't an ongoing story. Otherwise early Simpsons is filled to burst with lore because of how much of the town they built and how many of those characters became reoccurring. Same thing for Clarence or Xiaolin Showdown. Small amounts of continuity isn't equivalent to something like Stranger Things where you would be completely lost if you were to just start right in the middle of a season. I could show a person any of the crossed out episodes in this list as their first episode and they would be completely caught up with what the show is about.
>These shows aren't hip to the 20-year old demographic, so it fucking sucks!
It's continuity in the exact same way Avatar Book 1 is, idiot. Or are you going to argue that one is episodic too?
They're setting up the world (or in the case of GF, just that one town) and the characters. That's not something episodic shows really do.
And that's without talking about the number of outright plot callbacks and other references that would just be missed if you watched them out of order.
tl;dr: That list is shit and you're a dumbass.
The last third of Star's season 2 was released at 7 AM, and even though it aired throughout the day the ratings only counted for the first airing. That's also not taking into account the purchases etc. it would have gotten on the app and other official sources.
In that case it wasn't "struggling," they just used the ratings at the time viewership probably would have been lowest. The primetime ratings almost definitely would have been higher but those aren't shown.
That's actually pretty bad for Wander if its primetime ratings across the entire season were just slightly better than a specific run of Star episodes that were first aired early in the morning.
Characters in Avatar actually progress on a journey. Gravity Falls characters in season 1 are pretty stagnant in personality and location.
If you really think that the occasional callback or reoccurring character is all that's needed to make or break the difference between an episodic show or not, then you really do have low expectations for stories in cartoons or are extremely forgiving of them. You think Rick & Morty isn't mostly episodic, too?
>it had a "Who killed Laura Palmer?" ongoing mystery in the background
What did you mean by this? In TP that was the central mystery that the plot focused on and almost every sideplot eventually intertwined with it. A better comparison would be Mystery Inc's planaspheric disc or whatever.
Gravity Falls was basically a retread of Mystery Incorporated.
WoY failed because it started off with fujobait first then brought in waifubait too late.
Villainous is successful because it had waifubait to generate initial hype but also has fujobait so its fandom still thrives even after the waifufags inevitably got bored of the FOTM and left. Wander unfortunately did this backwards.
>Characters in Avatar actually progress on a journey.
In Book 1 the journey is barely mentioned let alone seen. Stop bullshitting.
And I haven't watched Reddit & Memey, nor do I intend to.
>And I haven't watched Reddit & Memey, nor do I intend to.
Confirmed for being retarded and incapable of speaking beyond just buzzwords. I bet you say shit like Steven Jewniverse, too, huh?
Again, how do you explain Gravity Falls? Most of those girls are way too young to be waifubait.
Fucking skipfags I swear.
If you didnt watch The Hand That Rocks the Mabel you wouldnt understand who Gideon is or why hes doing what he does in later episodes.
Time Travelers Pig contributed nothing to the plot besides the 1 second of Stan which doesnt actually tell you anything. Blendin plotline went nowhere and Dipper did nothing with a fucking time machine other than pointlessly pursue Wendy.
It's Tumblr Universe, dumbass.
And no, I have neither watched nor intend to watch that one either.
I meant it in the sense that people kept coming back because they wanted to know who did kill Laura Palmer, even though a lot of the episodes often went on tangents that strayed away from it to talk about all the weird shit that was going on with the town. Laura's death and killer threaded it all together and kept people curious enough to tune in in hopes more would be revealed, but the real juice of the series is all the problems of the towns people.
In that sense, it's similar to what Gravity Falls does.
>Thread starts about Wander
>Instantly derails into GF
Feels bad trying to be a fan of this show, man...
>>These shows aren't hip to the 20-year old demographic, so it fucking sucks!
In a sense, yes. Gravity Falls does great at appealing to basically everyone, hence its ridiculous ratings despite moving to XD.
>Gravity Falls characters in season 1 are pretty stagnant in personality and location.
Theyre that way in season 2 also.
Gravity Falls is a failure of a show despite its popularity.
Despite the manlet saying its a character based show there is no depth or progression for any of the characters besides Stan.
90% of the show is not involved at all with the overarching plot, and the few times something big happens in the plot, like Ford returning, nothing really happens as the show tries its best to go back to status quo.
The shows obsession with maintaining a status quo and undoing nearly all that has occured throughout the episode before the credits roll is what makes it seem even more episodic than it really is. Its hack writing thats intended to let the audience watch any episode out of order.
>Most of those girls are way too young to be waifubait.
>doubting the power of pedoshits or the people who age up the characters so they can fap to them
Sup Forums has Pacifica threads all the time. And big name perverts like Mike Inel loved it.
Character development is overrated, man. I've seen too many shows literally ruined by trying to fit it in because it's the "right" thing to do.
You have to let things progress naturally, which is something GF excelled at doing.
But Sup Forums has Pacifica threads because people are pissed she didn't get with her perfect match Dipper. Not Pacifica waifu threads.
The problem is there are entire episodes wasted on teaching characters some type of lesson but a couple of episodes later they still have the same problem again or still do the wrong thing. Why even bother?
Wendy
incest
pedobait
chubbait
chubpedobait
Because that's how actual people work! I'm sick and tired of this stupid expectation that characters should always follow previous lessons.
People often have character flaws that stick with them pretty much indefinitely, even after they're shown the error of their ways over and over again. You know why? Because those character flaws have BENEFITS. Not just drawbacks.
you forgot that the ep introduced waddles
Except in fiction, the rules of reality are often twisted a bit to give the viewer a sense of progression and satisfaction.
Happy endings are rarely real, either, but they're super real in stories because otherwise most people would be bummed out if everything reflected reality.
Probably. It also didnt help it was perceived as having more rerun value than it actually did.
All the weird shit in town and most peoples problems all connected to Laura's death or her suffering before, a few false leads aside.
The problems of Wendy, Robbie, Tambry, and several other side characters had nothing to do with the journals, Bill, or the weirdness in town and they come across as pure filler or plot devices.
Its more tiresome to have the characters be given the lessons in the first place. Theres nothing wrong with flawed characters, but dont make it seem like theyve progressed and never follow up. If the characters are already shallow this makes it even more evident than if the episode didnt have some contrived mandatory moral lesson at all.
Teaching a lesson and then having the character not even self aware of their own issue is not good writing. Teaching lessons just for them to never be learned just to be edgy isnt realistic or good writing.
Star VS is a good example of a show that has characters embrace their own flaws instead of just pretending they don't exist or inexplicably ignoring lessons to subvert viewer's logical expectations.
I just want Wander to be back. That show was so good.
It is too patrician cartoon to be popular.
Star Vs apparently does well on streaming services.
Sure, but I want to watch the same characters I saw at the beginning of the show. Not characters with surgically transplanted personalities.
SVTFOE is a good example of a show with only two actual characters, only one of whom goes through anything remotely resembling development.
That's why you don't write "contrived moral lessons", you let the story flow naturally. Which is exactly what GF did, your autistic expectations from watching too many children's shows notwithstanding.
Then western cartoons must be perfect for you.
>That's why you don't write "contrived moral lessons"
That's exactly what GF did half the time, especially with Mabel, Pacifica, and sometimes Dipper. Stan was the only one who seemed to actually soften compared to the beginning of the show.
Not really, because they feature terrible writing in other respects.
You really didn't get what the show was saying, did you? Much of the time the "lessons" were BADLY spoofed and/or subverted, and even when they weren't there was always a sense of "the character feels bad about it" rather than "the character will never ever do it again".
This show has to be the most painful cancellation of the decade so far. Generally I'm relieved to see a cartoon go because it's either forgettable or it went from good to bad to worse. McCracken's best show by a country mile and it fucking tanked in the ratings. And the guy somehow doesn't have any clout despite being in the workforce for over twenty years, meanwhile two twenty-something newbies get hand-drawn animation and continuity but Craig couldn't and had to compromise. Makes you wonder what the point of working in animation is when you can just get dumped like that.