Category Big Ideas

What’s WB to Do with H-B?

goldstar 2 Comments

This is in response to a thread topic that was started on the Toon Zone General Animation Forum. I’ll have to post my response here, for now.

Why doesn’t Warner Bros reboot The Flintstones? The Flintstones is a timeless classic Hanna-Barbera series and is still iconic 50 years later. They still make Fruity Pebbles cereal and vitamins in the 2010’s. If they make the series as good as the original, and don’t do it to make cash off the characters, I don’t see the problem.


Well, Seth MacFarlane was going to produce a reboot of The Flintstones, but the project has been delayed until ????? since Seth had too much on his plate already. I’ve already elaborated on a hypothetical new Flintstones series last year with my article entitled “The All New Something, Something Whatever Show”, so there’s no need to repeat myself.
Honestly, one could pose this question about any Hanna Barbera franchise that isn’t Scooby Doo or Tom & Jerry. The Yogi Bear movie was supposed to be getting a sequel, but I haven’t heard any follow up to it. Likewise, I read somewhere that the producers of Yogi Bear the movie were planning to make a movie starring Huckleberry Hound, but again, I’ve since heard no follow up to that. There was supposed to be a live action Jetsons movie, but the last time that I’ve heard anything about that was years ago.
I can’t say that I’m the biggest H-B fan myself, though. One problem that I’ve always had with H-B is that whatever seemed to be a passable formula would be repeated several times. If one series was a success, then H-B would produce several other series that were just like it with only some slight differences. Just about every H-B cartoon franchise from the 1960s to the 2000s can be traced back to either Yogi Bear, The Flintstones or Scooby Doo.
The other thing that puzzles me about this post is the statement “If they (WBA) make the (Flintstones reboot series) as good as the original and don’t do it to make cash off of the characters, I don’t see the problem”; How is using the characters to shill breakfast cereals and children’s vitamins for over 3 decades not making cash off of them? I don’t get it.

New Rules for Looney Tunes

goldstar 8 Comments

Yep, it’s another post devoted to Looney Tunes. Wow, we’ve certainly been talking about Looney Tunes a lot lately, haven’t we? Well, we are long time fans of LT, and it’s in the news as of late, so let’s just roll with it.

This is in response to a thread that someone created for both the Toon Zone forum as well as the Big Cartoon Forum regarding the recent news about The Looney Tunes Show wrapping up production upon reaching 52 episodes. The original post is typed in italic:

With announcement of The Looney Tunes Show being cancelled along with Scooby Doo: Mystery Incorporated, and unlike Scooby Doo and even Tom and Jerry…a new Looney Tunes TV show has not been announced!

So when Warner Bros. finally does announce a new animated series based on their iconic characters(and you know they will at one point), they already did a sitcom-approach to it, what kind of direction do you think WB should go for a new LT cartoon series? What should they do and what shouldn’t they try to do?

 

First, I’d like to point out that neither The Looney Tunes Show nor Scooby Doo: Mystery Inc. were “canceled”, as saying so would imply that Warner Brothers had ever intended for either series to go beyond 52 episodes, which was not the case. Tony Cervone and Spike Brandt confirmed that their commitment to TLTS was only for 52 episodes, and 52 episodes was all that we got. If Cartoon Network ever wants more episodes of TLTS, WB could easily produce more, since season #2’s ratings were strong.

Having said that, I can’t really say what sort of new Looney Tunes series that I’d like to see next. I agree that Loonatics Unleashed was terrible and it was a lame attempt to revive the franchise. LU’s biggest problem was that it tried to be half-action, half-comedy when it should have been all comedy. The idea of the LT characters as superheroes itself isn’t a bad one; if Warner Brothers had made the series as a straight-up parody which made fun of the genre a la Ben Edlund’s The Tick, then that might have actually worked. Kind of like a series version of the Tiny Toons short “The Just-Us League of Super Toons”, but with Bugs, Daffy and company as the capes.
****************************************************************
As for new rules for any new potential Looney Tunes projects, here are a few of mine:
*****************************************************************************
1. Return to the shorts format. The Looney Tunes Show was OK and all, but let’s face it; the characters just aren’t designed to carry 22 minute stories. The shorts have never been plot heavy. Often, the “plot” would serve as little more than a setup for a series of gags. You’d have a setup, a bunch of gags and a punch line Stick to the shorts, as this is the environment that the characters perform best in. I say, have a half hour format consisting of two 11 minute shorts per show or three 7 minute shorts per show.
****************************************************
2. Don’t be afraid to experiment with new ideas, settings and concepts. I enjoy the classic shorts as much as anyone else, but if the Looney Tunes characters are going to stay relevant, Warner Brothers can’t and shouldn’t just keep recycling their old material. It’s OK to occasionally reference the shorts from the past, but WB needs to forge ahead with the characters and make new comedic possibilities otherwise the franchise is doomed to fail. Therefore, don’t be afraid to experiment with some pairings that haven’t been tried before (EX: Porky and Foghorn Leghorn, Daffy and Wile E. Coyote, Granny and Taz, Marvin the Martian and Elmer Fudd, Lola and Yosemite Sam, etc.), and don’t be afraid to try out some new shticks and introduce new characters when called for, which brings me to my next point…
***********************************************************
3. Don’t try to cram every character into every story. The original shorts were never like that. The best ones only focused on a couple of characters, like Bugs, Elmer and Daffy or just Bugs and Daffy. There’s no need to pad the shorts to obesity.
*********************************************************
4. Do NOT bring in John Kricfalusi as a director! I have zero desire to see Bugs, Daffy and company “Ren & Stimpified”.
************************************************************
5. Don’t rely on cheap, creatively bankrupt gimmicks or lame attention getting devices, such as turning the characters into babies or teenagers, dropping them in high school, or have them working security in a shopping mall.
*******************************************************************
6. Keep Lola loony. I know that I’m in the minority here, but I actually like TLTS’s take on Lola. I honestly don’t get why some fans want to see Lola return to her Space Jam self. In Space Jam, Lola was a boring Mary Sue who served no other purpose than to make every male character stand in awe bugging out their eyes at the sight of her. On TLTS, Lola is funny and she’s loony. Again, I fail to see the problem here.
****************************************************************************
7. Stick to comedy. No dramatic moments. To paraphrase something that Hamton Pig once said in the Tiny Toons episode “Toons Take Over”: You guys are funny. Comedy is what you do.”
********************************************************************************

8. Show some other facets of Daffy Duck’s character besides his jealousy of Bugs, and above all, keep the character likable. Yes, Daffy has a dark side, but he doesn’t have to be mean all of the time. He’s not a one-dimensional meanie, and it was a mistake casting him as the perpetual antagonist in those terrible shorts made in the mid 60’s.

****************************************************************************

9. Don’t be afraid to knock Bugs Bunny around a little. Yes, Bugs is cool, and it’s great to see him achieve victory or his nemeses, but Bugs shouldn’t win all of the time in every single situation. If Bugs never lost, he would become boring and would quickly become a writing problem. Bugs being allowed to lose sometimes keeps him human (as human as an anthropomorphic rabbit can get, anyway) and keeps the character relatable to the audience.

Generally, though, I just hope that the next LT series is funny and enjoyable. However, I do have a suggestion for the Capcom video game company. In the wake of all of Capcom’s crossover titles, I just have 5 words to say:

Looney Tunes VS Street Fighter

Make it happen, Capcom!

Ryu2

More Hub PM Pondering

goldstar 2 Comments

The following is in response to a thread which came up recently in the Toon Zone Entertainment Forum titled  “Other Sitcoms That Should Air on The Hub”. I’m just going to post my 2 cents on the subject here. To avoid confusion, all of the posts from the thread itself will be typed in italic, while my responses will be typed in purple. The OP begins the discussion with:

What do you guys think? I’d hypothetically say something like “Seinfeld” or “Family Matters”.

To which, my brother Damon responded with:

I’d personally like to see The Hub expand its’ horizons to air more than just domestic sitcoms at night, honestly. I’d like to see more sketch and alternative comedies such as SCTV, MST3K, Fernwood/America 2-Night, The Best of Saturday Night Live, The Monkees, Get Smart!, Police Squad!, Mad Movies with the L.A. Connection, etc. Heck, even The Muppet Show, The Jim Henson Hour or Muppets Tonight would make for some nice variety, although the former would probably look horribly dated now.

 
Now, I realize that this will come as a surprise to absolutely no one, but I agree with Damon. I really think that The Hub is severely limiting itself by airing nothing but family-friendly sitcom reruns. They could be doing so much more at night, especially during the hours after 10 PM, after the kids have gone to bed. Channels like Nick at Nite and TBS pretty much have the sitcoms covered, so why not do something a little different on The Hub?

In any case, Seinfeld isn’t a family show, and neither is MST3K, really (especially in later seasons where I understand that they talk about some stuff that wouldn’t exactly be appropriate for a family show).

 

You keep saying that, but I’ve actually seen all of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes that were produced for the Sci-Fi Channel, and they weren’t any more raunchy than the that ones made for Comedy Central. The randiest MST3K has ever gotten was in the 1996 theatrical movie, which contained more curse words in the wise cracks than in the average TV episode. Also, unlike you, I’ve actually seen all of the MST3K episodes made for Sci-Fi Channel; I’m not just making assumptions based on something that a little bird told me. If you haven’t actually seen the later seasons of MST3K, then you’re not in a position to determine whether the show is appropriate for family viewing or not. At least see the episodes for yourself before making pat judgments about them. I personally think that MST3K or Rifftrax would make a great addition to The Hub’s PM lineup, and it would certainly add some much needed variety to the channel’s night time schedule.

Police Squad? Considering it was later adapted into the Naked Gun movies, probably not.

Why not? Police Squad originally aired on prime-time and even ran on Nick at Nite for a brief time. If Nickelodeon could air Police Squad, then I see no reason why the series can’t or shouldn’t air on The Hub. And again, we’re not talking about running Police Squad! right after My little Pony. We’re talking about airing the series at night, after the kids have gone to bed, so where’s the harm in that? Plus, kids saw the Naked Gun movies also.

The Hub may have not been using their tagline “a network for kids and their families” for some time now, but that’s what this network still is: “a network for kids and their families”, and I don’t want them to start subverting that, or themselves (by, among other things, resorting to various technicalities) just to cater to only what some older viewers want to see.

 
Again, I fail to see the problem with “catering to what older viewers want to see” during the hours of the night when kids aren’t watching TV. It just doesn’t make sense for The Hub to run kid-friendly programming all night long. Adults want to be entertained also. Most kids’ networks stop programming for children in the evenings because ad buyers don’t want to support anything in those hours, and I don’t understand why it’s OK for Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network to program for adults at night, but it’s somehow not OK for The Hub to do the same. Why should a network risk losing viewers by being forced to placate to an audience that isn’t there just to satisfy some imaginary ideal? I honestly and truly don’t understand this logic.

Seinfeld? What next, Friends? The Big Bang Theory, perhaps (not that I watch any of those three shows, but I know they aren’t family shows)?

You know what I love about you? It’s how with you, everything is always so black-and-white, and gray doesn’t exist at all. With you, it’s either Sesame Street or South Park with absolutely nothing in between. The difference between you and I is that we have different ideas of what does or doesn’t constitute a subversion. You see The Hub airing anything edgier than say, Leave It to Beaver as a subversion, whereas I believe that a middle ground exists and The Hub should try to meet that need.
I’ve never watched Friends myself, and TBS currently owns the broadcasting rights to The Big Bang Theory. As for the prospect of either series being shown on The Hub, I wouldn’t be against that, but I really feel that The Hub needs to expand it’s horizons beyond just airing sitcom reruns. And so what if they’re not family shows? No one’s suggesting that The Hub run Seinfeld on weekday afternoons right after Transformers Rescue Bots. Again, we’re talking about late nights, after the kids have gone to bed. It shouldn’t matter one whit if the content isn’t appropriate for children if said shows are airing at a time when kids aren’t watching TV anyway.

I would suggest older black and white sitcoms from the 1950s, but that would really be pushing it…

 
Ehh…..No offense, but I don’t think that would be a good idea at all. You’d have an easier time trying to split an atom than trying to get today’s generation of kids to watch something in black-and-white, and that 1950s stuff is cornball. My parents grew up with those shows and I’m 44. That stuff was considered to be old hat during my childhood, and I really don’t think that’s the image that Hasbro wants to create for it’s channel. I don’t think that Hasbro wants The Hub to be thought of as the “Jitterbug” of cable channels. The only b&w show that might be worth airing on The Hub is possibly The 3 Stooges, since the recent (2012) movie may have spawned a renewed interest in the franchise.
*************************************************************************************
Anyways, this is how I would program The Hub’s PM lineup:
I would designate the hours between 7 PM and 10 PM as Family Time. That’s when the family-friendly shows such as Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley, Family Ties, Mork & Mindy, ALF and The Facts of Life would air. As well as some non-sitcom programs such as Carol Burnett & Friends, The Monkees, The Muppet Show/Muppets Tonight/The Jim Henson Show, Police Squad! Carson’s Comedy Classics, etc.
The hours from 10 PM and onward would be designated as Adult Time. The kids have gone to bed and now The Hub’s line up would get a tad “naughtier”, and by this I don’t mean the likes of South Park, Drawn Together or The Whitest Kids U Know. But rather, I mean just airing some less family-oriented programs such as The Best of Saturday Night, SCTV, Mystery Science Theater 3000/Rifftrax, The Red Green Show, Mad Movies with the LA Connection. Perhaps even some of the former Adult Swim acquisitions such as Home Movies, Baby Blues, Mission Hill and The Oblongs, all of which originally aired in prime-time. Hey, while were at it, why not import some British comedies like Red Dwarf, Black Adder, French & Saunders, My Hero or Monty Python’s Flying Circus?
****************************************************************************
I’d watch a lineup like that. How about you?

Tooning In On Late Night

goldstar Leave a comment

The following is a topic that was raised on the Toon Zone Forums that I’d like to address here. To avoid confusion, the original poster’s comments will be typed in italic, while mine will be typed normally.

For the most part, classic cartoons are non existent on American TV. There’s plenty of channels that air classic movies and TV shows, but we only have one all classic cartoon channel (Boom) and as we all know, there schedule is VERY limited. 

…And even the so-called  “classic” movie and TV channels are showing original shows and movies now. Also, Boomerang stopped being a classic cartoon channel a few years ago. Boom is Cartoon Network’s recycle bin. Beyond that the channel serves no purpose. It’s like I said in an earlier post, the audience for 50s to 80s nostalgia is far too narrow a market for a channel devoted solely to it to work now. In no time, the channel would be re-branded as a general entertainment channel.

I remember watching a slew of cartoons in the 70’s and 80’s that hasn’t seen the light of day in years. Is it really that expensive to get the rights to rooms like Battle of the Planets, Voltron, New adventures of Popeye, 70’s Tarzan cartoon and many, many more? 

Dude, you’re going waaaay back. You’re talking about when we were kids back in the ancient 1970s. Back then, there was no such thing as cable and cartoons shows ran wild all over the TV. You had syndicated programs with umbrella titles such as Bugs, Woody and Popeye, Bugs & Popeye, Bugs & Woody, Bugs Bunny’s Buddies, Cartoon Carnival, etc., but the industry has changed a lot since then. We’re not going to see television return to the way that it was in the 1970s because that world doesn’t exist anymore.

The answer to your question is yes. It is that expensive because like I already said, the industry has changed a lot since we were kids. These days all of the old-school cartoons have been bought up by big corporations. Turner Broadcasting currently owns the Warner Brothers, MGM and Hanna-Barbera cartoons. Casper, Lassie and the like are owned by Classic Media, which was recently purchased by Dreamworks. The Filmation library of shows are presently tied up in legal red tape over who actually owns the individual franchises. And Disney, well, the Mouse House has never loaned out it’s library of cartoons to anyone, and they’re even less inclined to do so now that they have 4 cable/satellite channels under their belt.

I mean if you really think about it, wouldn’t it be a good idea if local stations aired some of these toons late night? It just seems that a lot of these classic toons are just sitting around in some old warehouse collecting dust instead of being viewed as they should be.

That’s an interesting idea, but it would never work now. Not in this market. First, local stations don’t have the broadcasting rights to those old cartoons; most of them have since been scooped up by big corporations and local affiliates would have to pay these corporations a fee in order to run them on their stations late at night. Second, the late night market has become very cutthroat. The old-school toons would have to compete in a market that’s now dominated by Jay Leno, David Letterman, Jimmy Kimmel, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Conan O’ Brien, ABC’s Nightline and CN’s Adult Swim block. Most people wouldn’t be willing to switch off a new episode of The Daily Show or The Colbert Report in favor of a 40-year-old rerun of Yogi’s Gang or a 60-year-old rerun of The Flintstones. A few adults might, but not enough of them to justify the cost and trouble that a local station would have to undergo to launch such a venture. Third, most of the local stations are also network affiliates who also air shows like Letterman and Leno late at night, and so the local affiliates would likely just air the old cartoons after the networks’ late night programs, thus pushing them back so far into the wee hours that one would need radar to find them. Finally, the other major issue preventing such a move is of course money. TV stations air what makes them the most money. Local stations make more money airing infomercials than they would airing classic cartoons, so they run infomercials. Network officials know that even a rerun of Conan or Family Guy is going to put more butts in seats than old Popeye cartoons would. The cold hard truth is that nostalgia just isn’t profitable right now.

I know that people are tired of me saying this, but I here it is one mo’ time: I think that instead of trying to get these “classic” cartoons back on TV, that we should instead be lobbying for these old-school shows to get proper video/DVD releases. Seriously, like my brother Damon has said, if you had your own kick-ass collection of cartoons that you could watch whenever you wanted, it wouldn’t matter one wit to you what the local stations were airing.

New Block Ideas for The Hub

silverstar 1 Comment

This is a follow-up entry to “What’s All the Hub-Bub, Bub?”.

Hub Logo

Over at Toon Zone there’s a thread called ‘Orphan Shows The Hub Should Adopt’, in which people discuss what shows they’d like to see The Hub acquire down the line. Inspired by this, I came up with some programming ideas for The Hub that I think would be pretty cool.

1. Comedy Cartoon Block

As I mentioned back in the previous Hub post, one of the Hub’s biggest draws right now is HuBoom!, their action cartoon block. This is fine and dandy, but while I have no problem with Hasbro having happy slacks for action cartoons, my first love is and always has been comedy, and I hope that won’t be forgotten by The Hub. In response, I propose a comedy cartoon block to counterbalance HuBoom!: call it Ha-Ha-Hub or Hub Laff or something similar (I’m still playing around with names). The best place to air this block would be on weekday afternoons; weekday mornings are devoted to Hub-Bub and it wouldn’t make much sense airing  this block during a time when The Hub’s target audience of school-aged kids wouldn’t be home to see it, and I have other plans for The Hub’s nightly schedule, which I’ll go into later. I’d put Hub Laff on weekday afternoons just before HuBoom!, I’d just push HuBoom! back an hour or so, say, put Hub Laff on at 3 PM to 4 or 5 PM (EST) and HuBoom! would start after that. What sort of shows would be featured on this block? Well, Pound Puppies and encores of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic are obvious choices. Some other possible entries are/could be: Cosmic Quantum Ray, The Twisted Whiskers Show, Dennis and Gnasher, Eek! The Cat/Eek!Stravaganza, Space Goofs, Inspector Gadget, Tiny Toon Adventures, Animaniacs, Samurai Pizza Cats and Saban’s Monster Farm.*

*Note that I’m just using these titles as examples; many of these shows couldn’t or wouldn’t actually air on The Hub for various reasons. We must keep in mind that Hasbro is first and foremost a toy company. They’re not going to acquire a show just because; it would most likely have to be an original or active franchise (preferably one with an active toy line which Hasbro produces or can profit from). The shows actually eligible to air will vary, but I’m just giving you the general idea of what to expect with these blocks.

2. Girl-Centric Saturday Morning Block

Another block The Hub could try is a Saturday morning block targeting young female viewers. I’d call it The Hub’s Super Slumber Party or something similar. The beauty of this block is that The Hub already has the shows they need for it: Strawberry Shortcake’s Berry Bitty Adventures, Care Bears: Welcome to Care-A-Lot, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and The Littlest Pet Shop. (The upcoming new Sabrina, the Teenage Witch cartoon produced by Moonscoop could also premiere here.) These would all be premiere episodes; encores could air variously throughout the week, but the new episodes would premiere here. When a show goes into periodic reruns, it could be temporairly replaced by another show with a female lead such as Jem or Atomic Betty. To spice things up, there could also be shorts and filler segments airing between the shows, say animated shorts based on Hasbro’s various girl-centric toy properties and pop music videos. Heck, you could even throw in some girl hostesses like the Slumber Party Girls, Ally & A.J. or some other girl band for host segments and bits of business between the shows.

3. Weekend Prime Time Premiere Block

This block would air on either Friday or Saturday nights from 8 to 10 PM (EST). No prizes for guessing, this block is inspired by the likes of ABC’s T.G.I.F. or Nickelodeon’s SNICK. It would consist of 2-hours of premiere Hub shows, sort of treat for kids on the weekend. A sample schedule could go as follows:

  • 8 PM – The Aquabats! Super Show!
  • 8: 30 PM – Dan VS.
  • 9 PM – Kaijudo: Rise of the Duel Masters
  • 9: 30 PM – R.L. Stine’s The Nightmare Room

-Of course, this schedule could be rotated if/when new premieres come along. If there were ever too many premiere shows to run on a single night, this block could be spread across the weekend, with a Friday night version and a Saturday night version.

4. Nightly Comedy Block

As I mentioned in the previous Hub entry, it is my not-so-humble opinion that The Hub’s nightly schedule is easily the weakest part of the network. I simply don’t watch The Hub at night since I’m not a nostalgia person, and nothing the channel airs at night holds my interest. Look, I don’t have a problem with network TV reruns, but nostalgia has a limited shelf life and The Hub isn’t ever going to rank up there with the likes of Cartoon Network and Nick by running nothing but 30 to 40 year old reruns all night. Most people aren’t going to switch off a new episode of The Big Bang Theory or The Daily Show with Jon Stewart for a 40-year-old rerun of Happy Days and  I personally didn’t enjoy The Facts of Life or ALF when they were first-run.

My solution is to have The Hub switch formats at around, say 8 or 9 PM (sort of, I don’t think an entirely new face and branding is necessary) to an alternative comedy block called either Hub After Dark or Hub PM or Hub Funny Stuff. (Thanks goes out to Jason for that last title.) As this block would be aimed specifically towards adults, the programming here would be just a littler spicier than The Hub’s daily fare, but nowhere near the extremes of Adult Swim. some sample show ideas for this block include: Parker Lewis Can’t Lose, The New Adventures of Beans Baxter, SCTV, On the Television, Turkey Television, Mad Movies with the LA Connection, Mystery Science Theater 3000/Rifftrax, Far Out Space Nuts, The Ghost Busters (not the movie franchise with Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd, but the 1975 series starring Larry Storch and Forrest Tucker), Sam & Max: Freelance Police, Cinematech, MAD, Batman (the 60’s show starring Adam West), The Monkees, Clone High, Undergrads, Daria, Remote Control, Lancelot Link: Secret Chimp, Weird Science, My Hero, The Red Green Show, Sifl & Olly, TV’s Bloopers and Practical Jokes, Monty Python’s Flying Circus, Not Necessarily the News,The Best of Saturday Night Live, JonTron Show, Assist Me!, Demo Reel, and the like.*

*Again, I realize that not all of these shows are eligible candidates to air on The Hub; for example MST3K may not be able to air there due to ownership rights and its’ 2-hour episode length, and some of these shows are quite old. Again, this is just an overview of what sort of shows to expect on this block. they could easily be new shows done in the manner and spirit of the shows listed above.

Don’t worry, nostalgia lovers. The classic TV shows wouldn’t be gone from The Hub; they would just air in a separate block during non-peak nightly hours, in an old-school block. The game shows like Family Game Night wouldn’t be gone either; they would air either on weekend afternoons and/or Sunday nights right before Funny Stuff.

Of course, these are merely suggestions. I’m not saying that my ideas are the best way to go, or even the only way, but they are A way. I’m certainly not expecting everyone to agree with my suggestions; I’m sure many people have their own suggestions or even objections to my little schemes, and not only do I respect that, but I even welcome criticism, as long as it’s valid.