Today’s 2 Funny is one of my personal favorite Cartoon Network Shorties (the ones for Atom Ant and Droopy being the others). I’ve said this before, but I’d really like to see Turner make more of these (maybe they could be uploaded to Boomerang Online, since CN isn’t in the classic business anymore and no one really knows what Boomerang is supposed to be anymore). Here’s “Alligator Liberation”.
Some of my favorite bits:
Wally’s line “I’m thinking cable’s out of the question” gets me every time.
I like how the “savage” gators talk like erudite gentlemen with Thurston Howell III accents.
I think the female hippie animal activist is kind of cute.
Yeah, I know. This is a VERY polarizing series. It’s silly and nonsensical and loud and garish and seems completely inane to anyone beyond the second grade. No denying that. But what I don’t get is when people complain about TTGO! (and they do… a lot!), someone will inevitably chime in with something like…
“Teen Titans GO! is garbage! It’s a slap in the face to fans of the original dark and serious Teen Titans!”
Um…seriously?
This show was “dark and serious”? THIS SHOW?? The show in which 5 teenagers live together in a giant T-shaped tower with no adults and no discernible income who never take off their costumes (they even sleep with them on), call each other by their superhero names all the time, in one episode tried to stop a British fashion designer who’s stuck in the 1960’s from using his Yellow Submarine/Monty Python powers from turning the entire city stereotypically British and in another battled a wacky magician voiced by Tom “Spongebob Squarepants” Kenny who imprisoned them in his magic hat and they spent a bulk of the story as talking animals and in yet another episode fought a mound of living, talking tofu? You’re calling THIS show “dark and serious”??
Teen Titans GO! is very juvenile, I’ll give you that, but let’s not let our fandom cloud our memories and capacity for logical thinking, shall we? The 2003 Teen Titans series was a silly show that was occasionally intense, not an intense show that was occasionally silly. Selective memory much? Yeah, there were some intense, dramatic moments, but overall it was pretty darn goofy.
The show was like a group of kids playing superheroes, but the game never stopped. The kids stayed in character and play-acted all day and all night. Am I calling Teen Titans: TAS bad? No. But it was not “dark and serious”. The show did a Wacky Races spoof in one episode, for crying out loud.
On a similar note, when people bad-mouth the 2016 Powerpuff Girls reboot (and they do)…
…I’ll hear something like:
“This show is an abomination! It’s a dumb comedy instead of a serious action cartoon like the original PPG was!”
-Whaaa? You think the original Powerpuff Girls was a serious action cartoon?
Were we watching the same show back then? Or was there another show called The Powerpuff Girls that I’m not aware of? ‘Cause the PPG show that I saw was a comedy cartoon which sent up the superhero genre, like The Tick. I once said that very thing to some wanking fan, and said fan replied with:
“The Tick was a silly parody!”
And Powerpuff Girls wasn’t??
“PPG aired on Toonami for a little while!”
So did Hamtaro, so following your logic, that would also make Hamtaro an action cartoon.
Again, you can prefer whichever incarnation of PPG that you choose, but don’t hand me this malarkey that the original PPG was this hardcore action cartoon, because I know it wasn’t. I was there. It was a show about 3 color-coordinated kindergarten aged girls with crazy superpowers who spent their days fighting a super-smart chimp, a metrosexual demon, a big pink furry hillbilly monster and a gang of green skinned mutant juvenile delinquents.
Here’s today’s Unpopular Opinion. It’s actually a truism, so some of you hardcore super-fans might want to sit down for this one:
THE SUPERHERO GENRE…IS…SILLY!
No, I’m not denying that there’s some great writing and action and even drama in the better stories, nor am I saying that superhero stories aren’t cool, they most certainly can be, but let’s face it: the genre as a whole is inherently goofy and absurd. It’s a universe littered with muscularly fit guys and gals who somehow come into possession of crazy magic powers and mad skills, they give themselves silly names and don brightly colored pajamas with giant letters and/or symbols on them and use said crazy magic powers to do battle against bank robbers, space invaders, mad scientists and would-be world conquerors. Reality check time: superheroes are already silly as all get-out, so turning them into fun, strictly-for-laughs comedies isn’t really that big of a stretch.
I’m not saying people have to enjoy the likes of Teen Titans GO! or Powerpuff Girls 2016; chances are if you’re above the target age group for these shows and you grew up watching their predecessors, then these shows are likely not going to be your cup of tea, but before you attempt to claim that the previous incarnations of these shows were something akin to Lord of the Rings or 12 Angry Men, you might want to take these off:
NOSTALGIA GOGGLES. Now with 75% More Blind Ignorance!
We’re ending August with not one, but two of our favorite bumpers from Cartoon Network’s past. First up, CN’s various stars split off into high-school style cliques in “Sheep in the Big Cafeteria”.
Next up, Fred Flintstone and his lunch buddies Thundarr the Barbarian (give yourself a bonus geek star if you remember that Thundarr also appeared alongside Fred in the Harvey Birdman episode “The Dabba Don”) and Chicken (of Cow and Chicken fame) are returning from lunch (I guess they didn’t feel like dealing with the cafeteria hassles either) but are having trouble locating a place to park in “Parking Lot”. Give yourself a platinum geek star if you noticed some of the Wacky Races cars parked in the backgrounds. Also, Speed Buggy is parked; keep an eye out for him.
I generally try not to get too wrapped up in nostalgia, but I kind of wish CN still made spots like this. I understand that they were expensive to produce (they boasted original animation and the characters were voiced by their original or then current voice actors, and VOs need to be paid) but they were fun and creative. They made Cartoon Network seem like it’d be a fun place to work. Hey, there’s an idea: why doesn’t somebody make a show like 30 Rock, but with toons? I’d watch that.
A trailer for Cartoon Network and DC’s upcoming Justice League Action trailer is up. Give it a gander.
So, what do y’all think? My opinion? Well first, I don’t like to say ‘I told you so’, but….
I said that this show was going to have a heavy Brave and the Bold vibe to it, and that looks to be the case here. This show seems to be cutting right to the chase and just spotlighting the action, and I for one am OK with that. I know some people were and still are craving something along the lines of Justice League/Unlimited or Young Justice, but personally I like the idea of the heroes just getting things done without worrying about any simmering drama or angst along the way. Drama-free is fine with me.
The internet buzz on JLA seems to be pretty positive too. Of course, there are still some people who are grumbling “Teen Titans GO!”, and “This looks too lighthearted”, and to those people I say:
Can’t we just be happy that we’re finally getting a new DC superhero cartoon (on TV anyway, there’s still DC Super Hero Girls on the web, which I’m digging and also DC Super Friends, which is just OK and Batman Unlimited, which I’m personally not into since no females = no sale for me, but kids seem to like it), and that this one actually looks like it might be entertaining? The animation is better than TTGO! The stories are clearly action-oriented, unlike TTGO! (Though I contend that the idea behind TTGO! wasn’t a bad one.) Most of all, this show actually looks coherent, unlike TTGO! which is the TV equivalent of listening to a 6-year-old telling you a joke that he/she has made up his/herself: it makes no sense, rambles and falters and anything that looks like a passable gag is repeated several times, as if its’ very repetition makes it funnier. As for JLA seeming too lighthearted, after the dark and dreary glumfest that was Batman V Superman, I welcome a lighthearted approach with open arms.
Highlights:
Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill are back!
Wonder Woman is in full effect.
We’re getting Firestorm, and the Ronald Raymond/Dr. Martin Stein version at that.
The animation looks good.
Vixen will be making an appearance.
Space Cabbie. Freaking. Space. Cabbie.
Finally, I’d like to address one YouTube uploader who described Justice League Action as a “new Batman show”.
This is NOT a Batman show. This is a JUSTICE LEAGUE show. Batman’s cool and all, but I’m sick and tired of every DC show or movie being all about Batman. This show is supposed to star and focus on the DC Trinity, and I would really like to see Wonder Woman and Superman finally start getting some love from DC and the fans.
Anyone who’s ever worked in an office or a corporate or team environment has experienced that one day or meeting where their unit succeeds at getting absolutely nothing done. The Super Friends’ archenemies the Legion of Doom are having just such a day in this favorite Cartoon Network bumper from back in the day. Enjoy.
Note how Solomon Grundy always just piggy backs onto whatever request the last person who spoke makes. The “Solomon Grundy want pants too!” line gets me every time. Good stuff.
Twin Images 
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