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The Dinosaucers are Leaving, Boss-a-Saur!
16 years ago
Posted an image of Stegz, that stegosaur cutie from Extreme Dinosaurs. Yep yep.
Y'know, I think we are blessed to have grown up in a time when we could have legitimate action cartoons with dinosaurs. What I mean is, way back when, I used to watch Dinosaucers. Extreme Dinosaurs came a bit late, but it was a similar vein, right? Whether it was ray guns or "saurian stomping," the emphasis was on action.
But then we get to Dino Squad, have you seen this? It's horrible! It's like being subjected to a 30-minute long Public Service Announcement. Every last second is dedicated to teaching some kind of moral lesson-of-the-day. Like, if you took the last 30 seconds of G.I. Joe and made an entire show about it.
That's because it is a PSA, by design. You see, some years ago, the FCC mandated that local TV stations dedicate some portion of their time every week to E/I shows - meant to be edumacational. As a result, a lot of TV executives thought it would make sense to replace Saturday morning cartoons with these glorified PSAs since a lot of kids would be watching anyway. And Saturday morning has been lame ever since.
So the end result is that instead of good dinos fighting evil dinos, you get a wishy-washy study of teen angst and how they overcome their differences through teamwork. Doesn't that just sound like fun? XD
(Edit: Yes, the FCC, not the FTC :))
Y'know, I think we are blessed to have grown up in a time when we could have legitimate action cartoons with dinosaurs. What I mean is, way back when, I used to watch Dinosaucers. Extreme Dinosaurs came a bit late, but it was a similar vein, right? Whether it was ray guns or "saurian stomping," the emphasis was on action.
But then we get to Dino Squad, have you seen this? It's horrible! It's like being subjected to a 30-minute long Public Service Announcement. Every last second is dedicated to teaching some kind of moral lesson-of-the-day. Like, if you took the last 30 seconds of G.I. Joe and made an entire show about it.
That's because it is a PSA, by design. You see, some years ago, the FCC mandated that local TV stations dedicate some portion of their time every week to E/I shows - meant to be edumacational. As a result, a lot of TV executives thought it would make sense to replace Saturday morning cartoons with these glorified PSAs since a lot of kids would be watching anyway. And Saturday morning has been lame ever since.
So the end result is that instead of good dinos fighting evil dinos, you get a wishy-washy study of teen angst and how they overcome their differences through teamwork. Doesn't that just sound like fun? XD
(Edit: Yes, the FCC, not the FTC :))
One week, Project G.K.R, then next week, a bunch of fat balding men talking about Wall Street. :/
Broke my 5th grade heart.
Sorry. Had to.
1. Global warming is bad, manifested in how the bad guy's schemes circle around trying to heat up the Earth, no different from the Raptors in Extreme Dinosaurs, before he develops the single-minded goal of capturing the "perfect dinosaurs" (i.e. the Dino Squad itself) for some inexplicable reason. I mean, if the bad guy himself is a dinosaur, why is it so important to capture the others anyway?
2. You have to get along in order to succeed. This is the one that's really hamfisted because the characters have no personality to begin with, so they are able to turn on a dime to create conflict wherever it is needed. I don't think kids "get" this. It's demeaning and it talks down to them. The kids came to see only one kind of conflict resolution - dinosaurs fighting dinosaurs!
The point is, the show makes Captain Planet look halfway decent. At least the cheeky "lessons" in Captain Planet were interspersed with flamboyant superheroes fighting equally flamboyant villains.
This is also one reason why we see more anime on during kids' TV hours. For one thing, since it's made in Japan and not the U.S., they aren't restricted by FCC confines. This is probably why they become popular, because they don't suck! (Or as much in some cases when the dub and editing is god-awful).
The ONLY real exception to this has been the 2003 TMNT. With the recently released Turtles Forever, it shows that this series is smart, knows how to poke fun at itself, and also even bends the 4th wall at times!
80's Raphael looks at camera: "A real genius, isn't he?"
2003 Hun looks where Raph is looking with a confused face: "Just who are you talking to?!"
While 4Kids produced the new TMNT, they've also treated it well. The "Fast Forward" part may not have been the best, but they still put together a much better show than others have.
The days of Saturday morning programming are over. When I have kids, I'm pulling out the good stuff:
The Real Ghostbusters
Batman: The Animated Series
Gargoyles
DuckTales
and more!
They deserve to watch good TV.
~Otaku-Man
However, Turtles Forever was inspired. There's no other word for it. Whoever came up with that idea, let alone whoever green-lit it, deserves some kind of TV medal. That moment you speak of where the action freezes and turtle-Hun makes that remark just cracked me up.
I figured the thing with anime was two-fold. One, it was different from the fare stations used to offer. Pokemon took off in a big way and everyone wanted to cash in on the anime style. Two, I'm sure it didn't cost much to localize it, as opposed to paying some animation studio in the States or Canada to make a new series from scratch. I'd be willing to bet that an episode of TMNT cost far more than a dubbed episode of Yu-Gi-Oh. Of course, that brings to mind a different question - why is it the case, then, that they don't just rerun Batman: TAS, Gargoyles, any member of the Disney Afternoon, and so on? It's not like kids are old enough to know they are reruns. It would seem that the cheapest solution of all would be to simply rerun something you already made.
Course, then again, Sonic X has been running for years... and now they are running Yu-Gi-Oh again... hmm...
And yeah, the 2003 Turtles were more akin to the original comic book. Many of the story arcs were lifted right from the original series with only a few alterations. But what got me most about it was that they didn't try and sugar-coat it with morals and lessons, and all the junk. Instead, they play it off as what a Saturday Morning Cartoon should be: Fun and Intelligent!
Not once did I ever feel that the 2003 Turtles were insulting my intelligence. That is something I feel is important for any good show, cartoon or otherwise.
~Otaku-Man
smurfs
Dinosaucers
Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM)
http://www.retrojunk.com/details_tv.....edgehog-satam/
Rocko's Modern Life
http://www.retrojunk.com/details_tv.....s-modern-life/
Chip 'N' Dale Rescue Rangers
http://www.retrojunk.com/details_tv.....escue-rangers/
Beetlejuice
http://www.retrojunk.com/details_tv.....9-beetlejuice/
The Real Ghostbusters
http://www.retrojunk.com/details_tv.....-ghostbusters/
The World of David the Gnome
http://www.retrojunk.com/details_tv.....vid-the-gnome/
Darkwing Duck
http://www.retrojunk.com/details_tv.....darkwing-duck/
DuckTales
http://www.retrojunk.com/details_tv.....s/6-ducktales/
Adventures of the Gummi Bears
http://www.retrojunk.com/details_tv.....e-gummi-bears/
Eureeka's Castle
http://www.retrojunk.com/details_tv.....reekas-castle/
Quite frankly, I don't know why so few people are willing to look at another theory: that cartoons nowadays suck simply because nobody has any good ideas anymore.
Certainly, Saturday isn't dominated by things like Dino Squad. But on non-cable stations in particular (cable is exempt from E/I rules), blocks of this programming wiped out traditional Saturday morning lineups. But we're also far removed from the dark Batman: TAS or Gargoyles just the same.