Television Show/Cartoon/etc. Thread

[ProtoTroid X]

Don't generally watch much TV anymore, but I have been watching a few cartoons. Star Wars Rebels and Steven Universe, mostly. Great shows.

Did anyone watch the Voltron Legendary Defender Netflix series? It's getting a second season later this year.

[AkumaTh]

Don't generally watch much TV anymore, but I have been watching a few cartoons. Star Wars Rebels and Steven Universe, mostly. Great shows.

Did anyone watch the Voltron Legendary Defender Netflix series? It's getting a second season later this year.

I have. It is very entertaining. I do get Korra vibes from it (in a good way).

But I wouldn't call that a second season, but the remaining half of the first. They did the same thing with the Peabody and Sherman show.

[miyabi95_]

i don't see why sonic boom has such a low rep, i really like it. sure the characters are in a universe where they act like bumbling idiots but it's all in good fun right?

that aside the show is pretty well-done, considering they premiere new episodes once a week. they also reuse background characters instead of create 100 more for only one use each. this show's very deserving of a second season, if you ask me.

[Dolphman]

Has to do with two awful games, and it doesn't help that their making a third one despite both were critical and commercial failures.

Another problem is that they made Knuckles too stupid. He was never stupid in the games. Just easily gullible, yet still badass.
The fourth wall jokes are painful, and really don't belong in anything Sonic. The one in the season finale was too cringeworthy. 
You can find much better written fourth wall breaking in Deadpool and Looney Tunes.
Shadow was also turned into a stereotypical edge-lord. Making him an even more flat character than his canon game counterpart.
I reckon Sticks could've been a better character as something like any forest warrior type, instead of "lol! I'm crazy and say crazy things!"
The Badniks, besides Motobug, are given more generic names like Bee-Bot and Crab-Bot instead of Buzzbomber and Crabmeat.
Many of the BG characters are pretty bland, even by Sonic's standards. Generic monkeys, cattle, goats, walruses, canines, felines and rodents.
Perci the Bandicoot felt like a wasted character. She was even meant to be part of Team Sonic according to unused audio in the game.
Sonic boom just feels like an opportunity that went down the toilet. They all wen't with the AOSTH route instead of something unique.
Not to mention fans are still rabid about the blue arms and the fact one of the writers also writes for My Little Pony.

But I think reusing background characters is just a sign of laziness. Even worse when they blatantly recolour the same character model.
If you've ever seen or watched The Garfield Show, you'll know what I mean when it comes to lazy model recycling.
This is one of the major problems with CGI shows in general, as it's more limited with characters, backgrounds and props than 2D animation is.

I'd say add more action and less comedy with the second season. Sonic wasn't always about humor.

[psychospacecow]

I am sorry. Are you saying Shadow wasn't already a stereotypical edge-lord? I don't see a problem with recycling characters, honestly. Why model another cat person who's only going to be on screen for 5 seconds when you already have one? I remember some of the 2006? Nick cartoons that would reuse assets from other shows. Like, the sheep from Tak and the Power of JuJu tended to show up whenever someone was "counting sheep".

[Dolphman]

The problem in question was about recolours of this character:

As I mentioned before. Perci was meant to be part of the main cast but got scrapped and demoted to extra for unknown reasons.
The game has unused audio of Amy praising her fighting. So she was meant to be the third girl on the team.
Bad enough the episode with Knuckles wearing a garbage bin on head. He has two of her in his arms and neither are recoloured whatsoever.

The episode with the Justin beiber parody was very guilty of this, to the point people have called it out.

Keep in mind, the goat and walrus ladies were already established minor characters before this episode aired.

[miyabi95_]

I dunno, i like it. I used to be way into sonic, but I still went into the Boom cartoon with a grain of salt, because of the floppy game (iirc, the 3DS game has significantly better reviews). But after getting further into it, I started to see it's appeal. Sure, maybe it's not Steven Universe or Gumball or whatever you guys watch these days, but it's not bad at all in my opinion. And okay, there are a few production errors and questionable decisions made by the team, but nobody's perfect. Sonic X production team was all over the place because different people were put in charge of each episode (even so they still did a really great job with it).

Not to mention I was born in the nineties, but I didn't really become attached to nineties media until very recently. I grew up with things that were around in the 2000s. So what appeals to me is probably different from what appeals to people who actually did grow up in an previous era.

Also, when I try indulging in something, I don't really think about the context of it's origin or anything, especially if it's a large franchise like Sonic. Yes, they've had many flops, but the good stuff is still there. I won't abandon my fascination with a franchise just because of some mishaps. I'm not criticizing anyone for anything, I'm just giving an example of how i think.

[Dolphman]

Nah it's cool. I've been into Sonic as a kid and still am. I still collect the Archie comics which have been great recently.
They're currently near the conclusion of a story arc that, to be honest, dragged for way too long. Sort of a loose adaptation of Unleashed.
And you gotta feel bad for the writers and artists right now, because two former writers are being assholes to them.

I'm sure you know of Ken Penders, who is trying to publish this abomination

Characters originally part of the Sonic comics, now reduced to this field of uncanny valley.
There will be a time Sega finally steps in and take this bastard down. One character is even a rip off of Knuckles. (The red guy in the fedora)

Bad enough the other former writer/artist, Scott Fulop, is now suing them as well. He's responsible for Mammoth Mogul

The character sucked anyway, as he was nothing more than a blatant rip off of Vandal Savage from DC Comics.

Out of all the Sonic animations in the 90s. The OVA was probably the only decent thing since it was made in Japan.
It was more Sega Sonic than the three American shows by DiC. Minus the lack of Amy, who was replaced with a catgirl for some reason.

It did have some funny moments, such as the infamous middle finger. (Supposedly, it was edited into the index finger)
And the ever memetic "STRANGE, ISN'T IT?!?!" line during Sonic's fight with Metal Sonic.

[psychospacecow]

I'm kind of intrigued by the fact that that Cara-Su thing has such variance in its character quality. The purple shirted one looks like clip art.

[miyabi95_]

The OVA is probably the most accurate to the games that I know of. Plus the voice acting is very impressive for a time when most anime dubs involved prepubescent children with no acting skills (iirc majority of the voice cast is professionally trained).

also...who's the guy in the bad boxart Megaman-esque suit?

[Dolphman]

The token human character is just that from the looks of it. And I shit you not, his face is traced over a photo of Anthony Mackie.

This is Greg Land levels of bad art. It even features Mackie's tooth gap!

On the subject of Sonic. SatAM went though a lot of concept stages, and was almost an in-name only cartoon or not a Sonic show at all.
And you know what the funny thing is when it did become a Sonic series? Sally was originally intended to be a hedgehog from the start.

In my opinion, this would've made more sense than her being a chipmunk. But I never liked the character, honestly.
It always bugged me how she only wore shoes, and then later a vest. Her current design for Archie is much better.

[miyabi95_]

Speaking of video game adaptations, what's the appeal of Captain N? I'm just curious, since a lot of 80s/90s folks go gaga over the series enough to nominate the main protagonist along with Nester of Nintendo Power fame as playable characters in Smash 4. nothing wrong with that, i mean it's plenty of passion

[Dolphman]

It was a pretty bad show when you really watch it. The people involved didn't seem to have any care when they made it.

Consider the following

They turned vampire slaying badass Simon Belmont into this:

He's every narcissistic douchebag cliche you can imagine. Not to mention they made him a wimp as well.

Poor old Mega Man got turned into this green armoured, visor wearing midget who's voice sounds like a chronic smoker.
He also had this annoying Smurf inspired tic where he said "Mega-[noun/verb/additive]" in his dialog.

You wouldn't know at first glance, but that's supposed to be Roll in this shot.

Pit was also turned into this ugly little cherub.

Like Mega Man. He too had an annoying tic by saying "[noun/verb/additive]-icus" at the end of every sentences.
He even suffered from the same problem as Frankenstein's Monster, where he was called "Kid Icarus" throughout the whole show.
That alone proves the writers never played the games.


Mother Brain was the main villainess of the series. She looked as in-name-only as Simon did. (Booger-face & brain in a jar)
The only saving grace of this version was the fact the late Levi Stubbs voiced her in the same tone and mannerisms as Audrey II.

When the second season came out, they introduced a new character to promote the Game Boy...

...With an anthropomorphic Game Boy who was the Cousin Oliver of the series as he was just a blatant marketing gimmick.
Out of all voice actors they chose for him, considering the rest of the cast was Canadian. He was voiced by Frank Welker!
Using the same voice he used for Jinx the robot from the forgotten 1986 movie Space Camp.

Yes, even Donkey Kong was in the show. But he was turned into nothing but another generic King Kong clone.

He was just an obstacle for both the heroes and villains, that wanted to be left alone.

The third season took a nosedive to hell as the art and animation looked even worse and made into the two shorts format.
But the first two seasons were full of bad animation quality anyway. Including certain shots missing their backgrounds, and derpy faces.

Even the conept went though different drafts. Here's some artwork featuring early designs and ideas. Some of which did get used.

It also looks like Paperboy from the game of the same name was meant to be the original main character.

[psychospacecow]

Not defending the show, as I've never watched it. I just wanted to point out that some of the designs you're using for reference came out after the show.


This Pit isn't nearly as big of a stretch.


and non-anime Simon.

and when your point of reference for Mother Brain is

you might want to warrant a redesign for a kid's show too, although what they ended up with is pretty body horror as well.

[Dolphman]

Edited the post with those pics now. Thanks. 

I never understood the extensive use of Canadian voice actors in American made animated productions. It still irks people to this day.
Not to upset Pony fans, but who even knew of the voice actors before Friendship is Magic? Tara Strong is the only well known one.
That and half the cast of Beast Wars. Which did make names of the actors involved. Especially to Transformers fans.
Gary Chalk, David Kay and Scott McNeil are pretty cool guys. And like Strong, have been doing American voice acting for quite some time.
Funimation, seem to like bringing McNeil for some of their anime dubs, most likely because they're fans of his work.

But this was also one of the reasons the sequel series to Xiaolin Showdown was hated, and everyone pretty much pretended it doesn't exist.
It was outsourced to Canada, and almost everyone was replaced. The producers really digged themselves into a deeper hole over that.
There was also some things they couldn't use because Warner Bros owned the rights to them. Another bad sign.

Annoyingly enough how this was very common in the 90s with shows like Conan the Adventurer, and Capcom's pile of garbage adaptations.
Which I mean the Ruby Spears Mega Man, and Graz Entertainment's series based on Street Fighter and Darkstalkers.
The latter was only 13 episodes long and downright awful for obvious reasons 

Yes, every male character seems to be gay for Rikuo, via a terrible running gag.
Other problems due to being, god know why, a kids' show. Felicia wears a white bikini. (She's confirmed to be naked by Capcom)
Dimitri and Morrigan are working for Pyron who is a generic saturday morning villain here. Plus Dimitri and Morrigan became uglier.
And the major issue is the fact Felicia has a sidekick named Harry who is a wizard in training. The Scrappy Doo of the show.
Looks like Sonic wasn't the only video game character with an annoying spotlight stealing kid in their own show.
It's also funny how Scott McNeil gives Lord Raptor a very dodgy Australian accent when McNeil's from Australia Himself!

If you want anything better. Check out the four part OVA, comics by Udon, and the compilation on XBLA & PSN (360 & PS3, that is)
Seriously, this franchise needs more love. Screw Street Fighter!