Sep
13th
2013
Lauren Faust's Next Show · 8:17pm Sep 13th, 2013
I don't get around much:
On the various parts of the internet, but I haven't seen it mentioned either at EqD or on any of the blogs I follow here that Wander Over Yonder, the show that Lauren Faust and her husband Craig McCracken are doing for the Disney Channel, premieres tonight. I know nothing about it, but the L.A. Times reviewed it this morning--more than they've ever done for Pony--and quite a favorable review it was, too. Besides, given the show's parentage, how could one not tune in? It's at 9PM here on the Pacifc coast, so consult your local listings .
Mike
I saw a clip of it a while back. Not enough to get a real feel for the show itself, but you got a glimpse of the main antagonist and protagonist. The bad guy looked hilariously awesome. The good guy came of as more than a little obnoxious. Still, looked like something worth checking out.
I watched it, despite the fact I really don't need anything more than My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, just because the name of the goddess that gave us ponies popped up.
And I'm disappointed.
- It's a typical "The good guy annoys the bad guy in every episode to prevent him from ruling the universe." story without any depth or originality.
- The humor has no style and is just based on characters that are stupid and dumb and think they are funny because they are stupid and dumb.
Like in most cartoons unfortunately.
- The army's that are fight against each other are walking eyes and walking fists.
Uhm..... Don't think I have to add anything here. Except "See #2." maybe.
- Emperor Awesome shakes his ass all the time and this is portrayed as funny.
Uhm..... yeah. See #2.
- The drawing style looks like something a four year old did.
Conclusion: No creativity, no originality, no new ideas, dumb characters, a humor that has no style and a drawing style that would make everypony cry in pain when it would be drawed like that.
It can't conquer a little bit with My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.
This cartoon can only dream of that high-quality standard.
It's a bad cartoon, but there's no reason to blame or accusing her of doing a bad job.
After seeing this first episode, it's clear that this is not Lauren's style.
Lauren has not much to say on the production of this cartoon, that's obvious.
And why do I wonder?
This cartoon was obviously ordered by Disney, the source of all evil.
It's no wonder that Lauren and her visions for a cartoon fall on deaf ears at this company.
I'm glad that we still have ponies.
And this is where I go now.
Back to ponies.
I was incredibly disappointed with the bit I saw of it.
That's premiering now? I thought artwork from it was already online in 2011 or 2012.
1347575
1347757
1347776
Well:
Sounds like a mixed reaction to say the least. Still, I reckon I'll check out the first few weeks of it since I became leary of judging a cartoon show based on a single episode after my experience with "Eek the Cat" some twenty years ago now. I watched the first episode, didn't care for it, and planned on not watching it again. Some months later, I set my VCR to the wrong channel one Saturday morning and accidently taped another episode of the show, and it was about as fine a thing as I'd seen on TV at that point.
In short, "Eek the Cat" became one of my favorites, and to this day, I'm not sure that I've seen all the episodes because I missed those couple of months and the show's never been available legally for home viewing except for a single VHS release back before the invention of the DVD. So I'll give this one a little leeway.
1347857
Being from another era, as I mention with alarming frequency, I don't seem capable of taking full advantage of the internet. So the only image I've seen from the show is the picture that went with the review in the newspaper this morning.
But yeah: first episode's initial run appears to be tonight.
Mike
1347757
Well, except Lauren Faust has been really on about how much she has put into it and how she really like the final product. No way around it, good or bad, this cartoon has had a lot of her work in it, and she gotta take the credit, good or bad. I don't really think Disney had THAT much to do with how it turned out. Besides, it's not like Disney is incapable of creating something good. Phineas and Ferb was pretty funny.
I set my DVR for it, based on this post alone, but apparently it latched onto the HD channel, which for some reason doesn't air the first episode until a day later, so I'm still waiting. Like Auggie said, I'll give it a few episodes before I really judge it -- I certainly wasn't sold on MLP by the first episode -- but I don't have high hopes now that I've watched a couple of youtube clips.
1347757 As to the bit about Disney being evil... yeah, corporate money hoarders, blah blah blah. That part's true. What comes out of the big mouse-eared death star isn't always bad though. Yeah, they cursed the world with Hannah Montana, but they also gave us Bill Nye The Science Guy. And in animation, some of my favorite shows were Disney... classics like Rescue Rangers, Gargoyles, Darkwing Duck, TaleSpin, Aladdin, etc. In more modern times, Lilo & Stitch, and Emperor's New School, both of which were pretty decent. Then there's Tron: Uprising, which is in some ways even better than the recent movie, as well as Phineas and Ferb like Blue_Paladin42 said. That's not even counting theatrical animation.
Anyway, not saying you can't have your opinion, but even if this show does suck (I'll have a better idea after I watch it tonight) it could be for any number of reasons, not just the corporate overlords.
1349175
Ah, yes:
The old "Disney Afternoon" shows. They did some fun stuff, all righty, and it was always an adventure listening to see if they could squeeze another character voice out of Jim Cummings: he was a featured actor in just about everything they did back then...
Mike
1348246
Doubt here.
She sure was involved in it, I know that, and maybe there are one or two things in some episodes she directly brought into it, but after seeing the first episode, it's clear that her involvement wasn't very big.
And some few original Faust ideas don't make the whole cartoon awesome.
Looks like it was more that way, that others thought out the things for this cartoon and she just did the work in building them in.
When she said she really likes the final product, she only meant that she is proud that she was capable to do it after all and to fulfill the expectations set in her from the producers.
That doesn't mean she likes the show and the end result.
1348143
My experience with TV shows is, that the quality of a show can increase over time, but, it never can break through his overall style, which is set in stone with the first episode.
If it would do it, it would not be the same TV show anymore, but another that, yet with the same title, has a completely different style.
Well, to be fair here, I experienced one time in my life, that a show got significantly better over time, while still sticking true to itself.
I experienced that with Pokémon.
The first two season were great! Not genius, in compare to older anime, but still good enough to enjoy it properly.
It had some great ideas, character development, tragic, dramatic, sometimes a very deep plot, everything that's needed for a good show.
But then, the third season came and it began to go downhill.
I remember very well, how disappointed I was.
Nintendo had thrown overboard great ideas for the plot and the show became generic.
From that point it was going downhill more and more.
Every new season was a bit worser than the one before.
Almost every episode had the same boring events, just replaced with different characters and different locations.
It got a little bit better again during one of the last Johto seasons, because more exciting things happened in it, but after if was going downhill even faster.
When the Hoenn episodes started the concept was completely become boring.
I still watched it either, such a big fan was I.
It reached the deepest point in season 9, with just warming up old ideas.
At this time, I was about to give up hope that it will ever become better again and short before to show it my cold flank.
But then Season 10 came.
And it seemed like someone had suddenly set the trigger on quality again.
The plot became more creative, the drawings slightly better, a new character was introduced with a little bit more depth, the events happened were very much diversified again.
Already the first episodes showed how big the change was, cause Ash hadn't the slightest appearance in it, they were all centered around the new main character.
I even thought Ash was replaced and kicked out of the show first.
Even more impressive that his character was a girl, while Nintendo always seemed to make the Pokémon anime more for boys.
That impressiveness could also be seen during the next season, cause this girl character was always portrayed equal to Ash, even giving him big contra sometimes.
Which was already a revolution for the Pokémon anime.
It was like a dream.
The quality from season 10 on never reached the old quality of the first two ones, but it was a big difference to all the seasons since the third.
But, to draw the line to the new cartoon again, it never changed it's style completely.
It had still the same style that it had from the first episode on.
Which means, if this cartoon get's better in that way, with adding more originality and more creative ideas and more diversity in the plot, it would still have it's overall style, with humor just simply based on characters that are dumb and that act dumb.
And this dumb humor is the main reason why this show isn't good.
It can't break through that, cause the responsibles, that have to say something about it, especially Disney, will not let such major changes, from the style that was set up in the first episode, happen.
I feel sorry for Lauren for working on a show like this.
I'm sure she's not so happy with it like it seems to the outside.
1349175
You named some good examples for good Disney works, but Disney's big times are already over.
The only thing Disney produces nowadays are some kind of teenager sitcoms, if that's the right word for those monstrosities, that pretend to be funny, but are not funny at all, and some computer animated movies, which may be a success, but have almost no charme, since the excessive use of completely computer rendered animations, and that have just a very flat, unoriginal humor.
The only great thing that Disney will MAYBE make from now on is the new Star Wars trilogy, because I heard George Lucas already wrote the scripts for them many years ago.
But this is mostly the work of another person then, not the work from Disney.
And this only if Disney doesn't screw up Star Wars with it's own style.....
I even heard that Disney has big financial troubles, so, maybe the lights will go out soon.
And even if not, as I said, Disney has lost it's soul long time ago.
This company is just a soulless money-greedy marketing creature anymore.
The times of Disney are really over.
1349663
I never could:
Get into "Pokemon." I watched the first few episodes and didn't care for it at all. So I was taken completely by surprise when it become such a huge hit. To this day, I don't understand it--which is probably why I'll never be involved with anything that becomes a huge hit.
Mike
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Well, you're involved wiht My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, right?