I’ll be the first to admit I spend my obligatory few hours a day coiled up in front of the TV and even more clinging to that of the computer and its online outlet. I am pretty geeky. I watch anime, play a ton of video games, and I role play both freeform and tabletop given half the chance. These are my leisure activities. But there comes a time when I am either too tired or too frustrated with the plethora of morally bankrupt jackasses online who piss me off so much that I will lay down and watch a little TV. For those of you still following, you can stop waiting for the soft core porn music to cue.
I still spend time watching cartoons. And while I do love movie channels in small doses and the majority of the shows on Comedy Central, I spend a lot of time stuck on Cartoon Network. Why do I watch cartoons? I’m out of high school, out in the work force, college coming up... The fact is that I still enjoy animated movies with a passion. Never mind the stigma and ridicule for doing so at such an age. But you know what? They’ve gone too far now.
I’d say it was not long after the show had been introduced to the CN that I first got my glimpses of it. Its style was unerringly similar to Japanese anime, but I gave it the benefit of the doubt. It could just LOOK crappy and ripped off, and could be better than I’m imagining. So I decided to watch an episode. The animation was choppy, for it was a fight scene. It had certain reminiscent moments of Dragon Ball Z with its attempted scenes to make the characters look angry or moving faster via little motion lines in the background. But it was only then did I hear their screeching little voices, and see their painted flower-pink jet that not even a four year old girl would want. They called the train wreck Totally Spies. I called it “Totally Crap”.
Where did we go wrong? For the longest time, American cartoons had gone the way of Looney Tunes-esque episodes, that is, involving the same characters in different situations, in the early and late nineties. And these were ok for their time, but what I really look back to is that of the 80s.
Anyone remember the 80s? No, I don’t mean the giant froofy hair, tight pants so constricting you needed help donning them, or Michael Jackson. I refer, of course, to the cartoons of the era. The ones that pop out best to us all... Care Bears, Transformers, Thundercats, Teddy Ruxpin, My Little Pony... All kinds of childrens’ shows bubbled up around the mid and late eighties, and these usually are the ones we remember best. For the sake of argument, let’s use one of my favorite shows to compare to Totally Crap.
Teddy Ruxpin was one of my favorite shows in the eighties. I had taped episodes, which I still have might I add, and have watched over and over like you wouldn’t believe. I am immune to its Teletubby-esque cantrips of singing, so I’d like to point out the finer points of the show. It featured three main characters, a few very simple-minded villains, and the fantasy world they lived in by the name of “Grundo”. For those of you who play Neopets, Teddy Ruxpin came first. I don’t know if there’s a copyright violation or not; I don’t care. In any case, the adventures were simple, but they held significance. The entirety of the first season was devoted to the trio, along with meeting up with a prince, to getting to the “Hard to Find City”, and their adventures together while getting there. This, my friends, is what children’s programming should have: plot.
Take the average episode of Dexter’s Laboratory and search for a linear plot throughout the half hour. More likely than not, the two or more episodes have nothing to do with one another. In fact, many of the episodes have nothing to do with one another, and follow no set plotline. Now, I do love Dexter’s Laboratory, but I don’t think this is the way that cartoons should go. If Dexter had a linear goal to search for, whatever it may be, I have no doubt it’d be even more appealing.
But I digress. Totally Crap, from the few minutes I saw, seemed to be this: image. Solely image might I add. Twenty-six minutes of “GUH” with shiny graphics with a few catch phrases like “Whatever!” or “Totally!” stuffed in to make kids think it’s ‘hip’ or ‘cool’. Couldn’t they spend the entirety of this half-hour of mouth-flaps talking about something worthwhile, like grass growing?
A child’s show is a child’s show. There will be, more often than not, more than several elements that will be either annoying, inane, or just plain strange to an older viewer. Teddy Ruxpin was no exception to this rule, and had both singing of songs, cutesy fix-ups for their problems, lessons learned and all the usual things one finds in an episodes of Looney Tunes Babies, but without the lame factor of trying to milk off cartoons from over fifty years ago. I suppose this argument can be made for Totally Crap, but can it? I have watched about five minutes total of this show, and its story was shaky at best, and its story-telling procedures border on the pathetic. Oh hell, let’s be dangerous. It IS pathetic. Transition from scene to scene was awkward at best, while the characters existed as 1D girls living in a 2D world. Am I the only one who thought they were categorizing what high school-aged teens are like? I’m gonna just take a stab in the dark, but I don’t think every girl runs around like a horny slut concerned with their appearance. Well, not most of them anyway.
Why do they let stuff like this on the air when I can’t get a single story published? Is there some point where executives said “Ok, let’s put this crap on the air... Everyone else can suck it.” But you might be saying at this point, "DO YOU THINK YOU CAN DO BETTER!!11!" I would KILL to do a childrens’ cartoon, even if it was just for small children. That’s how much I love to write stories and animate. I think those who, even if just in appearances, put their heart into their work as animators are true gods in this world. For you see... I can respect a man (or woman) who tries to draw their best even if they have no talent, but I can not respect one who animates with only dollar signs in their eyes.
Maybe I’m being generous though. What do I know about Hollywood? All I know is that not everyone in the animation industry could have sold out yet... right?
All names, images and logos on this page are trademarked and copyrighted by their respective companies. All rights are reserved, but that doesn't make Totally Crap any easier to sit through, you bastards.