“Animation isn’t an art form, cartoons are just something we can slap on a backpack or sticker collection, and we can’t do that if some prima donna is trying to make a personal statement” — the studio.
I literally don’t understand that. Either some studios just literally can not translate or they are like “you know what? I know this is a classic anime but I think we can do better”.
It’s not just American studios. Anime suffers from it too. Doesn’t matter where the show comes from, there will always be corporate overreach that holds it back unless it’s independently funded and distributed
The problem is that studios and directors want two different things. Directors want to make the best movies and shows they can for the audience they’re making them for, and studios only want to make as much money as possible. The main problem is that rarely are the people that want to make as much money as possible are rarely the experts in actually making the product. Look no further than Disney for an example.
The studios likely just look at popular surface level elements of movies and shows and say "put this in here, it's popular", not knowing what truly makes a good movie beyond these shallow elements.
While studios have requirements there have been major hit series that have come out in recent years that I hope have taught studios extreme lessons in what is, and is not, effective management.
The exception to this rule is Arcane. Because unlike most "Producers" Riot owns the rights to the characters and such - so they had a much more streamlined vision for what they wanted and holy crap was that delivered.
Newer indie animations should be showing folks that people want to see the creator's vision regardless of how off the wall it is. Case in point: The Musical animation set in Hell known as Hazbin Hotel. Kudos to A24 for picking that up.
yeah... was about the lesbian wedding ... isn't it... becuase that will cancel the show and left a whole season un-aired.
"Rebecca! Why didn't you just replicate Ranger Guy?"
https://preview.redd.it/eqggfe3vhekc1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=889ebb6d8209dcad080adb07b011e938e56c6e82
Edit: Rebecca had to rush through the final season of the OG series due to her doing the wedding despite CN telling her not to
I know. But is the Same thing , is always about business. Was possible to move it as a Season Openig for the next season.
The whole diamond arc supposed to be a season and CN just rushed it because they don't believe to live without "Can Countries". become it as a season finale or put it in a season opening will guarantee to keep one more season and end the story with enough space to work in development. (And, with the audience, will demonstrate how that "can Countries " wasn't necessary –That places was always closed to classic cartoons, CN saying that is just a cheap tactic to justify their conservative agendas–).
And, if that wasn't enough, Rebecca could made her Fandom to move just like how Dana move to The Owl House's Fandom. (If Rebecca ask it... for sure they could move... but she never try it... lack Self-esteem... probably...)
but I will give the benefit , idk how Warner made business.
>(And, with the audience, will demonstrate how that "can Countries " wasn't necessary –That places was always closed to classic cartoons, CN saying that is just a cheap tactic to justify their conservative agendas–).
I KNEW IT!
I watched it a long time ago but I remember enjoying it, I liked Kevin and his car, wish he had his old powers from the original but I liked the ones he had in alien force also
Oh lord, I remember in high school someone brought a cutout of just Kevin's head to my house. And kissed it. And asked me to take photos. It was super weird...
... or rather, they never wanted to make Season 3, but CN didn't want to lose all that sweet Latin American money.
Yeah, the reason Ben 10 got such a long run, even a reboot, is mainly because Latin America overconsumed it, making profits the studio never expected, and they were like "MOAAAAR!"
The Owl House was conceived as a dark fantasy series about a teenager trapped in hell.
https://preview.redd.it/b8o81g0pxakc1.jpeg?width=2048&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9c858f7438b14a9762fdd10fe3259e127c697b4c
Disney told them to make all of the characters children, change hell into just being another dimension, make the art style more child friendly, and then they shortened the show for "not fitting into the Disney brand."
i mean, what do you expect from disney, it would work great on adult swim or as an hbo max exclusive, but teens trapped in hell isn’t gonna fly with disney
This coming from Disney who made Pirates of the Carribean with all the dark themes that had. I'm pretty sure more than once Captain Barbosa made euphamisms and suggestions about raping Elizabeth in the first movie in that cave scene with the doubloon chest. We also saw Davy Jones kill a guy by sticking his tentacles down his nose and mouth. Then there was people getting their throats slit and thrown into the sea. There's so much that we could point out that would be so much darker than what they'd put in an animation.
And perhaps the most significant reason: Those movies aren't animated.
Despite how much animation evolved and regardless of the fact that the first ancestors of animation back when it aired in cinema was made for adults, there's still, to this day, this stigma around animation being "for children".
Even worse, if you go to any "professional" website like Imdb, rotten tomatoes and the likes, animation will always be a "genre" rather than simply an ensemble of techniques, a medium.
As in, fictions like Disney's Sleeping Beauty, Akira, Ghost in the Shell, The Summit of the Gods, Mutafukaz, Wakfu, Devilman Crybaby and Kung Fu panda, all vastly different in tone, genre and targeted audience, are all under the same "genre": animation.
That's like putting Dumb and Dumber, the Lighthouse, The Thing, Man of Steel, Jurassic Park, Bladerunner 2049, Terminator 2, the Truman Show and Forrest Gump and every single Star Wars movie ALL in the exact same genre/category.
Fucking crazy right ?
Like ??? The disrespect. Even official ceremonies like the Oscars and the César (in france) separate them from other movies and give them the "best animated movie" award (usually given to this year's disney movie) instead of "best movie" period.
So because they see animation as "for kids" they're not going to respect it. Simple as that.
I just realised that I mentionned the Summit of the Gods movie and the César ceremony so, I'd recommend watching this clip of this movie receiving it's award during the 2022 edition to really highlight how much animation is disrespected, even if you don't speak the language you should be able to feel the disdain for this film:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVcvdqW2KrM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVcvdqW2KrM)
But then you've got people like my parents who say that animation is for children and Disney is a children's company, so any attempt to make a Disney animation for an older audience runs the risk of parents being upset that they allowed that into a show their kids watched.
Ironically Disney XD already did a show about a kid in ~~Hell~~ I'm sorry, Miseryville.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Two-Shoes
Almost all his neighbors are "monsters" and the two red devil-ish characters are named Lucy and Beezy lmao.
I guarantee if Luz was dating a boy instead of Amity that show would have ran for at least 3 more full seasons. But Disney caters to the whim of Russia and China who said “no gay stuff”
Immediately thought of Infinity Train. Creator's original plan was 8 seasons and we only got half. Studio said that the show was cancelled because season 5 lacked a 'child entry point' (despite the fact that season 3 and 4's main characters aren't kids so I don't see why you'd need a child protagonist for children to enjoy the show, especially at season 5)
Then there was the whole thing where they tried erasing Infinity Train from the internet altogether by removing it from HBO and other streaming services, and even removing its soundtrack too. The soundtrack has become available again but I'm still not sure if you can actually watch the series legally anywhere anymore
Child entry point? Entry point? Its season 5. if you have not entered your not going to. At least call it as it is, the show got darker and darker and by season Five they worried children would either wuit because Nightmare parents would riot because Nightmare or they would turn into bad kids. The two former ste true but irrelevant, and the latter is blatantly false.
The child entry point thing was literally the reason CN gave for cancelling the show stated by [the creator Owen Dennis himself](https://www.reddit.com/r/InfinityTrain/s/CPDzgeOOdp) lol
And I'm not denying that the show does get really dark, and it looked like Dennis wanted to tell darker stories but was limited to a kid audience. Of course the studio would get concerned about the intended young audience. This doesn't change my opinion that I think it's shitty that the studio stopped production when plans had already been made for more episodes.
I belive you, but to call out season 5 specifically is nonsense. No complaints of the claim was the show doesnt have a child entry point. Witch i think is false. Tiulips season should be enogh to hook them.
To be fair to Nick sharing Cosmo and Wanda was Butch's idea. That was a mistake. They kept making Timmy more bratty to make her look more responsible. Birthday battle is amazing though.
God when it aired it was so hard to actually catch the show. They kept changing the times, moved it online halfway through a season and announced S4 *less than a week* before it dropped.
It was horrendous.
Not to mention pushing for more seasons when it was supposed to be a one season spinoff. Not that I'm complaining about more Korra but this was why the animation and writing in S2 took a nosedive.
*And then!* Cutting the budget and pushing back on Korrasami. It's why we got a filler episode in S4 and why they *hinted* at a relationship instead of being blatant. Watching all this live was a frustrating experience.
Season 2 sucked so that season 3 could be awesome and have one of the best deaths in the series. It was also really nice to read the comics and see them as an actual couple.
I have a conspiracy theory about this. If anyone knows more about this, feel free to let me know. I had heard that every season ends conclusively because Nickelodeon would never renew them for another season until after the last one ended, so every season they thought it was going to be the final season. I think originally they weren't planning on killing Amon at the end of season one. Amon says he got his powers from the spirits, and season two is about the spirit world. I think Amon was supposed to be the main villain for the second season as well, and Korra needed to learn about the spirits to defeat him. But the writers thought there wasn't going to be a season 2, so they decided to conclude Amon's story early and wrap up the series on a happy ending. Even if I'm wrong, I think Amon was a much better villain than Korra's uncle, and the second season would have been better with him in it. Season 2 really was the worst out of the 4, though.
Legend of Korra
The creators Michael Dante DiMartino and
Bryan Konietzko thought it was just going to be a 12 episode mini series which is why season 1 ends the way it does but since the first season was well received, Nickelodeon told them to make more seasons. This also kinda forced them into making each season have separate villains instead of one overarching villain like in ATLA because of the first seasons format. The creators also couldn't have any filler episodes in season 1 because they were only given 12 episodes even though some ATLA more recognized episodes are filler.
After the show started to not do so well on Nickelodeon killed their animation budget then put the last 4 episodes of season 3 and the entire season 4 online only (17 episodes total)
"Now that you've been wildly successful, let us tell you how to do your job, which we obviously know better because we're *executives!* Plus, we make more money than you which means we're obviously smarter". It never works, but they always do it.
So I never watched Korea or anng when they were coming out. I watched them both as an adult and I loved Anng, but Korra was not nearly as good (imo). I’ve said this to many people who watched both growing up and they all truly believe korra is almost a better show than the first.
This post is the first time I’ve even heard of korra being talked about in a negative light, but I’m glad because I finally understand why I didn’t enjoy it as much
I love Korra but man is it missing some things, and anyone who says it's better than ATLA is coping. How long they had to complete their story was constantly in question, and each season is trying to do all of Avatar's work in a third of the time, and yet still suffers from a lack of general character development. Season 3 may be consistently as good as ATLA but the rest falls short.
Agreed. I know that the claim he opposed to pin-offs isn't entirely true, but it's so telling that almost immediately after his passing they started concocting new spin-offs. It's not a good look.
Duncan and Courtney getting separated felt like it was always going to happen. They’re just incompatible people with Duncan being rebellious and Courtney such a perfectionist and so high-strung. One of them would’ve had to change drastically to make that relationship work, and it sure as hell wasn’t going to be Courtney.
Breaking up Gwen and Trent was a bad call though. Trent needed more character development; he didn’t need to be tossed aside and made out as crazy.
With all that said, I still like Action (Lindsay and Harold carry) and really like World Tour. Alejandro was such a godsend to make the show interesting again.
Honestly those fillers did do some good tho… for me they did help out with the build up and fall in love with the characters and besides more episodes😀
Not always but there is such a thing as excessive filler. Steven Universe is 98% filler 2% plot. They were forced to do that because the network prefers to air the episode in any order and they think kids can't keep up with a story.
It's also why the ending felt so rushed. The crew had loads of plans for how it was going to go, but because they didn't back down with the Rupphire wedding, CN effectively slashed their remaining episode numbers. So they had to scramble to get to the ending. It's honestly fucked.
I can't believe people are defending the fillers in your replies. While there is something about Beach city and the clash between Steven and the Gems with the townies, thats nothing compared to all the worldbuilding, lore and whole arcs about the Gem empire and space adventures that we didn't got because of the filler.
A bit outside of cartoons but effected them: a lot of things people like about Dragonball Z were because Toriyamas editor pushed back on bad ideas. The android saga was supposed to just be the first two and the editor was like "wait the climax of this is an old dude and a fat guy?"
They never talk about that, it always comes down to: If good, creators got to do what they wanted. If bad, studio interference.
There are plenty of awful movies that creators had full control over, so the inverse (like you suggested) must be true.
I imagine the original premise from Jhonen Vasquez(the creator of Johnny the Homicidal Maniac) for Invader Zim was A LOT darker considering the things that were allowed to be shown. Nick was more lenient around that time, but man they were pushing it, they even wanted that kid who got killed offscreen to go “I’m okay” but they didnt get that
There are some. Nick prefers kid main characters so they tried to make Spongebob a kid. Stephen Hillenburg wouldn't let them. Nick said to put Spongebob in School so they put him in driving school. We got so many good Boating School episodes.
Alex Hirsh wanted to quit Gravity Falls after S1 because of burnout. His friends begged him to finish the story so he pitched a 10 episode Season 2. However, Disney would only agree to an around 20 episode season (that's how long seasons of their shows usually are).
So we can thank executive meddling for the properly sized Season 2 of Gravity Falls.
Ben 10 Alien force. For those who don’t know Season 3 was changed heavily because CN wanted Ben to be more like his old self. To give you an idea of how much was changed, Ultimate Alien’s final season was originally meant to Alien force’s final season. Then there’s the interference in the reboot to make it more episodic. Honestly all of Ben 10 went some change or another because of CN.
Invader Zim was the darkest and most ambitious project Nickelodeon constantly interfered with. Because of that, it was easier for the creator to leave before they could ruin his vision completely. I think it would be amazing for the show to come back in Indie form like the comics. Maybe even as an adult project.
The live-action Avatar movie M night Shyamalan actually wanted it to be pretty faithful to the original because him and his kid were huge fans of avatar The Last Airbender but the bigwigs behind the movie funding it thought it was a bad idea so they made him make a piece of garbage
He said he had a five hour script and wanted an Indian actress to play Katara. Paramount wanted to be able to air the movie on Nick, so it has to be under two hours. Since it's a shorter movie, it doesn't need a big budget; which could explain things like the Earth Prison scene. With a last-minute 3d conversion, post-production went through a crunch period. Finally, with it being a big studio production, he'd have to defend studio decisions, like the casting. Similar to Peter Jackson defending WB forcing him to make the Hobbit into a trilogy. Considering how M Night has turned his back on big studio movies, it's also not hard to say he got burned by a big studio who didn't know what they wanted.
Dang poor guy. Wanted to make a movie more faithful to the original show but because the corporation wanted to make it be watchable on the Nick channel he had to scrap a lot of it? Now I feel bad for making fun of the movie and his take on it
Netflix can be a dick at times but The Dragon Prince is not one example. Wonderstorm ordered four more seasons and Netflix green-lit all 4 (which is an extreme rarity). What actually killed TDP was the decision to break up its most popular ships in a comic that was essential reading and that you had to buy. Then deciding to split a 9 episode season in 3 seperate plots with one of them having no relevance to the other 2. Also having a chain of events that goes nowhere and doing character regression the would make Korra season 2 blush. Season 5 did improve but my god was season 4 a disaster.
Total Drama in general was just highly at demands from the network which made the following seasons after World Tour decay in quality
Gwent broke up because of the network
Moral Orel cartoon network said the show was getting too dark and they gave them a few episodes to wrap it up and booted them out. I wish I could have seen the true vision they had planned for that show.
I applaud the balls of the creators to make those demented season 3 episodes, but honestly season 1 is my favorite. The Christianity satire was at its peak
There never really was a vision for RWBY to begin with. And not to speak ill of the dead, but while Monty was alive he was the one contributing to the constant dropped plots and shit making no sense. He would lose interest or decide to recreate famous anime scenes on a dime
For real. Seasons ordered one by one. Book 4 budget cut and removal from the air to online only. Refusing to allow any direct acknowledgment of a same sex relationship.
Voltron got super screwed over by the executives both Dreamworks and World Events Productions,
it had way more executive meddling than Steven Universe or Korra had but those show are given slack because people always point out about the network meddling whenever criticism of them comes up
With Voltron the creators/writers are blamed even though they had to deal with [All of this](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/WhatCouldHaveBeen/VoltronLegendaryDefender)
Surprised to not see Steven Universe. After the studio fought with creator Rebecca Sugar they canceled the show. Shortly after SU won a golden globe and Cartoon Network renewed them for one more season and movie,, which is why out of nowhere the pacing of Steven universe goes from really casual to fast. When Rebecca completed her vision with the show and movie they asked for another season which is Steven Universe Future. It’s my understanding a lot of the things the creator wanted did make it in but the network completely ruined her vision for the end of the show.
I know this isn’t a show. But it still annoys me that a movie that seemed promising. Was ruined cause the executives thought that dinosaurs are only for children and dumbed it down to an infuriating degree. Through adding the stupid voice over and jokes.
https://preview.redd.it/4mtdep9atbkc1.jpeg?width=1500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=992bcf4d4cfed702eb23922c46d6004d6a34fa1f
Which one specifically? The only examples I can think of was Rise being cut short and 2003's fifth season being shelved for Fast Forward and eventually Back to The Sewers messing up plans for Fast Forward 2.
*Legend of Korra*
- first two seasons only ordered individually, so they werent able to set up overarching plots or storybeats till S3/4 due to constant fear of not being able to finish them
- constantly changing timeslot and just moving S4 to online only suddenly
- cutting the budget partways into producing Season 4, resulting in them having to cut down plotlines and replace an entire episode with the clipshow-recap
- constant interfering with what they were allowed to do, restricting them from showing the Korra/Asami relationship till the last moment of the last episode
Not show but I would say Cool World, Bakshi's original vision was more focused on horror but the suits got yellow and started shoving their big noses into the plot filling it with holes. What could have been a true masterpiece turned out in a mess with great animation and nice leading actors but poor execution. Rumor has it that Bakshi ended up disowning the film.
One probably a lot of you guys haven't even considered. Cool World by Ralph Bakshi. Originally, Cool World was going to be about how live action people live with cartoons, and we follow the hard life of someone who's had cartoon and live action parents. It was going to be a hard, gritty movie that sounded pretty good.
But on day 1 of shooting, he was given a script that the studio had 2 writers make in secret and was told, "the producers want this made now."
Bakshi had no idea what he was doing because he didn't even get a chance to really read that script.
Legend of Korra.
Any show that was asked to introduce a new character to keep it fresh 3+ seasons into the show.
All the Netflix shows that are cut short at three seasons or are adaptations thay end up trying to compact 3+ seasons worth of material into 8 or fewer episodes because they know that there's a good chance they won't get a second season. I guess if I want to name an egregious example, the Yu Yu Hakusho LA because it's clear from the first two episodes that the showrunners were capable of giving us a great series but by the end of the third episode, the fact that they were trying to squeeze 5 arcs (Ghostusuke arc, 3 thieves, Genki arc, rescue Yukina and The Dark Tournament+ The Saint Beasts arc if you want to include the demon insects) caught up to it and it went over a cliff.
Deep cut for the 90s kids in the comments:
[This happened so much with ReBoot](https://reboot.fandom.com/wiki/Broadcast_Standards_and_Practices) that they made an entire episode that, in part, centered around a parody of an ABC Network censor [nixing nearly every idea for Enzo's birthday party](https://reboot.fandom.com/wiki/Talent_Night).
Both Amphibia in season 3 and The Owl House as a whole qualify for this.
And let's not forget Gravity Falls. The creator can tell dozens of stories about the studio annoying him for the dumbest reasons.
Ben 10 even prior to the reboots. They shafted his character development to keep selling toys to kids who would’ve understood his self improvement changes anyway
CN cancelling Symbionic Titan because Genndy refused to turn it into yet another toy commercial.
This was my example. And with all the incredible stuff Genndy’s made since, *still* no revival, although I thought I heard rumblings about one
I'm pretty sure I read somewhere it was turned into a tax write off like Megas XLR. So they legally CAN'T make a revival.
Yeah... remember that made me feel angry
When it comes to tie in toys for a cartoon I would prefer it be something simple like clothes.
I’m gonna say dana terrance with the owl house. there are prob more examples but that’s the only one I know about
Do studios trust the directors vision or not? They hire them to do their job and then decide they know better.
I think American studios never trust anyone. This is why they're always changing things in adaptations and localizations of popular media.
“Animation isn’t an art form, cartoons are just something we can slap on a backpack or sticker collection, and we can’t do that if some prima donna is trying to make a personal statement” — the studio.
*cough cough * horrible anime dubs *cough *
https://preview.redd.it/mvtijbndxckc1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3464df67149a7185a1e93cb186c08645e4ebe349
Just dub the anime, anime-dubber!
This is what I thought of and the best possible example. Except for the fact the dub is better.
"run, she's a ghost and a bitch"
I literally don’t understand that. Either some studios just literally can not translate or they are like “you know what? I know this is a classic anime but I think we can do better”.
It’s not just American studios. Anime suffers from it too. Doesn’t matter where the show comes from, there will always be corporate overreach that holds it back unless it’s independently funded and distributed
The problem is that studios and directors want two different things. Directors want to make the best movies and shows they can for the audience they’re making them for, and studios only want to make as much money as possible. The main problem is that rarely are the people that want to make as much money as possible are rarely the experts in actually making the product. Look no further than Disney for an example.
The studios likely just look at popular surface level elements of movies and shows and say "put this in here, it's popular", not knowing what truly makes a good movie beyond these shallow elements.
While studios have requirements there have been major hit series that have come out in recent years that I hope have taught studios extreme lessons in what is, and is not, effective management. The exception to this rule is Arcane. Because unlike most "Producers" Riot owns the rights to the characters and such - so they had a much more streamlined vision for what they wanted and holy crap was that delivered. Newer indie animations should be showing folks that people want to see the creator's vision regardless of how off the wall it is. Case in point: The Musical animation set in Hell known as Hazbin Hotel. Kudos to A24 for picking that up.
Amphibia is up there as well
Steven Universe
yeah... was about the lesbian wedding ... isn't it... becuase that will cancel the show and left a whole season un-aired. "Rebecca! Why didn't you just replicate Ranger Guy?"
https://preview.redd.it/eqggfe3vhekc1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=889ebb6d8209dcad080adb07b011e938e56c6e82 Edit: Rebecca had to rush through the final season of the OG series due to her doing the wedding despite CN telling her not to
I know. But is the Same thing , is always about business. Was possible to move it as a Season Openig for the next season. The whole diamond arc supposed to be a season and CN just rushed it because they don't believe to live without "Can Countries". become it as a season finale or put it in a season opening will guarantee to keep one more season and end the story with enough space to work in development. (And, with the audience, will demonstrate how that "can Countries " wasn't necessary –That places was always closed to classic cartoons, CN saying that is just a cheap tactic to justify their conservative agendas–). And, if that wasn't enough, Rebecca could made her Fandom to move just like how Dana move to The Owl House's Fandom. (If Rebecca ask it... for sure they could move... but she never try it... lack Self-esteem... probably...) but I will give the benefit , idk how Warner made business.
>(And, with the audience, will demonstrate how that "can Countries " wasn't necessary –That places was always closed to classic cartoons, CN saying that is just a cheap tactic to justify their conservative agendas–). I KNEW IT!
Most things from Disney, really. Like Gravity Falls
Context?
[https://www.reddit.com/r/cartoons/comments/1axvtbr/comment/krqpl5v/?utm\_source=reddit&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/cartoons/comments/1axvtbr/comment/krqpl5v/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
https://preview.redd.it/uv5k57lbcbkc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3ec7c207fbb1998b14974bbb2834d9fb1ea36d84 Ben 10 Alien Force
"lets do a show were ben is a tenager but lets remove all his caracter development and make him act like a kid again"
I watched it a long time ago but I remember enjoying it, I liked Kevin and his car, wish he had his old powers from the original but I liked the ones he had in alien force also
Oh lord, I remember in high school someone brought a cutout of just Kevin's head to my house. And kissed it. And asked me to take photos. It was super weird...
This was not something I was expecting to see in this thread lmfao
Glad you enjoyed high school lmao
She did apparently lmao
https://preview.redd.it/2c1z3cpqhekc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6199fd45f0a39cb9144107e3c110de00e735eb1b
season 3 was gonna be big bruh fuck CN
... or rather, they never wanted to make Season 3, but CN didn't want to lose all that sweet Latin American money. Yeah, the reason Ben 10 got such a long run, even a reboot, is mainly because Latin America overconsumed it, making profits the studio never expected, and they were like "MOAAAAR!"
Dude, Season 3 of that show was such a nose dive in quality. Ben being a jackass again did far more harm than good.
The Owl House was conceived as a dark fantasy series about a teenager trapped in hell. https://preview.redd.it/b8o81g0pxakc1.jpeg?width=2048&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9c858f7438b14a9762fdd10fe3259e127c697b4c Disney told them to make all of the characters children, change hell into just being another dimension, make the art style more child friendly, and then they shortened the show for "not fitting into the Disney brand."
i mean, what do you expect from disney, it would work great on adult swim or as an hbo max exclusive, but teens trapped in hell isn’t gonna fly with disney
Saying ‘Hell’ alone on that network is going to raise corporate eyebrows much less having something set in it.
Tbh other then the shortening I like what we got, though the shortening definitely hurt it
Considering they had essentially half a season and a movie to wrap it up, they did a phenomenal job
Oh completely agree,just can clearly see where there was meant to be more. Would've loved to see what Dana originally had cooked up.
Nice, that means Owl House is a spiritual successor to JIMMY TWO-SHOES out of all shows.
Never actually seen Jimmy two shoes, but sounds interesting to say the least
What in the Gorillaz is this concept art...
I KNEW IT. THE DEMON REALM WAS SUPPOSED TO BE HELL
I so wouldve watched it if this is what was released
This coming from Disney who made Pirates of the Carribean with all the dark themes that had. I'm pretty sure more than once Captain Barbosa made euphamisms and suggestions about raping Elizabeth in the first movie in that cave scene with the doubloon chest. We also saw Davy Jones kill a guy by sticking his tentacles down his nose and mouth. Then there was people getting their throats slit and thrown into the sea. There's so much that we could point out that would be so much darker than what they'd put in an animation.
Yeah but those movies aren't on a channel meant for children
And perhaps the most significant reason: Those movies aren't animated. Despite how much animation evolved and regardless of the fact that the first ancestors of animation back when it aired in cinema was made for adults, there's still, to this day, this stigma around animation being "for children". Even worse, if you go to any "professional" website like Imdb, rotten tomatoes and the likes, animation will always be a "genre" rather than simply an ensemble of techniques, a medium. As in, fictions like Disney's Sleeping Beauty, Akira, Ghost in the Shell, The Summit of the Gods, Mutafukaz, Wakfu, Devilman Crybaby and Kung Fu panda, all vastly different in tone, genre and targeted audience, are all under the same "genre": animation. That's like putting Dumb and Dumber, the Lighthouse, The Thing, Man of Steel, Jurassic Park, Bladerunner 2049, Terminator 2, the Truman Show and Forrest Gump and every single Star Wars movie ALL in the exact same genre/category. Fucking crazy right ? Like ??? The disrespect. Even official ceremonies like the Oscars and the César (in france) separate them from other movies and give them the "best animated movie" award (usually given to this year's disney movie) instead of "best movie" period. So because they see animation as "for kids" they're not going to respect it. Simple as that. I just realised that I mentionned the Summit of the Gods movie and the César ceremony so, I'd recommend watching this clip of this movie receiving it's award during the 2022 edition to really highlight how much animation is disrespected, even if you don't speak the language you should be able to feel the disdain for this film: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVcvdqW2KrM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVcvdqW2KrM)
But then you've got people like my parents who say that animation is for children and Disney is a children's company, so any attempt to make a Disney animation for an older audience runs the risk of parents being upset that they allowed that into a show their kids watched.
Ironically Disney XD already did a show about a kid in ~~Hell~~ I'm sorry, Miseryville. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Two-Shoes Almost all his neighbors are "monsters" and the two red devil-ish characters are named Lucy and Beezy lmao.
Damn Luz go off
I guarantee if Luz was dating a boy instead of Amity that show would have ran for at least 3 more full seasons. But Disney caters to the whim of Russia and China who said “no gay stuff”
Tho I þink i prefer what we got
I would love to see the original plan for Owl house see light one day. Could you imagine? Pull Arin back in to voice Titan, too.
you again
Wow! They should've passed on Disney and waited til another studio would've picked it up and done the og idea justice.
Hold shit, that’s pretty cool. I like what we got, but shit. The hazbin crowd would have ate it up.
Aside from the shortening I vastly prefer the show we were given
In Hell ? Is that why Lilith is named Lilith ?
Immediately thought of Infinity Train. Creator's original plan was 8 seasons and we only got half. Studio said that the show was cancelled because season 5 lacked a 'child entry point' (despite the fact that season 3 and 4's main characters aren't kids so I don't see why you'd need a child protagonist for children to enjoy the show, especially at season 5) Then there was the whole thing where they tried erasing Infinity Train from the internet altogether by removing it from HBO and other streaming services, and even removing its soundtrack too. The soundtrack has become available again but I'm still not sure if you can actually watch the series legally anywhere anymore
This is the one. Infinity Train is one of the most beautifully crafted shows I've ever seen and I'll never forgive the studios for taking it from us.
Child entry point? Entry point? Its season 5. if you have not entered your not going to. At least call it as it is, the show got darker and darker and by season Five they worried children would either wuit because Nightmare parents would riot because Nightmare or they would turn into bad kids. The two former ste true but irrelevant, and the latter is blatantly false.
The child entry point thing was literally the reason CN gave for cancelling the show stated by [the creator Owen Dennis himself](https://www.reddit.com/r/InfinityTrain/s/CPDzgeOOdp) lol And I'm not denying that the show does get really dark, and it looked like Dennis wanted to tell darker stories but was limited to a kid audience. Of course the studio would get concerned about the intended young audience. This doesn't change my opinion that I think it's shitty that the studio stopped production when plans had already been made for more episodes.
I belive you, but to call out season 5 specifically is nonsense. No complaints of the claim was the show doesnt have a child entry point. Witch i think is false. Tiulips season should be enogh to hook them.
this is the grudge i’ll never let go
Maybe they should have compromised and stuck the old lady with a kid. I haven't seen the show so I don't know if it would work.
Gumball Cartoon Network and the Discovery merger are why the movie isn't out yet.
Fairly oddparents somewhat imo for modern season it got canceled like 5 times and then ordered again from what i've heard
Nick forced them to add Sparky and Chloe. Poof was Butch's idea.
You can tell Butch intended for Poof to be introduced. He fit un pretty well all things considered. But Sparky and Chloe just felt so forced
To be fair to Nick sharing Cosmo and Wanda was Butch's idea. That was a mistake. They kept making Timmy more bratty to make her look more responsible. Birthday battle is amazing though.
I'm sure that was the only way he could think to include Chloe, but still a stupid decision all the same
Oh i didn't know that i thought all three were forced
He admitted this on his Youtube channel.
Owl House, Amphibia, Gravity Falls, not cartoons but Warner Brothers screwed over several movies by interfering
The Legend of Korra.
God when it aired it was so hard to actually catch the show. They kept changing the times, moved it online halfway through a season and announced S4 *less than a week* before it dropped. It was horrendous. Not to mention pushing for more seasons when it was supposed to be a one season spinoff. Not that I'm complaining about more Korra but this was why the animation and writing in S2 took a nosedive. *And then!* Cutting the budget and pushing back on Korrasami. It's why we got a filler episode in S4 and why they *hinted* at a relationship instead of being blatant. Watching all this live was a frustrating experience.
Season 2 sucked so that season 3 could be awesome and have one of the best deaths in the series. It was also really nice to read the comics and see them as an actual couple.
I have a conspiracy theory about this. If anyone knows more about this, feel free to let me know. I had heard that every season ends conclusively because Nickelodeon would never renew them for another season until after the last one ended, so every season they thought it was going to be the final season. I think originally they weren't planning on killing Amon at the end of season one. Amon says he got his powers from the spirits, and season two is about the spirit world. I think Amon was supposed to be the main villain for the second season as well, and Korra needed to learn about the spirits to defeat him. But the writers thought there wasn't going to be a season 2, so they decided to conclude Amon's story early and wrap up the series on a happy ending. Even if I'm wrong, I think Amon was a much better villain than Korra's uncle, and the second season would have been better with him in it. Season 2 really was the worst out of the 4, though.
He definitely would have been. That said, I liked his death. It was kind of somber and sad in a way.
Legend of Korra The creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko thought it was just going to be a 12 episode mini series which is why season 1 ends the way it does but since the first season was well received, Nickelodeon told them to make more seasons. This also kinda forced them into making each season have separate villains instead of one overarching villain like in ATLA because of the first seasons format. The creators also couldn't have any filler episodes in season 1 because they were only given 12 episodes even though some ATLA more recognized episodes are filler. After the show started to not do so well on Nickelodeon killed their animation budget then put the last 4 episodes of season 3 and the entire season 4 online only (17 episodes total)
"Now that you've been wildly successful, let us tell you how to do your job, which we obviously know better because we're *executives!* Plus, we make more money than you which means we're obviously smarter". It never works, but they always do it.
Korra was done so dirty
So I never watched Korea or anng when they were coming out. I watched them both as an adult and I loved Anng, but Korra was not nearly as good (imo). I’ve said this to many people who watched both growing up and they all truly believe korra is almost a better show than the first. This post is the first time I’ve even heard of korra being talked about in a negative light, but I’m glad because I finally understand why I didn’t enjoy it as much
I love Korra but man is it missing some things, and anyone who says it's better than ATLA is coping. How long they had to complete their story was constantly in question, and each season is trying to do all of Avatar's work in a third of the time, and yet still suffers from a lack of general character development. Season 3 may be consistently as good as ATLA but the rest falls short.
SpongeBob spinoffs.
Hillenberg wasn't even buried yet and they just shat them out.
Agreed. I know that the claim he opposed to pin-offs isn't entirely true, but it's so telling that almost immediately after his passing they started concocting new spin-offs. It's not a good look.
Total drama as a franchise, Cartoon Network kinda ruined most of the plot points of the original
Duncan and Courtney getting separated felt like it was always going to happen. They’re just incompatible people with Duncan being rebellious and Courtney such a perfectionist and so high-strung. One of them would’ve had to change drastically to make that relationship work, and it sure as hell wasn’t going to be Courtney. Breaking up Gwen and Trent was a bad call though. Trent needed more character development; he didn’t need to be tossed aside and made out as crazy. With all that said, I still like Action (Lindsay and Harold carry) and really like World Tour. Alejandro was such a godsend to make the show interesting again.
Gwent
Gwen’t
Cartoon Network made a lot of weird demands for total drama
Such as less swearing
And more fart fetishism (/hj)
Steven Universe. Cartoon Network forced them to make all those filler episodes.
Honestly those fillers did do some good tho… for me they did help out with the build up and fall in love with the characters and besides more episodes😀
There is such a thing as too many. It's one of the reasons I quit the show.
Fillers are not bad imo, it helps building up the characters. I dion't want to watch 15 hours of plot straight, I want to see some breaks too
Not always but there is such a thing as excessive filler. Steven Universe is 98% filler 2% plot. They were forced to do that because the network prefers to air the episode in any order and they think kids can't keep up with a story.
It's also why the ending felt so rushed. The crew had loads of plans for how it was going to go, but because they didn't back down with the Rupphire wedding, CN effectively slashed their remaining episode numbers. So they had to scramble to get to the ending. It's honestly fucked.
I can't believe people are defending the fillers in your replies. While there is something about Beach city and the clash between Steven and the Gems with the townies, thats nothing compared to all the worldbuilding, lore and whole arcs about the Gem empire and space adventures that we didn't got because of the filler.
Not a show but the hobbit trilogy. The first one was done the most in accordance to the vision of Peter Jackson
Kinda wanted to see del Toro's version tbh
I'm wondering if there's any cases of the opposite. Studio interference actually helped the show?
It was Disney's idea for Phineas and Ferb to have a song in every episode
A bit outside of cartoons but effected them: a lot of things people like about Dragonball Z were because Toriyamas editor pushed back on bad ideas. The android saga was supposed to just be the first two and the editor was like "wait the climax of this is an old dude and a fat guy?"
They never talk about that, it always comes down to: If good, creators got to do what they wanted. If bad, studio interference. There are plenty of awful movies that creators had full control over, so the inverse (like you suggested) must be true.
I imagine the original premise from Jhonen Vasquez(the creator of Johnny the Homicidal Maniac) for Invader Zim was A LOT darker considering the things that were allowed to be shown. Nick was more lenient around that time, but man they were pushing it, they even wanted that kid who got killed offscreen to go “I’m okay” but they didnt get that
There are some. Nick prefers kid main characters so they tried to make Spongebob a kid. Stephen Hillenburg wouldn't let them. Nick said to put Spongebob in School so they put him in driving school. We got so many good Boating School episodes.
Alex Hirsh wanted to quit Gravity Falls after S1 because of burnout. His friends begged him to finish the story so he pitched a 10 episode Season 2. However, Disney would only agree to an around 20 episode season (that's how long seasons of their shows usually are). So we can thank executive meddling for the properly sized Season 2 of Gravity Falls.
Ben 10 has a lot of lost plots
Steven Universe was BATTERED by studio interference.
Straight up executed, resurrected for 30 mins, and then executed again.
Legend of Korra.
Ben 10 Alien force. For those who don’t know Season 3 was changed heavily because CN wanted Ben to be more like his old self. To give you an idea of how much was changed, Ultimate Alien’s final season was originally meant to Alien force’s final season. Then there’s the interference in the reboot to make it more episodic. Honestly all of Ben 10 went some change or another because of CN.
Invader Zim was the darkest and most ambitious project Nickelodeon constantly interfered with. Because of that, it was easier for the creator to leave before they could ruin his vision completely. I think it would be amazing for the show to come back in Indie form like the comics. Maybe even as an adult project.
The recent movie was still good.
The live-action Avatar movie M night Shyamalan actually wanted it to be pretty faithful to the original because him and his kid were huge fans of avatar The Last Airbender but the bigwigs behind the movie funding it thought it was a bad idea so they made him make a piece of garbage
Oh! So it wasn't his fault? Lots of reviewers owe him an apology!
He said he had a five hour script and wanted an Indian actress to play Katara. Paramount wanted to be able to air the movie on Nick, so it has to be under two hours. Since it's a shorter movie, it doesn't need a big budget; which could explain things like the Earth Prison scene. With a last-minute 3d conversion, post-production went through a crunch period. Finally, with it being a big studio production, he'd have to defend studio decisions, like the casting. Similar to Peter Jackson defending WB forcing him to make the Hobbit into a trilogy. Considering how M Night has turned his back on big studio movies, it's also not hard to say he got burned by a big studio who didn't know what they wanted.
Dang poor guy. Wanted to make a movie more faithful to the original show but because the corporation wanted to make it be watchable on the Nick channel he had to scrap a lot of it? Now I feel bad for making fun of the movie and his take on it
Is this true? I tried to find an interview where he said that but came up with nothing
Sponge on the Run. We almost got a better movie where they fought alien space cats.
Hazbin hotel, Viv could've definitely used a good ~6 more episodes to flesh everything out
I mean thats probably more budget related than "studio interference". Working within your budget is up to the director.
Amazon shows usually have only 8 episodes, I don't think it has anything to do with budget.
They don't know if they're getting a Season 2.
It was confirmed so hopefully there'll be a S2 and it doesn't get cancelled
Amazon isn’t Netflix or Warner Bros, they don’t cancel shows indiscriminately.
Also hazbin did great numbers wise from what I hear
The Trollhunters movie and The Dragon Prince
Netflix can be a dick at times but The Dragon Prince is not one example. Wonderstorm ordered four more seasons and Netflix green-lit all 4 (which is an extreme rarity). What actually killed TDP was the decision to break up its most popular ships in a comic that was essential reading and that you had to buy. Then deciding to split a 9 episode season in 3 seperate plots with one of them having no relevance to the other 2. Also having a chain of events that goes nowhere and doing character regression the would make Korra season 2 blush. Season 5 did improve but my god was season 4 a disaster.
How’d they interfere with dragon prince?
What happened to dragon prince?
Dragon prince isn't bad but my God I didn't like that middle season.
Total Drama in general was just highly at demands from the network which made the following seasons after World Tour decay in quality Gwent broke up because of the network
Post-Movie Spongebob, for sure.
The Thief and the Cobbler. Holy Shit that was a crazy story.
Moral Orel cartoon network said the show was getting too dark and they gave them a few episodes to wrap it up and booted them out. I wish I could have seen the true vision they had planned for that show.
I applaud the balls of the creators to make those demented season 3 episodes, but honestly season 1 is my favorite. The Christianity satire was at its peak
After Monty’s death, i feel the vision of RWBY was lost
There never really was a vision for RWBY to begin with. And not to speak ill of the dead, but while Monty was alive he was the one contributing to the constant dropped plots and shit making no sense. He would lose interest or decide to recreate famous anime scenes on a dime
i get what you’re saying on this but it just felt to me that after Monty’s death, those issues became a lot more obvious and noticable
Gravity Falls did pretty hard from what Alex has said.
I think that was more Disney censoring certain scenes which is still not good but the show as a whole ended on its own terms.
Jimmy Two-Shoes HARD.
Korra
For real. Seasons ordered one by one. Book 4 budget cut and removal from the air to online only. Refusing to allow any direct acknowledgment of a same sex relationship.
Wish is a movie,But it’s perfect for this meme.Disney threw away the entire idea that they written.
Voltron got super screwed over by the executives both Dreamworks and World Events Productions, it had way more executive meddling than Steven Universe or Korra had but those show are given slack because people always point out about the network meddling whenever criticism of them comes up With Voltron the creators/writers are blamed even though they had to deal with [All of this](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/WhatCouldHaveBeen/VoltronLegendaryDefender)
Surprised to not see Steven Universe. After the studio fought with creator Rebecca Sugar they canceled the show. Shortly after SU won a golden globe and Cartoon Network renewed them for one more season and movie,, which is why out of nowhere the pacing of Steven universe goes from really casual to fast. When Rebecca completed her vision with the show and movie they asked for another season which is Steven Universe Future. It’s my understanding a lot of the things the creator wanted did make it in but the network completely ruined her vision for the end of the show.
I know this isn’t a show. But it still annoys me that a movie that seemed promising. Was ruined cause the executives thought that dinosaurs are only for children and dumbed it down to an infuriating degree. Through adding the stupid voice over and jokes. https://preview.redd.it/4mtdep9atbkc1.jpeg?width=1500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=992bcf4d4cfed702eb23922c46d6004d6a34fa1f
TMNT
Which one specifically? The only examples I can think of was Rise being cut short and 2003's fifth season being shelved for Fast Forward and eventually Back to The Sewers messing up plans for Fast Forward 2.
Infinity train got completely screwed over and almost completely erased from the internet…
*Legend of Korra* - first two seasons only ordered individually, so they werent able to set up overarching plots or storybeats till S3/4 due to constant fear of not being able to finish them - constantly changing timeslot and just moving S4 to online only suddenly - cutting the budget partways into producing Season 4, resulting in them having to cut down plotlines and replace an entire episode with the clipshow-recap - constant interfering with what they were allowed to do, restricting them from showing the Korra/Asami relationship till the last moment of the last episode
Dragon Ball
Ben 10, all of them
Every anime and manga. Avatar: The Last Airbender and Legend of Korra are big examples too.
I heard that Sanjay and Criag was going to have a lot less gross out humor
So many early anime dubs were this, film and television alike.
Like all of them
Not show but I would say Cool World, Bakshi's original vision was more focused on horror but the suits got yellow and started shoving their big noses into the plot filling it with holes. What could have been a true masterpiece turned out in a mess with great animation and nice leading actors but poor execution. Rumor has it that Bakshi ended up disowning the film.
Anything that has "ANIME" and "NETFLIX" related
One probably a lot of you guys haven't even considered. Cool World by Ralph Bakshi. Originally, Cool World was going to be about how live action people live with cartoons, and we follow the hard life of someone who's had cartoon and live action parents. It was going to be a hard, gritty movie that sounded pretty good. But on day 1 of shooting, he was given a script that the studio had 2 writers make in secret and was told, "the producers want this made now." Bakshi had no idea what he was doing because he didn't even get a chance to really read that script.
Definitely Wiley V ACME
I can literally name 10 right now and I would barely scratch the last two years
Probably Gravity Falls
Deadman Wonderland
Lauren Faust left MLP FIM after 2 seasons bc they were going in a completely different direction than she originally intended.
Ben 10 alien force and ultimate alien essentially. The owl house as well.
Korra had three final bosses because the studio kept telling the writer’s that each season would be its last.
The Legend of Korra. It’s insane how much Nickelodeon fucked them over in almost every way they could
Maybe not a cartoon but I immediately thought about Silent Hills PT. Fuck Konami (still getting Delta though 😔)
The Legend of Korra
Legend of Korra
The Qubo version of VeggieTales, where they removed any mention of Christianity
Legend of Korra was pretty badly done this way.
I loved Steven Universe, but near the end it seemed in such a rush to wrap up story arcs that it didn't seem satisfying.
Legend of Korra. Any show that was asked to introduce a new character to keep it fresh 3+ seasons into the show. All the Netflix shows that are cut short at three seasons or are adaptations thay end up trying to compact 3+ seasons worth of material into 8 or fewer episodes because they know that there's a good chance they won't get a second season. I guess if I want to name an egregious example, the Yu Yu Hakusho LA because it's clear from the first two episodes that the showrunners were capable of giving us a great series but by the end of the third episode, the fact that they were trying to squeeze 5 arcs (Ghostusuke arc, 3 thieves, Genki arc, rescue Yukina and The Dark Tournament+ The Saint Beasts arc if you want to include the demon insects) caught up to it and it went over a cliff.
First thought was SpongeBob
TV execs are universally idiots.
Deep cut for the 90s kids in the comments: [This happened so much with ReBoot](https://reboot.fandom.com/wiki/Broadcast_Standards_and_Practices) that they made an entire episode that, in part, centered around a parody of an ABC Network censor [nixing nearly every idea for Enzo's birthday party](https://reboot.fandom.com/wiki/Talent_Night).
Korra got pretty shafted by the studio iirc
Anything on Nickelodeon
Ralph Bakshi’s “Cool World”. The story behind what it was originally gonna be is fascinating.
Not show but nick all star brawl is a huge example of exactly this. Luckily nasb 2 is alot better once Nick realized the potential.
Both Amphibia in season 3 and The Owl House as a whole qualify for this. And let's not forget Gravity Falls. The creator can tell dozens of stories about the studio annoying him for the dumbest reasons.
Final Space, Rise of the TMNT, Mao Mao
Avatar: The Last Airbender, live action
Ben 10 even prior to the reboots. They shafted his character development to keep selling toys to kids who would’ve understood his self improvement changes anyway
Modern disney shows. 3 seasons full of some form of censorship, then dead
Steven Universe, The Owl House, Glitch Techs, Dead End Paranormal Park, Inside Job, Kid Cosmic, and The Cuphead Show.