r/NonPoliticalTwitter • u/saucey_dawg0023 • 8h ago
Serious This is the state that western animation on TV is at right now.
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u/That_Guy_You_Know_71 8h ago
I'm sorry, I'm still getting used to the fact that Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon are under the same parent company now. Feels absolutely vile to think about after they've been direct competitors for my entire life...
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u/SethBurrow 8h ago
Yeah and now they’re just supposed to french kiss and be the same thing now??
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u/CourtingBoredom 7h ago
Hopefully not if they're supposedly sisters....
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u/Motor_Sentence1713 6h ago
they cant exactly inbreed just let them have their fun before theyre taken out back
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u/jacksonvstheworld 8h ago
I thought the original tweet had no idea what a sister network was until I read your comment. Never even dawned on me once in the months since the merger was announced. This is kind of disgusting.
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u/The_Abjectator 5h ago
I still can't get over the fact that SEGA puts out games on Nintendo. It never gets easier...
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u/Appropriate-Map-3652 2h ago
At least SEGA is still it's own company. This is like if SEGA got bought out by Nintendo.
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u/upon-taken 5h ago
Basically your manager and another manager in the same company are competing for that chair and that bonus. It’s not that hard to comprehend.
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u/GreenPhoen1x 7h ago
That is more a byproduct of the decline of broadcast TV than anything to do with the health or not of Western animation. The development has moved to streaming services and online sites that are more relevant and the obvious future.
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u/Doodley3D 3h ago edited 2h ago
This is true but the Western animation industry absolutely is in an extremely bad spot right now, and major studios not greenlighting anything in the past few years has absolutely contributed to that. They were union work and very stable income for a lot of people in the animation industry. Streaming services do not greenlight nearly as much animation as network TV did, and anything that does get greenlit only gets one season.
If you follow industry workers you will hear about a lot of people with years of exp, including people that have made shows for these networks, struggling to find work. And the most well known of those people having an extremely difficult time selling shows.
CN and Nick's current state is more specifically due to the mergers and acquisitions that have been happening for a while now, as well as their core audience disappearing to Youtube and gaming. (EDIT: Here is a source. So, to be specific, they are not watching CN and Nick's streaming services either.) They have no idea what to do about it but are extremely risk averse, so they just do nothing.
Adult Swim still does well because its audience is primarily adults that still watch broadcast, and CN has been expanding their time slot year over year.
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u/EdgySniper1 6h ago
Yeah, honestly animated media is still pumping out bangers, it's just that most creators turn to on-demand streaming (or hell, even sites like YouTube) instead of legacy cable TV.
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u/Mama_Mega 6h ago
And those "bangers" all get canceled five seconds before episode one airs. Streaming companies fucking hate animation.
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u/Appropriate-Map-3652 2h ago
Depends on the kind of animation. It feels like Netflix tries to sell me a new "adult" animation every week.
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u/Mama_Mega 1h ago
Netflix be like "we'll cancel every flashy artsy-fartsy animated show and give their budgets to Big Mouth, our single biggest draw!"
Meanwhile Big Mouth be like "yeah, we make the intern do the animation in exchange for a bag of chips. We spend the budget on drugs."
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u/the_quark 3h ago
I think it's also simply that these networks got bought. They might make sense as standalone businesses, but as part of some massive conglomerate the parent company says "Why would I invest a dollar here when I can make triple the return investing it in another part of my business?"
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u/timbotheny26 6h ago
Right? There's been lots of good Western animation even recently, it's just all either online (YouTube, Newgrounds, Twitter/BlueSky, Patreon, etc.) or through streaming.
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u/littleone696969 20m ago
I just dont understand how nick or cartoon network cant capitalize on streaming or digital media.
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u/no-name-plz-help 8h ago
The fact that the loud house and teen titans go have even lasted this long is genuinely vile.
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u/ARAMF 8h ago
There was a Loud House fanfiction that had over 30 million words and was basically one of if not the longest piece of written English fiction ever so I guess they aren't strangers to really long things.
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u/Other-Dimension-1997 8h ago
I have heard but not read for myself to confirm that it's heavily padded with copy pasted articles from wikis
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u/Creeperslayers6 8h ago
I've had a quick scroll through it a while back, I don't recall seeing copy-pasted articles, but I remmeber it was like a crossover AU with a billion other series, so each chapter would have 38+ characters enter a scene by name. All 38+ characters in the scene will use a named attack with individually named weapons, and effects like "BOOOOOM" would take up LARGE portions of page.
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u/DragonRoar87 6h ago
the following is a real quote from the fic.
...they fired extremely powerful blasts of rainbow energy, black and purple energy, fireworks, rainbows, storm clouds, gold halo rings, quintessence, life energy, illusions, crosses, planets, sea creatures, nightmare creatures, sports equipment, leaves, plants, swords, fruits, animals, music notes, psychic blasts, jewels, starships, imps, butterflies, moths, spades, hearts, aces, diamonds, clubs, Fire, Ice, Water, Wind, Lightning, Earth, Lava, Light, Darkness, Crystals, Wood, Stars, Time, Nature, Gravity, Blood, Magic, Rainbow Crystals, Rainbow Super Lightning, Rainbow Fire, Sand, Blue Fire, Bubbles, Steam, Nebulonic Gas, Suns, Aurora, Light Magic, Dark Magic, Black Magic, Satanic Magic, Moonlight, Explosions, Twin-Tailed Comets, Fairies, Vampires, Tigers, Buffalo, Thunderbirds, Phoenixes, Elemental Dragons, Werewolves, Demons, Banshees, Spirits, Fiends, Zombies, Elemental Angels, Alicorns, Angels, Archangels, Outer Gods, Mythological Animals, Mammoths, Pegasi, Tortoises, Succubi, Incubi, Hydras, Qilins, Centaurs, Sauropods, Theropods, and Mermaids at Sophia Fayez and they exploded with incredible power as they hit her.
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u/Dualiuss 6h ago
she could have lived if the projectiles didnt include wood and sports equipment 😔
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u/LonelyGameBoi 8h ago
It is the longest
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u/L_Rayquaza 8h ago
Wait, it even beat that Subspace Emmesary one?
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u/Sylveon72_06 8h ago
i imagine itd be shorter if we exclude the copy-pasted wikipedia pages and episode scripts
the sse one at least has heart
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u/Kirbinvalorant 7h ago
The Subspace Emissary one was sort of like a story blog of someone who was passionate about their hobbies
The Loud House one is the ramblings of a mad man who got obsessed with a show who's target audience are kids that haven't learnt long division yet
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u/LonelyGameBoi 8h ago edited 6h ago
Yes
subspace has around 4 million words
the loudhouse one has
5 millionedit: I misread its 35 Million words
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u/Scottz0rz 7h ago
No, the Loud House Revamped has 35 million words.
It also has a sequel now apparently, after I googled that to confirm.
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u/LonelyGameBoi 7h ago
I might be blind or the article I looked at said "had more than 5 million" which is technically correct, if you're an asshole lmao
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u/Scottz0rz 6h ago
The article probably was old and noted when it had officially surpassed it on the fanfic website and then y'know... it just kept going and going.
and going.
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u/avelineaurora 7h ago
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u/f0remsics 6h ago
I haven't heard about this subspace one. Is it any good? If so, where can I read it?
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u/Prestigious_Point963 7h ago
What’s wrong with the loud house? It’s a show made for children. I’m sure if you rewatched rocket power as an adult you’d hate it as well.
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u/Floaty_Waffle 6h ago
It’s not the show itself as much as it is the community. A show about a boy living with 10 girls(his sisters) attracts a very specific, and a very awful community.
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u/TESTINGSTUFFPL 6h ago
Said community involed the show's original creator at one point, which was IIRC why Nickelodeon sacked and replaced him.
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u/Prestigious_Point963 6h ago
Oh yikes. I never watched the show and I think fan communities are a scourge. Especially when it’s adults for a children’s show.
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u/Zach_luc_Picard 5h ago
I enjoyed the show as an adult... but mostly because I'm the eldest of 12 kids and some of the humor, especially in earlier episodes, was very relatable. I feel off it after a short while, though
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u/TheBroomSweeper 7h ago
genuinely vile
It's children's cartoons. It's not that deep
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u/TESTINGSTUFFPL 6h ago
Naw they right about Loud House tho.
Worst thing TTG's creator did was make an annoying show for kids.
Worst thing Loud House's creator did was make porn of his own show.
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u/Mobile_Morale 4h ago
Not fair. TTG stomps on the grave of arguably one of the best animated hero shows of all time. Probably top 3 being batman the animated series and the Justice League shows which I count as one show. And then teen titans.
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u/PensionFlashy5132 2h ago
Its about the enshitification of children's media, children's media is actually a really important influence on the future adults those children become.
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u/PalatwinkusVT 5h ago
Everyone screaming about TV having a negative effect on the children is a nutjob, until the first study publishes. One would think people would learn pattern recognition at some point...
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u/timbotheny26 6h ago
I didn't think The Loud House was that bad from the little bit I saw of it. Have I just been out of the loop?
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u/th3BeastLord 3h ago
So apparently there's a lot of NSFW stuff from that. And considering the characters are children and mostly related....yeah.
Show is fine on its own though. I have seen an episode or two when there's kids around for parties or something and it ain't bad.
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u/General_Cranberry_29 7h ago
Jesus, SpongeBob is still going?
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u/erossthescienceboss 7h ago
Ice Spice even made a song for a SpongeBob movie.
And when I helped my neighbor chaperone a middle school party, the kids were fucking obsessed with it
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u/General_Cranberry_29 4h ago
Damn. I barely know who that is, and what I do know was learned against my will lol.
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u/Visual-Floor-7839 4h ago
I've only heard the name talked about by young people and I thought it was a spice girl for a long time
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u/saera-targaryen 1h ago
I do think that song is so bad that it wraps around to being funny.
I have replaced the monkey banging cymbals in my mind with "Spongebob big guy pants ok"
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u/kakka_rot 1h ago
As a millennial - spongebob in the first 3 seasons is an entirely different show from the others.
I was babysitting the other day and watched it and it's unrecognizable. The original series was a brilliantly written comedy, the rest is Ren and stimpy underwater.
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u/just4browse 8h ago
Does the Gumball revival not count?
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u/Pristine_Animal9474 6h ago
CN, for some reason, has passed on that, the Batman Caped Crusader show and I think a new Adventure Time show.
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u/Deskfan45 6h ago
Are they on crack?
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u/KrimxonRath 6h ago
They’ve effectively been in a broom closet for a decade now according to professors who went from working there to teaching.
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u/just4browse 4h ago
Nah, they probably figured that they’d make more money selling the shows to other companies than they’d make from their contributions to gaining and retaining HBO Max subscribers.
And WBD was very willing to do stuff like this because Discovery wanted to use every tool possible to fix WB’s books enough to sell it. Can’t say it didn’t work, because they did sell the company. For a lot.
Which is obviously a bad thing, I’m just pointing out that it wasn’t a foolish move. It was part of a smart, but overall evil plan
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u/Nyxtro 8h ago
There are YouTube channels that just play a day of nicktoons from the 90s commercials and all. Why doesn’t Nickelodeon do this with the old shows? I’d watch Rocko’s modern life or ahhh real monsters or hey Arnold if they were just randomly on. Unless they do play these shows and I just don’t know about it in which case ignore me
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u/boxtheglock 7h ago
Because they want you to buy a paramount plus subscription
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u/IamScottGable 5h ago
Which is crazy because they don't promote the fact at all, even when you use the service. You'd think their algorithm would know i want to watch Kablaam!, roccos modern life, and ahhh! Real monsters immediately
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u/boxtheglock 5h ago
They really should have a playlist that you can auto play like a YouTube playlist of shit they know youve watched and would like
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u/conardcanard 2h ago
Bro i would if it had a live stream playing all the shows in the order they did in the 90s. Im sad and i miss my childhood
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u/boxtheglock 2h ago
YouTube has whole blocks of shows with commercials from that time ... I definitely watch them
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u/Fabulous-Beach9027 6h ago
When will we get the ability to make playlists on streaming apps... its ridiculous. let me put a couple shows in the list and then a few settings like play 2 epidodes then move on to the next show in the list. So I can create my own tv programming blocks....
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u/KaleidoscopeKelpy 3h ago
No, they’d rather do the thing where if you skip the last 1.5 min of credits, and then start over from episode 1, it picks up every single episode from the last 1.5 minutes so you have to manually restart every episode.
Also they’ll just take a show offline and not tell you. Also you can’t watch offline on your TV (I don’t think anyway, I coukd be wrong)
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u/thedore1020 6h ago
They used to do that on TeenNick, it was called The Splat and it was great. Apparently they discontinued it in 2022, but I think there's still a channel for it on PlutoTV.
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u/Dull_Bid6002 49m ago
Cable is so dead that they don't even bother to put effort into it. I'm convinced it's a cost cutting measure.
The only difference between Nick and Pluto Nick is that the latter repeats the same episodes faster.
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8h ago
[deleted]
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u/rental-cheese 6h ago
No, everyone including kids watches streaming now. Hardly anyone watches cable TV anymore.
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u/Feeling_Barnacle_584 8h ago
This is sad 😢
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u/phoncible 8h ago
When's the last time you watched live cable TV, especially for cartoons. Kids aren't watching that anymore
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u/CharmingTuber 8h ago
I force my family to watch live TV. The kids fought it at first, but now my daughter puts on nick or Disney jr instead of YouTube.
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u/autistic_homo 7h ago
Regular Show is solid. It's a shell of the original, but that could be nostalgia talking.
The Bears are actually solid as well. I ripped on it until I actually sat and watched it. Most of the Bears series' are pretty good.
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u/CarmenxXxWaldo 6h ago
I dont think theyre saying the shows are bad, just that they are few.
Cartoon network use to crank out new quality shows constantly. If theres only 3 I assume theyre masterpieces.
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u/autistic_homo 2h ago
Oh, they weren't saying the shows are bad. I am lol other than the 2 I listed, I think they're all horrible. Other than the early years of Sponge before the Flanderization of all the characters.
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u/JamesBondMargarita 8h ago
Nickelodeon and. Cartoon network are the only western animation studios?
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u/forbiddenfreedom Harry Potter 8h ago
Comedy Central, but they are limited on animation.
Edit: also, pretty sure PBS, but they might be deleted.
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u/JamesBondMargarita 8h ago
So there's no other animation going on in the west aside from that?
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u/hungarian_notation 8h ago
The streaming platforms are doing things too. Disney must have something, at least.
edit: Yep, plenty in production and several actively airing. First I'm hearing about Artemis Fowl. I loved those books as a kid; maybe this adaptation won't be hot garbage.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Disney_Television_Animation_productions
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u/forbiddenfreedom Harry Potter 8h ago
You keep asking for difinitives, but I can only list them from memory. There's also Disney. Those are the main actual channels like Nickelodeon and CN. Other companies aired their cartoons on these channels. Again, there's many studios.
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u/timbotheny26 5h ago
PBS and NPR both still exist, they just lost all government funding. Corporation for Public Broadcasting got shut down though, and I hope we can bring it back once we have a new administration.
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u/boxtheglock 7h ago
Kids watch random bullshit on YouTube now instead of cartoons for the most part
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u/KingMario05 8h ago
Blame streaming. All the rest is locked away on HBO Max/Paramount+, Netflix, Disney+, etc. Compared to all those paywalls, YouTube is free. Which... explains so much.
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u/SplendiferousSpinach 2h ago
Honestly the Patrick star show and we baby bears shouldn't even count as full shows, maybe half a show each...
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u/Chapea12 7h ago
I’m rarely watching cable, but every time I try to put a kids show on my kids, Bluey is on. Bluey is an amazing show and I’m happy to do it, but it’s seemingly carrying kids television
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u/pocketMagician 6h ago
Thats because they know nobody wants to watch the AI slop they would LOVE to put out 24/7. They are biding their time.
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u/Captain_Saftey 8h ago
Nickelodeon has 3 shows and 2 of them are SpongeBob? Dire times for children's entertainment. Thank god for Ms. Rachel
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u/notagoodcartoonist 7h ago
The funny thing is that Nickelodeon used to be owned by Warner Bros in its very early years
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u/BruteSlayer 6h ago
To be honest, I rarely watched anything else with with as much enthusiasm as I did with SpongeBob.
I was excited for basically 6 shows to come on: SpongeBob, Fairly OddParents, the 2000s Transformers cartoons, Futurama, Family Guy (back when it was good), and The Simpsons.
Always having to wait through the crap to get to my favorite shows.
If these were my favorite shows back then, this would blow my little mind.
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u/Cowboywizard12 6h ago
Idk man, have you seen Get Jiro its fucking amazing, I also had no idea before watching it that Anthont Bourdain wrote a couple Graphic Novels
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u/5C0L0P3NDR4 6h ago
i hold that cartoon network is just the filler block for the real channel, adult swim
it's a complete 180 from how it was
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u/-Plunder-Bunny- 5h ago
90's and early 2k CN and Nick were the goat, but neither of them adapted or really gave us fans any significant merch for anything other than their biggest shows and even then, it was often very limited runs. I dont think I ever saw Teen Titan Merch.
Like I would have bought DVD/Bluray's for a ton of my favorite shows, but many of them have only JUST came out within the past year or two.
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u/VeniVidiVic1i 4h ago
Patrick's star show??? What? How long did I sleep... 😩 in my childhood there were such cartoons as the fairly oddparents or dog Doug or icarly...
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u/Octopus_Crime 2h ago
This must be very difficult for all 8 of the kids who somehow still have broadcast TV as their primary form of entertainment.
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u/double-beans 8h ago
People when they find out that the birth rate has been in decline for 18 years … that children’s TV shows are also in decline
Welcome to the start of the demographic cliff, everyone!
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u/Enslaved_M0isture 6h ago
no it's because youtube and social media exists
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u/double-beans 5h ago
Does that also explain why school enrollment is down as well? Statistics don’t lie.
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u/Enslaved_M0isture 5h ago
i was referring to the decline of tv due to the rise of social media
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u/double-beans 5h ago
Birth rates peaked in 2007 and have never recovered, so you believe that the fact that people have less children today than they did 18 years ago has no impact on things like … children’s tv shows?
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u/Enslaved_M0isture 5h ago
it's a factor but it's mostly social media taking the spot of dominant entertainment
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u/ouralarmclock 7h ago
Didn’t a brand new Avatar series just hit?
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u/timbotheny26 5h ago
Pretty sure it's streaming-exclusive which is probably why they aren't counting it.
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u/abilliontwo 2h ago
Avatar: Seven Havens just started for Nickelodeon, and if the chapter cards are to be believed, it's just the first of a multi-season arc, so there's that.
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u/dethskwirl 4h ago
do the Simpsons and family guy not count?
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u/A_very_meriman 4h ago
Fox is owned by Disney.
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u/dethskwirl 4h ago
I dont understand. why doesnt Disney and Fox count as "western animation on tv"?
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u/mewikime 4h ago
Not only that, but Canada produces cartoons, and so does Australia, Europe and the UK
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u/pangea1430 5h ago
I never watched cartoons as a kid, as I never really liked them. I was always watching The Weather Channel, or the Science Channel, or History. I never knew what was on the cartoon channels except for what the guide said.
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u/qualityvote2 8h ago
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