Cartoon Network has apparently decided that action cartoons are passe. They screwed over fans of Scooby-Doo: Mystery Incorporated by airing second season episodes on weekday afternoons over a 2+ week period, first last summer, then last month. They alienated comics fans by opting to cancel Young Justice & Green Lantern, rather than expand the DC Nation block to two hours, likely due to commitments to Dragons: Riders of Berk or some other series. They were going to lose Star Wars: The Clone Wars, anyway, since the "Star Wars" franchise was picked up by Disney a few months back, so they cancelled the series, but it's likely to resurface in some form on DisneyXD in due course. Bottom line is, CN suits think comedy will bring the ratings, but there's a problem, there, too. The Looney Tunes Show is ending its run, too. Mad is perhaps the weakest of its short-form (15 minute) series, and, the less said about The Amazing World of Gumball, other than what I said when I reviewed that series a few months back, the better.
10 years ago, WB decided to adapt the 1980's New Teen Titans comics into an animated series. Problem was, Teen Titans was animated in a style resembling an Americanized form of Japanese anime, which wasn't a true fit. A year ago, Cartoon Network brought the Titans back in a series of shorts in the DC Nation block, which leads us to now.
Teen Titans GO! is the result of the success of the shorts, but the animation style clearly defines that WB & CN are aiming at a younger audience than with the previous series. Serious adventure? Fuhgeddaboutit. Silly comedy? Yup. They call this animation style "chibi". While it might work for preschoolers, and CN is aiming for tweens with this series, some comics fans will riot, I'm almost certain of that.
WB reunited the voice cast from the previous series, and if there is anything that carries over from the first series, it's the romance between Starfire and Robin, even if Starfire looks even younger than she did last time, which is some trick in and of itself. Sure, the cast is having fun. In the opener, Beast Boy & Cyborg engage in a silly duet about pies. Hope & Crosby they ain't.
Here's a trailer, which illustrates in detail just how silly this is.
If you're 13 and under, this is worth the trip. Anyone older? Either prepare to laugh your head off or do a series of facepalms.
Rating: C.
4 comments:
Bad enough YJ was cancelled to make room for this!
The chibi shorts were good in small does as they were used to great effect on DC Nation, but making a 1/2 hour series of it isn't going to end well. The original TT series itself went into chibi type humor at times, so it almost become redundant.
CN is aiming too low for their programming and it's going to bite them in the butt eventually.
CN SHOULD have just expanded DC Nation, because there are way too many repeats of lesser shows taking up space on that network. Not to mention the Ben 10 franchise should have called it a day long ago!
More proof that Stu Snyder is an idiot. 'Sides, if you watched TTG on Tuesday, you actually got a look at that geek, as he plugged their latest anti-bullying special.
Ben 10 rolls on because it sells toys. There is a kid who goes to church where I do, and he bought one of those replica omnimatrix devices to wear. Seems as though CN wants their own Power Ranger franchise in that they'll keep creating Ben 10 series (even though the Man of Action studio was hired by Disney for Ultimate Spider-Man) as long as kids buy the toys. Meh.
This show is garbage. Nuff said.
Amen, pilgrim.
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