If it's not a good game or catholic...who do you call?...why Pokematic "Hi."
So if you don't know already, I'm a fan of cartoons and Cartoon Network. Animation is a great medium because you can do things in it that just look bad in live action (see Scott Pilgrim for an example of such failure, text review and rant podcast). So where do I go for my cartoon needs? Nickelodeon? No it's all Schider's Bakery right now, and SpongeBob. Disney Channel? LOL nope. DisneyXD? Well I don't get that channel unfortunately. Nicktoons? Getting closer but still no. It's Cartoon Network, the network for cartoons (except for those dark times). For years they had the mix of action and comedy, and in Courage's case, light horror. If you wanted action, there was Toonami. If you wanted comedy, there was cartoon cartoon Friday's. It was fun times.
In recent years we've fallen on some rough times. It's not just that Cartoon Network is giving all it's air time to a terrible cartoon that actively tries to be terrible, or that Cartoon Network is rebooting all it's popular action cartoons as comedies (Teen Titans Go, PowerPuff Girls 2016, and Ben 10 reboot), or that they have given up on anime and let the most popular anime franchise in North America go to their competitors (after 10 years of airing Pokémon, Cartoon Network didn't acquire the license to the Sun and Moon series and now it airs on DisneyXD); all of are symptomatic of a larger problem, Cartoon Network has given up on action.
Don't believe me? Lets look at what they did with their reboots. Lets look at the cartoons they rebooted for a new audience; Teen Titans, Powerpuff Girls, and Ben 10, all originally action cartoons. The reboots? All comedies. What about their original shows? Gumball, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, We Bear Bears, Clarence, and Adventure Time are all comedy based cartoons. The most action of them is probably Steven Universe, but even SU puts more focus on Steven just living his life, and not Steven trying to save the world. Where're the Samurai Jacks, or Megas XLR, or Transformers, or Symbiontic Titans? Boys like action.
"But action doesn't sell" you say. Really now? What are the highest grossing movies in recent years? Marvel super heroes and star wars. Who likes super heroes and star wars? Boys. What shows have successful toy lines? Action cartoons. No 7 year old wants to have Grizz, Ice Bear, and Panda toy sets where it's them going to the super market or going on dates; they want ninja turtle and foot clan action figures that they can make fight. They don't want to be normal gumball who is a normal kid in a weird world for Halloween, they want to be Optimums Prime. Boys have a natural attraction to gross and violent, so as Denis Leary said in Small Soldiers "don't call it violence, call it action, kids love action."
"Well action cartoons are just too expensive to produce, and just don't deliver the return on investment now adays." If you're basing your judgement on WB cartoons like Teen Titans, Young Justice, and Batman the Animated Series in comparison to Teen Titans Go, you have a point because the WB cartoons definitely had a larger budget. But lets look at the other reboots. Powerpuff Girls classic had fairly limited animation. They reused the same cycles and did a lot of moving "still frames" (no different drawing, just sliding stills apart to show emphasis). It was probably made on a similar budget as PPG 2016. I've seen internet critics make PPG 2016 "fight" scenes truer to the source by speeding up the video and adding in sound effects. Like, someone with a $100 budget was able to turn the comedy series of PPG 2016 into an action series just by making some small edits. It really isn't that hard. Ben 10 Reboot looks to have the same level of speed and detail as the original, but it just focuses on being funny instead of being super powerful. Plus, look what Nickelodeon and Disney did with their action cartoons. Nickelodeon made Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles with what looks like a rather limited TV budget still full of action when they need it to be. They just show the heavy fighting off screen and have the light fighting happen on screen. Star VS The Forces of Evil looks like it costs about as Teen Titans Go, but we still get all the delicious action of Star and Marco battling the monster of the week.
"But, we need to have a successful toy line for an action cartoon to be considered a success, and kids just don't want toys anymore." And how do you measure the success of a comedy cartoon that doesn't have a toy line? Looks to me like you gauge their success by ratings and ad revenue and episode sales. There is nothing stopping you from doing that with action cartoons.
"Uhhhh, parents are more adverse to letting their kids watch action than they are to comedy, so we want to make a cartoon that's the accessible." There is some merit to your argument. I remember my parents were rather strict with what I watched as a kid, and I do remember that there were more action cartoons on their "no list" than comedies, and more comedies on their "fine list" than action; but I think you're being a tad to cocky with that statement considering what you air. TTG is TV-PG, for parental guidance suggested, definitely not something I would be allowed to watch as a youngin. We Bear Bears would probably be considered too mature for me as it deals with teen issues and adult issues. Gumball would likely be considered too visually stimulating, and therefore not be appropriate. TMNT though would probably be fine because it's about good prevailing over evil.
Look, I know I'm not the target demographic for Cartoon Network. Turner networks would rather have me watch Adult Swim. I'm just saying that they need some variety, specifically in the action category. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.
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