Where are the Action Cartoons Cartoon Network?

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.

Pokematic reviews The Powerpuff Girls: Dance Pantsed, the 2014 PPG special

If it's not a good game or catholic...who do you call?... why Pokematic. "Hi."

Craig McCracken, Hannah-Barbara, and a student film. These were the ingredients chosen to make the perfect cartoon. But Craig McCracken added an extra ingredient to the concoction, chemical awesome. Thus the Powerpuff Girls were born. Using their broad appeal, Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup, have managed to stay relevant for over 15 years!

Yeah that's right, the first episode of The Powerpuff Girls aired back in 1998, 16 or so years ago at the time of writing this. 6 years ago back in 2008, they made a 10th anniversary special and released the entire series on 1 DVD box set. I actually recently bought the entire series box set and have been rematching it from the first episode. Since 1998, we've had 6 seasons, 1 origin movie, an anime series called Power Puff Girls Z which hasn't aired in the US, a 10th anniversary special, and now another special. I don't recall any other Cartoon Networks series getting this much attention, and that's because PPG is just plain awesome. I thought that PowerPuff Girls Rule! was a great way to end the series. It had a nice "walk off into the sunset" kind of feel. Many questions were answered, like "what does Ms. Bellom's face look like?," but it still left things open for more if there was going to be more. Well, now there's more.

So back in 2012, there were rumors about a PPG reboot. I remember seeing this but without the "Thoughts & Opinions."

 Like any fan with the power of the internet at his fingertips, I did a little research. All I found were rumors on cartoon forums and stuff. It wasn't until late 2012-early 2013 did we finally see an image of this reboot. And, it was this.

Needless to say, people didn't take it very well. The art style was a major change from what we were used to.

Fast forward a year, and we start seeing ads for this "reboot." Turns out, it's a 1 time special. They kept the art style, but the ads say "we didn't change the formula at all." And they were right.

Here's the low down. The girls save Townsvill, again, and the professor is going to reward them with something special. The girls decide to get Dance Pants Revolution. Unfortunately Bubbles gets addicted and this Mojo-Jojo uses this addiction in his plan to take over Townsville. Oh, and the professor has a history of dance but he was so bad at it he quit and became a man of science. OK, any more would be spoilers.

So, how does this compare to classic PPG? Quite well. Ignoring the drastic change in art style, this feels exactly like an old Powerpuff Girls episode. Most if not all of the original voice actors came back. If they weren't the originals, they did an amazing job at sounding like the originals. The girls saved the day, which caused them to engage in some sort of celebratory activity that ends up being crucial to the climax of the story. Many classic episodes followed this primes, especially Mojo-Jojo episodes. The episode focuses a little more on Bubbles like many classic PPG episodes. All the main characters (Blossom, Bubbles, Buttercup, Professor, Mayor, Bellum, Mojo) had the same personality and character traits. Overall, it's almost just like a classic PPG episode.

One thing I really liked is that instead of 2 15-minute episodes, it was 1 30-minute episode. They used this extra time to develop the professor's back story. In true PPG style, the back story was ridiculous. They also used it to develop Mojo's evil plan more. I also like the Fibonacci and other math jokes. Basically this is the "Disney's Doug" of Powerpuff Girls. Read what I meant here.

OK, so saying it's "the Disney's Doug of Powerpuff Girls" is definitely the most accurate way of describing it, and that's because there is going to be lots of rage over minor changes and other "they completely ruined the Powerpuff Girls" BS. There's going to be people saying "bubbles never had freeze breath, that was blossom, buttercup would never say 'corgis are SOOO cute' and then rush off to see them," and all sorts of other nit-picking. While not exactly cannon, it's still Powerpuff Girls.

The only legitimate complaint you can have is the art style and animation. Yes, it looks REALLY different. Yes, they obviously used 3D models computer animation. Yes, it is really ugly at times. But all of that grew on me. It kind of reminded me of those old "3D city" bumps where various cartoon network characters lived together in a 3D city. What I never got used to though, was the jerky animation. It looked like Trey Parker and Matt Stone did all the mouth animation and a lot of the other animation. The only time it's smooth is when a character would turn their head or something like that. All the walking, arm moving, dancing, etc. looked like it was done by South Park studios. Come to think of it, the non-smooth animation was rather reminicent of "The Whoop-ass Girls," McCracken's low budget student film PPG is based off of. If cartoon network didn't properly fund it or Craig produced it himself like Whoop-ass Girls, then I'll understand the bad animation. However, if this was intentional, then Townsville's favorite crime fighters deserve better than this. If this does in fact become a reboot, please, do them justice.

So, The Powerpuff Girls: Dance Pantsed, the reboot/special we've been hearing about for 2 years, a special 16 years after the original Powerpuff Girls first episode, even longer if you consider The Whoop-ass Girls as part of the series; does it deserve to be considered part of this great series? Yes, yes it does. Aside from the art and animation, it's just like classic PPG. If you love the original 15 from 15 years ago, you'll likely enjoy this one. Try to look beyond the art and animation, because that's the only thing holding it back. Don't miss this special. Well this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

What, you want more? Well, there is one last thing I could talk about. Well, 8 or so minutes before this special aired, there was a little music video thing about the Powerpuff Girls that was part of the commercial break of Adventure Time. It was basically this guy singing about how he wishes he was a Powerpuff Girl because then he's be able to wear an awesome dress and fight crime with super powers. It reminded me of the Cartoon Network Groovies that aired in like 2005 as part of the commercial break.You know, music videos like this.


PS: This is my favorite one.

Yeah, they made a music video in the same spirit as this. There were some Powerpuff Girl Groovies, and this was kind of like that. This particular short wasn't really good, but there were some actual groovies that weren't that great either. I hope they make more, because the groovies broke up the commercial breaks quite nicely. OK, now I'm done. Later.