Howdy Dreamlanders.
This week I’ll be starting a new series reviewing the
surge in Netflix original animation, and how it has grown into a new golden age
for the action cartoon. I’ll be going over five different shows that have
reminded us how good storytelling and great animation can be even more
profitable in the long run than selling toys. The goal is a bi-weekly blog. So
far, I am doing good once a week but I endeavor to get my thoughts out more
often in more bite-sized morsels. As an introduction, let’s review some of the good action cartoons that never saw completion because they didn’t sell
the right number of toys.
He
Man and the Masters of the Universe (2002)
The original He-Man and the Masters of the Universe was
made to sell toys. Following the success of Kenner’s Star Wars line, toy
companies scrambled to compete by making their own action figures. In the case
of He-Man, and to a certain extent Transformers and GI Joe, toy companies made
the action figures first without ever really giving them a story. He-Man
originally came with a mini-comic, until in 1983 an animated show was launched
by Funmation. When enthusiasm for the toys wore off, so did the original show
in 1986.
It wasn’t until 2002 that a truly successful reboot
was launched. The show was well received, and deepened the lore with a gripping
story while still adding classic characters. Unfortunately, just as the show
was about to introduce She-Ra and Hordak (A bigger villain than Skeletor) the
show was canceled. There just wasn’t enough of a toy market. There are rumors
that the upcoming She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, set for a November release,
might be a sequel to this series. It would make sense, but the animation style
is very different, so it remains to be seen how connected to this story the new
She-Ra will be.
Teen
Titans (2003-2006)
Even though it lasted six seasons, this one is important for how it should have gotten a final season, but instead the award winning
show was replaced by a less mature version. A similar fate awaited Star Wars: The Clone Wars, but that had more to do with the sale of Lucasfilm to Disney, rather than any strange decision based on demographics. While there's nothing wrong with
cartoons built strictly on humor and aimed at younger audiences, the
transition to something like Teen Titans Go was a shock to many fans who grew up with the original. The end of this series marks a trend in cartoons where cable cartoon channels gave up on the formula of building an action cartoon to sell toys and instead chose to rely on humor alone. In turn, ground breaking animation styles like Teen Titans or Avatar: The Last Airbender also got kicked to the curb. Worse yet, for the next decade or so we began to move away from cartoons with gripping story lines filled with morals and lessons for kids.
Young
Justice (2010 – ???)
Another award-winning show that fell victim to being
too good. Families would watch this show together, and yet the toy market
suffered. Like Teen Titans before it, it fell victim of a trend that showed
cartoon channel executives that the way to go was more Sponge-Bob like
cartoons, or cartoons that seemed like Sponge Bob but were smart in a subtle way, like Gravity Falls. Still, a great story in the making was left on a
cliffhanger. Yet the onset of streaming television has brought this one back,
and the new DC streaming service will see this as one of its primary shows.
There are more canceled cartoons worth mentioning that followed the same path, but over the next couple of weeks I will be covering the triumphant return of the action cartoon, and how streaming services have found a way to make these excellent types of shows lucrative again. See you all next time, Dreamlanders. In part one we will be covering one of Netflix’s newer properties – The Dragon Prince.
Go to Part I The Dragon Prince
