The Nostalgia Critic |OT| He Remembers It So You Don't Have To

One of the major issues with CN Real is that all the shows were just rip-offs of more popular reality shows.
One was Cash Cab on a Roller Coaster
One was Ghost Hunters with kids
One was Man vs Wild with kids
One was Mythbusters with kids (and less about Myths and more about doing stupid shit)
Etc etc.

They tried to do actual scripted series like Unnatural History and Tower Prep (this one created by the legendary Paul Dini) but they still failed.

Thankfully, the Dork Age seems to be over. Not without a few hiccups (Uncle Grandpa...)
 
Uncle Grandpa if anything shows how much better the animation landscape is, since it's to my knowledge a creator-driven show.

Also, uh, has Doug seen the later episodes of Steven Universe he posted footage from? There's a pretty big spoiler in it (
Lapis Lazuli
) and Doug is still doing Vlogs from episodes very early on.
 
i don't know what led to it in particular, but three groups led the charge in the 90s for animated shows for kids being of a higher quality. one was nickelodeon for original cable programming, and then there was disney and warner bros. basically fighting it out for existing properties.

it was probably the disney afternoon that started the 90s boom. while ducktales, gummi bears, and rescue rangers were shows that existed in the 80s, they weren't explicitly made for advertisements. warner bros. was brought in to seemingly build up fox's new block when fox was new and willing to take risks on things like that, also backing married with children and the simpsons around the same time. the stretch from 1990-1996 was where most of the progress was made.

1997-2002 was something of a decline in some areas. network television lost a bit of what had made it special at first and then sort of spiraled into oblivion. on cable, nickelodeon in particular had stopped caring outside of a very few bright spots in hey arnold, spongebob squarepants, and invader zim. it was around this time that cartoon network was starting to find its footing though, and gave the world dexter's lab and powerpuff girls.

2003-2009 might be best considered a sort dark age. after the decline from the end of the 90s, the amount of risk-taking was fairly low. somehow, for some reason nickelodeon backed avatar: the last airbender and let the creators kind of do what they wanted with it, to amazing results. this was also when the warner bros. of the 90s finally and completely faded away with justice league unlimited. cartoon network's output was generally okay to good, with its high points being megas xlr, teen titans, samurai jack, and foster's home for imaginary friends.

i think doug is right that the kids of the 80s and 90s grew up to make shows they had wanted to make, inspired by the positive aspects of the programming from their own childhood. studio interference is still a thing and apparently hurt the legend of korra, my little pony, and teenage mutant ninja turtles, but even getting one good season out of tmnt and mlp is fairly special. i think that some of the real pioneers were not just the people of the early 90s, but also craig mccracken, lauren faust, and genndy tartatovsky, who made art school creators a bigger deal, instead of some dude at mattel deciding what toys to sell that year.

part of what it might be too, is that the idea of what 'adult' means might be changing as well. the simpsons, king of the hill, and south park opened the way for things like archer, the venture bros., and bojack horseman. the idea that animation had to be made a certain way and only for a certain audience has declined over the last 25 years.
 
Zonic said:
NC: Osmosis Jones

I remember seeing this waaaaaaaaay back in 4th grade & renting it from either Family Video or Blockbuster.
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I remember the show being a lot better if for the sole reason that the the live action segments were removed while still retaining much of the cool designs and action from the animated bits. I think the animation quality still remained fairly high for tv but I'm not quite sure. The violence remained I with people getting frozen, dismembered, and disintegrated all the time thanks to their heavily non human looks letting them sneak past S&P.
 
Creaking said:
That's how I feel. If you like that style, then great, there's plenty of shows out there with it. If you don't, then you're mostly out of luck.
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Mind you I am fine with shows like this, it's just that there is a lack of alternative. There are those but they either ended or died (;_; YJ and GLTAS)
 
My views have slightly changed over the years about older shows being so much better and newer shows being so much worse.

However, one area where I still maintain older shows have an indisputable edge is in music. There's barely any other show I can think of aside from Avatar: TLA, and Justice League that has either a memorable theme or score.
 
Oblivion said:
My views have slightly changed over the years about older shows being so much better and newer shows being so much worse.

However, one area where I still maintain older shows have an indisputable edge is in music. There's barely any other show I can think of aside from Avatar: TLA, and Justice League that has either a memorable theme or score.
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Mostly because you got the old guard nowadays doing movie music. Sucks too, because a lot of cartoons nowadays could use that good OST.

Speaking of which how come cartoon OSTs don't exist? Anime has them a lot.
 
brianmcdoogle said:
Hopefully that is true. It also stinks that she's said she's not going to do any other review videos, and may just do them in writing instead. I always liked her stuff. It was a different perspective.
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I never heard of any of this. So, not even episodes about books anymore? She's only doing Loose Canon and nothing else?
 
zeemumu said:
I think Doug was too hard on Quest for Camelot
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zeemumu said:
He gets really pissed over how none of the magic is explained, but when you do something medieval where Merlin is involved and there's an enchanted forest, magic is pretty much assumed.
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I finally watched Quest for Camelot for the first time the other day, and just caught up on the NC review and his Real Thoughts revisit. His "Explain!" thing was a bit over-the-top, but it wasn't groundless. The villain had no motivation beyond cartoon supervillainy. When those dark hands grabbed at the griffin, my first thought was "What is this?", but the movie didn't provide any context, so I just shrugged and carried on. The flying plants didn't bother me because by that point I just accepted the absurdity of the forest/world, but the movie really did just drop the absurdity on the viewer without warning. (Although I must say that I loved that NC's review asked "What is this? Ferngully?" when I was thinking "What is this? Avatar?", LOL.) When the villain pulled out the Acme magic potion, I said to myself "Really? so that's where we're going? It's time for Wile E Coyote logic?" and I just shook my head and kept watching. I know the Acme logo itself was technically a WB gag, but the effects of the potion (An axe-chicken? What?) supported a total end to any sense of logic in the movie.

And I think he actually went easy on a few parts of the movie.

He mentioned how Blindy did a sudden 180 right after his "I need to be alone" song, and how Katniss handwaved away the dragon's terrible song right after it finished, but I think there were at least two more instances of that kind of thing in the movie. QfC was actively dismissing it's own songs so much, I got the impression that they were trying to mock Disney's use of song, but the mockery doesn't work when Disney's songs tend to be good-to-great (with the occasional stinker), and Disney doesn't belt them out rapid-fire like QfC did. A mockery has to actually resemble the original, otherwise you're just making yourself look stupid. Also, one has to question why they would ruin their own movie with an attempt to mock Disney, rather than just trying to make their own movie (although it might have been resentment over not being allowed to make their own movie, and being told to rip off Disney).

The only song that I thought actually worked was "My Father's Wings" from the start of the movie, which actually had me thinking this was going to be a good movie, even though it didn't quite work with the poignant funeral scene moments earlier. It's like, "My dad died, and I'm so broken up, I'm going to... grow up and try to be just like him." Okay. That's not what I'd expect, but good for you Katniss. You show that world what you've got.

Oh and, the world will never forget you, Sir Whatshisname, the brave Knight who once took a bullet for Arthur. One thousand five hundred years from now, people will tell tales of your place in Arthurian legend, as soon as we remember what your name was. Or at the very least, every Knight in Camelot will remember your wife, if you know what I mean.

And then they completely drop Katniss as a strong female character. One minute she's using a combination of farm tools and hand-me-down Knight's equipment to develop her own improvised fighting style, and then next she's a damsel in distress, which she remains for the rest of the movie.

The love story between Katniss and Blindy comes out of nowhere, and they have zero chemistry. Katniss is shown to be an unwelcome burden in one scene, and then she's so annoying that she causes Blindy to get shot, and suddenly he's in love with her. And the annoying dragons cockblock in one scene, and are supportive in the next.

Blindy tells Katniss that "duty" is one of the virtues he was taught, but he won't leave his fortress of solitude long enough to return the King's sword to him. Nah, just leave that to the helpless little girl, who says she isn't capable of jogging across an open field without his help. Even though he initially told the girl to go home because she wasn't up to the task and he would retrieve the sword by himself. Because... somehow he thinks she would fall out of love with him if she saw that people in Camelot look down on heroes who return the King's sword (which is baffling on so many levels).

Also, the movie said (in dialogue and song and action) that King Arthur is completely useless without his magic sword. Excalibur is supposed to be proof of royalty, an amazing sword capable (while in the King's hands) of cutting stone as if it was butter (which is how Arthur removes it from the stone), but still it's just a tool of England's greatest King. Here, the sword is everything (right down to the three-circle symbol of Camelot), and taking the sword away from Arthur makes you King (although it did literally nothing for Katniss and Blindy).

And I laughed at this movie's totally random "Superman" scene, which WB handled more than a thousand times better in their next movie, The Iron Giant.

And the movie couldn't decide between a 90's Knighting or a 50's "get back in the kitchen" as a happy ending reward for Katniss, so they kind of gave her both... neither? "Just Knighted?" I don't even know what the hell that was.
 
Oblivion said:
My views have slightly changed over the years about older shows being so much better and newer shows being so much worse.

However, one area where I still maintain older shows have an indisputable edge is in music. There's barely any other show I can think of aside from Avatar: TLA, and Justice League that has either a memorable theme or score.
Click to expand...

"Weeeee...are the crystal GEMS!"
 
Boss Doggie said:
Mostly because you got the old guard nowadays doing movie music. Sucks too, because a lot of cartoons nowadays could use that good OST.

Speaking of which how come cartoon OSTs don't exist? Anime has them a lot.
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Outside of disney animation there seems to be no market for western animation soundtracks.

I will admit that modern western animation is somewhat strong in the writing department, and that at times animation can be creative...

....the art styles are mostly horrific. For 2D and 3D. Do they think kids are too dumb to care? The legend of korra has nice animation but the style, while having better anatomy than most feels a bit hollow. Most comedies feel like they were given A 'hannah barbera' animation budget and are drawn by halfrate artists that are a dime a dozen on deviantart.

I will give credit where credit is due, mlp fim has good animation/decent writing and the character designs don't suck. I'd even go as far as to say that the new designs are better than the old ones. don't care much for the show itself but it's hard to deny that they didn't fuck things up.

There's also a show called the lion guard. Sort of a sequel series to the lion king 2. Based on a very short clip it uses hand painted backgrounds, the anatomy/design for the main character very similar to renaissance era disney and the animation is smooth (the background is animated too!), with an added touch of having different perspectives that doesn't make it feel too 2D.

The bad thing is that it's for disney jr which severely limits the storytelling possibilities. I will at least watch the tv movie of it, mostly because the lion king is my fav animated movie and how I like the first sequel but i'm not expecting much good out of it.

It feels like I was spoiled by having grown up when western animation had a balance of comedies and action with art that for the most part was aesthetically appealing...
 
Wow. I love how far they went to make this Cohen vs. Coen joke. I didn't get it at first. I thought it was just funny to see the Garfield characters as quirky familiar human characters. I didn't get it until he said the name Coen. Amazing.

Now I want to see a Coen Garfield movie.

Wait, I think I just did.
 
doug's eh, style, of having every character explain who they are in some way is so grating. just do one joke, make it quick, and think of something else for your demo reel skit. it's the same with the million names for garfield. just toss one in there. don't do it every time the character is shown.
 
Zonic said:
Nostalgia Critic: Pixels

Guessing it's similar to Jurassic World.
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It is. No clips (not even Futurama when they bring that up, just pictures).

Along with being unfunny and incompetent, Pixels found itself unable to appeal to any generation.
Adults wouldn't have liked it because they know it's another crummy Happy Madison production and likely would have found the use of old video games insulting.
And kids wouldn't have liked it because they don't know these characters. They might have heard of them, but they never played the original Donkey Kong, or Pac-Man, or Q*Bert. It's all Minecraft, modern Mario, shitty phone games.
 
While I'm glad he pointed out the biggest plot holes of the movie, there was two more things I wish he mentioned (spoilers, I guess).

1.)
Donkey Kong & Pac-Man DON'T HAVE CHEAT CODES
2.) That freakin' final scene where
it's "one year later" & stereotype nerd has "kids" with the girl from the game BUT THE BABIES ARE Q-BERT WHAT THE HELL THAT'S GROSS IF YOU THINK ABOUT IT
 
Haha. The Critic has gotten so much better since he quit doing the show, made a new show that failed and came back with the production values he was going to use for the other show.

Urkel.
I heard that, Theo.
 
What does Black Nerd even review? I am weary to check out any of the new reviewers on the site because I'm tired of them up and leaving. I dunno. Some of them come off as trying too hard.
 
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