Cartoon Cliches You're Tired Of...

[Singin' Stray Cat]

Originally posted by Blight Man

Someone might have mentioned this next one already. Whenever a hero does a transformation, the villain just stands there and watches. I can remember an episode of Power Rangers that broke this rule. The Rangers were fighting a shark monster and combined their weapons to destroy it. As they did so, Rita made the monster grow. The Rangers fire and the blast has no effect on the now giant monster.

Agreed, that one gets old pretty quick.

And along the same lines - when character A attacks character B, and character B just stands there and lets A do it. (What I mean is, there's a shot of character B just standing there, usually with some stupid look on his/her face, and then >boom< the attack hits. Did that make any sense? ) Does it ever occur to B to just .... move? Is A just too quick? Is B in shock and can't move, or what? Most times, it's never explained, and it just irks me sometimes.

 

[Meow]

Originally posted by Magentabeams
I am so sick of teenny bopper cartoons, like As Told By Ginger. Also I am sick of cartoon all about jock kids, like Rocket Power. *cringe*

Sarahanne

I agree completely.

As Told By Ginger is so stupid...that girl is WAY too obsessed with becoming popular. It's pathetic, and it doesn't exactly project a very realistic message to kids. As for Rocket Power....ugh...anyone who actually talks like THAT and thinks that their dad's BEST friend murdered him, isn't smart enough to live.

As far as I'm concerned, these realistic shows where kids deal with "real-life" situations should be live-action...NOT cartoons.

I'm also tired of the "cat chases mouse and gets it's butt kicked by a huge dog gag." Dog's eat mice too, you know.

I'm not that fond of the "spoiled, little brat kid abuses poor animal gag" either. (Where is the parent?) I can't think of a recent time this gag's been used, but it's annoying nevertheless.

It's also annoying whenever animal cartoon characters don't use their natural abilities and pretend like they don't even have them... An example would be Daffy being stuck on an island. um yea, Daffy...you're a duck. You have WINGS.

The whole "good guy wins ALL the time" cliche is pretty annoying as well. Team Rocket always "blasts off again" and Goku turns SSJ17 and kills the badguy with one arm tied behind his back and an egg balanced on his nose.

"Goodguy has the exact tool or ability for this particular situation."

Example: PPG's magically gain the "superman-like" bullet-deflecting powers even though they never had them before. They also have "supersight" and "superhearing" all of a sudden. What's that, Batman? You're belt electrocutes badguys when they touch it? SINCE WHEN? Where'd you get that grapplehook? You didn't have it a second ago....

"Goodguy is on the verge of dieing or at least is severly weakened and somehow gathers all this power from within or something....picks self off the ground...proceeds to rip the badguy a new one."

The Star Wars jokes....make it STOP! It's not funny anymore.

Joker: May the floss be with you!

Okay..so maybe that one was kinda funny, but then again that was obviously an inside joke.

 

[LinusMines]

The following three words are guaranteed to induce cartoon-cliche pain.

Mission. Impossible. Harness.

 

[Anthonynotes]

>>
"Goodguy has the exact tool or ability for this particular situation."
Example: PPG's magically gain the "superman-like" bullet-deflecting powers even though they never had them before. They also have "supersight" and "superhearing" all of a sudden. What's that, Batman? You're belt electrocutes badguys when they touch it? SINCE WHEN? Where'd you get that grapplehook? You didn't have it a second ago....<<<


From my viewing of the PPGs, they generally seem to have the same superpowers as Superman/Captain Marvel/similarly-powerful heroes...which generally includes being invulnerable to bullets, super-hearing, super-vision (X-ray vision, heat vision, etc.)... even if (as Sharklady notes) they occasionally forget to make full use of their abilities consistently.

Re: Batman's utility belt: think that's an oft-cited complaint about Batman's utility belt...various attempts over the years have tried to describe it as only having x # of items/certain specific items only, but still. At any rate, it never bothered me... (shrug)

-B.

 

[Novdeloth]

Originally posted by LinusMines
Yet another thing Hollywood can thank Akira Kurosawa for.

I read on TV Tome that the plot for the Time Squad episode "A Thrilla At Attila's" was inspired by that movie. The idea itself was somewhat entertaining and involving (getting you to think who was telling the truth, who was stretching it, etc.)... but yeesh... it's been done so many times...

And let's not forget that the very last person to tell his or her side of the story is the one who's right.

 

[Novdeloth]

Originally posted by Artemis
I can't believe nobody's mentioned the "Villain's Gloating" cliche.

The Villain finally captures the Hero and has him/her in his grasp and what does he do? Talk for a few minutes! Saying stuff like "I finally have you and you'll never get away! I will destroy you! You thought I'd never win blah blah blah..." and goes on and on until the Hero finds away out of the situation or his friends come and rescue him! How many times has that happened?! And the Villain will gloat constantly, never learning that when he finally has the Hero, to just kill him! Don't talk! Kill!

Standard Superhero: You'll never get away with this, Professor Nasty McNasty!

McNasty: Fool! What makes you think that you can defeat me?! Those restraints will hold you long enough for me to escape in my jet to Las Vegas where I'll be meeting Doctor Madman for the revealing of the Doomsday Machine that will destroy the entire world! Ha ha! Now let me supply you with the details of the intricately-designed death trap I've set you in...

----------

EDIT: Thought of another cliche, but didn't want to spam the thread with three posts in a row: when we have a flashback episode where the protagonists are babies or kids, any character who was a smoker as an adult will have a lollipop/sucker instead of a cigarette.

 

[Lonestarr]

Originally posted by Artemis
I can't believe nobody's mentioned the "Villain's Gloating" cliche.

The Villain finally captures the Hero and has him/her in his grasp and what does he do? Talk for a few minutes! Saying stuff like "I finally have you and you'll never get away! I will destroy you! You thought I'd never win blah blah blah..." and goes on and on until the Hero finds away out of the situation or his friends come and rescue him! How many times has that happened?! And the Villain will gloat constantly, never learning that when he finally has the Hero, to just kill him! Don't talk! Kill!

Kevin Smith ripped this cliche apart in Dogma:

Azrael (well-played by Jason Lee): "Oh, no. I've seen way too many Bond films to know never to give away your whole plan, no matter how close you think you are to winning."

Also, I agree: the Rashomon bit, if handled correctly and cleverly, can really score.

 

[StrangerAtaru]

The worst part about the "make up a new superpower" thing is that it seems that most of the time, it is a one time only technique that no one uses except once. PPG seems to be the biggest perputrator of this, but at least in a couple of later episodes, the writers actually remember that power and use it. But then, one of my biggest complaints about that show is that sometimes, they are just too powerful due to the writer's needs.

 

[Anyone00]

I can't believe nobody's mentioned the "Villain's Gloating" cliche.

That why I consider one the greatest video game moment as being from Baldur's Gate II: SOA, namely:

[Your character and all of his/her party has been drugged and captured by the main villain Irenacus(sp?), your trapped in a large magic device designed to tear a big chunk of your soul out, the dialogue goes something like this]

You Character: What are you planing to do with my soul Irenacus?!?

Irenacus: No, you warrant no villain's exposition form me.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Also alot of these clichés has become general clichés in just about all fiction and not just animation.

 

[Mackenzie Rainelle]

Originally posted by Meow
I'm not that fond of the "spoiled, little brat kid abuses poor animal gag" either. (Where is the parent?) I can't think of a recent time this gag's been used, but it's annoying nevertheless.

Actually, that kinda crap happens way too often in real life around here, so I like seeing it in the cartoons where the animal actually SURVIVES.....Oh, the trauma of living next to a trailer park...>_<;;;;

 

[Novdeloth]

Does anyone remember the Amazon women/tribe cliche? I just thought of that while watching "History's Mysteries" today.

 

[J.C.]

Originally posted by Blight Man
Someone might have mentioned this next one already. Whenever a hero does a transformation, the villain just stands there and watches. I can remember an episode of Power Rangers that broke this rule.

Breaking that cliche lead to one of the funniest moments in DBZ for me.

Not really a DBZ spoiler, but anyone who doesn't want to read any scenes that haven't been shown on Toonami yet should skip this: Was cracking up when Goten and Trunks are face-to-face with Buu and preparing to do the fusion but Buu charges forward and knocks one of them down before they can do it and they yell something to the extent of "Not yet! Get back over there and wait for us to finish. We have this all planned out." Was about the only thing I liked about those two kids......

Originally posted by livingfruitvirus
4. Superheroes that have absolutely no friends or social lives. That's a reason why I like Batman Beyond. None of that crap I listed above.

That's the only thing I don't really like about Justice League. For showing Batman in the batcave as often as they do, you'd think Alfred would be around more.

Originally posted by Lonestarr
I've thought of another cliche. This one popped up at the Adult Swim board, and I thought I'd mention it: when one character wants another to do something and the other character says, "No! No way am I doing that. Forget it." The next shot usually features the character performing the task and saying, "I can't believe I'm doing this."

Ugh, that one's the worse. It's been broken a couple of times and exagerated to the point of parody atleast once in The Simpsons ("There's no way I'm getting on that dance floor. No way. If I have to get a divorce, I will!") but it surprises me how many shows, both animated and live-action, actually use this thinking it's still clever.

Originally posted by Blight Man
When the plot revolves around the cast looking for something (object, person) and they do one of those episodes where they get VERY close but don't find said item in the end. They really make you want to see the ep where they do find it but at the same time are annoying. Jumanji did this alot.

To add on this, I also hate it when they actually get all the objects but then loose them for whatever reason and have to start over in the search. Jackie Chan Adventures did this recently, and I believe there was an episode of The 13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo where they caught most of the ghosts and then one ghost gets to the trunk and releases all the others again. But they did atleast catch that one ghost by the end of the episode.

Other cliches I'm tired of:

A character or characters refusing to admit to having any feelings for each other and pretending that any moments they've had together never happened. Hey Arnold!, Real Adventures of Jonny Quest, and just about any Rumiko Takahashi anime are guilty of this.

Villians suddenly becoming less threatening the second time they're around. Although I'm sure it's been around before, I call this the "Shredder Syndrome". Shredder was the first of a long line of villians in the original TMNT cartoon who were a genuine threat on their first appearance but then need some cheat in order to even put up a fight against the Turtles in future episodes. Other shows which have made once powerfull villians appear like nothing in their future appearances include Dragonball Z/GT, Transformers: Robots in Disguise and atleast one episode of Batman: TAS (Clock King can calculate how long it takes Batman to do any of his moves on his first episode and thereby block them with ease, but then gives up without a fight after his time stopper is destroyed in his second episode?).

Speed lines. It's more of an animation technique rather then a cliche, but I can't stand speed lines most of the time.

Characters using "hip" dialogue. This goes for both new and old cartoons. I've seen some older cartoons which seem really dated due to them using words which were popular then but haven't been muttered by anyone on TV in years. When I look at good shows like Kim Possible and X-Men: Evolution, I can't help but think of how dated they're going to look years from now.

And this is one that I actually like, but others probably hate which I've not seen pointed out yet: Bad girls turning good (or atleast helping the good guys) because they fall in love with a hero. Again, it's a cliche that I actually like, but imagine that some here are sick of it by now. Catwoman from Batman, Morgana from Darkwing Duck, 18 from Dragonball Z, Blackarachnia from Beast Wars and Ten from Batman Beyond are a couple of examples.

 

[Mackenzie Rainelle]

Originally posted by J.C.
Characters using "hip" dialogue. This goes for both new and old cartoons. I've seen some older cartoons which seem really dated due to them using words which were popular then but haven't been muttered by anyone on TV in years. When I look at good shows like Kim Possible and X-Men: Evolution, I can't help but think of how dated they're going to look years from now.

In a twisted sort of way, X-Men Evolution made it funny, because they made a crack on Forge, who still used 70s lingo 'cause he'd been stuck in the "middleverse" for so bloody long. ^^

 

[StrangerAtaru]

Actually, I thought the "hip" dialouge bit was made fun of in the PPG ep., "Powerprof." Well, maybe not in that way, but you see what I mean.

I don't know if anyone mentioned this, but G Gundam brought it upon me. The "copycat" cliche. The one where they come across a villain that knows all their moves and can do them just as well, if not better than they can. PR did this several times, and I think several others did this as well. (personally, I like though this one Ranma ep. that uses this cliche, but the character is somewhat perfect even down to stealing panties like Happosai! Then there was the ending to that ep.....)

 

[TOM 002]

Originally posted by J.C.

Villians suddenly becoming less threatening the second time they're around. Although I'm sure it's been around before, I call this the "Shredder Syndrome". Shredder was the first of a long line of villians in the original TMNT cartoon who were a genuine threat on their first appearance but then need some cheat in order to even put up a fight against the Turtles in future episodes. Other shows which have made once powerfull villians appear like nothing in their future appearances include Dragonball Z/GT, Transformers: Robots in Disguise and atleast one episode of Batman: TAS (Clock King can calculate how long it takes Batman to do any of his moves on his first episode and thereby block them with ease, but then gives up without a fight after his time stopper is destroyed in his second episode?).

An extention on this cliche, it get's pretty freaking annoying when the main villian always gets jacked up beyond belief after every battle (Buu seems to come to mind) or whenever a villian is defeated, a new more powerful one comes along that makes the previous villian look like a wuss (DBZ is so guilty of this its not even funny). What's worse is if they keep cycling through this until the writers run out of ideas.

My pet peeves:

Villians considering themselves evil for no good reason. Mum-Ra easily comes to mind, as well as a lotta other old 80's villians. Vicky from "Fairly Oddparents" also fits here. I mean if you're evil, I don't think you'd consider yourself evil. At least have some motivation for it.

Characters that "subtitly" explain too much about the plot. Once again, the characters from "Fairly Oddparents" tend to do this a lot. It's as if they think the audience in incapable of following the storyline without being reminded of it.

Toilet humor. It's funny the first time, but it's just gross when played out too much.

Exposed butts. "I.M. Weasel" and "Cow and Chicken" are guilty of this. A banana with a butt? Gimme a break.

Delayed attacks. It makes me wonder how long it actually takes the guy to fire the freaking projectile when he charges up.

Overzealous characters that are given too much credit (i.e. Mr. Satan). Not only is he an *******, but he gets all the credit for the work that others did. Plus he gloats about it. argh.

 

[JohnCrichton]

Here's one:

Stupid disguises:

I mean, you got the worlds finest super heroes, but if one of their own walks in and is a completely different colored skin(I know I've seen this somewhere, that nobody seemed to notice the guy was no sporting blue skin!) or just..... insanly different or they can easily see the robotic gyros, they're still always fooled by said "disguise."

I hate that....

 

[Meow]

I remembered another...I hope it hasn't already been mentioned. This one is still used a LOT, and it's never funny. It's just laziness on the writer's part. They use this "gag" to get a quick laugh (yea right) and to keep from having to explain why or how the person got talked into doing whatever it is they didn't want to do. We've all heard it a million times...

"No WAY! I'M not doing it and that's FINAL!" (or something like that)

*scene changes to show them about to do whatever it is they swore they wouldn't*

"I can't believe I'm doing this."

I am so sick of that gag. As far as I'm concerned, it's the most annoying and overused one of all. Unlike some of the other cliches, (like the characters telling different sides of the same story) it's NEVER funny because it's always the exact same "gag." There's practically no variation to it at all. It's so redundent that it's pathetic.

 

[DarthGonzo]

Originally posted by TOM 002

Villians considering themselves evil for no good reason. Mum-Ra easily comes to mind, as well as a lotta other old 80's villians. Vicky from "Fairly Oddparents" also fits here. I mean if you're evil, I don't think you'd consider yourself evil. At least have some motivation for it.

Characters that "subtitly" explain too much about the plot. Once again, the characters from "Fairly Oddparents" tend to do this a lot. It's as if they think the audience in incapable of following the storyline without being reminded of it.


Exposed butts. "I.M. Weasel" and "Cow and Chicken" are guilty of this. A banana with a butt? Gimme a break.

Actually, as far as The Fairly Oddparents are concerned, I think EVERYTHING in that show is supposed to be funny. If it seems stupid, it's probably supposed to be.

And those exposed Cow & Chicken butts are really annoying. The trees also had butts too.

 

[DarthGonzo]

Originally posted by Lonestarr

Also, I agree: the Rashomon bit, if handled correctly and cleverly, can really score.

I think if Spongebob Squarepants did something like this it would be really funny. Can you imagine Spongebob, Squidward and Patrick blowing up the Krusty Krab and then each of them explaining to Mr. Krabs how it happened. Man, that would be so funny since each character would truly have a different perspective.

 

[StrangerAtaru]

Nah. Personally, the Rashamon cliche is a tad overused except when used right as well. Do we really want that dumb show to use it too?

Actually, I wrote a reply because of another cliche that I thought of while standing in line for dinner tonight:

Main characters with beards in the future!
Whenever they have one of those scenes where someone thinks of what happens to themselves in the future, the person and practically all of the male characters just see themselves far off with long white beards and basically the same design with a couple of wrinkles. Why do they always do that? Not every old man even has a beard. And why do they always make them think of "the future" as meaning when they are senior citizens? (of course, when they think of other things in the future, it is basically themselves in different clothes, or so I think)