Does anyone else miss syndication animation...

[Chris Wood]

[Karl Olson]There was. Fox Kids started out as SatAM, but then added a weekday afternoon line up to compete with DiC and Disney syndicated afternoon packages. Fox Kids was partially composed of Saban stuff, but also of stuff they had put the money up for like Batman.

I don't think it had obnoxious bumpers at commercial breaks like WB has.

Add to that the death of the independent, non-affiliated TV station,

Sigh. Those were the days. Screw the networks.

Personally, I think were the better for it. CN's has been very bold in some ways with what they've produced in house (Cartoon Network Studios/Williams Street Productions,) what they've funded (IE: a.k.a Cartoon, Soup2Nuts) and what they've aquired (anime, some of which had initially failed in the haphazard world of Syndication, but exploded via CN's consistant, national outlet,) and the general quality of that material is clearly better than the old syndication's average.

Yes, but where are the action cartoons? Syndication used to be full of them. Now Justice League and The Batman are about all there is.

Further still, their blocked programmming, Toonami, Miguzi and Adult Swim, has not only given a home to home what would either be neglected syndicated material (Family Guy is getting another chance because of AS, Funimation owes CN it's existance because it took on DBZ when no else would) but put forth some very interesting properties that simply never would have turned up on TV in America period (Outlaw Star and Tenchi sure as heck aren't programs Saban, DiC or any other syndication house would have looked at, let alone Cowboy Bebop or GitS:SAC.)

Of course extrmely mature anime would never have made it into syndication, but I don't think syndicated shows like Battle of the Planets, Star Blazers, Robotech, and Force Five are less interesting than those you mentioned.

(Samurai Jack is not the kind of property that would have been created in a syndicated environment,)

Why not? It's offbeat, but so were shows like Freakazoid and Tiny Toons.

(Ed, Edd and Eddy got to where it is today because CN gave them the time to learn the craft and make it all come together, and the result is, is that it's gonna run longer than it probably would have on syndication)

Um, is that supposed to be a positive or a negative?

and in general, the quality of what's available is of a higher average calibre (there are much less in the way of outright terrible animated series. Crap like the New Kids on the Block Cartoon, Wish Kid and Denver, The Last Dinosaur just don't get made any more. Well, I guess Disney TV animation has actually declined since the 1980s, but everyone else has had to pull their socks up and make atleast passable programs or go out of business.

Now this I really have to disagree with. TV animation will always have its fair share of total crap. It did 20 years ago, it does today. To match your list of crap from the past, today kids are stuck with stuff like Pokemon, YuGiOh, Much Lucha, Winx Club, Kirby, The Proud Family, Blue's Clues, Dora the Explorer, Duel Masters, Hi Hi Puffy Ami Yumi, etc. TV producers are still as found of junk as they were in the past. It's always been about ratings.

 

[KarlOlson]

I don't think it had obnoxious bumpers at commercial breaks like WB has.

Fox Kids in the afternoons was almost under packaged, but it existed. I know because that where I watched B:TAS and Tiny Toons back in the day. Heck, Digmon ran on it too.

Yes, but where are the action cartoons? Syndication used to be full of them. Now Justice League and The Batman are about all there is.

In the 90's, how many good action series were on any given time? Maybe 3-4 max. The rest were as cookie cutter as your average harem anime. Also, a lot of the action stuff has given way to anime. So there are only two big US action toons in production (maybe a few more if you want to count action comedies.) There are more anime, both by number of hours and number of series, than there has ever been, and it's been picking up most of the action slack. If anything were better off because it's squeezed some of the terrible (though Rave Master might as well be no different to some of the dull Filmation action stuff.)

Of course extrmely mature anime would never have made it into syndication, but I don't think syndicated shows like Battle of the Planets, Star Blazers, Robotech, and Force Five are less interesting than those you mentioned.

I think the fact that because CN was run by people with a love of animation who only edited for content is a big step forward from the series combining and rewrites that syndication was loaded with. Further still, outside of Pokemon, syndication managed to nearly kill more than a few anime properties. It took CN's stable time slot and commitment to providing the content as honestly as possible that actually got the shows out there and gaining a fan base. Without CN and WB giving anime a regular, nationally consistant outlet, not only would the ToonZone.net Anime Forum not be one the busiest sub-forums on the board, ToonZone.net wouldn't have an anime board. Heck, I wouldn't even be having this discussion with you. Toonami made a fan, not syndication, which nearly turned me off of anime forever.

Besides, even if syndication has made something of Sailor Moon and DBZ, they never could have expanded from that point. CN, by being a cable network, was able to use those shows as a basis for a media revolution, and seriously, it's a revolution when anime goes from niche, to an export with the same revenue as Japanese steel. That's what you get when you go from DBZ to Gundam Wing to Cowboy Bebop. Syndication was always going to be a outlet for children. Only cable could move beyond that, and only in the hands of people with vision.

Why not? It's offbeat, but so were shows like Freakazoid and Tiny Toons.

Tiny Toons and Freakazoid weren't that offbeat at all. They were Warner Brothers-style comedies, attempts to get back towards the Termite Terrace-era of US animation. Samurai Jack at points ran on pure visuals, music and sound effects for nearly the whole episode. The visual style, the storyboarding and overall direction were radically different from any commercial American animation to date. It wasn't just offbeat, it was instead perhaps revolutionary. Further still, unlike Tiny Toons and Freakazoid, two shows that had Steven Spielburg's name and money attached to it, making them fairly attactive to produce, Samurai Jack really wouldn't have had that kind of backing had it not been produced with an outlet from the get go. Granted, Samurai Jack had the aid of having an established director behind it, making it a little easier for CN through in behind, but even then, a lot of people wouldn't have guessed that Tartokosky had something like Jack in him just by looking at the Dexter's Lab and PPG episodes he directed. Further still, I doubt pre-CN HB would have given Genndy the chance to make Dexter's Lab, let alone let him parlay that into something as insanely bold as Samurai Jack.

So no, the Spielburg-backed animated works have no barring on whether Jack would have gotten made. The fact that when good action animation did come along in the 80s and 90s, it often got toned down as time went on because the syndication companies felt the need to super-sanitize animation (Gargoyles post-Disney anyone? B:TAS post season 1?,) has much more barring. The fact that for every decent syndicated show, you got a few DOZEN terrible, not just meh, not just "this doesn't appeal to anyone out of it's age group" but outright bad shows, and that creative people were wasting away working on that stuff, does have some barring. Genndy may have never made it out of directing other people concepts.

Um, is that supposed to be a positive or a negative?

Is that supposed to be a joke? [/I can be a smart alek too, but it'll get us nowhere.]

Ed, Edd and Eddy is probably the best animated North American cartoon at the moment. It's fluid, it's vibrant and it's directed tightly. It may not be glossy or have pretty designs, like a lot of series are these days, but glossy, pretty stills aren't animation. That's what I can find on any B-grade Photoshop CG art site. Good motion in animation is an artform, and Ed, Edd and Eddy has only been getting more and more expressive with their animation as time has gone on. The christmas special had animation so fluid, so wonderfully extreme and surreal, it puts parts of the first season of Ren and Stimpy to shame.

Now this I really have to disagree with. TV animation will always have its fair share of total crap. It did 20 years ago, it does today. To match your list of crap from the past, today kids are stuck with stuff like Pokemon, YuGiOh, Much Lucha, Winx Club, Kirby, The Proud Family, Blue's Clues, Dora the Explorer, Duel Masters, Hi Hi Puffy Ami Yumi, etc. TV producers are still as found of junk as they were in the past. It's always been about ratings.

Funny then how the TV animation industry as a whole, internationally, has been putting more power into creator hands. Whether it's the midnight anime series in Japan where the boldest and brightest make stuff that noones ever concieved of before, or the relatively creator controlled originals by CN/CN-related studios and Frederator Inc, the market has been moving toward more niche, more creative stuff. Ratings are always an issue, but I think we've moved beyond stuff as crass and soul-less as Rubix the Amazing Cube, and Pac Man: The Animated Series. Hi Hi Puffy Ami Yumi is a long way up from Josie and the Pussycats and the NKOTB toon, and it's certainly better animated. Further still, rather than being bombarded with that level of content on every terrestrial station, and having to wade through all that to get to a show I care about (yes, the Steven Spielburg originals and WB Actions shows in the 90s were pretty good, but they were often surrounded by garbage) most of the crap has been condensed to a few spots and has been packaged reliably and clearly, making it way easier to filter out stuff you don't care for (case in point, the Disney networks have no new animation I want to watch, therefore, I don't, and it won't show up in syndication. Same goes for the Totally Spies/Atomic Betty power-hour on CN, which I avoid like it was SARS.)

So, even if the ratio is the exact same (maybe I should hook Rabi~en~Rose up with some links to the archive.org yesterdayland site archive so she can do some ratios of great to horrible, so we double check this,) it's way easier to get at the good stuff, and the high end of it way higher than it was in the 70's, 80's and 90's. Very artsy, avant-guarde stuff is making it to TV. When animation's only outlet was afternoon/morning terrestrial syndication, it didn't.

 

[Chris Wood]

[Karl Olson]Fox Kids in the afternoons was almost under packaged, but it existed. I know because that where I watched B:TAS and Tiny Toons back in the day. Heck, Digmon ran on it too.

Well, Digimon came years after B:TAS began. Also in my market Tiny Toons ran on what later became the UPN station, not on what later became the Fox station.

In the 90's, how many good action series were on any given time?

In the mid 80s, the heyday of American action cartoons, there were always numerous series running. In 1985 for example you had Bigfoot and the Muscle Machines, Centurions, GI Joe, Inhumanoids, Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors, MASK, Robotech, Robotix, Sectaurs, Spiderman and His Amazing Friends, Thundercats, and Transformers.

Also, a lot of the action stuff has given way to anime. So there are only two big US action toons in production (maybe a few more if you want to count action comedies.) There are more anime, both by number of hours and number of series, than there has ever been, and it's been picking up most of the action slack.

Anime is great, but it can never hope to replace American action animation. They are two very different genres. We need a good balance.

I think the fact that because CN was run by people with a love of animation who only edited for content is a big step forward from the series combining and rewrites that syndication was loaded with.

I certainly compliment CN on their general lack of edits, but of course it's cable so they have more freedom.

Further still, outside of Pokemon, syndication managed to nearly kill more than a few anime properties. It took CN's stable time slot and commitment to providing the content as honestly as possible that actually got the shows out there and gaining a fan base. Without CN and WB giving anime a regular, nationally consistant outlet, not only would the ToonZone.net Anime Forum not be one the busiest sub-forums on the board, ToonZone.net wouldn't have an anime board. Heck, I wouldn't even be having this discussion with you. Toonami made a fan, not syndication, which nearly turned me off of anime forever.

I'm just a consumer, not an investor. I don't really care what sort of fan base there is. I just want to see the shows.

Besides, even if syndication has made something of Sailor Moon and DBZ, they never could have expanded from that point. CN, by being a cable network, was able to use those shows as a basis for a media revolution,

They'll get no praise from me there. Shows like that are responsible for the dumbing down of anime in the US.

Syndication was always going to be a outlet for children. Only cable could move beyond that, and only in the hands of people with vision.

There are plenty of sophisticated cartoons that have aired in syndication, whether on cable or otherwise. Also it is recently that cartoons have started to cater more and more to young children. Prior to the mid-90s, action cartoons almost always starred adults. Today it is rare to find an action hero out of high school. The XMen have been turned into teenagers and the Transformers given kiddie sidekicks.

Samurai Jack at points ran on pure visuals, music and sound effects for nearly the whole episode. The visual style, the storyboarding and overall direction were radically different from any commercial American animation to date. It wasn't just offbeat, it was instead perhaps revolutionary. Further still, unlike Tiny Toons and Freakazoid, two shows that had Steven Spielburg's name and money attached to it, making them fairly attactive to produce, Samurai Jack really wouldn't have had that kind of backing had it not been produced with an outlet from the get go. Granted, Samurai Jack had the aid of having an established director behind it, making it a little easier for CN through in behind, but even then, a lot of people wouldn't have guessed that Tartokosky had something like Jack in him just by looking at the Dexter's Lab and PPG episodes he directed. Further still, I doubt pre-CN HB would have given Genndy the chance to make Dexter's Lab, let alone let him parlay that into something as insanely bold as Samurai Jack.

That's fine, and it's a different and ambitious undertaking, but I don't find it to be a terribly entertaining show. Plus the low budget is very evident in the animation. Outside of Filmation, syndicated cartoons generally had strong animation.

The fact that when good action animation did come along in the 80s and 90s, it often got toned down as time went on because the syndication companies felt the need to super-sanitize animation

That was the fault of the networks, not syndication, which was doing just fine until the big boys starting whining about violence in the mid-90s.

Ed, Edd and Eddy is probably the best animated North American cartoon at the moment.

Wow... (picks jaw up off floor). I guess I'll just have to say I'm glad you like it.

Funny then how the TV animation industry as a whole, internationally, has been putting more power into creator hands. Whether it's the midnight anime series in Japan where the boldest and brightest make stuff that noones ever concieved of before, or the relatively creator controlled originals by CN/CN-related studios and Frederator Inc, the market has been moving toward more niche, more creative stuff.

It's true that there may be more adventurous cartoons today, but that doesn't necessarily mean average quality has gone up. Especially because more and more shows are trying to cut corners on animation costs. I mean, flash animation?? Really. Also anime has seemingly become irreparably infected with the cute bug post Sailor Moon, resulting in many more Inuyashas and Tenchi Muyos than Cowboy Bebops.

Ratings are always an issue, but I think we've moved beyond stuff as crass and soul-less as Rubix the Amazing Cube, and Pac Man: The Animated Series.

Unfortunately not. Hence the equally soulless Pokemon, YuGiOh, Duel Masters, etc.

Hi Hi Puffy Ami Yumi is a long way up from Josie and the Pussycats and the NKOTB toon, and it's certainly better animated.

Better animated?? That looks like flash to me. Josie may have been rough around the edges and filled with cheese, but she was a more entertaining date than those two.

Very artsy, avant-guarde stuff is making it to TV. When animation's only outlet was afternoon/morning terrestrial syndication, it didn't.

Eh, I don't need artsy stuff. Just good stuff.

 

[KarlOlson]

Well, Digimon came years after B:TAS began. Also in my market Tiny Toons ran on what later became the UPN station, not on what later became the Fox station.

Tiny Toons went from syndication from Fox now that I think about it. They even did an episode about it. Fox Kids pulled a bunch of stuff out of syndication for their Saturday Morning line up.

In the mid 80s, the heyday of American action cartoons, there were always numerous series running. In 1985 for example you had Bigfoot and the Muscle Machines, Centurions, GI Joe, Inhumanoids, Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors, MASK, Robotech, Robotix, Sectaurs, Spiderman and His Amazing Friends, Thundercats, and Transformers.

Yeah, most of which had lumpy animation, recycled/repetitive plots, and in general. Nostalgia isn't quality. If it were, I'd think Noozles and It's Punky Brewster were the best shows ever, but just because I loved a show in my youth doesn't mean it was actually good. I've gotten a hold of tapes of the stuff I've watched in 1980s. Needless to say, it was mostly junk on the raw, technical level. Off-model, hackneyed and repetitive and/or a toy commercial.

Anime is great, but it can never hope to replace American action animation. They are two very different genres. We need a good balance.

Then someone other than Warner Bros, CN and Mainframe needs to step and make something worth while. No one else has been able to make it fly. Shoot, even WB and CN have had issues with it.

I certainly compliment CN on their general lack of edits, but of course it's cable so they have more freedom.

Stability also helps as well. Syndication had it worst for edits because they had to be everything to every network to hope they could be on the air. The result? They were usually nothing.

I'm just a consumer, not an investor. I don't really care what sort of fan base there is. I just want to see the shows.

Fan base dictates availability. Meanwhile a consistant timeslot builds a fan base better. Therefore, the more consistant a timeslot, more available a show is. Another reason why cable aces out syndication, atleast on paper.

They'll get no praise from me there. Shows like that are responsible for the dumbing down of anime in the US.

No, those two shows success provided CN's seed money for Wing's aquisition, which provided the backing for Tenchi, which allowed for Blue Sub no.6 and so on through to GitS:SAC today. They allowed anime to actually age up the first time, rather just be limited to the hot toy show from japan for once. Hell, a lot of what CN airs is getting a better, more accessible timeslot than it did in Japan even. Sure, it initiated a split between the edit stuff and the mature stuff, but hey, atleast that means mature stuff finally got on somewhere in the US in a big way.

There are plenty of sophisticated cartoons that have aired in syndication, whether on cable or otherwise. Also it is recently that cartoons have started to cater more and more to young children. Prior to the mid-90s, action cartoons almost always starred adults. Today it is rare to find an action hero out of high school. The XMen have been turned into teenagers and the Transformers given kiddie sidekicks.[/url]

Make characters your audience has good shot of relating too. If anything it's just the states picking up on a trend that existed in Japan since Astroboy; young heroes are more universal.

That's fine, and it's a different and ambitious undertaking, but I don't find it to be a terribly entertaining show. Plus the low budget is very evident in the animation. Outside of Filmation, syndicated cartoons generally had strong animation.

I disagree completely. 1980's American action animation was usually was stock, bland and usually very poorly storyboarded. LFV was 100% right. For every gem there were dozens of show that weren't just mediocre, they were beyond crap. Samurai Jack did as much as it could with the budget (and that animation itself is better, let not get into design, which is usually subject, though the Turing test comes into play,) and the fact is, Jack has some of the best storyboarding of any American animated series, period. Only B:TAS competes with it, and had the advantage of Sunrise studios doing a big chunk of the animation work, and even some the storyboarding.

That was the fault of the networks, not syndication, which was doing just fine until the big boys starting whining about violence in the mid-90s.

Violence in cartoons has been an issue since Fleicher studios Popeye (I kid you not, there was even a Popeye short that lampooned the subject that ended with everyone, Popeye, Bluto and Olive Oyl getting in a fight.) It's always been a problem. Difference is, now we've got an proper outlet.

Wow... (picks jaw up off floor). I guess I'll just have to say I'm glad you like it.

I'd explain, but no. I've seen Matt Wilson try to explain the technical skill of Ed, Edd and Eddy and just get stonewalled because most people can't/refuse to seperate design from animation, so I'm just leaving it be. I probably should have left this whole thread be, but I've gotta get myself in shape. Thank you for the work out

It's true that there may be more adventurous cartoons today, but that doesn't necessarily mean average quality has gone up. Especially because more and more shows are trying to cut corners on animation costs. I mean, flash animation?? Really. Also anime has seemingly become irreparably infected with the cute bug post Sailor Moon, resulting in many more Inuyashas and Tenchi Muyos than Cowboy Bebops.

One, flash can look just fine if you do right. It's certainly a heck of lot more on model and consistant compared to cheap cel, and done right, it allows of a level visual density that'd be insanely cost prohibitive in cel (Fosters, Birdman.) Jesus, it's a lot better than some of the lumpy animation in Tiny Toons and some of the other so-called Silver Age animation. Some of that stuff was just insanely off-model and bad.

Two, anime's always had the cute bug (Again, trace it back to Astroboy.) You're just noticing it now cause it's not just shonen action making it over stateside now. Meanwhile, it's not really that suffocating an enviroment, and in fact, I'd say there is a lot more creativity in design making it to air that it used to be. Stuff like yoshitoshi ABe's work on Lain, Niea, Haibane and Texhnolyze and stuff like the hyper-experimental-but-surprisingly-human-like-designs of Windy Tales are proof of that. Meanwhile, the old school is coming back into favor with stuff like Galaxy Railways and Cyborg 009. If you're not finding non-cutesy design, you aren't looking hard enough.

Also, though Tenchi is what got me in the fandom, there are a million anime every new seasion that imitate it in some aspect, and 99 percent of them do so incrediblly poorly. You can blame vastly more of the cute flood, atleast on the Japanese side, on Tenchi than you can on Sailor Moon. Tenchi is the reason why even though a lot neat stuff comes out of the midnight anime arena in Japan, it usually surrounded by 2 dozen shows that are poorly written shonen "romances" aka boy that's a lot of fanservice and bishoujo design. Meanwhile Shoujo's always been cute. Personally, I think it's nice that more of the anime hitting the air closer to the character design of the manga. Fruits Basket may designed cute as a button, but that's what the manga looks like, and it provides a sharp contrast to the insanely tragic events of the show.

Unfortunately not. Hence the equally soulless Pokemon, YuGiOh, Duel Masters, etc.

Hate to tell you this, but YuGiOh's got a lot more soul than Rubik the Amazing Cube, even edited. It's got better writing than the Zelda animated series, even edited. Meanwhile, almost no American-animated series are being made as toy tie-ins anymore, that's all anime. The new He-Man was about it, and it flopped royally. Meanwhile, the new Transformers shows are basically anime that are being awkwardly dubbed into english, so really, it's in the same category as YuGiOh.

Better animated?? That looks like flash to me. Josie may have been rough around the edges and filled with cheese, but she was a more entertaining date than those two.

It's flash, it's UPA design and it's infinitely more expressive animation than Josie ever had. It's not just a lot stock flash expressions either; Renagade is doing a great job of working as best as they can with in the limits of what they've got, and if you know what you're looking for, it shows. Meanwhile, while Josie is basically HB recycling Scooby in yet another package, Puffy tries to atleast be a more referential driven series.

Eh, I don't need artsy stuff. Just good stuff.

Hey, to some folks, that's one in the same. Meanwhile you can't tell me Bebop sucks, and the fact is, it wouldn't have made it to air in the American terrestial syndication system. To get where we are today, with a real variety of stuff hitting the air, rather than 100s of cookie cutter programs, cable needed to take off, and cable took off by killing syndication via variety and consistancy. Yeah, it's a different breed of stuff, however, I think a lot of that's been a darn good different. There is more animation out there, it's easier to get at and more of it is worth getting at.

But hey, this is all pretty subjective anyway, right? Opinions and what not. Points of view and the like. Personal taste really can't be changed via an argument or thesis.

 

[Terrence Briggs]

I'm not going to miss it much. Syndicated animation was sub-par quality to be honest. Sure a gem came out every now and then, but some of the stuff that got churned out...Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, Street Sharks, Eagle Riders, BABY HUEY.....not to mention a lot of the syndicators have moved to other methods or have been bought out. One big syndicator, Saban, got bought by Disney and therefore now had access to Toon Disney, Disney Channel AND ABC Family, so they didn't need terrestrial television anymore. DiC tried by teaming with Bohbot Entertainment but that only lasted so long. Remember their Amazing Adventures package? USA picked up some of it. Later then Bohbot tried their own package with BKN with some new original shows, but overall bad promotion and not sticking with a consistant timeslot on multiple stations.

Didn't you know? Saban and DiC produced most of syndication's WORST shows! Guess what? They are two syndicators who survived.

The gems syndication DID provide us (Phantom 2040, Exosquad, Biker Mice From Mars, Iron Man: Season 2, Gargoyles may be included, etc.) stand alongside the best Saturday Morning shows ever made. That alone justifies their existence. Admittedly, most of these syndie greats could have been Sat AM products, but their existence is based almost entirely on their independence from the dictates onf the major networks.

So mostly thanks to cable television's growth, syndicated animation is dead. Terrestrial television is watched by more older adults than kids anyway and stations are realizing they'd do better with more news coverage or syndicated primetime shows or talk. You know how many stations don't play the Fox Box? A LOT.

Which might explain why the lineup's ratings dipped so solidly (and permanently) after Sonic X premiered (Sonic X was the closest thing Foxbox got to WB-sized ratings). Last I checked, Phoenix, Detroit, and Cleveland don't air Foxbox on Saturday.