Things in animation that haven't aged well

[90'sKid]

That ad is probably why I like to think ad people now have to consult with Urban Dictionary before starting any new ad campaigns.

Part of me wishes they never did and we saw advertisers completely butcher recent Gen Z slang.

"This McDouble is totally sus!"

"Our creamy ranch fries are the poggers."

Thread Tax: Speaking of slang, a great way to horribly date your show is to use current pop culture lingo, or worse, internet memes.



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[90'sKid]

I thought of another:

In the sister episode to the KND pilot, Kenny and the Chimp, Kenny catches Swine Flu (and his head becomes a pig)

Back when this episode first aired, Swine Flu hasn't had a major resurgence since the 70's, but in the late 00's it had a massive outbreak in the form of H1N1. Making Kenny's brush with it a little darker after-the-fact.

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[Classic Speedy]

The Simpsons episode Two Dozen and One Greyhounds has a joke about one of the puppies thinking it's one of the Models, Inc. Who here remembers this show? And I don't mean "I've heard of it" or "I looked it up on Wikipedia", I mean actually watched its short run when it was on TV? ...Me either.

 

[Fone Bone]

The Simpsons episode Two Dozen and One Greyhounds has a joke about one of the puppies thinking it's one of the Models, Inc. Who here remembers this show? And I don't mean "I've heard of it" or "I looked it up on Wikipedia", I mean actually watched its short run when it was on TV? ...Me either.

It was a VERY high-profile spin-off of Melrose Place (not having anything to do with Darren Starr) which made it an extremely notable failure. I never saw it, but I didn't watch Melrose Place either.

Besides The Simpsons has done plenty of jokes about Sheriff Lobo and Gentle Ben (even in the same damn song). Obscure bad TV references are a staple of the show. It predated Family Guy in that way.

 

[Dantheman]

The first Simpsons Treehouse of Horror episodes having opening sequences showing the gravestones of canceled Fox shows is something that weirdly ages those episodes, not to mention gives the shows mentioned a weird bit of immortality. I mean, who else but people knowledgeable of obscure, forgotten TV shows are going to remember Drexel's Class?

(Also, I wonder why they stopped doing that? Probably because if they kept it up, it would become a joke that would've worn out its welcome, or maybe, Fox execs told them knock it off. Either/or sounds pretty reasonable to me.)

 

[Classic Speedy]

Not to pick on The Simpsons here, but another dated thing, from "Beyond Blunderdome":

Marge: Look, they're making a movie! Robert Downey Jr. is shooting it out with the police.
Bart: I don't see any cameras...

Yes, at the time, RD Jr. was having problems with drugs and the law in general. But he isn't known for that anymore, not since the early 2000's. That's the risk you run of making timely references, they don't age well.

 

[Antiyonder]

Possibly not done as often, but as no one mentioned it, Pluto being referred to factually as a planet.

Sailor Moon could be probably be the only significant case where that matters or not considering the moon isn't really a planet either.

 

[Fone Bone]

Not to pick on The Simpsons here, but another dated thing, from "Beyond Blunderdome":

Marge: Look, they're making a movie! Robert Downey Jr. is shooting it out with the police.
Bart: I don't see any cameras...

Yes, at the time, RD Jr. was having problems with drugs and the law in general. But he isn't known for that anymore, not since the early 2000's. That's the risk you run of making timely references, they don't age well.

Be fair. At the time Downey had been having those problems for over a decade. In fact he was such a legal liability films refused to insure him, and he was even fired from his well-received comeback gig on Ally McBeal. Considering the amount of times he relapsed, and the fifth and sixth chances Hollywood kept giving him, when he was cast as Iron Man I was beyond dubious. If you had suggested to me he would remain clean and still be so in 2022 I would be skeptical of the idea. The joke isn't dated to me because I know exactly what they are talking about, and I'm betting people remember that about Downey too. It was a HUGE part of his public persona back then.

The Simpsons celebrity slam that feels more dated to me is the John Travolta lookalike gag. "Yeah, looks like." Aside from the fact that the guy had already had more career comebacks than anyone in Hollywood history, once Pulp Fiction hit, the joke looked outright clueless. I think the writers were reading the room correctly with the Downey joke. The Travolta slam sounds like it was made by pop-culture neophytes.

 

[KeldeoKitty]

Most CGI Animation in general is bound to get outdated sooner or later. Especially CGI cartoons made in the 90’s particularly developed for TV. They look so low-poly and synthetic. Like the Donkey Kong Country cartoon which actually looks like a downgrade from the games models. Then there is Jay Jay the Jet Plane where the planes have overly realistic human faces. This is why I prefer 2D animation because it usually looks more organic and show off style better than CGI.

 

[Pooky]

I can't remember if the DKC cartoon looked good even at the time. I guess it did. I know Beast Wars did (to me) which I can't believe now.

The Simpsons celebrity slam that feels more dated to me is the John Travolta lookalike gag. "Yeah, looks like." Aside from the fact that the guy had already had more career comebacks than anyone in Hollywood history, once Pulp Fiction hit, the joke looked outright clueless. I think the writers were reading the room correctly with the Downey joke. The Travolta slam sounds like it was made by pop-culture neophytes.

I remember finding that confusing even in the 90s, maybe in part because I was too young to fully recognise the "former big time celebrity who now works in a supermarket" trope, but I think by the time I saw that episode or at least clocked that particular joke Travolta was starring in major films like Broken Arrow and Phenomenon. And he kind of never really went away, it's pretty much a myth that Tarantino revived his career; maybe the Look Who's Talking films aren't the kind of films people dream of making, but millions upon millions of people watched them in the 90s.

Even if you do subscribe to the "Travolta saved his career" line of thought, it dated very, very quickly; Pulp Fiction was released two weeks later!

 

[Fone Bone]

I can't remember if the DKC cartoon looked good even at the time. I guess it did. I know Beast Wars did (to me) which I can't believe now.

I remember finding that confusing even in the 90s, maybe in part because I was too young to fully recognise the "former big time celebrity who now works in a supermarket" trope, but I think by the time I saw that episode or at least clocked that particular joke Travolta was starring in major films like Broken Arrow and Phenomenon. And he kind of never really went away, it's pretty much a myth that Tarantino revived his career; maybe the Look Who's Talking films aren't the kind of films people dream of making, but millions upon millions of people watched them in the 90s.

Even if you do subscribe to the "Travolta saved his career" line of thought, it dated very, very quickly; Pulp Fiction was released two weeks later!

Tarantino revived his SERIOUS career. Yes, Look Who's Talking was loved by millions. The films were also objectively awful. Tarantino may not actually have rescued Travolta from the unemployment line, but it's because of THAT specific comeback Travolta didn't need to be ashamed of his career anymore. That's not nothing.

 

[Zorak Masaki]

Peggy Hill's obsession with Boggle. Boggle is slowly starting to fade in popularity, Hasbro isnt even making the classic version Peggy used anymore (they do make variations still).

 

[Fone Bone]

I always thought the fact that the characters were obsessed with something so lame and not fun was a part of the joke.

Confusing the issue is that if that's the joke, it's not really funny, so "Huh?"

 

[Red Arrow]

Syncro-Vox:
View attachment 293871
An animation technique that’s so outdated it was never indated. It’s just realistic lips placed on a static drawing. It was used on a handful of cartoons in the 50’s and 60’s as a way to make cartoons with no money. These types of cartoons look centuries behind theatrical cartoons that came out in the 30’s and 40’s and are more suited for a grade school experiment than something shown on TV.

Syncro-Vox should have died out as soon as it emerged yet it was used as recently as the Annoying Orange web series and don’t forget Cartoon Network’s TV version of Annoying Orange that was just a cheesy web video copy and pasted on TV. Speaking of which just about any TV series or commercialization of a web show is bound to become outdated like Nick’s Fred: The Show which I think was really losing popularity by the time it came out.

This British cartoon from 2009-2011 also used Syncro-Vox and it's hilariously awful. It used to air on Sprout.

 

[Fone Bone]

Has anybody mentioned Christopher Reeve sucking a dead, nearly fully formed fetus on South Park yet? Just thinking about it makes me want to beat Trey Parker and Matt Stone like the red-headed stepchildren they are.

God, that show sucks on every level.

 

[Pooky]

Is that something that aged badly or is it something that the vast majority of people would have found offensive in 2003? I suspect the later. It's the only episode I couldn't watch all the way through (although there are two infamous episodes, one from around the same time and another more recent, that I've still yet to see, if I ever will).

 

[90'sKid]

A character in Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy has the name 'Sperg'.

Sperg become an offensive slur used against Autistics in recent years (speaking as an autistic myself), taken from Asperger's.

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[Dantheman]

Has anybody mentioned Christopher Reeve sucking a dead, nearly fully formed fetus on South Park yet? Just thinking about it makes me want to beat Trey Parker and Matt Stone like the red-headed stepchildren they are.

God, that show sucks on every level.

The episode Free Hat is kind of dated in a way, because Steven Spielberg has gone on record saying that doing a "Special Edition" for E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial was a mistake.

Aw, who am I kidding? Trey and Matt would still find a way to stick it to Steven, if not for Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, then for some other perceived wrong he did, like remaking West Side Story or the like.

 

[Sam the Cartoonist]

A character in Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy has the name 'Sperg'.

Sperg become an offensive slur used against Autistics in recent years (speaking as an autistic myself), taken from Asperger's.

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Billy and Mandy creator Maxwell Atoms actually named the Sperg character after a friend of his with a similar name so the slur reference was unintentional.

 

[90'sKid]

I know. I'm not saying it was intentional, more like unfortunate in hindsight.

Much like how in the SpongeBob Movie someone calls SB a "Knucklehead McSpazzatron".

"Spazz" can be a slur in some parts of the UK for mentally unwell people. Similar to the R-Slur in the US.

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