Ugh... Just a rant about fandoms

[Deleted]

LOL!!! Nice. Seriously though, Ken would not allow Disney to throw those people in as voices for a Teddy Ruxpin movie, or animated series. Neither would we as fans. Basically, as long as he's still alive, and able to do so, Phil Baron should be Teddy Ruxpin, nobody else.

[kaylathehedgehog]

And if Teddy IV is anything to go by, he's still got it.

Considering that June Foray has been doing voice work since 1943 (and still provided voice work to this day), barring natural causes, I wouldn't be surprised if Phil Baron was able to still do Teddy far into the lifetimes of any of our hypothetical children.

[Deleted]

I would not be surprised, honestly. I mean, he's one of those people that keeps on going, long after most people would've stopped. Just like Leonard Nimoy, and Peter Cullen.

[kaylathehedgehog]

He and Will Ryan are part of an elite group, that's for sure.

[Fen]

*sigh*

Ok... this is not the first time nor will it be the last time. The My Little Pony franchise was set up initially to be marketed to little girls. For some reason, unknown to me but I guess known to others, 16-30 year old males and to a lesser extent females embraced the show citing its dark references and edgy undertones, clever animation, and witty characters as the new "cool".

You know who I'm referring to... yep, the Bronies and Pegasisters.

The Brony outcry and support made Hasbro wake up and pay attention because they realized the cash cow they just unwittingly let out of the pen with this OTHER group of fans outside of the INTENDED demographic. Bronies were going to cons, paying $100.00's on MLP-FIM merchandise, they were promoting the show in a way that blew up the internet and Hasbro could not be happier. So, to answer the demand of the Brony fandom, Hasbro sold the franchise licenses to other clothing and merchandise manufacturers who "edged up" MLP and suddenly everyone is wearing the gear, talking the "pony talk", and raving about how amazing the show is not because it really is that amazing, but because it is "cool".

Now I have seen the show, watched every single episode, and honestly I don't see what the big deal is. It's cute, the songs are catchy, the characters are fun, but I'm not dropping $30.00 for a MLP t-shirt. Nor would I want to, even if it was on sale for $5.00. It's a show made for LITTLE GIRLS!

This new trend of the "Brony" or "Pegasister" has a dark side to it as well. There is some very creepy stuff that has come out of the fandom. Everything from pony body pillows, to pony porn (yep I said it), to pony styled fantasy devices. (It was the nicest way I could write it).

Because MLP was a show targeted at little girls, I have a real problem with this trend. As a soon to be parent if I had a little girl, and she did a Google search of MLP-FIM and saw the fan art out there, I think she would be pretty scarred by it. The fandom has changed from what it was in the 80's, not the show, just the fans. I am a child of the 80's. I had the original MLP gen 1 and I played with them until I turned 12. I actually gave them to Goodwill because I grew out of them.

I do NOT want to see Teddy Ruxpin become yet another badly done 80's reboot for the sake of a "trend". Yes, the show does need to be redone. I purchased the complete DVD set, and the artifacts alone on the video are awful. There are other studios, outside of "The Hub", that I would rather have do a reboot of the show.

The style of the cartoon needs to be cleaned up, but it also needs to retain the original design of the world. I would love to see Teddy Ruxpin digitally realized, but also with a cleaner arc. The songs and "educational" stories are nice, but I find them to be a bit "preachy" at times. The episodes that are more interesting are the ones that expand upon the overall story arc. I think if there is a reboot, that should be the focus. I know filler episodes are good, but too many of them spoil it. Likewise, too many cliff hanger endings also spoil the show. There needs to be a balance. As far as the songs go, I'm not sure. I know MLP-FIM used music in the show, and some shows do well with it (like Phineas and Ferb). I'm just not sure how the songs would translate to the reboot. Animation wise there is a marked difference between the Missing Princess Trilogy and the rest of the series in animation quality. I believe that is because the Missing Princess Trilogy was outsourced to a Japanese animation house, where the rest of the episodes were done by an animation studio in Canada. If you look at the stills on the DVD's you can see a marked difference in how reactions were animated down to the subtle details of movements that were in the Missing Princess Trilogy which were completely absent in the other episodes.

Ultimately, you can't compare MLP-FIM fandoms with any other. It has become an entity all of itself, and frankly I find the whole thing rather creepy.

[kaylathehedgehog]

Aug 16, 2013 9:19:39 GMT -7 Fen said:

This new trend of the "Brony" or "Pegasister" has a dark side to it as well. There is some very creepy stuff that has come out of the fandom. Everything from pony body pillows, to pony porn (yep I said it), to pony styled fantasy devices. (It was the nicest way I could write it).

Because MLP was a show targeted at little girls, I have a real problem with this trend. As a soon to be parent if I had a little girl, and she did a Google search of MLP-FIM and saw the fan art out there, I think she would be pretty scarred by it. The fandom has changed from what it was in the 80's, not the show, just the fans. I am a child of the 80's. I had the original MLP gen 1 and I played with them until I turned 12. I actually gave them to Goodwill because I grew out of them.

Oh, no doubt. It sickens me that I have to keep the mature filter on Google and Deviant Art because there is so much smut.

I do NOT want to see Teddy Ruxpin become yet another badly done 80's reboot for the sake of a "trend". Yes, the show does need to be redone. I purchased the complete DVD set, and the artifacts alone on the video are awful. There are other studios, outside of "The Hub", that I would rather have do a reboot of the show.

Agreed. Hasbro was just the first company that came to mind since they have such a big presence in the toy world.

The style of the cartoon needs to be cleaned up, but it also needs to retain the original design of the world. I would love to see Teddy Ruxpin digitally realized, but also with a cleaner arc. The songs and "educational" stories are nice, but I find them to be a bit "preachy" at times. The episodes that are more interesting are the ones that expand upon the overall story arc. I think if there is a reboot, that should be the focus. I know filler episodes are good, but too many of them spoil it. Likewise, too many cliff hanger endings also spoil the show. There needs to be a balance. As far as the songs go, I'm not sure. I know MLP-FIM used music in the show, and some shows do well with it (like Phineas and Ferb). I'm just not sure how the songs would translate to the reboot. Animation wise there is a marked difference between the Missing Princess Trilogy and the rest of the series in animation quality. I believe that is because the Missing Princess Trilogy was outsourced to a Japanese animation house, where the rest of the episodes were done by an animation studio in Canada. If you look at the stills on the DVD's you can see a marked difference in how reactions were animated down to the subtle details of movements that were in the Missing Princess Trilogy which were completely absent in the other episodes.

Agreed again.

To be perfectly honest, there's really no reason why they couldn't do the music like FiM. Only use songs to enhance the narrative, like "Winter Wrap Up" or "A True, True Friend." There's really no need to have a song every single episode.

Ultimately, the original series was as much a victim of the 80s as My Little Pony and Transformers were. They were really little more than a ten (in the case of MLP) to thirty minutes (TF or TR) toy commercial, so there wasn't really that much of a concern about the quality.

[Fen]

Ultimately, the original series was as much a victim of the 80s as My Little Pony and Transformers were. They were really little more than a ten (in the case of MLP) to thirty minutes (TF or TR) toy commercial, so there wasn't really that much of a concern about the quality.

On that I disagree. I remember the original MLP cartoon AND the original Teddy Ruxpin. Like I said, child of the 80's here, and I was a huge fan of BOTH franchises.

MLP had a big following in the 80's and several feature films were released in cinemas across the world as well as a very popular syndicated TV show. I didn't feel like I was watching an advertisement for MLP, but then I also think the cartoon show was not intended to have an epic arc to it either. It was a show for little girls about talking ponies.

On the other hand Teddy Ruxpin offered something a little different. I believe the cartoon came out shortly after the made for TV film. The first episodes were a retelling of the original story with a live action Teddy talking to the audience of kids about the story with a follow up talk and "moral lesson" common in 80's cartoons.

"Knowing is Half the Battle" - G.I.Joe

The cool thing with the Teddy Ruxpin cartoon was that there WAS a story arc that followed through the entire series, there was character development (which was uncommon for an 80's cartoon), and as you watched the series this story arc linked everything together.

MLP-FIM is similar to that. I'd dare say that Lauren Faust recognized that a story should have a big arc, it keeps people interested and creates dialogue among the fans. The formula is seen in every successful children's/ young adult series out there from Harry Potter to Lord of the Rings.

All 80's cartoons had atrocious animation. I stress ALL because animation was done old school, that is every single frame was drawn out by hand, inked, and colored.

• Film runs at 24 frames per second.
If you shoot your animation on “one’s”, (that’s one drawing for every frame), you’ll need 24 drawings for every second of screen time.
48 for 2 seconds,
72 for 3 seconds,
96 for 4 seconds, (the average length of scene)
120 for 5 seconds,
144 for 6 seconds,
168 for 7 seconds,
192 for 8 seconds,
216 for 9 seconds, and
224 for 10 seconds.

Now if you say an average drawing for animation takes about 30 minutes to draw, give or take depending on how simple or complex the drawing is, from rough to final clean. We can then calculate how long it would take to complete each given length:

12 for 1 second, 6 hours to complete - 1 day
24 for 2 seconds, 12 hours to complete - 2 days
36 for 3 seconds, 18 hours to complete - 3 days
48 for 4 seconds, 24 hours to complete - 4 days
60 for 5 seconds, 30 hours to complete - 5 days
72 for 6 seconds, 36 hours to complete - 6 days
84 for 7 seconds, 42 hours to complete - 7 days
96 for 8 seconds, 48 hours to complete - 8 days
108 for 9 seconds, 54 hours to complete - 9 days
120 for 10 seconds, 60 hours to complete - 10 days

• A 30 second commercial (360 drawings) would take 1 person 30 days or 1 month.
• A 7 minute cartoon like a Warner Bros., Bugs Bunny cartoon (4320 drawings) would take 1
person 3 1/2 months to complete.
• A 22 minute saturday morning cartoon (14,400 drawings) would take 1 person 11 months
(non stop don’t forget)

Now back in the 80's animation studios had floors of artists rendering images for a show that would be only 30 minutes long, and they had to do this under tight deadlines. Tighter than the deadlines for feature films (although they ran very close). Because of those deadlines and the need to meet the FPS requirement, shortcuts were done, resulting in a sloppy final product. I can't recall how many times I watched episodes from the Smurfs where hands were missing color, continuity errors were abundant, and expressions were sloppy. Hanna Barbara was also infamous for the repeating background walk cycle. Look at Scooby Doo, and you'll see an endless hallway with about 20 clocks in it as the characters "explore" a mystery. Warner Bros did the same thing for the Loony Tunes shorts. The focus was on the character and the action, but if you watch the backgrounds they cycle.

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The big difference between current animation is the advent of in house computer animation programs such as Flash, etc. These programs allow animators to save time by storing a vast catalog of expressions, movements, and backgrounds to be used as a sort of cookie cutter template. This allows for clean and consistent animations where everything flows in proportion to one another. The basics of timing and understanding the rhythm of animation still apply, but the time it takes to make a show has been drastically reduced. Along with that, a show does not require the manpower or space to animate like it did back in the 80's.
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Do I want to see Teddy Ruxpin redone? With a resounding Yes! I'd love to see the new technology available today bring to life Ken Forsse's characters! What I don't want to see, is the characters changed so much that they hardly resemble their creators vision. Sorry, but like John Lassiter said so eloquently. "Story comes First!" Ken Forsse has given us a fantastic world, with an incredible story, I'd like to see it realized but also stay true.

[Deleted]

Aug 16, 2013 9:19:39 GMT -7 Fen said:

For some reason, unknown to me but I guess known to others, 16-30 year old males and to a lesser extent females embraced the show citing its dark references and edgy undertones, clever animation, and witty characters as the new "cool".-

It's well worth noting that animation has typically had a large following among adults - for example, Warner's and Disney's shorts (including Walt Disney's work at Universal prior to founding his own company - i.e., Oswald the Lucky Rabbit) were mainly aired to grown-up audiences in their day, and the unusual belief in Western countries that cartoons are only for children sprung up considerably later. Cartoons being primarily watched by adults was, I gather, also the case in the Soviet Union in its time, and it's speculated by some to also be the case with the North Korean propaganda cartoon series, "Squirrel and Hedgehog".

That said, the things you guys have said about the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic issue in particular sound to be quite different to the above-described status-quo. I don't doubt that it would have gathered a side-line grown-up fan-base anyway, but what's been mentioned in this thread sounds very different to what is usually the case (i.e., adults simply enjoying cartoon shows for what they are - as escapism, purely for the fun of it, the same as the intended target audience does, as well as for the art and such, for those who also appreciate animation as a medium)...

I don't know if that sheds any light on why this particular show has gotten the following it has (it probably doesn't, given how different it seems to be from the norm), but it was worth pointing out anyway, I think.

[Sylverwolfe]

Once you mentioned Hasbro My Little Pony, it was all I needed to hear.
I know a handful of My Little Pony fans; mostly they're okay. They aren't usually the people you have to worry about.
I also know a few "Bronies." Those bronies who are not vapid, insipid, slavering, disgusting, degenerate fan-boys are actually decent human beings; trouble is it is a junge out there to find them. That is something I have dealt with in other fandoms as well, trust me. All I can say is just let it go. The franchise will persist as Hasbro wants it to do; the way that makes them more money.