Pen: "WOW!!! Look, there are butterflies playing volleyball in my Cheerios. AWESOME!! C'mon guys, let's hop on my coolio cosmic magnetocycle and head on over to Jake's pad-eroonie!"
Pen: (Moments later) "Hey Jake, my main dog, what's hanging?"
Jake: "Well, I was contemplating the state of wormholes in the seventh dimension, but I guess I'm free to accompany you on your journey to the planet of perpetual platitudes as soon as I can locate my cybermuzzle. Oh look - bunnies!"
Pen: "BAROMETRIC!!!......Let's go, Jake - It's ADVENTURE TIME!!"
So, what do you all think of what I've just written there? Quite the brilliant piece of dialogue, don't you think? What's that you say? You think it's stupid and makes no sense? Hmmmm....
Well, that makes two of us then, as I agree that it IS stupid and it DOESN'T make sense. But I have to tell you, if what I'd just written was a portion of an actual script from "Adventure Time", then I'd apparently be hailed as a genius by many of the current readers of Cartoon Brew. Take a look here to see what I mean. And here is "Adventure Time" itself, courtesy of YouTube:
It seems that the so-called Cartoon Network has picked up this insipid little time waster to produce as a regular series. Yet that's just fine with the Cartoon Brew's Amid Amidi, who lately seems to champion anything he perceives as being fresh and different, even when it's plainly devoid of any real writing or art talent. He's also real gung ho for this nasty, ugly thing, so I'm afraid I just don't share his taste in some new animated TV series. Yes, I know I'm being blunt in my negative assessment of this show, but I think it's time that some of us take a stand against mediocrity or it will continue to take over all areas of the entertainment world, squeezing out anything of any real artistic merit in it's wake. Here are just some of the things that are wrong with "Adventure Time":
- The script, such as it is, sacrifices linear storytelling in favour of stringing together non sequiturs, hoping like hell that the audience doesn't notice the absence of a coherent plot. As I just proved with my example at the top of this post, there is nothing difficult or clever about this sort of writing - it's just stream of conscious randomness masquerading as dialogue, not being driven either by plot or development of character. Some may call it "quirky". I call it the work of a hack.
- The character designs are not really "characters" at all - not in the truest sense anyway. Like so much of the mediocrity in contemporary animation, there seems to be a trend toward child-like minimalism in the drawing: Amorphous head shapes with nothing more than dots and dashes representing the eyes and mouth, formless outlines in lieu of real structure or appealing distinct shapes, and no regard for trying to communicate feeling through body language and facial expression. As such, all of the characters' thoughts and emotions are carried completely by the dialogue, which itself is meaningless to begin with. As a test, try watching the clip with the sound turned off, as you'll see that the visuals completely fail to communicate anything on their own. This is a cardinal sin in animation, as the communicating of an idea should be possible through the visuals alone, with the dialogue remaining secondary.
- Even the layouts are really bad. There is poor composition as evidenced by the tree that seems to grow out of the boy's head in the opening scene. Also in that same scene, the dog's head keeps hitting the horizon line as he bobs up and down. Students of animation are told to avoid drawing tangents like this, and are instead instructed to break past such a border so that it is clear that one thing exists in front of another. Much of the layout composition is sloppy and uninspired throughout the entire clip.
- Then you have the garish colours so typical in today's computer coloured animated shows. No skilled background painter would ever choose to paint the grass in that "Lite Brite" neon green, yet so many show creators today seem to believe that the brighter and gaudier the better. I applaud John Kricfalusi for continuing to decry this trend as he has often pointed out deplorable uses of colour in modern cartoons, while showing examples of inspired and harmonious colour schemes in the TV cartoons of the past. Here is a compilation of his writings regarding background painting that provides numerous examples of both good and bad colour for comparison.
In short, this sample from "Adventure Time" flies in the face of every time honoured artistic principle that exists, both in terms of the visual artwork and the writing. But, judging from the "awesome" accolades found in the Brew post's comments section, many of the Brew readers just refuse to see its severe shortcomings and have hailed it as a masterpiece. Not all readers are so gullible, however, and I applaud freethinkers like Jason, Brooke, and Eric for not drinking the Kool-Aid. We need more discerning viewers like them.
By the way, "Adventure Time" also strikes me as being an inferior derivative of TerryToons' "Tom Terrific". Watch this clip and you'll see how this cartoon, while also very simple in its visual design, is just so much better in terms of real cartooning, with sprightly posed characters and expressions that communicate:
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