Cartoons and What Could Have Been & Be.

[Ogilvie]

After the Sly Cooper movie was revealed in 2014 and expected to hit theaters in 2016 only to disappear without a trace, fans were left anxious as to its fate.

It turns out that fans of the beloved franchise are getting something else entirely: an animated TV series! The series will be produced by Technicolor Animation, which most of us will know for being the team behind the second season of Sonic Boom.

We don't have any screenshots, teasers, etc. for the TV show just yet, but we do have a basic plot synopsis:

" Sly Cooper follows the adventures of an irresistibly charismatic raccoon, a modern-day Robin Hood, who restores justice to his city one theft at a time. Sly is aided by his two best friends, a muscular hippo named Murray and a brainy turtle named Bentley. Hot on Sly’s trail is Inspector Carmelita Fox, a morally upright cop with an unfortunate crush on the charming bandit, as well as a band of villains, each one more strange and colorful than the last."

My assumption would be they plan on adapting the games, as the film was basically going to retell the first game's story, but the "his city" part puts that in doubt, as Sly Cooper is a franchise about committing heists all over the world. We'll have to see if he's still a world traveler, or if the plot will be focused on the city of Paris (presumably).

Based on that single promotional image, I think it's a safe bet they're going to end up using the movie's designs for the TV series. For those of you who haven't seen the film's models, here is the trailer for the Sly Cooper film, which is presumably on hiatus for now:

For longstanding fans of the franchise, two of the biggest issues were Sly's change in voice actor and the change in Murray's design. With the move of the show to TV, though, the odds of Sly's usual voice actor - Kevin Miller - coming back are high. It remains to be seen if Murray will keep his design.

I will say though. When I said this show would be Sly Boom, I didn't expect it to literally be so!

[TheRedStranger]

Resurrected this thread to be about Cartoons that Could Have Been or Could be.:)

[Wulfsbane]

So in 2008, President Stuart Snyder rebranded Cartoon Network as CN and aired live action programming to counter popular Disney series such as Wizards of Waverly Place/Hannah Montana and Nickelodeon's Drake & Josh and iCarly,  a decision costed them dearly. How?

They lost Maxwell Atoms, who was creating a Grim Adventures spin-off called Underfist, which would have followed a team consisting of Hoss Delgado, Irwin, General Skarr, Jeff the Spider, and Fred Fredburger fighting evil coming from the Underworld and other dimensions.

They lost Craig McCracken, who was with Cartoon Network since the mid 90s, creating iconic shows such as the original Powerpuff Girls (for the record, he hates the reboot and it was done without his permission) and Fosters Home for Imaginary Friends. Reportedly he was going to help with the show Chowder and a possible Fosters spin-off was in the works

And they lost Mr. Warburton, famous for creating Codename: Kids Next Door. Warburton wanted one more season of KND before making the spin-off Galactic Kids Next Door but the network cut short Warburton's plans, which is why the Splinter Cell arc never got a real conclusion, and caused him to leave the company.

 

One decision costed the network three of their popular creators and set the network back several years, possibly leading to the afformentioned Powerpuff Girls rebbot as well as the hated reboot Teen Titans GO! Cartoon Network did get lucky by getting Adventure Time though.

[TheRedStranger]

1 hour ago, Wulfsbane said:

So in 2008, President Stuart Snyder rebranded Cartoon Network as CN and aired live action programming to counter popular Disney series such as Wizards of Waverly Place/Hannah Montana and Nickelodeon's Drake & Josh and iCarly,  a decision costed them dearly. How?

They lost Maxwell Atoms, who was creating a Grim Adventures spin-off called Underfist, which would have followed a team consisting of Hoss Delgado, Irwin, General Skarr, Jeff the Spider, and Fred Fredburger fighting evil coming from the Underworld and other dimensions.

They lost Craig McCracken, who was with Cartoon Network since the mid 90s, creating iconic shows such as the original Powerpuff Girls (for the record, he hates the reboot and it was done without his permission) and Fosters Home for Imaginary Friends. Reportedly he was going to help with the show Chowder and a possible Fosters spin-off was in the works

And they lost Mr. Warburton, famous for creating Codename: Kids Next Door. Warburton wanted one more season of KND before making the spin-off Galactic Kids Next Door but the network cut short Warburton's plans, which is why the Splinter Cell arc never got a real conclusion, and caused him to leave the company.

 

One decision costed the network three of their popular creators and set the network back several years, possibly leading to the afformentioned Powerpuff Girls rebbot as well as the hated reboot Teen Titans GO! Cartoon Network did get lucky by getting Adventure Time though.

I would love to see these creatives be interviewed and their concepts elucidated for fans of “CN.”

[Mike Arcade]

7 hours ago, Wulfsbane said:

One decision costed the network three of their popular creators and set the network back several years, possibly leading to the afformentioned Powerpuff Girls rebbot as well as the hated reboot Teen Titans GO! Cartoon Network did get lucky by getting Adventure Time though.

Thing is with Adventure Time, while it was an overall decent show, the way it was managed lead to a wave of changes throughout Animation as a whole...and not for the better.

The fact Adventure Time actually got enough seasons as it is was pretty amazing, as a good majority of staff were new and fresh out of college. Then they started to hire artists off of Tumblr, literally. There are a lot of jokes that can be made, but it lead to Rebecca Sugar being hired for the show.

Basically, the effect of the show lead to the creation of Steven Universe. Then, staff who worked on one or both shows lead to others being hired off of them to make their own cartoons (examples like Star vs. the Forces of Evil, to the abysmal Thundercats Roar).

It's been said that there's a lot of nepotism around a bunch of these shows, and we're managed rather poorly. Yet still somehow managed to release episodes, Steven Universe I know had a bunch of time to make and release episodes. We're talking like months apart, which wouldn't fly back in the day.

Regular Show and Gumball, while having a few odds and ends in production of episodes, were stark exceptions compared to those above. I'd say they were the best cartoons to come out of that time on Cartoon Network.

After them, I dropped out of watching cartoons on TV entirely. While there are a few goods shows like the DuckTales reboot, I'd say Western Cartoons were damaged in the long run. You can trace the history of bad choices back to CN Real because of it.

Other than a few shows and DC Animated releases, there's not too much to look forward to. Sorry to sound negative, but it's pretty crazy what's happened in the past decade. The late 2000's to early 2010's was the swan song to cartoons on cable/satellite.