Wind Chaser

Good thing it didn't start with N. (don't kill me plz)

Over the past few years, I've gravitated so much more to the Internet that I probably only watch at most about two to three hours of TV on a weekday, mostly news. I'm sure it would be just as much if Hulu was included because I'm not a binge watcher. I'll probably watch upwards of four or five hours on weekends because I am a motorsports and American football fan. The only time I find myself willingly watching more TV than normal during the week is during the holiday season to catch many of the Christmas specials.

It just boils down to the simple fact that artists draw whatever they feel. Most people who draw MLP fanart do it out of a simple love of the show or the fandom. However, for those artists who want to go professional, being associated with fanart makes it hard for them to build up an audience for their original stuff because of that prior association. It would be like trying to get MLP fans to watch Littlest Pet Shop; some of them are going to come along, but others aren't going to go with them. When a majority of fans follow an artist for a certain kind of fanart, they care less about the other stuff unless they're also fans of those other works. This goes double for original projects; unless there's a certain air of familiarity about it, watchers aren't really going to care. On top of that, creating original characters and original settings take a lot more effort at greater risk for potentially less reward. It's simply easier to do stuff with characters and worlds you already know. Thus, some artists genuinely feel the love for MLP so much that they don't mind only doing MLP stuff, and others probably continue to do it because they're doing it mostly for the people and probably can't get that kind of attention anywhere else. Character designer Brookes Eggleston makes a good video about "The Fan Art Trap", when good artists are either inextricably linked to fan art or feel the need to keep doing it against their own judgment.

Song of the Sea, an Irish product to watch on St. Patrick's Day. Beautifully-designed movie, one of the few hand-drawn movies to come out in the 2010s with a unique art style blending Irish folklore, nature, and the modern world.

I do agree with you on the voices. This show, on the whole, really looks like the kind of kick in the ass TV animation as a whole needs amidst today's reality of declining ratings, the rise of digital, and fragmenting audiences. Frankly, I don't see a lot of people getting too excited about the other new cartoons coming up (except maybe Samurai Jack), but this show looks like a hit in the making, and I did see the trailer hit #3 trending on YouTube yesterday hours after its release. That's something everyone in the industry would definitely die for. On the one hand, nostalgia sells and reboots are all the rage, therefore there is already a built-in audience. On top of that, this show looks to be setting itself apart from other reboots by relying on genuine effort rather than resting on its laurels and going the easy way like Sonic Boom or The Looney Tunes Show did, pandering to the young crowd like The Powerpuff Girls, or actively chasing away the older fanbase like Teen Titans Go. The art style definitely looks like it was devised by people coming from a background in comics who studied classical animation in-depth, and Disney definitely went out of their way to find the best talent they could for it. Then you add Disney's name on top of it. For a long time it looked like Disney treated their TV stuff as second-class behind their feature films, now it looks like at least one of their TV properties is getting the respect it deserves. This could pave the way for the next Gravity Falls or even be the next Gravity Falls. There's plenty of reason to be excited for it.

"Fake news" This used to be a legitimate term referring to outlets that published knowingly false and unverified stories for the ad money and traffic. Now it's used by alt-righters and Trump himself anytime they whine about or pick fights with news organizations they don't agree with. It's gotten so bad that even FOX News had to stand up for CNN amidst every ideologically blinded pundit crawling back to that safe space because they can't hear anything bad about the golden boy, although to be fair CNN has turned into the Washington version of TMZ. http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_58b0f48be4b060480e083d19

The whole deal with Twilight is just a simple "uncanny valley" effect, when something tries to replicate another thing and bears a strong superficial resemblance but becomes off-putting when the differences become obvious. This is a fact that's been plaguing builders of animatronics and robots of all kinds for decades. People commonly apply it to humans, but I believe that it applies to animals, even cartoon characters and other machines as well. The Skynet and The Matrix comparisons are unwarranted as anything other than a joke, and even as a joke they're old as dirt by now because of popular culture's strange, long-standing fascination with strong AI destroying humanity, and consequentially humanity's fear of the other (a continuation of past fears about aliens). Even beyond the realm of the mainstream, the landscape of science fiction is absolutely full of dystopian stories about AI and more positive ones are hard to find. I do wish we did have more positive ones to really introduce the idea of machines being a benefit to society to the mainstream rather than the abundance of Luddite fearmongering we have now, because with big things coming over the next few decades, we are in for a hard time. For now, all we can do is play with our toys.

This is only possible because of the Internet and the way it has democratized information. Because anyone can say anything on the Internet, in addition to becoming the greatest tool for the storage of mankind's information, it has also become the largest collective paranoia and disinformation machine in our pathetic 6000 years of civilization. We live in a day and age where people not only fail at critical thinking en masse, but actively reject it in favor of their own biases. Even when presented with straight facts, they'll twist it in a way that protects the precious beliefs of their fragile primitive minds. Believing in a flat Earth is just another way of people trying to justify their existence on Earth by making it all about them.

I'd love to see some of the 90s Disney cartoons make a return; with a modernized DuckTales on the horizon, I'd definitely like to see that followed up with at least TV movies of Recess and Pepper Ann and maybe even stuff like TaleSpin or Darkwing Duck. I'd also like to see the crew behind the 90s Warner Bros comedies, like Tiny Toons, Animaniacs, and Freakazoid! get back together to work on an original project in the same style. A lot of them are still active today, but they've worked on more corporate stuff like Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures and The 7D. What's amazing is that we have kids' cartoons that really push the envelope as far as adult and reference humor goes these days, but very few of them where that is actually the focus of the show like with Silver Age WB stuff. We really need them back. Although I don't fall into that show's fanbase, I'd also love to give a shout-out to Invader Zim. The show was criminally cancelled and fans have continued to show great support for it, and I think the fans deserve to see more, even if it's just one last TV movie. I just hope out-of-touch Nickelodeon gets the memo on what classic shows people actually like.

I'm from NYC, where suggesting that chain or frozen pizza is in any way better than local pizza makes you liable to be punched in the face. But Domino's is really good for when you're on a tight budget or want something you can reheat in a microwave. Little Caesar's comes close and Pizza Hut is good for those little pan pizzas (they only have express Pizza Huts around here).

On the film side, definitely Toy Story and Shrek (only the first two and Puss in Boots). On the TV side, I want to say Avatar but I only know Korra. I haven't seen the original series yet.

I've driven heavy delivery trucks before, one of my favorites is a Freightliner step van with a Mercedes MBE900 diesel. I also had an older Workhorse chassis with a GM diesel as well.

I grew up preferring the styles of Nick and Disney over CN. The only stuff I watched on there was really their classic Tom & Jerry and Hanna-Barbera stuff. I'm kind of ashamed to say I'm not really a big fan of the stuff on there that's really popular today, mainly because I'm more of a traditionalist and not a fan of the art and writing styles, especially with some of the shows being very similar to each other in those respects. I'm talking about Steven Universe, Adventure Time, Regular Show, Clarence, and We Bare Bears mainly. I've seen two episodes of Steven, two of Adventure Time, and about four or five of We Bare Bears and I'll give it that they're decent, respectable shows deserving of their fanbases. They're just not the kind of shows I'd see myself following week after week as a matter of personal tastes and preferences. The Amazing World of Gumball is really my favorite show on there. I admire the surreal takes on some stock sitcom tropes, the cultural awareness of its humor, and that the next episode as of the time of this post is going to be ripping on their notorious Chinese knockoff (Miracle Star), which is so accurate that the parody looks just like the actual knockoff and hawks the exact same kind of product. Its humor has the same kind of edginess to it that Gravity Falls had - relying mainly on the banter between its main characters, their reactions to the strange occurrences around them, and making jokes about pop culture, history, science, and like subjects that probably not even Animaniacs would have thought of, even if it was still around today. The only thing I wish it would have done better is to make its supporting cast more interesting. Outside of Gumball, Darwin, and Nicole, I can't really enjoy any of the other characters all that much and I hate Richard with the passion of a Tsar Bomba. I can't comment from a particularly strong standpoint about Teen Titans Go or the new Powerpuff Girls, but I think the way TTG's creators address the criticisms from the fanbase is horrible and could be done a lot better. I have seen a couple of episodes of the new Powerpuff Girls and it seems to be written like such an average, nondescript, and uninspiring show that uses its franchise as a crutch, something which I really can't stand given the dominance established franchises have over the medium these days. It's not anything new to CN; I label The Looney Tunes Show and Sonic Boom guilty of the same and yet a majority of people actually like those shows. I have seen some episodes of Magiswords and I find it enjoyable in small doses. I've followed the show's creator on DeviantArt since shortly before the show was picked up and he's a respectably talented artist. As far as action cartoons go, it's mainly an issue of economics more than any decisions Cartoon Network is making. Original action cartoons have pretty much been on life support ever since Nick fumbled Korra and the creators of the Avatar franchise left TV in favor of digital comics. Only Disney seems particularly interested in cranking out shows based on the same 5 Marvel superheroes and Star Wars stories on a regular basis now. The reason is because action cartoons typically have higher budgets than comedy cartoons due to their more complex character and prop designs and higher standard of effects animation. As a result, action cartoons are more heavily reliant on merchandising and advertising to make back their dollar. But, wouldn't you know it, toy sales and advertiser interest are both going down at the same time, ratings are going down due to audience fragmentation and competition with other forms of entertainment, and licensing and endorsement deals are much harder to come by today for newer franchises than legacy ones from the Saturday Morning era. Although interest from teen and young adult audiences seems to be at an all-time high, this is still a very fickle niche audience contingent too small to justify any high level of investment. No one knows how to really deal with it. As far as Cartoon Network's future goes, all I can say is that it doesn't look good if it's mainly in nostalgia revivals. However, the same experimental writing and art styles that started with AT and SU seem to be continuing with future original projects, so it may look good if you're a fan of those kinds of shows. Steven Universe does still seem to have quite a bit of life left in it considering it's still successful and in its fourth season.

I could say I'm "semi-retired", I still follow some of the fanart and I'll watch the new episodes, and I still have a lot of friends in the fandom, but my overall honeymoon with this show is over. I don't come here to discuss the show all that much anymore, I'm here more for the media discussion and other sections now and occasionally to reminisce over simpler times.