The Grid interviews Craig McCracken about boundary-crossing cartoons/fandom

[Dark Qiviut 22,189]

Two days ago, a weekly newspaper based in Toronto called The Grid interviewed Craig McCracken, Lauren Faust's husband and creator of The Powerpuff Girls. He discusses the ability to create cartoons that cross boundaries, making them enjoyable for people of all ages regardless of gender, from The Powerpuff Girls (plus a key reason why the movie bombed), to My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, to a cartoon called Wander over Yonder.

 

There's more he talks about, including the brony fandom itself, Lauren Faust's decision to leave the FIM team, and Equestria Girls.

 

An excerpt is as follows:

 

 

A decade before My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic—and the Brony movement it spawned—blew everyone’s mind with the crazy idea that older audiences (including males!) could like a show aimed at little girls, a similar thing happened with Powerpuff Girls, which was adopted by late-90s ravers (including me!) thanks to its sly humour, anime-inspired art, and electronic score.

 

This is no coincidence. The creators of both pop-culturally pervasive shows—Lauren Faust and Craig McCracken, respectively—are a married couple who met on the third season of Powerpuff and then collaborated on McCracken’s next award-winning cult cartoon, Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends.

 

Following Faust’s not-entirely-amicable departure from Pony after one season, and McCracken’s involvement with Adventure Time, they’ve rejoined forces for Wander Over Yonder. This kinder, gentler Loony Toons-esque cartoon—about a cluelessly optimistic space cowboy (voiced by 30 Rock’s Jack McBrayer) and a cynical steed, Sylvia, who travel the universe helping people—looks set to replicate the couple’s multigenerational, cross-gender successes.

 

“I’ve never sat and thought: ‘What does a kid like and I’ll make it for them.’ I just think about if I would’ve liked this as a kid,” says McCracken over the phone from the Disney lot in Burbank, California. “Powerpuff was my attempt to make the ’60s Batman series mixed with Underdog, which were my two favourite shows when I was little. It was me purely entertaining myself. I didn’t know what the response would be. And it worked. Kids really liked it.”

 

McCracken doesn’t have children of his own—“Not yet, we’re trying; it’s harder when you’re older”—but he made life a lot better for parents with Powerpuff’s extraordinary feat of appealing to boys and girls.

 

An unnecessary gender divide permeates every aspect of kid culture, but PPG erased it by mixing boy-centric action with the girliest girl characters imaginable. It became a huge Emmy-winning hit with kids, their parents, and twentysomethings, too—an unintended consequence that greatly influenced the show’s eventual big-screen adaptation.

 

Says McCracken, “When we were developing the [2002 Powerpuff Girls] movie, my boss was starting Adult Swim and that mentality was encouraging us to go older. He said, ‘I want you to make it for 25-year-old guys.’ There was a part of me which embraced that—even though Powerpuff was really solid, a lot of the merchandise that came out didn’t reflect the show. It was make-up kits and jewelry kits. This had nothing to do with the TV show we’re making, so I saw the movie as a chance to take back the superhero and fighting aspect of what Powerpuff was. Possibly, I might have swung the pendulum too far the other way,” he says of the shockingly dark movie.

 

But that wasn’t the only reason the film flopped. “The kids didn’t come—a lot of boys who were fans of it didn’t want to tell people they were fans of it and didn’t buy tickets. There’s a safety of watching Powerpuff at home if you’re a guy. It was pre-Brony.”

 

Link to the article.

[Scootalove 10,684]

Not a lot of people agree with Craig, but I do agree with him. I feel that making a show solely for one gender, isn't exactly the best thing but the Powerpuff Girls and  My Little Pony were able to take that to use it to their advantage. The gender divide is not necessary at all, just because you watch a show intended for your opposite gender does not mean that your any less feminine or masculine.

Edited October 25, 2013 by ~Harmonic Scoots~

[Batbrony 15,994]

Thanks for sharing this excellent article DQ (or rather, NQ I suppose at the moment ).  Craig McCracken sounds like he's got just as optimistic an outlook on things as his wonderful wife Lauren does, and Hollywood needs more power couples like them these days who understand that one can make high quality children's entertainment suitable for all ages without making it dark or angsty.  They're standing on the shoulders of such giants as Walt Disney and carrying on his legacy well, and it's a shame that so much of Hollywood thinks that if you want to be taken seriously, you have to go dark, no matter who the target audience is.

 

It was pretty sad to read how Lauren is still upset about leaving the show, and I hope she gets to move on to producing some dream project of hers down the road which she has complete creative control over, but I also hope she's not too worried about her ponies just because of "Equestria Girls".  I agree with McCracken and Faust (and I know you do as well NQ), but hopefully it only proves to be a one-time sacrifice of quality to the Hasbro execs on DHX's part.  Season 4 is looking pretty amazing right now and I'm optimistic that things are gonna be better than ever; could be wrong, but I really hope I'm not.  Again, thanks for sharing this NQ, it was fun to read!!! 

[SaburoDaimando 1,196]

As someone who admires the work of Craig McCracken, I actually agree with his position on the idea that the unnecessary gender divide needs to be broken.  Shows like Powerpuff Girls, Adventure Time, My Little Pony and Wander Over Yonder are but a few examples of breaking that gap(Though I am surprised that Craig had a role in some of the Adventure Time episodes).  And there's a part of me that wants to help break that gender gap.(I always thought about creating a female protagonist that had a bit of the mindset of Bugs Bunny)

[Radiance64 7,051]

This thread appears to be related to the My Little Pony franchise and/or the Bronydom in general. Thus, it has been sentenced to Sugarcube Corner.<br /><br />This is an automatically generated message, by the way.