Cartoons Today

[Kopikatsu]

So, I was just bumming around when the Looney Toons Show came on TV. It made me feel a bit nostalgic, so I watched it all the way through.

There were a few subplots going on, but here was the main one: Cecil the Turtle pretended that Bugs Bunny hit him with his car and ended up cracking his shell. So he guilted Bugs into a scam where he basically extorted money from Bugs to pay for his faked injuries. Later on, Bugs found out that Cecil had been doing this for years to a number of different people, and finally went to confront him about it near the end of the episode. When confronted, Cecil pulls out a (realistic, non-cartoonish) revolver and tells Bugs and Porky to stand in the corner. Then when Bugs asked why Cecil was doing this, he said that it would be fine to tell them both his plan because he was going to shoot them anyway.

When did cartoons get so...blunt, I guess? Back when I was a kid, an iteration of Scooby Doo was pulled because they determined it was too violent. Even later on, in shows such as Samurai Jack, violence between humans was heavily restricted, that the vast majority of his foes were mechanical in nature. The only exception I can really think of is the Scotsman.

Are all modern cartoons like that? With conmen, and threats of deadly force. Because this is marketed towards younger children as far as I can tell. Not really complaining, just...I was really surprised when the turtle just suddenly whipped out a gun and started threatening people like it was NCIS or something.

 

[ShipofFools]

Kopikatsu, Bugs Bunny died in the old cartoons.
Tom and Jerry commited suicide and drank booze, Donald Duck died multiple times, Goofy was thrown into a vulcano, and there is probably a lot more of that stuff that I don't remember.

Cartoons have become tame if anything.

 

[BeeGeenie]

Pretty sure this modern new looney tunes was intended for a somewhat older Nostalgic demographic. Though I agree it is a bit weird to replace the cartoonish slapstick violence with more "edgy" real-world violence, that's the aesthetic they went with for the show, so I guess it makes sense in context.

What I've seen of the series is decidedly meh.

 

[Keoul]

No, they had guns back then too.
It wasn't exactly "deadly" since it's a cartoon but who is to say that's not the case with Cecil the turtle, for all we know that gun would just shave Bugs instead of actually killing him.

 

[Atrocious Joystick]

Eh, I remember when I was a wee lad and watched a cartoon about a guy murdering his brother in order to steal the throne then he blames it on his brother's son who spends his life in exile until learning the truth and returns to exact vengeance and reclaim his rightful place.

Cartoons today are tame if anything.

 

[Kitsune Hunter]

True that cartoons have become more tame nowadays and I don't have the answer as to why that is, although since you're talking about the Looney Tunes show, the Nostalgia Critic did an episode about it so it may be able to answer your question to some degree

 

[Jaythulhu]

...*snip* vulcano *snip*...

*chuckles* Am I the only one who read that and saw this

Spoiler

 

[Snotnarok]

Cartoons are pretty much tame is the problem, they hold back and aren't allowed to do squat for the most part...except Adventure Time, there was some nice hints of some fun twisted stuff from a few eps, really neat. But I haven't seen much else that wowed me. ...Not that it needs to be twisted or whatever to be good.

 

[ShipofFools]

...*snip* vulcano *snip*...

*chuckles* Am I the only one who read that and saw this

Spoiler

Did you photoshop that just to spite me?
Dude, English no my native tongue.

 

[SilverBullets000]

I think a few posters nailed it on the head already.

Cartoons have become rather tame, not in concept but in imagination. They don't have fun with their slapstick the same way older cartoons used to. Basically, older cartoons would use guns as part of the gags, treating them as a means to make a character's bill spin or shave them, whereas now they're to be treated as what they actually are: objects of deadly force.

I'm not sure if that's because people are more reluctant to offend the "Think of the Children!" crowd or if the censors are stricter about what can be used as a joke.

 

[neppakyo]

Cartoons today are quite bad. Too politically correct imho. I remember as a kid watching shows like Anamaniacs and freakzoid. Watching them now it's even more funny as I get more of the jokes that were adult oriented.

I liked the Old looney toons before censors started cutting scenes out of them.

Watching kids shows today I shake my head, they are horrible and freaking strange, if I had to watch those, I'd probably end up in a bell tower with a high powered rifle.

 

[hermes]

Looney tunes used to be a lot worst than that. I am talking about sex jokes, violence, characters being shot, racial jokes, etc... The reason why most people don't remember that is because they were heavily edited by the time the started showing them on TV as a kids show (they used to be used as previews in movies, like the Pixar shorts and, according to their own authors "were never written in mind for kids").

The original cartoons seems even more violent because, for the most part, they didn't worried about censorship. Cartoon in the 60s onward had been under a lot of scrutiny... Luckily, censors receded a bit during the 90s, otherwise we wouldn't had have shows like Animaniacs, Simpsons or Justice League.

The new Looney Tunes are made with a similar spirit than the old ones, so they are aimed to a more adult audience than the average kids show. However, I don't think the new cartoons are bad... The reason why most people prefer the older ones (besides nostalgia, obviously) is because they were THAT good. Seriously, check some of the old cartoons and you will see that Blanc, Freleng, Jones et al... were incredibly talented people.

 

[Scarim Coral]

To sum it up, the soccer mons and any other sensitive parents out there had won in the end. I don't know how and when but they had won.

 

[Shadowstar38]

Cartoons use to be full of shit like this until the parents decided to crack down on it because "think of the children". If you grew up on spongebob then this seems troubling, yeah. I'm just glad cartoons are finally getting their balls back.

 

[Mr Mystery Guest]

I remember that there was always talk about banning Tom & Jerry and Looney Tunes cartoons when i was a kid but they never did ban them, they just stopped showing them and just kept repeating endless antique programs. But old Tom & Jerry got a pass it was later cartoons that got heavily censored. Jason & the Wheeled Warriors, Dungeons and Dragons, Ren & Stimpy used to have the shit slashed out of them to the point where they were un-watchable.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles had the word Ninja replaced with Hero because it was seen as too encouraging. And Nun-chuckas were banned on tv so every fight scene was cut out. There would be a lot of talk and then cut to all the baddies all knocked out on the floor. Rubbish. But i still loved them.

 

[Lilani]

When did cartoons get so...blunt, I guess?

I would say right around the time they were first invented Man you've got cartoons from the 20s with women getting tied to railroad tracks, you've got the 30s and 40s which brought Tom and Jerry and the original Looney Toons...cartoons have never been shy about physical violence and death threats. I mean the first few rounds of Looney Toons basically invented the cartoon conman. What does Bugs Bunny do in like EVERY cartoon he's in? He cons somebody. He tricks them, and they usually end up hurting themselves somehow trying to retaliate.

I would say cartoons these days are the cleanest and safest television has ever seen. They at least used to be able to got away with innuendos. Now the edgiest they dare to go seems to be pop-culture references.

 

[Kopikatsu]

When did cartoons get so...blunt, I guess?

I would say right around the time they were first invented Man you've got cartoons from the 20s with women getting tied to railroad tracks, you've got the 30s and 40s which brought Tom and Jerry and the original Looney Toons...cartoons have never been shy about physical violence and death threats. I mean the first few rounds of Looney Toons basically invented the cartoon conman. What does Bugs Bunny do in like EVERY cartoon he's in? He cons somebody. He tricks them, and they usually end up hurting themselves somehow trying to retaliate.

I would say cartoons these days are the cleanest and safest television has ever seen. They at least used to be able to got away with innuendos. Now the edgiest they dare to go seems to be pop-culture references.

Slapstick is different from 'real' violence, which is why I specified bluntness. Sure Daffy gets shot by Fudd every other episode, but nobody is actually hurt by it (Since Daffy just recovers in the next scene).

Bugs' cons are of a different level, too. Like, he argues with someone for a while, then agrees with them and they get confused and agree with him instead. What Cecil did is what actual con men in real life have done.

That's more of what I'm talking about. It's portraying realistic situations as opposed to something that's meant to be humorous.

 

[Lilani]

Slapstick is different from 'real' violence, which is why I specified bluntness. Sure Daffy gets shot by Fudd every other episode, but nobody is actually hurt by it (Since Daffy just recovers in the next scene).

Bugs' cons are of a different level, too. Like, he argues with someone for a while, then agrees with them and they get confused and agree with him instead. What Cecil did is what actual con men in real life have done.

That's more of what I'm talking about. It's portraying realistic situations as opposed to something that's meant to be humorous.

Have you not seen "What's Opera Doc?" It's thought of as the greatest Looney Toon cartoon of all time, and at the end Elmer Fudd KILLS Bugs Bunny. Seriously, go watch it. Bugs does do a fourth wall break where he addresses the audience and says something like "What did you expect, it's an opera?" Because really that's Elmer's goal basically every time he encounters Bugs, to kill him. And let's not forget Wil E. Coyote, whose goal is to kill and eat Road Runner. They never mince words about that, he is out to KILL. Nothing more realistic than a desperate, starving coyote in the desert. Or a hunter going after a rabbit, for that matter.

And IIRC, Yosemite Sam has held up a few people with his guns within his time. And even outside the Looney Toons universe, "real" violence has always been in kid's media. How many people get held up, kidnapped, and conned in comic books? We all know how much of a serial kidnapper Bowser is. And Popeye cartoons are usually about Olive Oyl getting sexually harassed and Popeye having to come in and defend her. Seriously, go watch some cartoons from the 30s and 40s and try to tell me again that cartoons today are too "real" or "too blunt" for kids. When the cartoon isn't a covered in a total, drug-fueled haze the villain is constantly trying to kidnap the token female and either force her to marry him, or he's just running around giving her non-consensual smooches.