Xiaolin... Chronicles?

This is gonna be a shortie. But I want to keep it this way because of the subject matter, which is both underdeveloped and uninspired.

Remember the time when cartoons had atmosphere, peace, and quiet? Well, your happy memories will never resurface when watching today's cartoons, which seem to have been infused with coffee, sugar, and... you got it, ADHD.

Xiaolin Chronicles, featuring old men, Kung Fu fighting, and the shameless mockery of people who can't control their bowels.

Xiaolin Chronicles is one of today's cartoons, that, while animated by drawings for a change and not this new hip computer-generated clay stuff (for the most part), seems to have been rushed right through during its production. Is the lifeblood of the writers and editors caffeine? It seems to be so, because the storyboard cuts are so spastic and the characters have no time to develop their conversations relating to something other than the cut-and-dry Plot that is afoot. Of course, Xiaolin Chronicles' predecessor Xiaolin Showdown (for which I wrote fanfictions, that seem to be what Xiaolin Chronicles is in a nutshell), gradually throughout its run started to unveil the same flaws of not slowing down the pacing of an episode, but it also took at least a few breathers here and there -- to shed light on a deeper plot, to establish conflict between the main characters, or even to spare us the agony of bad jokes rearing themselves every five seconds. None of this is present in the new show, where it would be most welcome. Sure, I mustn't forget that these shows are aimed at kids. Still, do we need to shorten our children's attention spans even further by having flash-without-substance thrown at them on the television screen? And will this process not contribute to the compounded enjoyment of loud, ear-killing music and seizure-inducing light shows that entice young people to "join in the fun"? Enough stimuli is enough!

-- Stick in the Mud, out. --

In Retrospect...

Time to break my interval of zero blog posts for a rough estimate of a billion months. Hardly anyone reads these posts, but it's a vehicle for my sense of self-importance which is always nice to buff up every now and then. Anyway, as of late I've had an urgent itch to deconstruct and review a cartoon that's rapidly become one of my favorite shows. (And it only took me over a decade to rediscover it! Oh sweet nostalgia-hunting.)

This article assumes that the reader has background knowledge on this classic '90s cartoon, where aspiring cartoon stars learn the ins and outs of comedy animation at a place called Acme Looniversity. Yes, I'm talking about Tiny Toon Adventures.

Da-da-da-daaa! Eat your heart out Scrappy Doo.

  Image "stolen" from the depths of the Interwebs. I need to give credit where I can.

Wow, what a cartoon. Where do I even begin? I guess I could begin by proclaiming that watching Tiny Toons has restored my faith in humanity, but I really shouldn't go there, because then I'd start sounding like the frightening fanboy of TTA Halloween Special Night Ghoulery infamy. So instead of gushing, I'll take a more composed, intelligent approach. As Concord the Condor would affirm, "Duh... yup-yup-yup."

My first encounter with anything Tiny Toons-related was surprisingly with one of the video games, not the show itself. The game was called Buster's Hidden Treasure. It was very difficult to maneuver through the levels and there was a strange woman-scientist boss character (who turned out to be a dude villain named Dr. Gene Splicer, even though he was wearing lipstick for confusion purposes). It led to my fascination with Tiny Toons' most surreal character, and also led me to believe he was kind of like the show's quirky little avian mascot (seen over here in stolen pic number two).

Gogo Wackston Dodo
(A.K.A. CUTE)

Since then I was able to catch some of the show on Nickelodeon, but back in those days of braindead youngsterhood I didn't have much of an interest in the tiniest of toons. Now I do, and for all the (supposedly) right reasons. 

So, what do you get when you cross witty sight gags and eye-stabbingly bright candy colors with impeccable comedic timing and a host of enjoyable characters? You get a chaotic funfest that appeals to people of all ages. And you also hardly ever get bored. 

Tiny Toon Adventures is in essence often quite noisy and hyperactive, which would only annoy all of us stuffy types had it not been for the the fact that the majority of the show's humor is cultivated by its own frantic clanging and clattering. Make no mistake - the writers clearly knew what they were doing and kept the show from going so off the handle that it would disintegrate the believability of the characters and the world in which they live. In fact, without the fast pacing of many an episode the jokes wouldn't have worked as well, since the longer a single joke is allowed to run the more it's prone to wearing itself thin. (This is the snare TTA's brother cartoon Animaniacs fell into; it indulged in one joke or gag to pad the time because it seemed to only have a bare-minimum's worth of vaguely amusing material per sketch. A typical Tiny Toons episode, meanwhile, was packed with a variety of inspired jokes and gags.) It's equally necessary to conduct good rhythm to the lineup of jokes so that the comedy is well-delivered, no matter what. Timing can either seize or lose the laughs.

Frequently nowadays you can tune in to any comedy series and see one churning out plotlines which frankly appear to have been copied over and over in other comedy series until there was nothing left but a mere husk, void of inspiration. That's what I'm inclined to think has happened to animated comedy -- as it would with all shows trying to leech off the success of others, for that matter. And I can't help but wonder if the success of the postmodernist Tiny Toons prompted a following of similarly mindsetted cartoons, whose comedic focus was on meta-narratives and self-deprecation. Cartoons like, ahem, Family Guy. One way or the other, it takes a lot more to win over our increasingly savvy contemporary audience than by pulling some self-referential quips whenever you can. Smart television programming has really taught us a lot, you see. And "smart TV" is by no means an oxymoron.

Anyway, before I get to the meat of things, I don't intend to glorify Tiny Toons as an untouchable Holy Grail. It had its fair share of problems. Some of the outsourced animation looks rough and cheap (thanks to Warner Brothers' raw deal of having to produce sixty-five episodes in one year), and the voice acting for some of the characters -- most notably Elmyra and Montana Max -- can grate on one's ears. The writing isn't always pitch-perfect either, but that's not to say you can't find a consistency in the quality of the episodes. Even down to less likable child-geared eps like "Starting from Scratch" and "Sawdust and Toonsil" the inspiration and workable comedy were still present. Just a little weaker so than usual.

Here's where Tiny Toons really shines though: it recaptures the spirit of the original Looney Tunes (and more). You know, the theatrical cartoons meant for movie-going old timers. Why a select few animation moguls like Chuck Jones treat TTA with contempt is beyond me, because the show is so consistently entertaining, charming, and hilarious. (This isn't just me talking either; many adults out there share the same opinion.) Even though Tiny Toons features cutesy colorful characters that appeal to kids -- younger versions of the Looney Tunes cast no less -- the stories and the gags work for people of all ages. That's quite a feat when you think about it, seeing as how we're often psychologically prone to drawing a thick line between the so-called "adult" and the so-called "children's" programs. Why does that age gap have to exist? Why are adults who enjoy child-friendly cartoons sometimes given the label of juvenile?

Well to heck with that; I'm glad Tiny Toons' goal was to entertain younger audiences. This meant it also had moral obligations to fulfill. Now of course you don't really expect Looney Tunes-inspired cartoon violence to deliver good old-fashioned messages on friendship and eating your vegetables, but Tiny Toons managed to be wholesome while still being funny and not too annoyingly preachy. (There are exceptions however; I'm looking at you "Whales Tales.") With a family-friendly agenda comes cleaner humor and more heart than one would expect from something of exploding-dynamite cartoon fare, so it's pretty refreshing to see that TTA, a "violent cartoon," can juggle humor and heart very well.

Wait... was there innuendo in this program?

Unfortunately, this show gets quite a bit of scorn for not being "original," basing its characters off of, if not the Looney Tunes, then pop culture icons. And of course, for incorporating pop culture references. Now as someone who has absolutely no clue who Taylor Swift or the Kardashians are, I myself am not too keen on the idea of substituting original jokes for pop jokes, and there are times I do wish Tiny Toons would have gone a little lighter on the Hollywood celebrity jabbing and game show parodies. (Oh dear, all the parodies.) But as is the function of such jokes, more people can understand the humor and find it relevant. Original humor carries the risk of perplexing audiences rather than entertaining them, and since pop stuff appeals to most everyone across the board, Tiny Toons occasionally plays it a little too safe in this regard. It's the nature of the television beast.

On the flip side, however, TTA is undoubtedly ripe with clever and inventive bits, with or without the pop hijinks. One example I find absolutely witty and hilarious is the short "Bat's All Folks," where Plucky Duck and Hamton J. Pig don Batman and Robin personas and go fight crime. Not only is the timing of all the gags spot-on, but the overblown dialogue is so despicably riddled with commentary on the Batman franchise that you can't help getting a kick out of it.

Plucky (as Batduck shaping up his crime-fighting career): "So whaddyou say Decoy, the Pig Hostage?"
Hamton: "I say there's little use in discussing retirement benefits?"    

What I'm going to discuss next is completely opinion-based, so be prepared... or click on the back button right away. Despite its flaws -- with presentation, writing or otherwise -- Tiny Toon Adventures stands above the classic Looney Tunes in terms of its entertainment value. Why do I purport such a controversial and ill-favored idea? Looney Tunes is supposed to be timeless cartooning at its best; Tiny Toons is a product of the early '90s.

Let me explain. Back when I was young, Looney Tunes always charmed me and made me laugh, as it was meant to do. The mannerisms and gestures of the characters always caught my eye. And the attention-gripping 'toon violence had no equal (unless of course you reconsider the Tom and Jerry cartoons.) So far a long while, Looney Tunes kept me entertained with its sheer animated anarchy.

Then I grew up. I no longer saw much to enjoy in these cartoons, because I knew what to expect and I realized just how simplistic the storytelling had been constructed. The stories of the characters were specifically designed with cartoony gags in mind, which limited the diverse shades of humor that one finds -- such as "low-brow" slapstick and "high-brow" irony. Understandably, the Looney Tunes shorts needed simple stories because they were only running for six minutes as opposed to TTA's twenty (passing the time before a feature presentation at the movie theaters), but the main plots became repetitive even though the settings and gags varied almost invariably. In effect, as far as Looney Tunes is concerned, there was little room for any true plot or character development, just strings of gags and snippets of conflict. That's not to say the jokes were uninspired -- not by any means -- but longer shorts (oxymoronic) would've broadened the playing field a bit and given more context/background to more active characters like Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, or Porky Pig.

The characters in Tiny Toons seem to have more dimension than their older counterparts, granted the longer duration of showtimes and subsequent "opportunities" for development. Let's look at a prime example. Buster Bunny (the spiritual successor of Bugs) doesn't just hand out snide one-liners and outwit his enemies -- though he may at times do so depending on what kind of cartoon he stars in. (TTA varies the tone of its episodes, from pure slapstick to heartfelt stories to harsh culture critique, all of which I appreciate.) Buster also faces problems relevant to us inhabitants of the real world; he worries over directing a school Christmas pageant; he fights with a salesman over the warranty on his bicycle; he tries to make a good impression with Babs Bunny come time for the prom. He's more sensitive and morally aware than Bugs, and unlike Bugs, has to learn and grow up like the rest of us. By and by he feels a bit more like a realistic character since he isn't just pulling clever only-can-be-animated tricks on baddies.

Besides the added dimension to the characters, another reason I find Tiny Toons superior to the Looney Tunes lies in its greater sense of self-awareness. To its credit, Looney Tunes had some good moments where the characters would address the audience out of spite or with a lighthearted wink-wink nudge-nudge. But in my honest opinion Tiny Toons broke the fourth wall in far more interesting ways, living up to a very postmodern and "hip" bent in its addressing tools of the cartooning/filmmaking trade. Somehow, its innovative spin on cartoons seemed to function as a natural evolution from its older-fashioned predecessor. I see the TTA episode "Animaniacs" (not to be confused with the brother show) as a good example of this show's wacky postmodernism. Plucky Duck arrives at an "Intro to Animation" class square on finals day. Buster Bunny has to help teach him on just how a person goes about making a cartoon. The results are both eye-opening and humorous. To recall a bit, there is one joke in particular prodding at the common story device known as a flashback. I liked its approach because it was both informative and funny, and not just there for self-reference's sake.

One more reason before I close on my controversial stance. Disregarding the evolving changes prior to the '40s permanent character models, while Looney Tunes' animation style remained pretty consistent and fluid throughout its run of theatrical shorts, Tiny Toons' style changed dramatically from episode to episode, and even within an episode at points. Such was the case because multiple, unique departments were toiling out the animation, from many regions of the world. Truth be told, I wasn't too fond of the animation work done by certain houses (namely, Kennedy's animation house) but each style eventually grew on me, and I became interested in all these different takes on the characters. So subjectively speaking, I enjoyed the diversity of visuals, more so than if only one animation house did the job, as Warner Brothers' Termite Terrace studio had done for the original Looney Tunes shorts. So even if Tokyo Movie Shinsha -- which did the best animation work on TTA -- completed and polished all the emotive, beautiful animation there was to complete, I probably would have become a tad less engaged with the show based on its visuals alone. It sounds ludicrous, but mixing up styles, no matter how varied in quality, seems to grab the audience's attention more effectively in my view.

There is much more to Tiny Toon Adventures that makes it A-grade entertainment in its own right that I can't describe in full depth now. But while I contemplate writing an entire essay on "humor theory" and why shows like TTA nail humor down to the funny bone marrow, I'll openly say that yes, it has raised the laughter bar above even the Looney Tunes, and it can be quite thought-provoking and warm-hearted, giving it some solid lasting value. If you're not bewildered or offput by the quasi-bipolar nature of its adult sophistication and its loud, childlike spirit, then lend it a watch. (And I mean time, not a platinum-gold model!)

Y'all have fun now, ya hear? 

Romance Novels: Of the Devil?

Well, they can't be nearly as bad as porn, right?

It's pretty straightforward to spot the purposes for both porn and romance novels, and to see how much they parallel each other, so to speak. Porn (I resent using the term and in turn judging it) is the absolutely shameful watching of a woman demoting herself and her body to a man's personal lust fulfillment. I suppose there may also be cases where the roles are reversed. With romantic fiction, on the other hand, you have teenage girls and grown women alike reading about another girl or woman who serves as a blank slate for the reader to project her fantasies into the world of the book and, of course, the heroic male character in the book. Yes.

But since I've read almost no romance, I hardly think I can take the most accurate stance on this genre. I have, however, taken clues from other people who've written on this subject, and so I'll draw an intuitive-based conclusion from those as I go along. (This brings into question why I chose this topic in the first place.)

Putting aside the question of their quality as a whole, in determining whether or not romance novels are only harmless fun - nothing more, nothing less - one must first ask oneself: how do these books portray male characters, and then how do they portray female characters? Generally speaking? Clearly the core market is the crowd of females ranking from their preteen years all the way up to old age. But the characters they read about and envy are perhaps... less than desirable.

Scenario number one: boy meets girl. Girl is lonely, has an indifferent family oblivious to her "needs," mean classmates, neighbors, etc. Boy is caring, strong, and the all-around awesome boyfriend. Get these two together and you have magic. And by magic, I mean eventual passionate, sexy sex. Or at least an impulsively planned wedding.

Let me explain: the problem I have has (almost) nothing to do with weddings and love-making; it has to do with the conjuring of shallow, stereotypical characters to move the plot of the typical romance, wherein people are subordinate to predictable conflicts and outcomes. Males seemingly have one set of stock personalities for the "spicy" story, while females have a completely separate set, exaggerating gender differences. Add to that the fact that both the male and female characters have to be pretty darn good-looking, so their merits are much dependent on physical attractiveness. They judge and are judged accordingly, regardless of any character depth they might possess.  

Because of my suspicions I don't often count on romances to produce healthy role models, especially for the ladies. The worst part of it though, in my honest opinion, is how unrealistic it all is. Love at first sight - what's this? I guess it could happen, but I doubt the love would last if it's solely won over by outward appearances. If you get to marry your favorite hunk of a man, does that mean an automatic happily ever after? Eh-heh-heh... pessimism aside, it's not always heaven from then on out.

Fantasy worlds such as those in pop romantic fiction and corresponding film adaptations, where people are but caricatures of the real and love-struck, can in fact be dangerous to the unwary. It wouldn't be a stretch to assume that women entrenched in their romance-centric media are inclined to carve out in their minds an unrealistic ideal "Man" whom they would want to marry and make babies with, using men in the books or movies as, at the very least, a template. They additionally may pretend to be the main female character in the story, and act out her love life in the confines of their own imaginations. Forget porn; this consumption of "romance" gives the impression of a lust fulfillment by itself, putting on the deceptive form of a spiritual transcendent longing to replace bodily sexual pleasure!    

It's an indulgence, for sure, which from what I've read can potentially damage real-life relationships. A woman, fantasizing about perfect fictional men, and setting an unattainable standard for a real, flawed man to reach, so he can never meet her approval. Hmm. Sounds nigh just as bad as a man searching for the perfect-bodied woman he's imagined after viewing pornography.

Any other reasons I have for comparing something as seemingly innocent as romance to awful, misogynistic porn? Well, I've never been too enthralled by the whole romance genre to begin with. That might explain my biases - my dislike of the lovey-dovey saccharine stuff. Really, I'll never understand why so many other gals just gobble it up. It could simply be the desiring of an ideal life partner, or there could be some more complex underlying causes. Maybe the surrounding culture's influence on girls and women, pressuring them into becoming "hopeless romantics?" Quite possibly.