studio that created Rugrats and helped animated The Simpsons, is calling it quits after about 20 years of business:
Rugrat:
Steve Mindykowski (posting on that board as "azumanga"):
To paraphrase Rhonda from the just-as-much-lamented "Hey Arnold!", that was definitely UNCOOL!
(sarcasm) Gee, I wonder why I created this page?
http://members.tripod.com/~Rover_Wow/savekc.htm
We gotta get something done NOW. Get a huge mob in front of their (K-C's and Nick's) offices, have most of them chip in a buck or two, hold up pickets saying stuff like, "No New (RP/TWT/AGU!), No Peace", flood Viacom's offices of letters blaming them for K-C's downfall, and so on, and so forth. Somehow convince Gabor and Arlene to resurrect the company and buck up!
Yeah, I'm being a bit overdramatic, and I know it's not much of a change, but for the company who used to help animate the Simpsons to go down the crapper just like that, is totally uncool.
Some people just never undestand. I personally am not too interested in their later material, but the stuff they were working on in the 80's and 90's were groundbreaking none the less.
(neat to see a post from you after so long Anim8rFSK) :-)
I outta try cross-posting more often perhaps. Already I bother to make it a thing of reviewing episodes of Pee-Wee's Playhouse that had been airing on Adult Swim lately, as a means of venting 20-year old angst and fondness I had for the time this show first aired back then.
I don't know about AGU, but the only episodes of Ginger that are "gathering dust" are the ones where Ginger is in high school, and I have a feeling these have been withheld because there is something about them that Nickelodeon feels shouldn't be shown to its core group of animation viewers (something like kids 10 and under). (For example, in the first high school episode, Ginger becomes an espresso junkie.)
Somebody - I can't remember who - told me that this never got past the pilot, and when the pilot was shown to Nickelodeon, the response was that they were no longer interested in the Klasky-Csupo "character style" any more (which would explain why the characters in All Grown Up were "cleaned up" between the first and second seasons).
I still have a feeling that the reason Duckman is not on DVD has something to do with the music rights.
Perhaps, but you have to remember that it was Viacom's "greed" that turned them into a "great" animation studio in the first place. Do you seriously think that Cartoon Network would have risked millions on the first two Rugrats movies? (And who knows what would have happened with Nickelodeon's animated movies had they not gotten into a fight with Craig Bartlett over a Hey Arnold! movie and a Cartoon Network show that, in the end, never got past a 90-minute pilot? Now there's a case of Viacom's greed killing something.)
(Also, if they were locked into Viacom, how did they get the job for the "Spy vs. Spy" cartoons on MadTV (a Fox show), as well as the rights to design the opening credits on another Fox show (Roc, I think)?
Er, if protesting worked, then they would be drowned out by all of the "No Fairly Oddparents Movie, No Peace" types. Hopefully, Frederator is not about to follow in K-C's footsteps (assuming the talk about closing up shop is even true), although all of its shows are either completed or in various stages of wrapping up production.
(Oh, and at the request of all of those CNN commercials, kindly send my congratulations to King Bhumibol on his 60th anniversary of ascension.)
Has Viacom released much animation wise on dvd? Apart from kiddy stuff, that is. The MTV shows, apart from Aeon Flux, are still in the vaults. I want The Maxx and Daria (even if they do have to strip all the music from it...)
Apart from one missing (flashback?) segment, what else was ecch about the VHS release of The Maxx? I still only have my own taped-off-TV compilation vid of the series, but my recollection is that the complaint was that it was trimmed to fit on a 2-hr tape, essentially (and OBVIOUSLY there's no need to repeat that for a DVD RELEASE!)
Of course, what would be fantastic would be a real ENDING added to the DVD! The TV series, IIRC, essentially covered issues 1-13 of the comic book, while the storyline didn't truly tie up everything until issue 20. That would mean adding about half a season's worth of new animation, so I'm not anticipating it!
Also, just for the record, I want my DUCKMAN on DVD!!! And I mean WITH the cliffhanger ending resolved in a new bonus episode!!!
Which begs the inevitable question - how would you want the original crew to resolve it (provided they could be reunited)?
My own theory, at the time the cliffhanger was broadcast in my area, was that, while Beatrice was dying in her hospital bed, a scientist Cornfed hired (disguised as one of the hosptial staff) placed a device on her neck that slowly repaired her shattered spine while said scientist carefully measured her body and took samples of her DNA.
While her family mourned a specially-made clone or 'Real Doll'-esque dummy, Beatrice slowly recovered from her injuries in a secret location, thanks to the use of stem cells/nanotechnology and weeks of physical therapy. During this recovery, Cornfed kept her up to date on all of the family's activities while still keeping her condition and location a secret. (A picture shown at some point would reveal how extensive her injuries were beneath the bandages)
Duckman would ask how King Chicken and Honey had Tammy if Kingy didn't like sex and, after some time alone, would have to decide whether to marry Honey or stay with Beatrice. (You can come up with your own theory, of course, but, in my version, he chooses Beatrice, causing Honey to run crying into the arms of Foghorn Leghorn)
As for getting Duckman on DVD, I don't really see a problem either save for the aforementioned episode. Unless the crew had put together a storyboard or animatic in advance, I don't think it'll gain more than a passing mention in an interview with some of the staff. Still, I'm certain that any number of extras the DVD crew assemble (including some rare published Duckman comics) will tide you over until the studio, or a group of fans, generates a believable conclusion.
We can always hope. :)
Signed, Warewolf who wouldn't mind seeing some deleted scenes on the DVDs as well.
They cut almost a whole episode. In the two hour version, you see Maxx in a playground starting to tell a story to the kids, and then the story is cut. Naturally a DVD release should have the episodes as originally aired.
(As for Daria, here's the story I heard: apparently, they were using the two movies on DVD to judge how popular the TV series on DVD would be, but the version of "Is It College Yet?" they released was the one that had cuts from the original broadcast to show commercials, so quite a number of people didn't buy it - and this is the excuse Viacom gives for not releasing the TV series.)
Yes, that's the old story. It's also from before the time every tv show ever made was getting a dvd release, and when the show was first being shown on Noggin (which created a second wave of fans). Today, given what else is coming out there has to be other reasons. One would be the music rights, but on those two dvd's you mentioned they removed all music not composed for the show (so no music over end credits, no music on the radio, etc)
So far they act like they've released "Vol. 1" or such that actually sucked corporate a$ (editing wise). There was also the older Time-Life DVD releases that were ports of the older VHS releases MTV had in the 90's.
It's kinda like pissing up the manga/anime community if VIZ or ADV pulled a simular stunt, and they won't care or admit to what you say about a release as long as they bother to make a profit out of it.
You'd only think it wouldn't kill MTV/Viacom to bother hiring someone to create original music for that purpose? Too many of their shows are laden with a lot of Top40 hits and whatever else they bother getting ahold of when they first air those shows, but never bothered to pony up the dough for full rights to later home video releases, and we got stuck with these muted reasons.
Among the episodes of AGU! that remain on ice: one where Lil accidentally scores an own goal after getting mad at Phil over falling in love with the soccer team captain, which actually makes them lose a soccer game (very untypical!), and one where Susie decides to do something with her goody-goody nature and turns bad. There's a _whole season_ unaired in America.
I'm sure that many Susie fans will be teed at the lack of closure to her overall storyline. What I'm sure _DDG_ might be teed off at is the lack of closure to the plot of the first ep.
I'm wondering if K-C is slipping... while I was on vacation in Phuket last month, I saw an ep of Ginger that referenced her arrest in the first eppy (Fast Reputation, S2 I believe), and I know that the 2nd eppy referenced the arrest as well. OTOH, an ep which revolved around a lie detector ended with some random person buying said lie detector, even though Carl had wanted it, and it's never followed up on. They went from "nice continuity" to "what continuity?" in S2 (okay, more like, "uneven continuity").
Of course, the most un-K-C thing that I know of that they did: Otto and company losing a hockey game in "Power Play". I mean, one, they were playing as a team (and we know how good they play as a team), and two, there was a prize of them playing with three NHL pros (Robataille, Brodeur, Roenick). It's easy to see what the obvious ending would have been. (Another somwhat un-K-C moment: Otto forfeiting a competition... _another_ one where the prize was to play with a pro [Shaun "The Egg" White].)
Okay, where was I?
AND the plug ugly look of Pre-School Daze's 4 episodes.
The HA! dispute didn't seem to bother SpongeBob one bit, though...
But to be fair, a change in CN regime is what killed the Party Wagon before it even got started. (I'm guessing this same regime change also killed Samurai Jack and Megas as well. At least the new regime gave us [THE EMMY NOMINATED!!!] Foster's.)
Heck, there are many kinds of protestors... maybe we can round them up under one banner?
Let's go over a list of Nick's crimes: 1. Not letting Hey Arnold! get its planned finale, planned reveal of last name, or its planned spinoff 2. Nixing Constant Payne, probably the only series where the father _doesn't_ want to let his kid follow in his footsteps, and the kid does (I'm wondering if sexism would have been a recurring theme... did we mention that the kid is a _girl_?) 3. Nixing anything K-C makes these days (I wanna see Noelani try to get used to Otto and Reggie, dammit! And Debbie trying to keep Eliza's secret a secret might make for interesting times on TWT) 4. Cancelling Frederator's shows wholesale (just one year ago, DDG thought that a Crash Nebula series was a sure thing, even if it would bump MLaaTR... MLaaTR did get bumped, but these days, NOT getting a Crash Nebula series seems a sure thing) 5. Cancelling a little show about a green alien named Zim.
You can send them yourself:
http://60thcelebrations.com/english/tribute.php
(They advertise this on CNN America? Methinks that it's getting a bit out of hand...)
Incidentally, K-C sent its newsletter subscribers a new email letter, but 1) it's sent from K-C's main domain, and 2) it's not available online. This is a Nickdisk board post: http://superyo.nuxit.net/nickdisk/klasky_csupo_newsletter_continues_-587.htm
Wondering if anyone has saved a whole archive of these newsletters... I know Wayback has several editions from '04, and cooltoons2.com (still active) carries the newsletter... here's one from '05:
The obvious ending - the three NHL players ending up playing with Team Rocket (for lack of a better name for them) - was the ending they used, although it was played on the street in front of the kids' houses. Besides, they had used the "Sammy saves the day" plot once before (the story where Reggie, Otto, and Twister all get sick).
Emmy-WINNING Foster's (one of its animators won one of the "juried" Emmys for Animation Achievement).
The spinoff was almost a no-go from the start. The minute kids realized it wasn't "the Helga & Arnold Show", people would have turned it off, and I doubt anybody who wasn't already interested in the show would have cared.
The Nick press release that announced they had picked up MLAATR (well, it was stilled called "My Neighbor Is a Teenage Robot", which is what the original Oh Yeah! cartoon was called) also listed that they had picked up Crash Nebula as a series. I'm still a little surprised they "officially" announced a series that didn't get past its pilot.
Zim was probably the only Nickelodeon show where you saw people getting killed (for example, when the hamster steps on people in "Hamstergeddon").
CNN gets a lot of commercials from other countries - usually aimed at corporations to get them to do business in/with the country. Also, "CNN America" airs in a number of countries worldwide.
Which automatically makes it _not_ the obvious ending. The obvious ending would be Otto and co. playing that exhibition with the threesome. (Maybe this is why the episode was titled Power Play? 4 on 3 means a PP for the side with 4. All digressing aside...)
If you want an obvious ending, go watch the New Zealand ep again. Now _that_ is obvious. I remember you posted on the old Nickdisk about how obvious it was (99.9% percent, with the only other possibility being Reggie smoking them both, once again proving that "girls rule").
I've said this before, and I'll say it again. Repeating the same plot never stopped HA! (exhibit A: "Beaned" and "April Fool's Day"... exhibit B: "Little Pink Book", "Helga Blabs It All", "Helga's Parrot" and "Helga's Locket").
Besides, this episode spotlights Sam's goalkeeping ability (then again, when Otto and co got sick, wasn't Sam playing hockey with some replacements to make the playoffs?).
Not bad, for a show that's animated mostly in Flash. (If CN's thinking what I'm thinking, they'd be tooting its own horn: "The EMMY-WINNING Foster's, next on Cartoon Network." With Jack gone, it's their only current Emmy-winning show, yes?)
Random Foster's thought... from http://nffostershome.proboards52.com/index.cgi?board=fosters&action=display&thread=1131152496&page=3#1142009439 :
There's that Cow and Chicken episode on an airplane... (which reminds me that since the Foster's never get on the plane, they never get to tackle that <sarcasm>delicious</sarcasm> airline food [okay, having had a meal on a plane in June, it's not that yucky, but airline food isn't usually something to write home about]).
Writers aren't that gutsy, because viewers have expectations. When the title card says "Foster's Goes To Europe", the average viewer doesn't expect it to be 20 minutes of frenzied packing up, and 2 minutes of the regulars bagging on Mac and some random character annoy her original owners in Europe. S/he expects it to be a few minutes of set up, several minutes of frenzied packing up, and about 15 minutes (at least) of wacky hijinks on the plane and on the continent (but mostly on the continent).
Perhaps FGTE would have been better as a "straight" episode? Perhaps an hour-long special, making fun of other European vacations, like the one in Eurotrip (incidentally, James "with an S, wrote the EMMY-NOMINATED!!! Foster's theme" Venable also did the music for that film).
After the mostly negative feedback from the stunt that was FGTE, I'm absolutely sure that no one will ever try this stunt again. Which would be good.
(And this is what's getting this post on alt.tv.cartoon-network. And now, back to your Nick stuff...)
And judging from the "success" of Ginger, it shows how teens aren't typically your Nicktoon audience (they're served mostly by Nick's few live-action shows... okay, not exactly few, but still much less than the Nicktoons). Another nail in Teen Helga's coffin!
I'm beginning to wonder if Fred's winding down production on other shows to make Crash, but I seriously doubt it.
And one of a handful of shows where a proper finale was planned but not produced (okay, it wasn't as much planned, as "jerry-rigged from an existing planned episode", but eh. Others I can name, Samurai Jack, Dungeons and Dragons [which does share a lot with SJ], and of course Hey Arnold!).
Another Nick crime would be cancelling two of its most popular shows: FOP (okay, that's kind of covered in 4.) and Jimmy. What kind of network cancels shows which get high ratings? (Okay, before Eisner stepped down, Disney was that kind of network, and Nick Bakay and his Beavers co-star once recorded a bit where, as the beavers, they blast Nick for making money over reruns.)
The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy and The Life and Times of Juniper Lee won individual animation Emmy this year as well. (The complete set: Grim (storyboard), Juniper (background key), Foster's (characters), Teenage Robot (characters), Robot Chicken (animation), and HBO's Classical Baby 2 (animation).