Cartoon Cartoons!

It all started when I decided to do what I've been known to do from time to time: look into some new TV shows. Little did I know that I would soon be embarking on a rather specific quest...

It began innocently enough. Cartoon Network's Regular Show is one of the few new shows I picked up last fall as appointment TV (for my DVR). Nearly 40 episodes have aired to date, and few if any of them have been misses. Given that, I decided to start with some programs that recently began airing on CN in the hopes of striking it rich again.

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Specifically, I started with a new show that aired on Adult Swim -- a late night block of animation that shares a channel with Cartoon Network. Ostensibly geared for the 18+ crowd, they draw an awful lot of teens their way, too. They air a lot of popular stuff that I or people I know watch from time to time: "King of the Hill", "Family Guy", "Robot Chicken", and "The Venture Bros". They also air a fair amount of anime and some rather off the wall stuff, too.

One of those off the wall shows is something called "Aqua Teen Hunger Force". If you've never heard of it, that's probably okay, but it's now in its 8th season so it must be fairly popular with somebody. I'm just not real sure who that somebody is. I like a lot of weird stuff (goodness knows I'm a huge David Lynch fan), but this really does just seem to be weird for the sake of being weird. Featuring the adventures of an anthropomorphic milkshake, french fries, and meatball, ATHF is chock full of non sequitur, absurdist humor as well as a bunch of pretty offensive stuff.

Wait a minute, wait a minute. I thought I was watching a new show. So why am I telling you all this about ATHF? Well, that new show I watched is something called "Soul Quest Overdrive", and it's a spin off of a particular episode of ATHF. In that episode, we're introduced to three anthropomorphic fruits. I think the schtick is supposed to be that they claim to be born-again Christians, but then proceed to do a bunch of crude, violent, and illegal things. Unfortunately, that's just not funny.

For "Soul Quest Overdrive", the fruits have been turned into sports equipment, but the characters remain the same. I just can't recommend this at all. The only thing I found amusing is what a good time the foley artists must have had using bowling pins, basketballs, and the like to emulate the characters moving about. Watch at your own risk.



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Beaten down from that horrible experience, I turned my gaze back to the regular Cartoon Network and decided to try "The Looney Tunes Show". Wait... what? Did you know they were making new Looney Tunes? It's admirable that Warner Bros is trying to reintroduce their classic characters to a new generation of teens and tweens, but unfortunately this show pales in comparison to the originals or even the Tiny Toon Adventures that I grew up with.

Part of the problem is just that -- it's a show. Where all previous incarnations of Looney Tunes have been a series of largely unconnected shorts, each episode of this is one long-form story with one or two 2-minute unrelated shorts mixed in. In the era of ADD and short attention spans, I find it a curious choice that they would turn their back on a format that would seem tailor-made for today's kids. To make matters worse, there's little chance that they'll be able to tell the diversity of stories they have in the past.

Each episode is based in the same coherent universe. Bugs Bunny lives in a house out in some suburban neighborhood development and Daffy Duck is his unwanted permanent house guest. All of the other characters only exist in so far as they enter and exit Bugs' and Daffy's lives. I watched the first six episodes to get a good feel for it, and I still haven't even seen some classic characters like Sylvester, Tweety, and Foghorn Leghorn. This would all be okay if it were funny, but beyond little bits and pieces its just not that great. It seems to be doing reasonably well in viewership numbers, so unless it's egregiously expensive they'll have some time to improve. I just don't know that I'll be there to see it.

I mentioned before that it features a short or two every episode. So far there have only been two types of these. The first type is a slick CGI version of Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote. These exactly capture the spirit and feel of the originals. If you were a fan of those, you'll actually enjoy this 2 minutes of the show. The other type is an absolutely horrific new version of Merrie Melodies. Watch the video below for an example at your own risk.



I warned you.

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Having failed again, I decided to give Cartoon Network one more chance to impress me. The final show I tried is something called "The Amazing World of Gumball". And impress me it did, despite the fact that I have little to say about it. It's essentially a family-based comedy with everything that entails, but it has an absolutely zany cast of characters and a good sense of humor.

My only problem with it is that it skews pretty young -- it is rated TV-Y7 after all -- so it's not likely to be something that I continue to watch on a regular basis. If I had kids, though, I would definitely make an effort to tune in every week. Check out the first episode and let me know what you think.