best executed cartoon ideas

[harry580]

After seeing people loving kpop demon hunters (and loving how the execution of kpop demon hunters payed off) it got me thinking about how other cartoons come up with their "excuse" for being cartoons, and how well they execute their storylines.

This isnt a thread for favorite cartoon or anything (I love spies in disguise but it had the potential to be much more better imo, like it would been blue sky studios kung fu panda if that's the case). This thread is about the best ways cartoons get you to buy into the story.

my choice will be coraline...why, I be quick:
1. the film does play with your expections and it worked
2. the animation which is stop motion is a masterpiece
3. it follow the story that the film is based on really well
4. the musical scores of this is top notch and its fun
5. the horror moments are top notched and did a great job with it
6. its the first film from laika which went on to do other big well known films

What are your all's opinions?

 

[Scofisticated]

I really like this question.

hhmm.. I think with alot of weird concepts, it very much depends on the execution. A "terrible" concept can be gold in the hands of a talented team. Maybe it's talent that decides if a concept is terrible or gold.

The examples I can think of are Ed Edd and Eddy and Courage. Both have the potential to be boring. Suburban kids messing around? No superpowers, just ordinary human children? Or an elderly couple living with their dog? Not a kid in sight?

What I think the Eds did right was in taking the schemes and ideas kids have at that age, starting at a realistic place, then ~knowing~ how to exaggerate the journey and results. The point isnt the spectacle and grand mess up. It's enjoyable to watch, but that is just the accent. It's about how the spectacle shows how a scheme messing up ~feels~. Hyperbole given form. But it was also the characterization. Making these architypes human. Making them people. And people you hate and want to see mess up, or like and want to sympathize with. And most of the time, both. Not to mention animation that was expressive and kinetic.

With Courage, the elderly couple and the dog were just the diving board. What I think Courage's team got was how to have fun. They rolled the dice with what they thought would be funny, and hoped we rolled with them. And their gamble paid all of us. But the team also new how to dance on the head of two pins: horror and comedy. Cartoon comedy. Two things that should-not work together. But there it was. Some pretty scary moments, that changed stance to wackiness, and back and forth again. And through it all, many many times: arriving at a point. Some profound points. Even evoking sad, tearful moments.

 

[Dantheman]

By the late 1980s, the Scooby-Doo formula of "A group of mystery-solving teenagers and their talking pet" had been beaten into the ground, deep into the Earth's crust, into the Earth's core and out the other side. pretty much by Hanna-Barbera themselves.

Also, in the 1980s, "baby" versions of established characters became a thing in cartoons, because of Muppet Babies, Thus, we got shows about the Archie gang being pre-teens in Riverdale Junior High, The Pink Panther and his kids and friends, Popeye and his son going on adventures, etc.

So, when it came to pass that ABC wanted a version of Scooby-Doo with the gang as pre-teen kids and Scooby as a young puppy, Hanna-Barbera stepped up to meet the challenge, and during the creative process, someone must've said, "Instead of sticking to the Scooby-Doo formula note by note, why don't we just make fun of it, and mock it when we can?". And they did. and it was glorious.