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There is no doubt that some of the most successful cartoons — both in terms of popularity and overall quality — came out in the 2000s to 2010s. 2005 brought usAvatar the Last Airbender, 2008 brought usPhineas and Ferb, 2010 brought usAdventure Time, which are Emmy winning series found in the top 250 shows on IMDb, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.However, the TV industry is changing, and with it, theanimationsector. Adam Conover of CollegeHumor andAdam Ruins Everythingfame recently made aYouTube videodiscussing how the streaming age is to blame for many of the issues seen in the industry today — incredible shows getting canceled left and right, theprice hikes of subscriptions(while somehow, writers, actors, and crew members are barely scraping by), and a decreased appetite for risk,leading to more reboots and less ingenuity.
That isn’t even to mention the conditions that animators specifically have had to endure. Over 100 people leftSpider-Man: Across the Spider-Versebecause of a sudden time crunch that resulted in long, grueling hours. According tonofilmschool, “These working conditions seemed to have been a result of writer and producer Phil Lord’s demand to personally approve every scene in the 140-minute movie.” Obviously, the film was a hit in the end, but at what cost? And is this more the exception than the rule?
The Dysfunctional TV Binge Model
Before streaming, cable was the way to watch your favorite shows. Sure, you had to pay a cable bill and sit through a couple of commercials, but it worked! And those commercials were iconic. Think of the Geico gecko, Flo from Progressive, or even the infamous Zack and Cody Danimals sweepstakes on The Disney Channel.A collective cultural iconography has, to a certain extent, been lost today. Sure, the occasional TikTok goes viral, like the"demure" Ms. Lebron, but most of the time, everyone’s media diet looks completely different from person to person.
Conover explains that the binge model was too good to be true from the outset. See, streamers like Netflix encourage folks to binge-watch series and use that as a measure of success. However, this is a near-impossible standard. The reality is that most people don’t have the time to sit down and watch hours and hours of TV at a time. Just because they haven’t completely finished a show right away doesn’t mean they’re not going to. But Netflix doesn’t see it that way. Thus,shows are canceledbefore they can properly finish their stories.
We Don’t Want More Reboots or Remakes, Just Second Seasons of Our Favorite Canceled Shows
The list of TV shows canceled too soon is growing by the day, while reboots and remakes that nobody asked for continue to get the green light.
Not to mention, binging kills one of the most tried-and-true forms of marketing there is: word of mouth.Family Guy, now one of the longest-running scripted primetime television series,was canceled twice. By continuing to move the time slot and placing it against critical darlingsFriendsandSurvivor, Fox set the once-popular series up for failure. It was only brought back because of how well the DVDs sold.Family Guybenefited from a slow burn, which the binge model doesn’t allow. This dysfunction is partially why the streamers are losing money, and the subsequent desperation is what has led to other things, such as the reboot-ification of TV.
Rosy Retrospection Bias in Film and Television
There may be tangible evidence to support a decline in the TV industry, but just how much is it affecting creatives and the quality of their work? Are there other forces at play? Rosy retrospection bias is our tendency to recall the past more fondly than the present. It is why so manypeople get nostalgicfor their high school years, even if, realistically, they spent most of that time feeling burnt out and hormonal.
Adding to this argument are some great animated series and films that emerged in the 2020s. Critical and commercial successes includeInvincibleon Prime Video,Nimona, andHildaon Netflix… Other well-received but perhaps slightly less mainstream hits includeMarcel the Shell with Shoes On,Wolfwalkers,andMars Express. Honorable mentions would beInfinity Train, which technically came out in 2019, andFionna and Cake, which, though a reboot, is phenomenal in its own right.
The Adventure Time Spinoff Explores the Dark Side of This Character
Simon Petrikov finally confronts his grief in Fionna and Cake, one of the strongest animated series in years—let alone in the franchise.
This blogger fromStrike Magazinespoints out that one issue unique to the animation industry, specifically, is that animation has a reputation for being children’s media only. Studios are to blame for marketing their animated projects this way, even though many (though not all) are stories thatall ages can enjoy. So, it’s possible that part of the cynicism and exhaustion that animation fans feel nowadays is because, in addition to this perpetual uphill battle that we’re all used to, there are now also impossible standards and conditions everyone in the TV industry is beholden to.
