Cartoons are for kids in the same way that video games are for guys. It's mostly but not completely true; it's directionally true and you ignore it at your own peril. I appreciate that Disney makes cartoons adults can also enjoy (or at least did) but it would be a mistake to take their eyes off the main audience. There's a reason there's always a cute but obnoxious to adults character. And their TV content is pretty much exclusively shit for kids.
A cartoon should be targeted to kids but enjoyable enough for an adult not to dread having to watch it with their children. Not all cartoons have to but Disney previously had a good record with their animated features of family friendly entertainment. And changing the target demo to childless wine aunts and the lgbt mafia is not going to go well for them.
Were I being far more generous I would suggest that Chapek wasn't talking about all cartoons however it's Chapek so... no.
Cartoons as a medium can be far more freeing than live action for a number of reasons:
Characters don't age. If you have a long enough running series, or it is set across multiple timelines, then you can have characters from years/decades/centuries apart meet and interact without the need to recast. Sure VAs die, like with Mako in Avatar, but that's a general problem and one that's easier to deal with when other VAs can step in rather than having an entire face change.
In Doctor Who the Twelfth Doctor, played by Capaldi, met the First Doctor, however not only is has William Hartnell been dead for almost 50 years but even when they shot The Three Doctors in 1972 his health was so bad:
Hartnell reprised the role in the tenth anniversary story The Three Doctors (made in 1972, broadcast 1972-1973) with the help of cue cards, but appeared only in pre-filmed inserts seen on video screens. Hartnell's health had deteriorated in the early 1970s, and in December 1974 he was admitted to hospital permanently. In early 1975 he suffered a series of strokes brought on by cerebrovascular disease and died in his sleep of heart failure on 23 April 1975 at the age of 67.
Note that John Hurt played The War Doctor at the age of seventy-three, 9 years older than Hartnell in The Three Doctors so still not the oldest an actor has been in the show.
Meanwhile the Naruto anime has done the following:
Start with the attack on the Hidden Village of the Leaf by the Nine-Tails which featured characters such as The Fourth Hokade Minato, his predecessor The Third Sarutobi, as well as various other characters who bear witness to the attack.
Actually start the main story around the titular character 12 years or so after the prologue, including not only The Third now much older - and he was already old hence having retired and chosen Minato to replace him, but also Kakashi and many of his generation who were children during the Nine-Tails attack and are now adults in their 20s, including Iruka.
Run the main series over around 3 years in story time which was released 2002-07 in Japan.
Then bring out Shippuden set after a timeskip of a 2.5 years that ran 2007-17 in Japan.
Include Naruto at one point travelling back in time to meet an even younger version of Minato in The Lost Tower movie set 20 years before the series takes place.
Have another timeskip near the end of Shippuden where the main cast are now young adults rather than middle-aged teenagers.
Bring out yet another spin-off in the form of Boruto, focused on Naruto's firstborn son.
Include yet another time travel story where Boruto and the older Sasuke travel back in time to just after the younger Sasuke has deserted the village back in the original Naruto series.
So that's multiple timelines, multiple versions and ages of the same characters interacting with themselves, and before even getting on to the point that Naruto's main ability is to duplicate himself so much he sometimes reaches triple if not quadruple figures in duplicate numbers. CGI may be good, and while there are identical twin actors like the Ashmore brothers, live-action effects simply can't do anything near that sort of production without it being uncanny.
Add on to all that special FX are simply that much easier when you simply have to draw them and not have live-action actors look at a tennis ball and pretend they are on fire or whatever.
Live-action productions can be good. They can also be dog shit. They can be made for adults. They can also be made for toddlers, or those with the mind of one like journalists.
Cartoons are just the same. They can be good, they can be bad. They can be made for adults, or kids, or any in between or some other niche.
CEO of a company that embraces the idea that animation is for all ages
They are not wrong, anime are a thing and you can have animated movies that are targeted for adults however Bob Chapek is not wrong either. He says that after parents put their kids to sleep they want something else, how many parents watch anime? Anime is still not that popular among adults. I'm not that big on anime but I did go thru a phase when I was 18, I assume a lot of parents are like me.
I don’t watch new cartoons but if I see a rerun of GI Joe, Thundercats, or something I watched in the 80s as a kid I’ll record to watch later. I watch anime sometimes and I like it. Although the main cartoons I watch now would be Simpsons, king of the hill reruns, South Park, Futurama reruns. Most of what I watch isn’t animated.
A lot of adults may watch anime. I do like Futurama or South Park but those are not something that Disney would do, for what ever reason.
Now if we overlap the adults that like anime, Futurama, South Park, Simpsons and parents I assume is not a great overlap. Most would watch a movie with the wife that most likely will be chosen by the wife :P unfortunately.
I'm tired as frell but I can't sleep properly either. No idea why, all my medical tests are saying I'm in perfect health. I've been kidding that I'm going to die perfectly healthy but I'm starting to think that is more then a joke.
I think with me it’s all the coffee I drink but then again even before I joined the Air Force I didn’t need much sleep. Hopefully everything is on in your situation. I’ll be praying for you
People really don't understand the difference between kids shows/films, and family friendly. Because yeah, Dora the Explorer, Bluey and Peppa Pig are definitely for children and children alone, but equally so there are shows like Avatar TLA, Batman TAS, Pinky and The Brain, and so many more that people of all ages will enjoy.
And frankly, if cartoons get to be labelled as "for children" because a handful are exclusively kids content, should we also label live action as "for kids" because The Wiggles, Play School and Sesame Street all exist?
And this isn't even touching on the reality and popularity of anime. Chapek is just an out of touch executive. Nothing new there.
He's outta tune with the real world and these people are set to 11, so anything will set them off, which is why this is fucking clickbait, again. Got something not fake/curated to sell ads?
Cartoons are for kids in the same way that video games are for guys. It's mostly but not completely true; it's directionally true and you ignore it at your own peril. I appreciate that Disney makes cartoons adults can also enjoy (or at least did) but it would be a mistake to take their eyes off the main audience. There's a reason there's always a cute but obnoxious to adults character. And their TV content is pretty much exclusively shit for kids.
As far as Disney is concerned.
A cartoon should be targeted to kids but enjoyable enough for an adult not to dread having to watch it with their children. Not all cartoons have to but Disney previously had a good record with their animated features of family friendly entertainment. And changing the target demo to childless wine aunts and the lgbt mafia is not going to go well for them.
Were I being far more generous I would suggest that Chapek wasn't talking about all cartoons however it's Chapek so... no.
Cartoons as a medium can be far more freeing than live action for a number of reasons:
Characters don't age. If you have a long enough running series, or it is set across multiple timelines, then you can have characters from years/decades/centuries apart meet and interact without the need to recast. Sure VAs die, like with Mako in Avatar, but that's a general problem and one that's easier to deal with when other VAs can step in rather than having an entire face change.
In Doctor Who the Twelfth Doctor, played by Capaldi, met the First Doctor, however not only is has William Hartnell been dead for almost 50 years but even when they shot The Three Doctors in 1972 his health was so bad:
Note that John Hurt played The War Doctor at the age of seventy-three, 9 years older than Hartnell in The Three Doctors so still not the oldest an actor has been in the show.
Meanwhile the Naruto anime has done the following:
Start with the attack on the Hidden Village of the Leaf by the Nine-Tails which featured characters such as The Fourth Hokade Minato, his predecessor The Third Sarutobi, as well as various other characters who bear witness to the attack.
Actually start the main story around the titular character 12 years or so after the prologue, including not only The Third now much older - and he was already old hence having retired and chosen Minato to replace him, but also Kakashi and many of his generation who were children during the Nine-Tails attack and are now adults in their 20s, including Iruka.
Run the main series over around 3 years in story time which was released 2002-07 in Japan.
Then bring out Shippuden set after a timeskip of a 2.5 years that ran 2007-17 in Japan.
Include Naruto at one point travelling back in time to meet an even younger version of Minato in The Lost Tower movie set 20 years before the series takes place.
Have another timeskip near the end of Shippuden where the main cast are now young adults rather than middle-aged teenagers.
Bring out yet another spin-off in the form of Boruto, focused on Naruto's firstborn son.
Include yet another time travel story where Boruto and the older Sasuke travel back in time to just after the younger Sasuke has deserted the village back in the original Naruto series.
So that's multiple timelines, multiple versions and ages of the same characters interacting with themselves, and before even getting on to the point that Naruto's main ability is to duplicate himself so much he sometimes reaches triple if not quadruple figures in duplicate numbers. CGI may be good, and while there are identical twin actors like the Ashmore brothers, live-action effects simply can't do anything near that sort of production without it being uncanny.
Add on to all that special FX are simply that much easier when you simply have to draw them and not have live-action actors look at a tennis ball and pretend they are on fire or whatever.
Live-action productions can be good. They can also be dog shit. They can be made for adults. They can also be made for toddlers, or those with the mind of one like journalists.
Cartoons are just the same. They can be good, they can be bad. They can be made for adults, or kids, or any in between or some other niche.
They are not wrong, anime are a thing and you can have animated movies that are targeted for adults however Bob Chapek is not wrong either. He says that after parents put their kids to sleep they want something else, how many parents watch anime? Anime is still not that popular among adults. I'm not that big on anime but I did go thru a phase when I was 18, I assume a lot of parents are like me.
I don’t watch new cartoons but if I see a rerun of GI Joe, Thundercats, or something I watched in the 80s as a kid I’ll record to watch later. I watch anime sometimes and I like it. Although the main cartoons I watch now would be Simpsons, king of the hill reruns, South Park, Futurama reruns. Most of what I watch isn’t animated.
A lot of adults may watch anime. I do like Futurama or South Park but those are not something that Disney would do, for what ever reason. Now if we overlap the adults that like anime, Futurama, South Park, Simpsons and parents I assume is not a great overlap. Most would watch a movie with the wife that most likely will be chosen by the wife :P unfortunately.
True. I have insomnia to a degree so middle of the night is prime time for me to watch Simpsons or King of the Hill reruns lol
I'm tired as frell but I can't sleep properly either. No idea why, all my medical tests are saying I'm in perfect health. I've been kidding that I'm going to die perfectly healthy but I'm starting to think that is more then a joke.
I think with me it’s all the coffee I drink but then again even before I joined the Air Force I didn’t need much sleep. Hopefully everything is on in your situation. I’ll be praying for you
Thank you, I appreciate it
I wouldn't say that's always true, but getting angry that someone said cartoons are for kids really makes you look like a kid.
"I want to be famous like Matt Walsh!"
People really don't understand the difference between kids shows/films, and family friendly. Because yeah, Dora the Explorer, Bluey and Peppa Pig are definitely for children and children alone, but equally so there are shows like Avatar TLA, Batman TAS, Pinky and The Brain, and so many more that people of all ages will enjoy.
And frankly, if cartoons get to be labelled as "for children" because a handful are exclusively kids content, should we also label live action as "for kids" because The Wiggles, Play School and Sesame Street all exist?
And this isn't even touching on the reality and popularity of anime. Chapek is just an out of touch executive. Nothing new there.
He's outta tune with the real world and these people are set to 11, so anything will set them off, which is why this is fucking clickbait, again. Got something not fake/curated to sell ads?
That's why I used an archive.
Well, he's not entirely wrong. Disney's the reason people associate cartoons with kids.