Fish and Cherries Productions

I’d like to address a trend that I’m starting to find disturbing. I should probably have a whole article on it, but I’d rather get this out while it’s still fresh.

There’s been an announcement that Cartoon Network is rebooting the animated show Ben 10 and, judging from the promotional poster, it will have a minimalistic art style and focus on hyperactive, kid-pandering elements. Now I didn’t actually like this series, but I know it has a large and very devoted fan base and it is for them that I feel bad. Why? Because Cartoon Network has already come out with reboots for Teen Titans, The Powerpuff Girls, and Scooby-Doo, all of which had minimalistic art styles and focused on the hyperactive, kid-pandering elements. Oh yes, and all of them have been consistently bad.

Cartoon Network is going down a very troubling path, focusing on grabbing the attention of kids in the short term rather than keeping kids coming with quality stories. Variety is, of course, key… and that’s part of the problem. So many of these shows seem to be copies of each other. No, that’s not true, they’re actually all a copy of one show: Teen Titans Go! Despite the bad reviews, it’s pulling in very high ratings and has a huge audience to the point where Cartoon Network arrogantly advertises it as “your new favorite show.” What we’re seeing is a follow the leader mentality, putting out more of the same rather than different types of shows. While they still have gems that can legitimately engross kids with nuance like Adventure Time and Steven Universe, I’m worried that they’re going to get drowned out by this cavalcade of copycats. And I’m worried that the generation below us will suffer for it.

I don’t have kids yet, but that’s what makes me care more because right now, I’m dreading what kind of world I will be bringing them into.