From: dan@wombat.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Dan Parmenter)
Subject: Re: Why tinytoons?
Organization: /home/fsg/dan/.organization
	<BvoE4D.DpF@mentor.cc.purdue.edu>
Distribution: na
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 19:36:41 GMT

In article <BvoE4D.DpF@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> ajmiller@sage.cc.purdue.edu 
(Arkayn) writes:

[An 11 year old wonders why grown men and women watch Tiny Toons]

>Mike. It's very simple. Tiny toons is a wonderful release from reality for those
>of us who have FAR higher levels of stress than you have encountered yet, or
>will for some years yet. Tiny Toons is a well written cartoon, which is
>very humorous for any age, but actually probably funnier for adults, because
>there are many things in it that the younger ones out there would not catch.

I've gone over this before, but I'll say it again.  I'm always ready
to be proved wrong, and in the interest of fairness, I've been
watching a fair amount of TTA for insight into why so many otherwise
intelligent people seem to love this show.  I still don't get it.  The
show is still tremendously self-indulgent, unfunny and features
extremely uneven animation quality (some of it is admittedly quite
good by TV standards).  I have yet to come across any humor that the
average 12 year old wouldn't understand, and I have yet to come across
any of the characters who don't seem like horrendously debased
versions of my beloved Warner Brothers characters.  

Against all odds, there are even people who PREFER Tiny Toons to the
classic Warner Brothers canon.  This, I learned during my last debate
on this topic on the Tiny Toons newsgroup.  Comparing Warners cartoons
to Tiny Toons is a bit like comparing a ounce of Jamaicanan hashish to
a dime bag of oregano.  One watches the Warners cartoons with laughter
and awe, feeling as if one has been in the presence of the work of
creative giants.  Tiny Toons just seems like unfunny mishmashes of old
Warners bits, reduced to their generic visual shorthand (there goes
Buster Bunny doing a letter-perfect Tex Avery "take" - how original)
created by animators and writers seemingly afraid of the possibilities
of their own imaginations.  

It disturbs me to think that the show seems to be produced by people
with very little grasp of culture aside from animation.  The original
Warners cartoons were written and produced by people with diverse
backgrounds and experiences who seemed to bring a real sophistication
and hipness to their work, demonstrated by how the best of those
cartoons have stood the test of time and will remain film classics.
Tiny Toons (and Ren and Stimpy as well) seems to have been put
together by people who ONLY KNOW ABOUT CARTOONS.  

I've heard various reasons for why I should like this show: Its
supposed "highbrow" humor that will "go over most people's heads", its
digs at Disney (I have no great love for Disney either, but
criticizing Disney is like criticizing Dan Quayle - like shooting fish
in a barrel) and of course, its assortment of quotable lines
(TTA is seemingly tied with RUSH and Ayn Rand for frequency of
appearances in .signature files).

>Consider yourself enlightened. And also, pay attention in school. You're in
>the most free, careless time of your life. Not the best, just the least worrys.
>Enjoy it, but on the other hand, pay attention if you have any good instructors.
>I wish that I had paid a little better attention now.

That sounds a bit patronizing.  Were you carefree at that age?  I seem
to remember the mind-numbing tedium of school, the early stages of
future teen angst and a quirk of nature that during my "tender years"
made me a magnet for meat-brained morons and their fists :-)  :-)

- Dan
--
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| Dan Parmenter       |"I'm waiting for a time, when I can do without these  |
| dan@gnu.ai.mit.edu  | things that make me feel this way all of the time"   |
|                     |                            - Spiritualized           |
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