>Crossexamining The Rebuttal

Jorge continues about voicing:

Again, no subtext. Everything was over dramatic, played to the hilt, no respect for actual voice acting. They weren't even acting; they were just doing a funny high pitched voice.

The "dramatic” acting was even worse. The good guys all sounded the same, with a deep voice that was booming and manly, the bad guys all sounded the same; raspy, high pitched, cackling, over-the-top campy Bond villainy. Sure you might say, "Who cares about subtext and subtlety, they're only Saturday Morning Kid cartoons. Kids don't care about that!" I'll give you that, but if we're comparing the quality of the product we need to look at all aspects.

The voice acting were hammy in the 80s, that much we'll agree on, but a lot of voice acting continues to be hammy. Look at five out of every six series that comes to our shows from Japan. A lot of the voices are always the same, primarily because producers tend to use the same voice artists over and over again. And these voice artists are just about everywhere, even American shows. Baby Bugs Bunny sounds like Orko, Streaky the Super Cat, and Double D. Naruto sounds just like Piggly Winks. It was even hammy in the 70s, 60s, 50s, and 40s, but at least there were a few that dared to be different, like Mel Blanc, Don Messick, and Daws Butler.

A cartoon may be entertaining on a base level, but is it of a high quality? Again, I’m saying, you may be entertained by them, and that’s OK, but do they hold up to a critical viewpoint? I’m not in the camp that says all opinions are created equal. Does your opinion hold up to the evidence? Can it withstand argument and specific examples? If your thesis is that the 80s cartoon were good (not simply entertaining or nostalgic) do the aspects of the cartoons hold up?

Entertainment is subjective, quality is not.

Good is a dangerous word that has many connoctations. In this context, you're asking what classifies something as good only by the actual animation but not even considering its entertainment or nostalgic value. If that's the case, can you judge the animation of 50s, 60s, and 70s the same way? I like the cartoons from the 60s, particularly the Hanna-Barbera shorts because of their entertainment and nostalgic value. If I judged it by the animation, then I think my love for them would diminish because they weren't exactly the best animated shorts I've ever seen. Same for the cartoons of the 90s and today. I could look at Ren and Stimpy and say I liked it because of its entertainment and nostalgic value because, even though you don't want to admit it, the series has been around for over 15 years, thus officially classifying the series as nostalgia (kids today weren't born when the show were first on the air). Can you say, without nostalgic blinders or even fanboy love for John K. that the animation, even with all its flaws and scenes of limited animation, is a good cartoon (by your definition of good)?

Same goes for any cartoon made after the 80s. Dexter's Laboratory? Powerpuff Girls? Spongebob Squarepants? Dragon Ball Z? Batman: The Animated Series? Justice League? Fairly Oddparents? Code Lyoko? Homestar Runner? ReBoot? Jimmy Neutron? Some are good in those standards while others aren't.

Continue the cross examination here