Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Ugly Cartoon Characters

This will be short, but I have to complain about a trend that really bugs me. Am I the only one who has noticed that cartoons are getting uglier every year? Every animated program seems to have a goal of producing more hideous characters than it's predecessors. When The Simpsons first came out I was kind of surprised at how unappealing most of the characters were but I got used to the style. After years of watching The Simpsons I am so accustomed to their less than attractive features that I even think Mr. Burns looks handsome.

When I was growing up we had higher animation standards. Sure we had the dirty, lanky, inbred looking Shaggy and the frumpy, nerdy, clumsy Velma from Scooby Doo, but their physical shortcomings were offset by Fred's suave good looks and white sweater and scarf and Daphne's stunning beauty. Zoinks! See exhibit A. Why can't cartoons today counter balance the ugliness of their characters and give equal time to attractive characters? Because ugly is now the in look.

Since The Simpsons is funny I can forgive their less than stellar looks, but I have to put my foot down when other shows try this too. Some of the ugliest animated characters can be found on the following shows: The Family Guy, Rugrats, King of the Hill, Sponge Bob, and Beavis and Butthead. Take a look for yourself.
Many kids today may be unhealthy and have short attentions spans but at least they don't have to worry about body image issues if they keep watching cartoons featuring such butt ugly characters. I guess that's good news for me too since I no longer have to compare myself to Brad Pitt, Christian Bale, or George Clooney. I can now feel confident about my looks as long as I am comparing myself to Beavis and Butthead.

6 comments:

Kristina P. said...

Yeah, bring back the completely superficially beautiful cartoon images! No more ugly fake people!

Kelly said...

Which is why you chose Chaka to represent yourself. He is so handsome with his prominent forehead and all... He must have felt so inferior to Marshall Will and Holly. What he lacked in looks he made up for in enthusiasm.

Jeanne Estridge said...

They've also lost a lot of expression over the years. If you compare a picture of Donald Duck when he's pissed off versus Homer Simpson or even Mr. Burns, the expressions of the latter two are missing a lot of muscle changes around the eyes and mouth. It's cheaper to cartoon with less images, so cartoonists don't bother to represent all the facial changes that really go with expressions. (Sorry, didn't mean to sidetrack your rant.)

Sass said...

You know, you are right...I hadn't even thought of it before.

Weird!!!

MJenks said...

Is it really fair to list Beaves & Butthead and King of the Hill? They're both by Mike Judge, so the animation style stands to be exactly alike.

If you want ugly animation, try watching an episode of "The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack". It's horrible.

The new Scooby-Doos feature an even sexier Daphne. And, it seems, she has a cousin that pops up in nearly every one. Thankfully, someone's paying attention and trying to rise back to that standard that the original Scooby's set.

Dr. Zibbs sent me.

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