Bro, do you even Frozen? I’m really getting sick of all these “Fake Frozen Kids” wearing all the Frozen shirts and buying up all the Frozen dolls and dressing up in Elsa costumes and POSING like real diehard Frozeholes Brozen* (what REAL, ADULT Frozen fans call ourselves) and just clogging up the genuine fandom with their poser bullshit.
CONVENTION TIME! Emerald City Comicon in Seattle (March 28-30, 2014) with David Willis in the webcomics section right next to Cyanide & Happiness.
My first ever solo ECCC panel: It will be all about The Experiment and I need BUTTS IN SEATS! SEATBUTTS! You GOTTA COME to this panel. I am also doing a live drawing panel with my Cyanide & Happiness friends. More info on both panels HERE.
My wife made a Kissing Pacman and Ms. Pacman necklace. Also available in double Pacmens or Pacladies configurations. She’s also updated her Game Of Thrones house necklaces to include House Targaryen (in addition to House Stark and House Lannister).
COMMENTERS: What “thing(s) made for kids” do you genuinely enjoy more than adults are meant to?
[*Thank you, David, for reminding me.]
BROZEN
Adventure Time. My friends keep telling me that it is a kid show but I don't believe them. It is entirely too messed up for a children's show, to the point that I have to assume whoever assigns the ratings passed out at some point and missed the shows spiral into darkness.
My favorite thing about it is that they skim over a lot of the significance of the dark stuff because the protagonists wouldn't care. There's one episode where they're breaking icebergs to get at frozen stuff, where Finn asks Jake if he's found anything cool and Jake shrugs and goes "Nah, just this bunch of baby shoes". They don't care any further than that because baby shoes are lame, yo.
"PB, you're like a BAZILLION years old!"
Agreed. Never before have I watched a show intended for kids that so liberally throws around the word "sucks". It's also not hard to replace "plop" and "math" with real curse words.
i love that show and got my friends into it
I denied Adventure Time for YEARS as "just another cartoon for stoners" until i actually watched it. It's some of the tightest writing on TV today, along with the most inventive and fully realized fantasy world I've seen in years. My daughter and I watch it together. I laugh as stuff she doesnt get and she laughs at stuff she THINKS she gets, but the best is when we are both laughing for the same reason (usually farts).
I thought Frozen was okay but it just had too many glitches and weird, unneeded story elements to really grab me. Tangled, on the other hand, I liked right away and still watch way too often.
Aside from Disney movies, I suppose there's a lot of things I like that are meant for kids. I've never really gotten all defensiver or possessive over them but I still enjoy them far too much if my husband's expressions are any indication. 😉
You should run. I tried telling Dave and Joel that Frozen was only ok and that it had music in awkward places where there should have been dialog and that Tangled was better and they both transformed before my eyes into those rednecks from Deliverance and told me to "squeel like a reindeer!"
"music in awkward places where there should have been dialog"
It's almost like it was a… musical.
90% of the Pixar movies. Cars 2 and Toy Story 3 being the exception.90% of the Pixar movies. Cars 2 and Toy Story 3 being the exception.
Mystery Inc, which I got into because of Willis and his reposts on tumblr. And Batman The Brave and the Bold.
I should watch more Adventure Time, enjoyed the two or three episodes I have seen, and the gifs I've seen are always funny and deep.
Probably need to watch Frozen and Tangled after each other before I try to make a judgement on which is better, although I laughed and enjoyed both enormously,
See, people keep saying Frozen is the best Disney movie since Lion King and I'm all "DID YOU EVEN SEE WRECK-IT RALPH?"
But I still love Frozen. My hyper-analysis is that the true villain of the movie is the trolls. No, seriously, think about what those little bastards actually DO to the humans.
My "like it more than I should" thing is probably Kim Possible. Because it's awesome. I'd say Powerpuff Girls, but I'm pretty sure that's made for college students, not kids.
It WAS originally called "Whoopass Stew"…
Except Hans isn't the villain. The Trolls are the villains. Nothing bad happens until the trolls plot to make them happen and we know they have magic so they magically manipulate Hans to try and get Anna and Kris together.
EXACTLY!
And, what is the *first* act of a troll on screen? To abduct a young human and his reindeer that wandered into their territory. Seriously, did Kristoff not have parents. (Well, it is a Disney movie, so probably not, but still…)
Kristoff does say when he's about to introduce Ana to the trolls, "It was just me and Sven until they took us in" (paraphrasing from memory), so presumably he didn't have any parents. However, it did seem that he lived in a community, since he was out ice-cutting with those guys at the beginning, and one wonders if they missed him. (Then again, they let what appears to be a seven-year-old attempt to cut ice while completely ignoring him, so I'm not too sure about their parenting style.)
Nerf, nuff said.
I'm a huge Monster High fan and collector. I've been playing Pokemon since Red/Blue came out in the US (I think I was eleven at the time? I am not eleven anymore…). I'm also a children's librarian, so I have a huge collection of picture books but no actual kids live in my house.
Also, you know, every animated film that's come out since I've been old enough to buy my own movies. (I don't get choked up singing Let It Go at the top of my lungs in the car, no sir, not me…)
'Adventure Time' and 'Gravity Falls." Oh, and 'Peep and the Big Wide World.' I have a little kid so I wind up watching a lot of shitty tv (Oh boy, "Ice Age" again? Huh wow yet another viewing of yet another super awful 'Land Before Time' movie. yaaaaaaaay.) and really appreciate the good stuff. I've shown my almost-5-yo "Gravity Falls" a few times, and then it just CLICKED the other day and now he loves it. We don't let him watch "Adventure Time" though because it's currently a little too… intense… for him. It'll be G R E A T when he's older, however.
Gravity Falls is fantastic; I'm shocked sometimes at how much they get away with not merely on what is ostensibly a kid's show, but on one bankrolled by Disney! The episode where Stan can't lie and tells the kids that he wonders if life is just meaninglessly passing the time with trivialities until the inevitable embrace of the nothingness of death, then the show lingers on the kids' wide-eyed, horrified reactions . . .
And of course you have the 'primary' antagonist being essentially a southern tent-revival preacher (hellooooo Carnivale), the sheriff and his deputy being clearly in a loving and happy gay relationship, and a parental figure who breaks more laws than he follows. Sometimes I worry that kids these days don't get the kinds of awesome, subversive cartoons I remember from childhood, but Gravity Falls is one of the shows that entirely dispels that fear.
I totally agree about the trolls being the real villains in Frozen. If they'd have just told Elsa and her parents, "love will thaw" in the beginning she could have actually learned to control her powers like 10 years earlier. Cryptic douche trolls.
I also wish that they hadn't made Hans flat out evil. He could have just kissed her and had nothing happen and then they'd have been like, "huh, i guess this one day crush isn't true love."
I think I enjoy Frozen and Tangled about equally (Because, Frying pans, who knew!) and I really enjoy that if you look carefully, you can see Rapunzel and Flynn going into Arrendale as Ana is coming out the gates for the first time.
Oh man, like…everything. I don't really have too many grown-up interests, to be honest. The positive thing about the explosion of the age of the hyper-obsessive fandoms lately is that I can actually say that I liked Frozen/Adventure Time/My Little Pony/Comics/Cartoons/Anime etc and people don't necessarily start pulling out the sex offender checklist.
Of course, I sometimes get castigated for not liking those things ENOUGH, but that's another issue.
This is the first time I've ever read an HE and felt like I just learned something I didn't wanna know about something I haven't seen yet.
My feel things are torn.
Hi, welcome to the HE forum. You should definitely keep reading – your feel things ain't seen nothin' yet.
<__< I've been here a while. This was more supposed to be a jab at feeling like something might have been spoiled.
The movie's been out for months. Eventually I can't talk about stuff without ACTUALLY talking about stuff.
Precisely why my feel things are torn.
On one hand I'm a little ioajodgh about spoilers.
On the other I just feel guilty for not having watched it already.
"Frozen" is the first (and currently only) movie I've ever taken my 3 year old daughter to… a spur of the moment decision 'cos her sister was at a pantomime with her grandma and her mother was at work. My little angel just loved the whole experience but didn't like it when bad things happened. She also munched through all my popcorn but I'll give her a pass on that. This time.
I think Monsters Inc was the first movie I ever took Kiddo to. She was also about 3. It might have been Toy Story 2. Either way, we took her to a "bring your kids" day at the theater so her constant questions and frequent running around wouldnt bother regular people.
The Amazing World of Gumball is a show that I can't stop watching.
I watch it too, but only for the mashing of completely different animation styles.
You have unknowingly captured what pop culture scholars sound like when we talk.
Except the yelling at kids…Though I did once try to explain to a 7-year-old how species denoted gendered space in an episode of My Little Pony and how that meant it was OK for her to be whoever she wanted to be.
I like the Power Rangers. Those shows have EVERYTHING: Super heroes, magic, monsters, karate, giant robots who battle giant monsters with karate.
Not sure if mocking bronies maliciously… or just poking fun at it with no hatred.
Either way, I found the comic hilarious.
I could be wrong, but I think this comic was more literal than you're giving it credit for.
You are more right than wrong. I wasn't thinking about Bronies at all when writing this. More about how my friend and I take our enjoyment of a kids move EXTREMELY seriously and have had countless involved and detailed conversations about the deeper meanings in its deceptively simple themes.
What I'm about to say is something I would punch someone else for saying, but… animated (musical) Disney movies.
The reason I am resisting the urge to punch myself is because, by saying this, I am also saying that I think they are "made for kids." I don't think that's true. They may be marketed towards kids, sure. But, they are and always have been (…for the most part…) made for audiences. For people. When asked if he made movies for kids, Walt Disney himself said "If I made my movies only for children, I would be severely limiting my audience." If given a chance, I will get up on my high horse about animated movies. No one takes them seriously, Hollywood has no respect for them, everyone considers them "kid movies." No, The Care Bears Movie is a kids film. Beauty and the Beast is a family film. But, since they are marketed heavily towards the kiddies, I'm letting them count in this case.
And while on the topic of Frozen, I don't think it was the best animated movie Disney ever made, or even in the top five. It was a perfectly good movie, and if it was made by anyone else I wouldn't be too hard on it, but that little extra touch was missing. I've seen it twice now, and each time, I thought the animation — while good! — wasn't that impressive, and everyone looked like plastic. There wasn't really any texture on any of the characters, especially during the ball. (And don't even get me started on the fact that Elsa's braid goes through her damn SHOULDER during Let it Go. Not over! Through!) I think it excelled in every other area, especially in the songs and story (when I saw it with my family, they completely and totally fell for Hans and the "true love's kiss" red herrings), and the animation is great, but it just wasn't up to Disney standards to me, who should be focused on the animation more than anything. (I'm nitpicking, I know.) Also, I was worried about Olaf before I saw the movie, but I love him. And it's nice to see Josh Gad doing so well.
And Joel, how much time have you been spending on the Frozen tag on Tumblr exactly? ':-)
I don't actually follow tags on Tumblr. That way lies madness. I rely on David to filter this content for me. If it shows up in his feed, I know it's mostly safe.
The thing with the braid was a deliberate choice on the part of the animators. Did it look off? Maybe, but people need to stop bringing it up as a mistake when it's really what was supposed to happen.
I watched that video of the braid in question a dozen times and I couldnt for the life of me see anything wrong with it.
I still play Pokemon–nothing past gen 3, mind you–but will never watch the anime ever again; I still enjoy LEGOs even though I haven't had any in a long time; I still love Toy Story…. So pretty much nothing has changed :p
Lots of things…but recently I've been getting into Randy Cunningham: 9th Grade Ninja for some inexplicable reason.
It's getting harder and harder to avoid spoilers about a movie that I probably won't be able to see for another month
The adventure games made by Humongous Games. I'm in college but I still love Pajama Sam, Spy Fox, and Putt-Putt games, they are so well made and well written that even after many years they hold up as somewhat challenging.
Umm…what's a more nuanced way to say basically everything I like.
Invader Zim. Despite being made by Nikelodeon I am convinced that this was a show aimed entirely at drunk university students and should have only been aired at 1 am after I got back from the pub.
I think the only reason it got cancelled is the executives at Nik ran out of blow and sobered up and realised they'd commissioned Jhonny Vasquez to make a kids show!
The funny thing is? Disney's sort of indirectly hired him since then. (He worked with Titmouse to design the characters on Randy Cunningham, 9th Grade Ninja.)
Zim got cancelled because it just wasnt for kids AT ALL. It was entirely for 20somethings and above. My wife and I loved it when it was airing. We still quote it from time to time. JV should not be involved in legitimate childrens entertainment of any kind.
So, it was like Freakazoid?
Avatar the Last Airbender Series. I was and a still am all about that show no little brothers in tow this time. I've rarely been as infuriated as I was at the movie. My favorite character was Toph and I came in after the 2nd book hit dvd so I was watching it over and over waiting for book 3. I still watch it at least once a year.
The Avatar cartoon, for sure. The original is the best, Legend of Korra isn't as good story-wise, but the animation and the art style is still gorgeous.
I will start this show eventually.
you will geek out, to the maximum geekness. it's incredibly good in everything it does, and there's so much soul to it.
Any chance of you attending and/or doing the Experiment panel at C2E2 in Chicago?
Not this year for sure. I didn't have great success at C2E2 the last year I did it, and I am only doing 1 con this year (ECCC) as HE in order to recharge my batteries and focus on producing more work. I will be traveling a bit with Cyanide & Happiness, but you won't really know I'm there as I tend to blend in with the group.
Sorry to read, but thanks for the response. Hope ECCC works out for you!
What “thing(s) made for kids” do you genuinely enjoy more than adults are meant to?
Do boobies count?
I'll bite, My Little Pony Friendship is Magic. Well written, good stories, great messages.
I really like pokemon, it has good games and it's a great fandom. I hate it when people hate on recent gens and base their hate of them on a small percentage of the pokemon in that gen.
You really shouldn't talk with your mouth full, as they say, "Say it don't spray it".