I love cartoons, which means I love watching Cartoon Network in the daytime. So it's always nice when, after the proclaimed "Golden Age of Childrens' television" in the late 80-90's, a network hails to fans of that generation now as well; bringing back old faces along with promising new ones.
What're we talking about specifically? We'll I really wanted to praise the new incarnation of the Scooby-Doo series "Scooby-Doo Mystery Incorporated" but i also wanted to praise the TV network as of late, too.
So not more than an hour or so ago I saw this brand new incarnation series on TV. At first, I was a bit skeptical because of the really stylized designs:
As you can (hopefully) see, a number of things have changes from, say, "What's New, Scooby-Doo?" from a couple years ago. For one, the style of the faces alone seem to reference Hanna-Barbera's style from as early as 1969, with the almost blocky faces and the doted eyes. The characters are also skinnier and shapelier, and the colors are a lot more saturated and vivid:
A clue to perhaps why there are so many stylized changes may just be the changing times in animation and design, but a huge impact may have been that this is the first version of Scooby-Doo that Hanna-Barbera are not the producers of.
Despite the loss of its original creators, I think i'll really enjoy the series. The characters aren't in your face with exaggerated character quirks, and the mysteries are a bit more daring and dangerous. It definitely helps that the animation is really pretty to look at, too.
Some things will be a bit difficult to get used to, though. Fred's beefy face, for example, is somewhat distracting... just as much so as Velma's new skinny and shapely design is. Did I mention that Velma is apparently crushing on Shaggy now? I don't dislike this development, but it's a huge change from an over 40-year canon.
Anyway, I'm enjoying the series as it is from just one episode, and I can't wait for more.
Besides this new show, I've been mostly happy with Cartoon Network's lineup over the past couple of years. Sure, stuff like "Dude, What Would Happen?" or "Destroy, Build, Destroy" or "Unnatural History" and even "Total Drama Island/Action/wtf" aren't really my idea of quality shows, but what other television network makes a point of bringing back stuff like "Ed Edd n' Eddy", "Tom and Jerry", "Courage the Cowardly Dog", and "Kids Next Door", while keeping up with new cartoon shows like "Flapjack", "Chowder", and "Adventure Time"?
I won't say the network is perfect right now, but they are doing a fine job of giving cartoon-lovers like me a daily dose of new and old stuff i really like.