The rise and fall of Michael Eisner

11 years ago, Michael Eisner retired after 21 years as the CEO of the Walt Disney Company. Eisner had the second longest-running term as chairman (after Walt Disney) and CEO (after Roy O. Disney). Everything needs a look back to what happened during his ternure at the Mouse House. While many fans and specialists hated Eisner over his misguided decisions to the point of being disastrous over the last years, they praised his first ten years as the president (1984-1994) for being the golden age in all aspects.

We'll go back to time... to 1984. This is when Disney was going through a horrible crisis and got on verge of bankrupcy. All because their then-current management was neglecting the company, I mean, the company became too conservative. The parks didn't get funds for new atractions. The studio was churning out bull f(bleep) s(bleep). Animation wasn't an assembly line like it is currently. Before the mid-80s, Disney only used to produce one animated movie for year (attaching it with an occasional animated short). Too different from today where we can have so many animated movies in production simultaneously. With no new attractions, park visiting has dropped flat. With no good movies, the studios' fortunes were in red. With no animated movies, animators were scared of their future. For example, The Black Cauldron took ten years of production and cost a fortune to be created: more of $25 million.

When Walt Disney passed away in 1966, there was no one to continue guiding the animators and giving them a sense of direction to keep things right. The only way for it was to pass the torch to those who were passionate about it: the Nine Old Men - Walt's circle of nine friends who understood and knew the secrets of great animation. They used them to complete The Jungle Book.

Years passed and those nine animators started training a new generation of artists, including Don Bluth, Glen Keane, John Pomeroy, John Musker, Ron Clements, Andreas Deja, Tim Burton, Henry Selick, John Lasseter, Brad Bird, etc. They were a team of yonug artists who mostly graduated from CalArts and had potential gallore. Disney's big fat bosses refused to follow new directions in creating animated movies in a fit of fear of critical and commercial hatred and the studio's instant death. As a result, from 1970 to 1981, we had nothing but formulaic movies. The lack of artistic freedom was enough for the aspiring animators who rebelled. Don Bluth took many of his colleagues with him and opened his own shop Don Bluth Animation, while John Lasseter moved to Lucasfilm's former CGI animation division and reshaped it into the famous Pixar Animation Studios. Fearing the loss of further artists, Walt's son-in-law and Disney's then-current president Ron Miller hired those new animators to work on an animated movie they would like to call one of their own: The Black Cauldron, Disney's infamous black sheep.

Before The Black Cauldron was released, in 1984, a new management took the company under their wings. With Roy E. Disney's guidance, Miller hired Michael Eisner (then president of Paramount Pictures), Jeffrey Katzenberg (Eisner's colleague from Paramount) and Frank G. Wells (former president of Warner Bros.) to reestructure the company. Roy E. Disney became the studio's vice-chairman while Jeffrey Katzenberg took over Walt Disney Studios, consisting of both Walt Disney Pictures and Touchstone Pictures, as well as the then-future Hollywood Pictures, Miramax Films and Caravan Pictures. Obviously, each one of those last three studios is run by its own sub-president who reports to his big bosses.

Katzenberg's greatest triumph was Walt Disney Feature Animation. He wasn't sweet and nice in his first Disney days. Instead, he was an executive who was greedy for results and was still learning the animation production system. Therefore, he ended up doing what the older animators viewed as bulls(bleep): edit an animated movie by cutting completed scenes.

After finally reordering The Black Cauldron, Eisner and Katzenberg oversaw the story process of The Great Mouse Detective. It was due to the commercial death of the previous films that the executives introduced into the animation pipeline what was common in live-action: scripts. Futhermore, neither were interested into dismantling the animation studio as long as it produced The Great Mouse Detective in a shorter timespan and with half of the previous film's budget. The Great Mouse Detective cost $12 million and was a spectacular success for an otherwise spiritually deceased studio. Despite this, the film was know for its fast-paced scenes and something uncommon: static scenes! Still without knowing animation very well, Katzenberg f(bleep) up by nearly rejecting Henry Mancini's songs because he viewed them as old-fashioned.

In 1988, Disney released Oliver & Company, which was suggested by Jeffrey Katzenberg. But the biggest shot was Who Framed Roger Rabbit. This movie somehow knocked into Katzenberg's sensibilities. Finally, for the first time, he wasn't a mere executive doing his job as he was happy at anything he did. Onwards, most of the projects had sense. Thanks to the combined efforts of Jeffrey Katzenberg and Howard Ashman, The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast became classics which went to become part of pop culture. Inspired by the MGM musicals and romance stories, the early-90s' animated movies are the best. Thanks to the increased workload, new executives were hired, including Thomas Schumacher and Peter Schneider. As a result, the next animated movies acquired form and gained much success, renewning interest in Disney animation (Aladdin and The Lion King).

Jeffrey Katzenberg had a set of expensive rules. Usually, a character or song was deleted during production, or some character such as Chip from Beauty and the Beast was expanded to more scenes. Things like these were too expensive for a movie's budget, but were alwayas executed masterfully. Jeffrey Katzenberg went to become the next Walt Disney, an important man to guide everyone in the studio. As for Eisner, he created the synergy - a system that takes advantage of a product in every single sector. To explain it better, a movie such as The Lion King could gross more by having television cartoons, theme park attractions, a Broadway musical, toys, video games, apparel, soundtracks and home entertainment media. Everything centered around just one product!

In 1994, Disney suffered a new decay caused by the death of vice-president Frank G. Wells. This caused an ugly fight for his position. The biggest loser was Jeffrey Katzenberg himself. He judged himself capable of being vice-president of a great media empire. But Eisner, other execs and even Roy viewed Jeffrey as "too creative" to manage a corporation. This led to Katzenberg's firing, resulting in an epic battle covered by the press featuring Eisner and Katzenberg demonizing each other in the news. The war wasn't over until Disney paid Katzenberg the damage of $200 million as he wanted 2% of the profits from the films he helped produce from 1984 to 1994.

Disney was still enjoy great success with The Lion King and other projects with Katzenberg's blessing such as Pocahontas. During the corproate reestructuring, Thomas Schumacher became the feature animation president. Peter Schneider became an executive while Joe Roth filled for Katzenberg's position. Meanwhile, Katzenebrg himself founded DreamWorks Pictures with Steven Spielberg and David Geffen, which created a colateral effect that could have unknown proportions. Disney and other studios felt pressured by this, but not so much than Universal Studios.

At DreamWorks, Katzenberg established an animated feature film division to compete with Disney. He intended to prove to Eisner that he had a golden touch and could manage a corporation with the help of it. Sure, DreamWorks is an independent major studio. Market analysts always claim that if not for some successes or the good name of its founders, DreamWorks would be fatally devoured by the majors. All the other studios are sheltered by big entertainment megacorporations: 20th Century Fox belongs to 21st Century Fox, Columbia Pictures belongs to Sony Corporation, Warner Bros. belongs to Time Warner, Disney belongs to... the Walt Disney Company. DreamWorks is also assaulted by corporate executives. Spielberg tried to lure Sid Sheinberg, a Universal executive who helped him to produce Jaws, E.T. the Extra-Terrestral and Jurassic Park, but failed. Without a great name in the business side, the studio was always in debt which, luckily, was always paid by the success of Gladiator and Shrek. Further debts were paid by the closure of the music and video game divisions.

As you see, both Eisner and Katzenberg got scarred by the split. The Prince of Egypt was going to be a landmark. Instead, that title went to Shrek, a critical and commercial darling that became Disney's worst nightmare.

Starting in 2000, Disney wasn't in good shape since movies, parks and television (ABC) started showing inferior results, as Eisner decided to adopt an egocentristic approach (micromanagement). As a result, the best executives left the company, such as parks executive Judson Green and then Katzenberg's replacement and other units' president Joe Roth (who left to found both Revolution Studios and Roth Films). The problem was: how do you manage something where important decisions can't be given by the pointed out executive and must be reported to the president for a final say?

Joe Roth was an excelent executive, bringing good names from Hollywood to work on Disney, since so many artists distanced themselves from Katzenberg, such as Robin Williams. Joe was also loved by animators for greenlighting ambitious projects and those dropped by Katzenberg. He did so to prevent artists from getting themselves engulfed by DreamWorks which was spoiling them with the highest salaries. Among the projects greenlit by Roth are Home on the Range, Atlantis: The Lost Empire and Treasure Planet, a project that Katzenberg hated for being too segmented. Meanwhile, the executives managing the studio operations, Thomas Schumacher and Peter Schneider, were know for the economics, such as "the less spent, the best!" Due to the alleged faillure of test-screenings of the epic Kingdom of the Sun, the studio was forced to produce a more economical movie quickly. The Emperor's New Groove, mostly viewed as "filler movie", garnered the best critical reviews from the audience and the press in Disney's history. It cost $80 million, excluding the #30 million allegedly spent into the epic version, whose scenes are stored in the archives.

When Joe Roth had left, the studio situation went from bad to worse. The studio lost its perfect leader which was replaced by Peter Schneider and Thomas Schumacher. Schneider's gimmick was simple and clear: producing low-budgeted movies solidifying the Disney brand. Schneider's greatest triumph was Remember the Titans starring Denzel Washington, Hayden Panettiere, Kate Bosworth and Ryan Gosling. Produced in a modest budget, the film was a critical and commercial success. Animation-wise, the rule was... slice budgets, which heavily affected the likes of Atlantis: The Lost Empire and Treasure Planet, both of which had entirely rewritten scripts by cutting out entire scenes (those which recquired more CGI, which would inflate the budget).

The circle of the studio's superhits was finally over: according to Hollywood analysts, that circle started with The Little Mermaid and ended 10 years later with Tarzan. This means that, artistically, Disney is in the same state from 1985 when they released The Black Cauldron. They're searching for a direction for their animation output as well as an executive with a sense of direction. The studio's 1989-1997 musicals wore out their welcome. Later, they started trying anything: hiring music celebrities to write and sing songs (Phil Collins and Sting), revigorate the musical format (Home on the Range with songs and score by Alan Menken), trying out movies for older audiences (Atlantis: The Lost Empire and Treasure Planet), movies with fantastical elements (Lilo & Stitch and Brother Bear) and reviving fairy tales (Tangled).

The management crisis hit the stride on June 2001 when two of the studio's most ambitious movies weren't as successful as Beauty and the Beast and Dick Tracy. Pearl Harbor and Atlantis: The Lost Empire were raped by critics and pointed out Peter Schneider's Achilles heel - considering that he was the only person who didn't believe Toy Story's potential, to the point of attempting to force its cancelation. Peter Schneider officially resigned to helm Disney's stage musical division, but, behind-the-scenes, it is speculated that his leaving was connected to the studio's previous offerings. Were we happy now? NO!!!! That's because future films greenlit by him would meet their projected release dates and because many animators believed that the studio wouldn't change until there was a brand new change of management. Thomas Schumacher's newest ternure as president of Disney Feature Animation was short-lived as he instead moved to their stage musical division.

Dave Pruiksma, animator of Mrs. Potts and Chip, the Sultan, Flit and Mrs. Pachard, pointed out that the problem was the absence of challenges and artistic freedom. Part of Walt Disney's magic was undone by the dickery of the executives who only cared about the shareholders and 13th salaries. Whenever they let the artists do their own thing, they will have a perfect movie, which means that, as long as there's great pressure over the artists, chances that they'll have a hit in theaters are zero. They needed to go back to when Beauty and the Beast was released at the time the executives believed in animators. They needed an executive who knew, for example, to judge whenever a character was important and whenever a scene was important or not. Pruiksma also stated that his Atlantis character Mrs. Pachard could have been a more fleshed out character if there was a "creative" executive with a sense of direction finding out whatever the audiences would accept it.

With Schumacher gone, two new executives took over the reins. David Stainton assumed Feature Animation. Stainton was disliked by fans for producing cheapquels, but he was only given the management of the feature animation division because of his supporting of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Dick Cook, who started young as a Disneyland employee, assumed the general studio management. Stainton started a revolution in the studio, including kickstarting Disney's own computer-animated features as well as training veteran animators with new tools. Stainton was also criticized for the closure of the Orlando, Paris and Sydney studios, leaving many animators out of work.

But what happened to Eisner amid these events? Michael Eisner became the scapegoat for the company's financial decline. His most common mistake was his forced micromanagement which meant that all the final decisions were courtesy of the CEO and not from the company's each unit's own chairman. As a result, as a new millenium was starting, we witnessed many good talents walking out of Walt Disney Imagineering (creators of the Disney Park attractions) and ABC, whose ratings went south after the Disney merger in 1996 and wouldn't get better until Lost and Desperate Housewives happened. Eisner also got a bad rap for taking too long to acquire the Muppets per Jim Henson's wishes and refusing to produce Lord of the Rings as he wanted to produce only two films. Peter Jackson sold the idea to Time Warner's New Line which accepted the trilogy. By the way, Disney's complex nature may sound complicated for a common cinephile. Why not Sin City? It's a movie from Dimension Films, but that company belongs to Miramax which used to belong to Disney until 2010.

Theme parks wise, they optioned to invest less in new park projects such as Disney's California Adventure (the original Disneyland's neighboring park) and Hong Kong Disneyland, which opened without most of the classic attractions from the park's other versions. To add shit to the injury, the repairing state of the other parks was so abysmal that it kickstarted campaigns petitioning for changes. It used to be commonplace sites posting pictures of the park needing maintenance. Animation wise, the big suits' decisions crushed the artists' ones. By the way, the glut of vice-presidents met negative press and the ass ideas lowered the animators' moral. For example, believing that changing the original title of Kingdom of the Sun to Kingdom IN the Sun would salvage production wasn't better. Treasure Planet cost less than its initally projected inflated budget, despite this, the team had to remove 95% of swords references from the film.

Personally, Eisner caused unexpected changes when he wanted the gender from the title protagonist of Chicken Little to be changed from a girl to boy, which happened when most of the film was already written on storyboards. To add to the problems, Stainton was hands off the Florida unit's My Peoples, alleging that the film's concept wouldn't resonate well in overseas markets. Why didn't they see that before approving a project? Along the dickish decisions, there were layoffs gallore, studios' closures and (sometimes torturing) training veteran artists in CGI. These "adjustments" on Disney, on the guise of connecting to the MTV generation, were the final straw for the fans, animators and Roy E. Disney who left the studio amid this disaster.

Roy E. Disney's campaign was praised for reminding that Disney really needed a change, a change for better. It was also criticized for its preachiness, with many people thinking that Roy only cared about his agenda. His violence and preachiness even led Diane Disney Miller (Walt's daughter) to step in to say that she approved for Eisner's retiring and slammed her cousin's campaign which she viewed as mean-spirited and sadistic. The campaign intentioned to showcase the corporation's ass dickery and use the internet (with the help of fans) to promote a vetoing against the then-current aegis on a shareholders' meeting in 2004. The negative shit of the anti-Eisner votes led Disney to strip him from his position and force him to find his successor. Meanwhile, entered Comcast offering billions to take Disney under its wing, without success. Roy's campaign was boosted by the sored animators and other supporters which petitioned in favor of him. Such sympathy came from the parks' cast members as well.

While an outside candidate was expected, many people supported an executive among Disney itself (which knew the machine very well) to replace Eisner. The champion was then vice-president Bob Iger who joined Disney through their acquisition of ABC in 1996. At time, he was ABC's chairman and, while being Disney's vice-president, was later hired to prove that he could renew ABC into a powerhouse. He achieved it with lots of sacrifices and got praise internally and externally.

Having selected his successor, Michael Eisner decided to left the company one year before it was intended. He retired on September 2005 after the opening of Hong Kong Disneyland. During the 50th anniversary celebrations of Disneyland, Eisner was the second-rate and Iger was announced as the elected CEO and applauded by the masses. He spend 20 years in the magic kingdom having a beef with the likes of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. His arguments with Steve Jobs to renew the Disney-Pixar deal reached a new low. Thanks to Iger, both companies reconciliated with Disney's acquisition of Pixar in 2006. Good news were that the American theme parks were given more good press than before. Disneyland had to be refurbished to celebrate its 50 years. The Orlando version got new rides such as Expedition Everest.

In fact, Michael Eisner is not a monster like many people view him. He actually saved Disney from death in 1984 and converted a mere studio and theme park company into a badass media conglomerate. His only flaw was over-centralizing the decisions from the late 1990s to early 2000s. This caused frictions and ass dickery, reduced Disney to a mere brand (just like he did with ESPN which came alongside ABC) and turned special films into cookie-cutter ass shit (the sequels were rock bottom). He forgot the basics, the respect to the magic of its characters and whatever they represented to the audiences. Thankfully today, Disney could never be more better.

Translated from www.animation-animagic.com/colunas.aspx?idConteudo=132

A Case of Taste - The reason why people became anti-DreamWorks

If you're a hardcore animation fan, you certainly notice certain technical and artistic details, the most important being production design, art direction and character design, the basic keys to the visual development and artistic nuance in a movie.

DreamWorks Pictures, the main theme from this post, has suffered the most in this aspect since their first animated movies Antz and The Prince of Egypt. Although both films are beautifully animated and masterfully written, they were criticized for what they would view as hideousness or tastelessness syndrome. Generally, people criticize the "hideous" character design and the "horrendous" supporting characters (mostly animated in CGI).



Despite the distinct exception being The Road to El Dorado, DreamWorks Pictures tried too hard to find a style that would differentiate them from the Disney style while still retaining the high technical quality of animation. They heavily invested profits from their movies into developing new animation effects. No doubt, the water digitally animated by DreamWorks Pictures is always seen as the partial case, be it on The Prince of Egypt, The Road to El Dorado or Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, while such water is a bit out of synch with hand-drawn animation. Even though the general design is not perfect, the animators' work gets praise gallore (cheers to James Baxter, Dave Brewster, Kathy Zielinsky, Rudolph Guenoden, Pres Romanillos, etc.).

Another investment, perhaps to find a formula, was taken on Hollywood celebrities to voice the characters. This is nothing new. Disney has always done for decades. Despite this, DreamWorks Pictures has relied on celebrities for the sake of marketing. Futhermore, by caricaturing the animated characters after the celebrities who voice them seems pretty gross and prevents the audience from connecting with them as they'll only see the animated characters not as fictional characters but as their celebrity voice actors. To add salt to the injury, whenever an animated movie is dubbed in other countries, it's not like they can change their faces, so the foreign market won't even get it.

Starting with Shrek, the heart and soul of the studio became comedies with loads of pop culture references and tasteless humor. Why is it so bad? That's because the pop culture reference abuse can undo the magic of an animated film, or worse, make it dated. I'm not saying that pop culture references are the devil. They're actually good, as long as they're subtle and rightfully executed. For example, in the end of the episode "Save the Date" from Nickelodeon's The Loud House, Clyde comforts Lincoln by saying that romance is just a tale as old as time, actually a reference to Disney's 1991 film Beauty and the Beast. Clyde's dialogue actually originated as the core lyrics from the titular song which won so many awards and was sung by Angela Lansbury in the movie and by Celine Dion and Peabo Bryson as a pop duet. Despite this, it is a good reference because it's subtle. When I first watched this episode, I didn't get the reference very well, but that didn't detract from Lincoln and Clyde's camaraderie. It only became even more pleasant when I actually discovered what it was referencing. Pop culture references in The Loud House are the most funny moments from the show because they didn't just work for those who didn't get them well as they relied on something that wasn't just a fad, so they didn't risk dating an episode.

Madagascar can be seen as a game-changer. While the movie has pop culture references and still relies on celebrities, this is the first time DreamWorks Pictures embraces a good and more distinct visual. Production design was done by Kendal Cronkhite. Shannon Jeffries did the art direction and Craig Kellman designed all the characters.

Featuring the talent of Jerry Seinfeld, Bee Movie did a good job of being the best comedy of the studio, although the visual would seem too generic for a CGI movie. But it worked! Alex McDowell did the production design and Christophe Lautrette did the art direction.

Now what if they mixed a good story, good script, good jokes and excelent design in a single movie? DreamWorks Pictures did it with Kung Fu Panda, a 2008 film with production design by Raymond Zilbach and art direction by Tang Kheng Heng. The movie is unlike anything DreamWorks did before, but it has a good story and is technically flawless. Despite the overuse of celebrities, it didn't hinder the character development. It even included hand-drawn animated portions in the film's opening and ending, as well as DVD material.

If DreamWorks learned that they can make a movie without overusing pop culture references and Hollywood celebrities, they can also rely on visual variety in their films and make sure their current talent can shine just like the old animators. This is how you do a tasteful animated movie.

Translated from www.animation-animagic.com/colunas.aspx?idConteudo=1119

The beef with cheapquels

It wasn't and isn't uncommon see little children in a video store wanting to see a "cartoon" and their parents, out of cluelessness, take the first thing they see. When I started this blog, I never wanted to talk about the infamous cheapquels Disney used to pump out in the 90s and 2000s. Yet, I didn't explain why those movies are so overhated by animation fans. So, let's just go back to the beginning.

Sure, an animated film is expensive to produce. It has always been since the Golden Age in the 1930s. Don Bluth, director of An American Tail, The Land Before Time and Anastasia, claimed that depending on the project it takes approximately $400.000 to produce one minute of animation with the highest of the production values. This may vary from studio to studio. In the 1990s, with the animation industry shaked by the highest salaries offered by Disney to keep their animators and artists under the mouse's wing in retaliation to Dreamworks' hirings. Futhermore, production of those movies had been bureaucratizated, rushing projects in development with instant formulas and resulting into corporate predicaments that caused animated movies to reach girnormous $140 million budgets. By adding the $30 million budget for marketing, the box-office gross of $100 million would be a big fat no-no. In order to have a box-office success, animated movies should be produced with $35 to $50 million budgets and marketed with at least a $25 million budget.

The first attempt to lower production costs began in the early 1980s when Michael Eisner, Jeffrey Katzenberg and Frank Wells came to Disney. The animated feature film The Black Cauldron has been in production for 5 years and in development for the other 5 years, on a budget of $20 million. Eisner couldn't see why production was so expensive and time-consuming.

Disney, originally, refused to produce TV cartoons in the 1970s, in an effort to not hinder their feature animation unit. Competition (Hanna-Barbera, Filmation, etc.) was churning out low-budget TV cartoons at that point. It was calculated that it was needed $500.000 to produce a half-hour TV cartoon at least. The then-new executives' argument was that if competition could produce 20 minutes on $500.000, they could produce an animated feature film on $2 million. As for the low aesthetic quality of those shows, if Disney invested three times further, being in thesis three times more quality, the budget could be just $6 million. In fact, it was less than $20 million used in The Black Cauldron which premiered in 1985.

It seemed perfect, but they soon found out that their argument made no sense. The studio tried a less expensive production style with The Great Mouse Detective, reducing the budget and production period to the half. The cutbacks were not bad, but despite the production crew's best efforts, the quality wasn't Disney's finest.

In 1988, Disney tried another low-budget method. It became obvious that the proportional sense between TV and movies was wrong. As a result, Jeffrey Katzenberg decided to produce movies with a lower budget and a minor production framework while still retaining some quality from Disney's main animated features. Co-produced in France, with relatively new professionals, Disney produced DuckTales: The Movie - Treasure of the Lost Lamp and A Goofy Movie through their new MovieToons label. Despite the sleeper critical and commercial success of those movies, the final account proved that it was still costly to keep this kind of alternate production going.

DuckTales: The Movie - The Treasure of Lost Lamp: the 1990 movie that predated The Rugrats Movie.

One final attempt was done in 1992. Basking on the critical and commercial success of Aladdin, Disney released The Return of Jafar direct-to-video with great commercial success. The exciting sales encouraged Disney to open their satellite shops internationally to produce sequels to successful movies on the lowest production costs (thanks to the differing workload costs).

A Goofy Movie: just because an animated movie is made with low budget doesn't mean it ain't no good.

This is how Disney was able to pump out such movies (mostly with abysmal results) which varied from the horrible The Hunchback of Notre Dame II to the sweet and heartwarming Lilo & Stitch 2: Stitch Has a Glitch. The latter was produced by the talented animators from Australia who, regardless, had to work under more strict Standards & Practices than their American counterparts.

But I'm not talking about the behind-the-scenes of those productions. I'm just pointing the dangers which were polluting the market with movies lacking even less artistic quality, hindering the beautiful and captivating high quality of Disney movies and slowly killing hand-drawn animation for no reason.

Belle's Magical World: the rock bottom

There was an interesting comparison between the so-called cheapquels and the fast-food soda. Since years ago, the fast-food corporations found the easy way of selling more soda and earning more with that by making consumers believe that soda needs ice to keep it cool. Sure, ice is theorically free or at least more cheap.. If we fill the trays with ice and soda, the fast-food company earns more for less. We spend too much for ice. What people little notice is that, normally, soda already comes out cool from post-mix machines. Disney and Universal Pictures (including their DreamWorks Animation division which released their own DTV movie Joseph: King of Dreams) got that formula to get extra bucks for the already existing stuff.

This formula is basic: get a successful movie (preferably a classic), (re)create a similar movie by losing one mere fraction of the normal budget (resulting into ear-rapist songs and uncanny animation), introduce a new element (generally, the characters' relatives) even if it results into a very obvious thing without the surprise factor, and finally we have a disguised "remake".

The Lion King 1/2: beautiful animation made down under

What is so wrong with this???!!! The same way that, gradually, animation went to become more preachy and formulaic (a spit to the experimental productions from the 1920s to the 1940s), the glut of cheapquels made the audience more tolerable towards the "new", "hip", "cool" and "cheap" Disney style. Even poor Pixar had fallen prey into this (*cough*Cars 2*cough*).

Unless we get more careful, the "ice glut" can ruin "pure soda" (the triple AAA Disney and Pixar movies) that Disney insists on offering as high quality entertainment. Thankfully, parents and kids are currently able to differentiate quality standards with the power of internet. Similarly, critics and fans are getting more and more cautious towards Disney's "real" thing and ignorant towards the mockbusters that are being produced to the lowest scale thanks to current market conditions caused by video-games, Netflix, streaming, Youtube and the popularity of Cartoon Network/Nickelodeon/Disney TV cartoons.

Translated from www.animation-animagic.com/colunas.aspx?idConteudo=1111

Vila Sésamo - A Alegria da Vida

Depois dos cachorros, tive a idéia de postar minha nova entrada sobre um dos programas infantis com bonecos que marcaram a história da programação infantil brasileira: Vila Sésamo.

Como vocês sabem, o auge do programa se deu nos anos 70. A idéia do seriado não veio do Brasil, e sim da Sesame Workshop (outrora Children's Television Workshop), uma produtora norte-americana que também criou outras séries infantis como Sagwa, a Gatinha Siamesa, O Fantasma Escritor, Cro, Big Bag, Historinhas de Dragões, Pequenos Planetas e Pinky Dinky Doo. É lá onde eles ainda produzem o programa cujo nome original se chama Sesame Street no qual se basearam para criar nossa Vila Sésamo.

A TV Cultura e a Rede Globo resolveram comprar os direitos em 1972 e produzir uma versão brasileira do seriado, criada por José Bonifácio de Oliveira Sobrinho (Boni) e Cláudio Petraglia. Como a Globo não tinha estúdios para produzir Vila Sésamo, as duas emissoras toparam em co-produzir o programa. A primeira fase produzida de 1972 a 1974 teve a colaboração de Edwaldo Pacote e dos alunos de Rádio e TV da Escola de Comunicações e Artes da USP (ECA).

Em 1974, a Rede Globo passou a produzir sozinha a segunda fase do programa. Quem ganhou com isso foi o público infantil que pôde assistir os dois canais em dois horários diferentes para conferir o Vila Sésamo. De acordo com a Globo, o programa chegou a pagar US$ 7.000 só de direitos autorais à Sesame/CTW.

A primeira obra-prima infantil da TV Cultura foi justamente este programa que, no ano de estréia, ganhou dois Troféus Helena Silveira (um como melhor programa cultural e outro consagrando Sônia Braga como revelação feminina) e um da APCA (Associação Paulista de Críticos de Arte) (como melhor programa do ano). Esses troféus ajudaram a consagrar a direção de Ademar Guerra e a adaptação brasileira de Cláudio Petraglia.

Vila Sésamo ensinava para as crianças os números, as letras, as sílabas, matemática, gramática, brincadeiras, músicas e tudo mais, intercalando ainda com desenhos animados.

Os primeiros episódios foram cuidadosamente adaptados seguindo os padrões estipulados pela Sesame/CTW, mas o programa fez tanto sucesso que a Sesame/CTW deu total liberdade de criação, resultando na nacionalziação completa do Vila Sésamo, adotando uma linguagem própria. Devido à grande diferença social no Brasil, a versão brasileira foi produzida usando como cenário uma vila nu lugar de uma rua como no original. O elenco do programa foi obrigado a gravar diante de um censor imposto pelo governo militar que acusou Vila Sésamo de supostamente promover o "modo de vida americano", mas apesar disso, conseguiu-se driblar a censura e chegar na realidade brasileira com muita tranquilidade.

A estrela do seriado era Garibaldo (Big Bird), um grande pássaro brincalhão, que muitas vezes errava por ser teimoso e levado por não ouvir direito os conselhos de seus amigos. Fazia traquinagens sem querer, mas voltava atrás quando a ficha caía e ele recebia broncas, pois tinha um grande coração. Como o programa era gravado em preto e branco, apesar da chegada da TV em cores no mercado brasileiro, o boneco do Garibaldo foi pintado de azul indigo (quase a cor do jeans) em vez de amarelo como no original, pois a cor azul seria melhor adequada para exibição em preto e branco. Garibaldo foi interpretado por Laerte Morrone que usava uma mão levantada para mexer a cabeça e fazer as expressões faciais do boneco, e outra mão para manipular um braço. O outro braço do boneco era apenas um acessório extensível. Enquanto que o intérprete americano do personagem Carol Spinney usava o monitor preso ao seu peito para ver sua atuação, Morrone podia ver por onde o boneco iria através de um buraco que ele mesmo fez para que pudesse correr, dançar e pular sem se machucar e trombar no cenário.

Gugu, interpretado por Roberto Orozco, era um ranzinza e ameaçava quem se aproximasse de seu barril, no canto do pátio da vila. O boneco de espuma e pano do Gugu foi revestido por fios de lã verde musgo. Um pouco do próprio boneco e sua personalidade inspiraram o Mau do Castelo Rá-Tim-Bum da TV Cultura e os personagens Borges, Jaca Paladium e Paulo Paulada da TV Colosso da Rede Globo.

O programa também tinha a dupla Beto e Ênio que saíram do original americano onde eles se chamam Bert e Ernie. Beto tinha uma única sobrancelha, que nem a Helga Pataki do desenho Hey Arnold! da Nickelodeon, era pessimista, mas sempre estava ali para apoiar o bom e ingênuo Ênio. Uma curiosidade: o intérprete do Beto era Frank Oz que mais tarde se consagrou como o mestre Yoda da saga Star Wars dos estúdios Disney e George Lucas.

Juca (Armando Bogus) era marido de Gabriela (Aracy Balabanian), primo de Ana Maria (Sônia Braga) e um carpinteiro que ensinava as crianças a montarem brinquedos. Gabriela era sempre sorridente e adorava fazer ginástica. Ana Maria era professora e ensinava crianças a aprender e entender melhor as coisas do mundo. Seu par romântico Antônio (Flávio Galvão) sempre a visitava enquanto podia.

O Sr. Funga-Funga (Marcos Miranda) gostava muito de cantar, mas se sentia triste porque não entendia por que os outros não o olhavam como gente. Mas, como deu para entender, ele era um tamanduá gigante com a corcova do mesmo tamanho do Garibaldo.

E o Seu Almeida (João Lourenço) contava muitas história para as crianças em seu armazém.

Tínhamos tambem Kermit, o sapo, o detetive Pantaleão e muitos outros muppets que saíram do original americano, mas os mencionados acima eram os protagonistas do programa.

Vila Sésamo foi cancelado em 1977 devido ao fim do contrato com a Sesame/CTW e aos altos custos de produção. Apesar disso, continuaram muitas outras versões estrangeiras de Sesame Street, entre elas o Plaza Sésamo do México e da América do Sul. O original americano recentemente passou a ser exibido no canal a cabo HBO e já tinha novos protagonistas como Elmo e Abby Cadabby.

A Rede Globo tentou produzir uma nova versão do programa, mas nunca mais conseguiu os direitos da Sesame/CTW. Uma das tentativas aconteceu depois que o Xou da Xuxa acabou em 1993, quando acabou inventando a TV Colosso que acabou revolucionando a programação infantil brasileira com textos inteligentes e bonecos mistos de titeragem tradicional com o que havia de mais avançado de tecnologia animatrônica por controle remoto na época. Foi em 2007 que a TV Cultura finalmente conseguiu os direitos e produziu uma nova versão do Vila Sésamo, desta vez com o Garibaldo amarelo como no original e introduzindo uma nova personagem Bel. Em breve, Abby Cadabby também estará nesta nova versão.

O parque Hopi Hari tinha uma área licenciada da Vila Sésamo com direito até a bonecos. Mas as atrações eram baseadas na versão 2007 do programa, bem diferentes da versão antiga em preto e branco que passava na Globo nos anos 70.

2D to 3D Mascot Platformers - WHAT THE F(bleep) WENT F(bleep)ING WRONG????!!!!!!

This year about to end marked the 25th anniversary of Sonic the Hedgehog. So I'll dedicate this new post to the 2D platformers who went south through 3D and why did it all wrong.

When Rare developed Donkey Kong Country for SNES in 1994, it became a landmark for its revolutionary 3D graphics and foreshadowed the future of video game industry which became full 3D video games. Coincidentally, the good old days of 2D platformers were getting numbered. The 3D era would be the Disney Death of the platformers. While Mario moved to three dimensions with grace and finesse, most but not all the other platforming mascots crashed and burned to death. Among the notorious failures: Earthworm Jim was stomped to death, Sonic lost his cool factor and, to add salt to the injury, Bubsy stepped into the third dimension with the wrong foot, stumbled violently and fell to his tragic death. This was the time I was exposed to the original PlayStation.

The classic PlayStation was my childhood. In a way, it was the swan song of 2D. Mickey Mania: The Wild Adventure was one of the great platformers to use the Disney license alongside DuckTales, Aladdin and The Lion King. Rayman was eye candy. I've always wondered where those kinds of games would have been had 3D never been possible. Thankfully, their survival on handheld consoles, digital media and mobile platforms answered the question.

What could possibly go wrong?

One game specifically has always been the focus of the debate: Bubsy. What was it about Bubsy that caused it to go from the potential King of the Mascots to one of the most routinely ridiculed game series of all time? The poor transition to 3D didn't deserve all the blame. Earthworm Jim and the others suffered that fate but are still beloved today. And Bubsy's 90s attitude couldn't be blamed either. After all, what kind of character is more 90s than Sonic, a character that remains popular? What game mechanics worked on Sonic? Where did Bubsy go wrong? What the hell happened to Aero, Toki, Radical Rex, Titus and Alfred Chicken? What did they do well and poorly?

"You're nothing but second rate."

I genuinely believe that the combination of trashy execution, zero effort, lack of imagination, executive meddling and circumstances beyond control that killed the 2D platformer mascots. Banjo-Kazooie, Conker, Crash Bandicoot, Spyro the Dragon, Jak & Daxter, Ratchet & Clank, Sly Cooper, Ty the Tasmanian Tiger and Ape Escape proved that 3D platformers could be done right. If you just have plenty of time to write a story, create your characters, design the levels, program everything, compose good music, add pleasant sound effects, fix the bugs, select the platform you'll release the game on and choose a better release date, anything goes.

This is how you do a good 3D platformer.

Hey Arnold! The Jungle Movie - After 11 years, one of Nickelodeon's worst mistakes has been fixed

This year marks the 20th anniversary of Hey Arnold!, Nickelodeon's animated series starring a 9-year-old football-head boy with a tiny cap, the most creative bedroom for a 90s cartoon character, a big shirt which is mistaken for a kilt and an idealism with attitude.



Hey Arnold! is the sixth Nicktoon and one of Nickelodeon's most significant cartoons of all time. The show mixed adult humor with complex and relatable characters. It blended realistic storylines in an urban setting with surreal fairy tales starring urban legends. It blended a kid-friendly point of view with adult characters dealing with adult issues (alcoholism, gambling and stuff that could only be seen in live-action dramas). As a result, it was the most ecclectic Nicktoon. In addition, the ending theme song was pure jazz and the show is what made kids interested in jazz.

A kids' cartoon that has Arnold's grandpa confronting Adolf Hitler is a perfect example of combining humor with adult innuendos.

But the show's core theme was the idealism-vs-cynicism debate. We have our title protagonist called Arnold Shortman (this last name wasn't revealed until the show ended), a boy who believed that as long as everyone worked together the world could be a better place to live, and that was always ready to do his part in helping whoever has a problem. He's always giving advice to people and helping his friends to solve everyday's problems, both his classmates and his adult friends.

"Arnold, saving the neighborhood isn't a game. It's real life. And in real life, you can't always win. I mean, I can win Runaway Bus every time I play it but that's because it's a game."

But the scene-stealer is Helga G. Pataki. She's Arnold's opposite. Helga is an abusive school bully who's always beating and cursing at the living snout out of everyone to get whatever she wants. She's bossy and sassy and has a grimdark vision of life and, due to Arnold always claiming that anything goes with everyone's efforts, wouldn't hesitate on knocking poor football-head back to his senses that real world is nothing but hell.

"This is the real fucking life!"

Helga's actions are consequences of her miserable family life at home, thanks to her abusive dad, her drunken mom and her older sister whose success detracts Helga from achieving any expectation from her parents as they base it on their favorite firstborn. She has no room at home and built her own outside, using brutal violence and tyrant cruelty, as she didn't learn other ways of respect.

Helga had to go to school on her own too early due to her parents' negligence.

At school, she took it on the other children.

On the other hand, Arnold lives in an unusual home where he was raised by his grandparents who own the boarding house where Arnold interacts with several houseboarders who helped raise him, without knowing his biological parents who disappeared mysteriously. This is where Arnold gets love and respect from the adults who listen to whatever he says and let Arnold help them in their predicaments, building up the idea of Arnold helping anyone as long as he does the least.

While not blood-related, they're still a happy and perfect family as they all live together in the same house. For example, Mr. Hyunh raises Arnold as if he is an uncle while his daughter Mai does the same as if she is a distant cousin. They spend holidays and birthdays together and, whenever every single one of them has a predicament, they help. They may not seem a traditional family, but they're still a family.

What makes the opposites, which are Helga and Arnold, attract is that Helga lusts over Arnold ever since preschool days because Arnold is the first person to show her any single kind of compassion (for example, noticing that she was wet, offering his umbrella and praising her attire). And Helga always torments and abuses Arnold to conceal her true feelings for her (as she is unable to deal with them), though she secretly supports and roots for him and hopes that the world is not as cruel as far to crush the poor boy's pure heart. Ironically, Arnold is oblivious to this and can't remember the day he loaned his umbrella to Helga. He's unhappy with Helga's abusive behavior and this is how things are like this in the world.

Helga's love for Arnold reaches to not-so-healthy levels, such as stalking and shrines to lick the boots out of his image. However, she's a talented poet for her age.

This is Hey Arnold!. The story of one of Nickelodeon's most complex cartoon characters (alongside Zuko) and her cynical feelings, her endless suffering and lust for acceptance, and of the boy she loves.

This also about all these other characters which, while lacking Helga's development and Arnold's collaboration, are all interesting characters. After all, Craig Bartlett was heavily influenced by the works of Charles M. Schulz to create the then-next Nicktoon.

A great cartoon. Timeless, magnificent, groundbreaking and... unfairly canceled by Nickelodeon. One of the most heartbreaking cases of Nickelodeon sabotaging their own animated offering (it wasn't certainly the only case, as The Ren & Stimpy Show got ruined by Nickelodeon amid irreconciliable creative differences which caused the departure of John Kricfalusi and his animation company Spümco, Invader Zim had his planned finale unfinished, not to mention Nickelodeon's abusive cruelty towards The Legend of Korra)

The tearjerking consequence of Nickelodeon's mishandling of their Nicktoons

"How could you (Nickelodeon) say those horrible things to MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE???????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Hey Arnold! officialy has 100 episodes (split into 120 segments) and a feautre-length film. A made-for-TV feature film released theatrically as Hey Arnold! The Movie and 100 episodes split into 5 seasons. However, as the show's renewal for a fourth season was in planning stages, it was actually renewed for fourth season episodes and two movies, one of which would conclude the series. So, the number was supposed to be four seasons and two movies (because Craig Bartlett feared Nickelodeon would do the same thing to his creation than they were doing to Rugrats and other Klasky-Csupo Nicktoons at that time and they would do to Spongebob Squarepants and The Fairly Oddparents as we know it: seasonal rot), instead of five seasons and one movie. So, what in the blazes happened?

The original movie Hey Arnold! The Movie went south in box office. Actually, it was successful on test release, but became a critical and commercial tragedy as Nickelodeon decided to give it a theatrical release instead of keeping it made-for-TV and direct-to-video. The results: the movie was blasted by critics and audiences, prevented Nickelodeon from releasing future Nicktoon films theatrically for a while and, not only that, put plans for a sequel in jeopardy.

Yes, the fourth season finale was to be a 2-part ratings trap that would lead to the second movie that was supposed to be the series finale. So, by cancelling the movie, they cancelled the entire series finale. I think it was too unparalleled believe that a little movie with no pretensions intended for TV could be paralleled to a rushed movie to be the series finale, the definite ending of the series that, as long as the writers are good (those from Hey Arnold! were the best), is the best point of the series.

Concept art from the new movie's unfinished version by Roger Luan

No-no-no! 2001 has come, but Nickelodeon, wanting to turn Hey Arnold! into their next Spongebob/Rugrats, divided the already in-production episodes into two more seasons and spaced their releases, but the show could have continued until 2004 with new episodes, with or without Craig Bartlett. This is how Nickelodeon stripped the show from his finale.

Yes, the potential sixth season which could give the series at least a more coherent ending and not end in a great cliffhanger was out of question.

In the ending of the 2-part episode The Journal, Arnold finds a map that would indicate where would his parents supposedly be.

Everything happened in 2001. So, in 2004, Craig Bartlett was already busy in another cartoon as production of Hey Arnold! wrapped in 2001, but Nickelodeon found out that he was working for Cartoon Network and it was John Kricfalusi and his Ren & Stimpy all over again because Bartlett had signed an exclusivity clause with Nickelodeon, which didn't help as he wouldn't even give the series a closure. But this officially soured the relationship between Nickelodeon and Craig Bartlett, not unlike what happened in the Ren & Stimpy days.

So many petitions for production of the film have been made, despite all of this.

The 2-part episode that would lead to the movie aired before the last episode and Nickelodeon selected a typical episode to be the last, just to hype up for a movie. On June 8th 2004, Nickelodeon aired the episode "Phoebe's Little Problem" (what a series finale). This was the end of Hey Arnold!.

The last episode of the series.

If you think all of this is over, you're foolishly mistaken! There's the reason Craig Bartlett wanted the second movie - which, in now full production, is called The Jungle Movie - to be the series finale. He didn't want to cancel the show out of nowhere. He had future plans for Hey Arnold!. He wanted to create a spin-off starring Helga called The Patakis, which was planned for Nick at Nite - Nickelodeon's primetime block originally targeted for adults and teenagers. The Patakis was to focus on Helga, now 15-year-old, in a point where she and Arnold were finally open to each other only for him to leave the city soon. She would cope with her teen issues, her mom's alcoholism would be further explored, so would her dad's abusive cruelty (he would be based on Tony Soprano in the spin-off). Nickelodeon rejected this series as it was considered too dark for the network's standards.

They feared it would meet the same fate that plagued the spin-offs of their 1991 cartoons All Grown Up! and Ren & Stimpy: Adult Party Cartoon. The first one, from Rugrats, wasn't as well received by fans as the original for being an unnecessary rehash of As Told by Ginger - also created by Klasky-Csupo - with the Rugrats texture and killed the Rugrats franchise, while the latter, from The Ren & Stimpy Show, was an adults-only cartoon for Spike TV - Nickelodeon's sister network - that was short-lived with horrible results.

Good ideas for spin-offs from 1991 Nicktoons that were horribly misused, which led to the deaths of the Rugrats and Ren & Stimpy franchises.

Craig Bartlett also tried to launch The Patakis on MTV - Nickelodeon's other sister network - , but the network rejected it as they viewed it as too similar to Daria, one of their own cartoons MTV was producing at the time.

Now that I talked about how The Jungle Movie, The Patakis and any possibility of a closure for the characters of Hey Arnold! went into development hell, I'll talk about Nickelodeon. It's time for animation history:

Nickelodeon is a channel created amid the Animation Renaissance of the 1990s when studios like Disney, Warner Bros. and Hanna-Barbera came to end the cheap, lazy and overcommercial way of producing cartoons from the 1980s, and produce better produced and more creator-driven cartoons that anyone could enjoy. This is the decade which cartoons like Sonic the Hedgehog: The Series, Darkwing Duck, TaleSpin, Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers, SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron, Animaniacs/Pinky and the Brain and the DC Animated Timmverse came from. Cartoon Network is another channel that was born in the same decade and both CN and Nick became the parents of modern creator-driven animation.

The gems of Nickelodeon's animation crown

It's during the Animation Renaissance that Nickelodeon created many original cartoons called Nicktoons which became critical and commercial hits: Doug, Rugrats, The Ren & Stimpy Show, Rocko's Modern Life, Aaahh!! Real Monsters, KaBlam!, Hey Arnold!, The Angry Beavers, CatDog, The Wild Thornberrys, SpongeBob Squarepants, Rocket Power, As Told by Ginger, Chalkzone, The Fairly Oddparents, My Life as a Teenage Robot, Invader Zim and The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius.

From this list, Rugrats, Hey Arnold!, The Wild Thornberrys, Rocket Power and As Told by Ginger ended their original runs in 2004. Rugrats was continued by a spin-off starring the grown-up title characters called All Grown Up! which was commissioned by Nickelodeon and overlapped with another spin-off planed by Nickelodeon starring Angelica and Susie in preschool. Those spin-offs weren't as succesful as the original source material and killed the Rugrats brand. Let's see the others from this list.

The Ren & Stimpy Show ended its production run in 1996 and got an adults-only spin-off Ren & Stimpy: Adult Party Cartoon which was commissioned by Spike TV. That one crashed and burned even worse and killed the Ren & Stimpy franchise. Doug and Aaahh!! Real Monsters had their feature films cancelled by Nickelodeon, killing those franchises. Doug was sold to Disney who produced a Doug movie of its own. Other shows ended their runs and the last one to be cancelled was CatDog in 2005.

Two of Nickelodeon's most successful animated series that remain are SpongeBob Squarepants and The Fairly Oddparents. Nickelodeon currently has five cartoons, three of which have considerable success. Both those aforementioned shows, the 2012 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reboot, Harvey Beaks and The Loud House.

Nickelodeon's post-Renaissance cartoons were successful, but they weren't as successful as Avatar: The Last Airbender. Thanks to Nickelodeon not renewing the Avatar creators' contract, this is not what Nickelodeon would invest into.

While Danny Phantom and My Life as a Teenage Robot weren't very next to the 90s Nicktoons, they reasonated well with critics and audiences with their own merits and are still loved today.

Resuming: the good days of Nickelodeon were the entire 1990s. Despite still making good cartoons from that point, they felt threatened by the rise of Cartoon Network. And from the cartoons that made up the good days of Nickelodeon, the channel became content with running the best part of the bunch into the ground, including Avatar: The Last Airbender. Meanwhile, the channel spends much of its life in the current animation field with both 90s shows renewed to this day, both already in the same decay that affected The Simpsons and Family Guy.

Say what you will about Poof, Sparky and Chloe, but this picture is the rock bottom of The Fairly Oddparents losing his shock factor.

Nickelodeon is an endangered species that got on the verge of extinction when the Animation Renaissance ended.

In this game, Nick at Nite became the home of reruns of Nickelodeon's Renaissance cartoons instead of that originally intended programming for grown-ups, as those cartoons became the network's heart and soul.

Nick at Nite's logo changes are based on how the block's original concept was getting lost before becoming nothing but marathons of reruns of Nickelodeon's programming from the good old days.

Since the beginning of the current age of animation, there were attempts of turning DreamWorks Animation's most successful movies into TV series: The Penguins of Madagascar, Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness and Monsters vs. Aliens, all of which were discontinued experiences. The only critical and commercial darling is Dragons which moved from Cartoon Network to Netflix.

Desperate to bank on the popularity of Cartoon Network and Disney Channel/XD's cartoons such as Steven Universe and Gravity Falls, Nickelodeon announced last year that they would produce new seasons for their 90s library. With this announcement, the first show to be revived was nothing more than Hey Arnold!. After Nickelodeon and Craig Bartlett made amends, it was announced that, 11 years after the final episode of Hey Arnold! was aired and 14 years after it was cancelled, Nickelodeon would finally produce The Jungle Movie.

Everything goes back to the movie that almost never was.

And every single Hey Arnold! fan was finally able to give up the petition stites.

This means that, if The Jungle Movie reasonates well with critics, fans and viewers, Hey Arnold! will be brought back to production, whether it's a good idea or not, as the movie was meant to conclude the entire Hey Arnold! franchise. Whatever be a brand new season or The Patakis, there's still so much mystery in the announcement, but what's so important is that it will be back.

What does it mean? Certainly, Nickelodeon desperately wants to be relevant again and wants to know how to turn the tables. Since the beginning of the this decade, Cartoon Network has been enjoying a new age with Adventure Time (whose actual series was rejected by Nickelodeon), Steven Universe, Regular Show, Over the Garden Wall, We Bare Bears, etc. Now they decided to embrace pure notsalgia and jump the reboot bandwagon with everything they got.

Considering that Nickelodeon mooned at and gave a middle finger to The Patakis, I think that, even if they had produced Adventure Time, they wouldn't give a shit to anything that made the series so great.

Unless it's done right, this is the recipe for disaster. As much as I love Hey Arnold!, it's a desperate idea that could be executed in the very worst way possible. It was a 1990s show and I'm sure it will rely on more than nostalgia to be relevant today, with Craig Bartlett and the original creative team on board with a little help of some new blood to put effort into and passionate about it. Mr. Bartlett, you're all set for a successful revival movie. You've got a good combination of old veterans and newcomers, you've got a dedicated and talented staff and, above of all, you've got pure imagination and expertise to inject into it. Best of luck, and I hope Rocko's Modern Life, KaBlam!, Danny Phantom, The Ren & Stimpy Show, Invader Zim, Codename: Kids Next Door, Samurai Jack, Hi Hi Puffy Amiyumi, Sym-Bionic Titan, Megas XLR, SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron, Animaniacs, Kim Possible, Gravity Falls, etc. get the same kind of treatment.

Translated from dentrodachamine.wordpress.com/2015/12/01/hey-arnold-the-jungle-movie-depois-de-11-anos-um-erro-grande-erro-foi-desfeito/