How do these guys keep getting work?
This past weekend, at Long Beach Comic Con. Man of Action, the minds behind Disney XD’s “Ultimate Spider-Man” cartoon had the following to say about their predecessor:
It’s sad to see, as TV Tropes calls it, the Animation Age Ghetto attitude alive and well in professionals working in the business. But these are views that Marvel TV Mogul, Jeph Loeb, has expressed several times in the not-so-distant past, so it doesn’t surprise me in the slightest that he would hire like-minded people while showing Josh Fine and Frank Paur the door..
I don’t know, but as a kid I responded to “Batman: The Animated Series” and “Gargoyles”. An entire generation of kids responded to “Avatar: The Last Airbender”. And, not to mention, that everything they said about how “Spectacular Spider-Man” didn’t get the target demographic is flat out wrong. “Spectacular Spider-Man” had no trouble getting the target demographic, even trouncing “Ultimate Spider-Man” in the ratings when it was recently re-ran on Vortexx.
Walt Disney and the classic Warner Bros cartoons never felt the need to talk down to their audience like these guys do. Their work, and the work of their spiritual descendants in the animation field, people like Greg Weisman, Frank Paur, Alan Burnett, Bruce Timm, Paul Dini, Josh Fine, Vic Cook, and so many others, work on multiple levels, making the effort to tell timeless stories you can go back and revisit and share with new generations. The fact that this is the face of Marvel Animation is sad. Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and Steve Ditko wrote their classic stories for kids without talking down to them, which is why so many of those stories, while dated, are still great today.
Why does Man of Action feel they need to dumb down what kids are seeing? Kids absorb things, give them something they’ll learn from without even necessarily being aware they’re learning something. Give them an experience!
And, please, stop wearing sunglasses inside!