Some thoughts about Disney animated shows in the past decade

[Mandarin Dessert Version 0]

While I, having grown up with them, will always think fondly of the Disney Afternoon shows as the peak of Disney animated TV shows, I personally think that kids these days have gotten shows in the past decade that are on par or perhaps even superior than what has come since then.

In the past decade the following shows were still running or debuted:

-Phineas & Ferb
-Gravity Falls
-Ducktales (2017)
-Milo Murphy's Law
-Big City Greens
-Amphibia
-The Owl House
-The Ghost And Molly McGee

Just wanted to share some of my thoughts about them:

-What strikes me about them is that there is about a 50/50 distribution between slice-of-life type shows (Phineas & Ferb, Big City Greens, The Ghost And Molly McGee) and more storyline-driven shows (Gravity Falls, Ducktales (2017), Amphibia, The Owl House). I certainly like that Disney allowed for more shows that require a viewer to watch from week to week to get all the developments instead of just sticking to mostly slice-of-life shows (feel free to correct me here, but as far as story-driven shows go I can only recall Gargoyles and, to a lesser extent, Adventures Of The Gummi Bears in the past).

-Basically all of these shows feel like they are made for family watching with the adult parents enjoying all the adult jokes or obscure references (like the vast amount of Carl Barks/Don Rosa comic book references as well as Disney Afternoon show references in 2017 Ducktales) that the children wouldn't get. There's certainly nothing that would speak against a show that the whole family can enjoy.

-Also love that inspite of being made for families, some of the shows are not afraid to push the boundaries sometimes with their original intended target audience like the series finale of Gravity Falls being an emotional rollercoaster or the Season 2 finale of Amphibia having a TV-Y7-FV disclaimer beforehand compared to its other episodes (and one Season 3 episode so far being a pretty tough one in its own right). Regarding another topic, while not being anything new in regards to Western TV animation since Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network already did it earlier, it is good to see that Disney also lets more diverse romantic relationships into its shows with the most upfront being Luz and Amity being the first prominent same-sex protagonist couple in a Disney animated show (aside from others like Sheriff Blubs and Deputy Durland in Gravity Falls and Violet Sabrewing's parents in 2017 Ducktales).

-Speaking of representation, it is also good to see more diverse characters in other regards in those shows like Anne Boonchuy of Amphibia and Molly McGee being Thai-Americans as well as Luz from The Owl House being Dominican-American and getting to display parts of their own culture in the show. In addition, I like that one of Molly McGee's friends is Jewish and that she even got to have a holiday 11-minute episode on Hanukkah with it being perhaps the best animated segment on that particular holiday I have ever seen (to be honest, I cannot recall hardly any animated segments at least that were concerned with Hanukkah but those might be more plentiful than I imagined).

-I guess what strikes a chord with me is perhaps the following based on my own history: I was always more into animation than live-action and as I got older back in the late 1990s, I completely ignored Western animation in favor of Japanese anime and at this point in time, I might have realized for myself why I fell into love into anime around that time. With anime I found animated shows that appealed to what I was looking for at that time: animated story-driven shows that I simply couldn't find at that time in Western animation. It either seemed to be slice-of-life type shows with humor that I felt at that time I had outgrown or adult animated shows that were also mostly comedy programs. With anime I found the type of shows that appealed to me back then. Therefore, I guess I am kinda happy with how the Western animated TV show market has grown since the late Oughties/early Tens (not only with Disney but also with Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, Netflix etc. producing more diverse types of animated shows) and now airing shows for all kinds of ages that I have only been used to from anime back when I was young.

The reason I focused on Disney here is perhaps because Disney has been more consistent with churning out quality shows over the past years compared to its competitors but that's not to say that I disregard the quality shows that Nickelodeon (Avatar: The Last Airbender, The Legend Of Korra, The Loud House), Cartoon Network (Adventure Time, Regular Show, Steven Universe), Netflix (Green-Eggs-And-Ham) have brought us over the years.

Yeah, just some thoughts I wanted to get off my chest and share with others.

[horsemen4ever]

This thread gives me an opportunity to bring up something I was thinking of the other day. When bring up character like Amity (Owl House)and projection of what could happen with Andrea (The Ghost and Molly McGee), people bring up the trope of the reformed mean girl character started with Pacificia Northwest (Gravity Falls), these naive kids how cute.

It goes way back, at least 1990 that is when we have Princess Marie from Disney Adventures of Gummi Bears. So this trope didn't start with your generation kids.

[Alyce: Old Media Enthusiast]

Dec 13, 2021 15:45:14 GMT -5 Mandarin Dessert Version 0 said:

In the past decade the following shows were still running or debuted:

-Phineas & Ferb
-Gravity Falls
-Ducktales (2017)
-Milo Murphy's Law
-Big City Greens
-Amphibia
-The Owl House
-The Ghost And Molly McGee

One major one you omitted was Star Vs. The Forces of Evil, which was a good show. Key operative "was" as it really just collapsed on itself in the latter half.

[horsemen4ever]

Dec 13, 2021 15:45:14 GMT -5 Mandarin Dessert Version 0 said:

-Speaking of representation, it is also good to see more diverse characters in other regards in those shows like Anne Boonchuy of Amphibia and Molly McGee being Thai-Americans as well as Luz from The Owl House being Dominican-American and getting to display parts of their own culture in the show. In addition, I like that one of Molly McGee's friends is Jewish and that she even got to have a holiday 11-minute episode on Hanukkah with it being perhaps the best animated segment on that particular holiday I have ever seen (to be honest, I cannot recall hardly any animated segments at least that were concerned with Hanukkah but those might be more plentiful than I imagined).

I know he is a male character, so kind of a different target audience per say,let's give American Dragon: Jake Long for opening doors for the Amphibia's, for the Owl House's, for The Ghost and Molly McGee's of the world. So much love for the AmDrag.

[Lizuka #BLM]

Leaving out Star Vs. feels like a glaring omission but also incredibly telling about how badly that show fell apart.

Only ones of them I've actually watched are Phineas & Ferb, Gravity Falls, and Owl House. Enjoying the latter, nothing mindblowing but more often than not good, sucks that Disney's basically going out of their way to abruptly end it. Gravity Falls is very, very good but I do feel like it tends to get a bit overrated, it's a few episodes in before it finds its footing and it definitely slips in quality toward the endgame which combined with just not having that many episodes makes for a fairly significant chunk of the show that isn't up to snuff. Phineas & Ferb I haven't watched in a long time at this point but imagine it's mostly aged fine, though the stupid retcon with Milo Murphy's Law does kind of defeat the entire damn point.

[Mandarin Dessert Version 0]

Let me just say that I didn't omit Star Vs. The Forces Of Evil out of malice, but...I simply forgot about it. Sorry.