Most Ameritrash Cartoon Ever?

One good thing about having a completely fucked up sleep pattern and being up often between 2 and 4am is that sometimes I come across something on TV I would never see otherwise.

Tonight on Cartoon Network's Toonami, I saw a cartoon called Sym Bionic Titan made by, among others, Genndy Tartakovsky who is the dude that made Power Puff Girls, Dexter's Lab, and Samurai Jack and apparently a bunch of Star Wars: Clone Wars episodes.

Holy crap! The show was awesome. Well if you like giant robots that fight huge monsters, rockets, giant flying base ships, etc. You do like that sort of stuff don't you? Of course you do.

I have always like the visual look of Tartakovsky's cartoons and his loving but twisted take on the early 60's aesthetic. This is no different in that regard. But man, this show was a little darker than one would expect. Goons being slaughtered wholesale, the monsters having their limbs hacked off before being gutted like fish. Really kind of brutal.

It apparently only aired for one season in 2010 to 2011 but think I'm going to have to check out the rest of the episodes.

Most Ameritrash and Most Fucked Up are kind of different categories. We opening this up to anime? That would present a whole new realm of brutal or just goofy. Of those not involving an intersection of tentacles and schoolgirls or vaguely androgynous but beautiful men being extremely tender to one another in a vaguely androgynous kind of way, "FLCL" aka "Furi Kuri" aka "Fooly Cooly"] is tops on my "Most fucked-up" list. Weirdest combination of hallucinogens, blatant fan-service, mecha, and hormonally-addled high school angst bullshit I've ever seen.

I'm sure some can go on at length about it having some sort of interesting subtexts or being a metacommentary on modern Japanese society for the teenage/young adult set. I'm not one of those folks. Strangest thing I've seen make it to a US rebroadcast.

As for most Ameritrash? My vote will *always* go to the original Robotech series [even the kind of butchered reedited-for-the-US version] because it was the first cartoon I ever saw where characters actually *died*. So, Robotech gets the Most AT Award for introducing me to the concept of Player Elimination 30 years ago

But thanks for the heads-up on this series. I missed this one completely, and it sounds like something I'd dig. (Tartakovsky's Samurai Jack could also be a pretty bloody affair at times, so it's not totally foreign to Cartoon Network]

repoman wrote: One good thing about having a completely fucked up sleep pattern and being up often between 2 and 4am is that sometimes I come across something on TV I would never see otherwise.

Tonight on Cartoon Network's Toonami, I saw a cartoon called Sym Bionic Titan made by, among others, Genndy Tartakovsky who is the dude that made Power Puff Girls, Dexter's Lab, and Samurai Jack and apparently a bunch of Star Wars: Clone Wars episodes.

Holy crap! The show was awesome. Well if you like giant robots that fight huge monsters, rockets, giant flying base ships, etc. You do like that sort of stuff don't you? Of course you do.

I have always like the visual look of Tartakovsky's cartoons and his loving but twisted take on the early 60's aesthetic. This is no different in that regard. But man, this show was a little darker than one would expect. Goons being slaughtered wholesale, the monsters having their limbs hacked off before being gutted like fish. Really kind of brutal.

It apparently only aired for one season in 2010 to 2011 but think I'm going to have to check out the rest of the episodes.

It was an excellent show. My favorite episode was when the robot (disgused as a nerd) had a study session with a hot chick. Said hot chick falls for robot (disguised as nerd) and went home on a cloud, to the tune of Space Age Love Song by A Flock of Seagulls. Juxtaposed with this happy montage, the Titans are ripping yet another monster to pieces.

Too bad CN wouldn't know a good show unless it bit them on the ass. The execs don;t want to put much of an effort on support unless there is an IMMEDIATE demand for it. Clone Wars was a safe bet.

The only reason why AT is doing so well is because of the antihill response in popularity. (CN tested the waters and BOOM! Massive fans). If it didn't have that, it would have been a one season run.

CN isn't really much of a Cartoon channel anymore. They have stupid shit like Incredible Crew (which looks like a rehash of Dude, what would happen? Yet another SHIT SHOW) and Level Up (I actually lost brain cells watching that drek). Regular Show is dumb, in my opinion, but The Boy likes it. No matter. After sizing up finances, we're cutting cable tv. The Boy only watches CN, and Charter On Demand stuff. We don't watch that much TV (thanks to Roku). He'll deal, but that will also mean no more Adventure Time or Gumball. Oh well.

Not even close. Jonny Quest is the most Ameritrash cartoon ever. Just check out these opening credits (and the pilot episode if you have the time... skip to 13:30 for a classic action scene):

Oh, Johnny Quest is totally in the running for most AT cartoon ever. I recently watched the first disc of the collection. I loved that show as a kid and I love it now as an adult. So cool. I have often wondered why there hasn't been a live action movie made based on it. I think it could be great. Of course it runs directly counter to the PC world we live in today. Not just Hadji but the whole attitude of rough neck boys seeking adventure and danger. Don't you know your supposed to shield your children in a bubble?

My point was how out of the blue I found this cartoon. Sym Bionic Titan that is. It such a retro throw back and, as I mentioned, really brutal in some scenes. In the episode I watched, this bad guy known as General Steel, encased in his own killer robot, is fighting a giant monster and he's getting his ,ass kicked. In desperation he says "Fire EVERYTHING". The next shot is of the wholesale collateral damage as the city and the citizens by implication are laid waste by his ruthlessness/recklessness. That's not a message you get in many cartoons.

I was coming in here to say Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but Johnny Quest is probably better.

I'd say Superjail on Adult Swim is the most AT cartoon on TV at the moment. Shit is ludicrous!

It's He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, you butt holes.

Cartoon Network's golden days are long over. They had some really great shows- Powerpuff Girls, Foster's, Batman: Brave and the Bold...now all their popular programs are fucking Cheech and Chong for a new generation. I guess you've got to be baked to the gills to get into Adventure Time or something. The network went to shit right after Aqua Teen Hunger Force, an unwatchable shit-show if I've ever seen one, blew up. Sealab, Venture Brothers...I hate ALL of it. The humor (?) just baffles me. Again, maybe because I'm not lit the fuck up like you're apparently supposed to be while watching it.

My wife does a lot of work at CN. She knows and works with a lot of the folks that make those programs. The funny thing is that they are not stoner/dropout types at all, like you'd expect based on the kinds of humor that are on the shows. So maybe I shouldn't talk so bad about the channel.

Robot MOnkey or whatever...jesus fuckin' christ. Who can watch that shit!?

Superjail...I saw an episode of that and I actually kind of liked it. Mainly because it was really upsetting and off-putting in a more psychedelic way.

Jonny Quest rules, that's still a great program.

Oh yeah, Robotech. That is one of my all-time favorite TV shows. I watched it like a soap opera, literally running off the bus every day to get home in time to watch it. The Macross part is just untouchable. So awesome. I cried when Roy Fokker died and Rick drops that little plane. Max Sterling was my favorite though, the part where he takes on Miriya in the Veritech video game was like the best flirting scene ever.

Then Southern Cross happened.

I still kind of liked it, what with the hovertanks and all, but it just wasn't nearly as good.

I did love Invid Invasion/Genesis Climber Mospeada though...really awesome post-apocalypse stuff with a trannie rockstar and bad ass motorcycles.

I even read all 18 of the Robotech novelizations when I was a kid, that show was one of my big "things".

I liked Jonny Quest as a kid; all the French kids watched Goldorak (Grendizer).

From the Goldorak plot at wikipedia:

"The Vega homeworld has become unstable due to the exploiting of Vegatron, a powerful radioactive ore. Seeking to expand his militaristic empire and find a substitute planet to settle upon, the ruthless King Vega unleashes his armies — composed of flying saucers and giant robotic monsters — and turns first against neighbors such as Fleed, a highly advanced but peaceful world. In a tragically ironic twist, the invaders' blitzkrieg turns against them: the once verdant, idyllic Fleed is turned into a radioactive wasteland. Too late, the only known survivor of the royal family, Prince Duke Fleed, manages to steal the Grendizer, the robotic embodiment of the Fleedian God of War, from the Vegan invaders who plan to use it to spearhead their invasion fleet. Grendizer is a giant robot that interfaces with Spacer (Spaizer), a flying saucer that enables the robot to fly."

Thunder Cats dammit.

Thunder, thunder, thunder cats! (elongating sword that mimic erecting penis...)

Taking a different approach... Duckman?

My favourite modern cartoon was Invader Zim.

Dungeons & Dragons the Cartoon followed closely by He-Man.

Michael Barnes wrote: Cartoon Network's golden days are long over. They had some really great shows- Powerpuff Girls, Foster's, Batman: Brave and the Bold...now all their popular programs are fucking Cheech and Chong for a new generation. I guess you've got to be baked to the gills to get into Adventure Time or something. The network went to shit right after Aqua Teen Hunger Force, an unwatchable shit-show if I've ever seen one, blew up. Sealab, Venture Brothers...I hate ALL of it. The humor (?) just baffles me. Again, maybe because I'm not lit the fuck up like you're apparently supposed to be while watching it.

I liked Sealab and Venture Bros for what they were/are--straight-up parodies of 60s Hanna-Barbera cartoons aka "the shit I grew up watching" [and I'll still pause for a half-hour of Top Cat whenever I stumble across it on Boomerang]. I thought Venture Bros' piss-take on Johnny Quest was pretty well-done with no dope needed. Aqua Teen, on the other hand, is, for the most part, for dopers.

What killed me as a CN viewer was the move to live-action programming as it all seems to be aimed, not at dopers, but at semi-literate teenagers. I understand that I'm now officially Too Damn Old, but I find all of it to be utterly unwatchable. It doesn't even make it to the level of Ren & Stimpy on the intellectual scale [which, to be fair, certainly qualifies as the #1 doper toilet-humor cartoon for my particular demographic.]