I REALLY wish...

[Kamdan]

What do you mean "shaky?" Those 80's and 90's Marvel cartoons had some of the best animation I've ever seen!

[zDBZ]

What do you mean "shaky?" Those 80's and 90's Marvel cartoons had some of the best animation I've ever seen!

I have to completely disagree. You compare those to the Golden Age of the 30s and 40s, or even to what's available now, and the animation is very limited and the character designs are very rubbery and inconsistent. The "realistic" style that those shows used involves drawing all the lines for muscles, costumes, and shading over and over and over again; it's not hard to see that they couldn't get them to match every time.

There are quite a few episodes of TAS with fairly weak animation, depending on the studio, but on the whole, the graphic style made it much easier to maintain consistency.

[Dark Knight Detective]

There are quite a few episodes of TAS with fairly weak animation, depending on the studio, but on the whole, the graphic style made it much easier to maintain consistency.

Yes indeed.

[Kamdan]

Well, I'm not comparing them to Looney Tunes and Disney, which mostly involve animal characters. I like more richness and detail in my "action" cartoons. Have you even WATCHED X-Men? The first episode had an epic piece of animation of Wolverine crawling on the back of a Sentinel. I was absolutely stunned! I can't think of a moment of animation in Batman that left me speechless like that one, along with many other moments from not only X-Men, but from others. I don't get what you mean by "it's not hard to see that they couldn't get them to match every time." They always looks pretty smashing to me!

[Paul (ral)]

I agree Darrell - compare the 80's Transformers cartoons to recent ones, the 80's piss all over them

[Kamdan]

I think those piss all over the movies also, ral. Those animation companies REALLY knew what we wanted back then!

[Paul (ral)]

I think those piss all over the movies too, ral. And just about every other "action" cartoons.

actually, don't the robots piss on the humans in the movies?? 

[Kamdan]

Yep. So sad... 

[zDBZ]

Well, I'm not comparing them to Looney Tunes and Disney, which mostly involve animal characters. I like more richness and detail in my "action" cartoons. Have you even WATCHED X-Men? The first episode had an epic piece of animation of Wolverine crawling on the back of a Sentinel. I was absolutely stunned! I can't think of a moment of animation in Batman that left me speechless like that one, along with many other moments from not only X-Men, but from others. I don't get what you mean by "it's not hard to see that they couldn't get them to match every time." They always looks pretty smashing to me!

I'm not as familiar with X-Men as I am TAS, but I have seen it and the animation is very much in the mould of late 80s/early 90s action cartoons a la G.I. Joe; stiff characters and limited animation. I'm not denying that it could have had great animation, as many of those shows went for broke on opening titles and pilots to wow kids early on, but the animation in the episodes themselves was very dodgy. If you notice, later-day X-Men shows like X-Men: Evolution and Wolverine and the X-Men have gone for a more graphic sense of character design, like TAS. It's easier to draw over and over and it's easier to keep things the same from drawing to drawing. And Disney learned that on feature films that featured human characters; Snow White and Cinderella have more "realistic" humans and the animators and Walt never felt that the characters came alive, so when Sleeping Beauty came around, the designs became much more graphic and the animation of the humans improved greatly.

[Batnar]

Here's a real factor and this information comes from 2 animator friends of mine who were involved in Family Guy and some independent animated short film...
The new animation today is cheaper, easier and flash based.  There's a lack of passion or courage to tackle the more difficult and unpredictable animation from the 80s and even the early 90s.

Darrel, you are definitely one of those who are noticing the down shift in quality animation. In fact, I will dare to say Tom and Jerry cartoons are far superior than Transformers Animated or Batman TAS, ONLY because they ditched 50% of the defining fundamentals of animation, one of which is EMOTION. When you look at old Tom and Jerry shows, you will notice that you dont need any dialogue to understand their emotion. From lips puckering to frowns and sadness, its all there.

Today, animated shows are based on much more simplistic and easily reproducible and minimal frames. Its cost effective.

I too wished that the animated BATMAN series were more... detailed. More.. raw and real. But, that would be too hard and time consuming for the network to work with. And let me tell you...as far as I was told, the network could care less for animated shows and would gladly replace them with more reality crap.

Thats why these new animations are getting less and less inspiring and very cheap.

Also, theyre totally on a rampage to figure out new technical ways to animated to make it even cheaper so that they have a winning shot to stay on air far longer than its competitors.

Is it really necessary? NOPE. But the networks have been making so much money off reality TV, they lost care for children's television and pretty much let the Cartoon Network handle the line up...which means you gotta have cable.

$$$ $$$ $$$

That's why I stopped myself from getting involved in animation.
Its all flash based now. Flash animation. Can you believe that? lol...