The Critical Frog: Teen Titans Go Revisited (A long Frog Rant)

It's been a long time since I talked about Teen Titans Go, the somewhat lacking spinoff to what I consider to be one of the best cartoons of all time. And in that time, I've heard a lot of different opinions about it. I've seen more episodes. And people think interesting things about it. I've heard the critics, the neutral parties, and even some people praising the show as a pure comedy focused cartoon that tries to make it's own identity. And after listening to these strong opinions I think it's safe to say that I HATE THIS SHOW MORE THAN EVER.

Everybody, I really tried to like this show. I stayed with it through the bad episodes in hope that maybe one day, maybe once, this new show would capture the essence of the original. If there's one thing the original Teen Titans taught me, it's not to give up on something, even if it seems to be a lost cause. Determination can be rewarded with animated brilliance sometimes. We stayed with MLP: FIM and wound up with "Twilight's Kingdom". We stayed with the original Teen Titans and were rewarded with episodes like "Troq" and "How Long is Forever?". But what has this series given us for keeping it afloat?

We've been given "Waffles", which features formerly deep characters saying the exact same word approximately 180 times in the span of 11 minutes. We've been given "Friendship", which spends it's entire run time mocking the brony phenomenon and having the characters beat up on innocent animals. And we've been given "Staring at the Future", which has two of the characters purposefully ruin the futures of their supposed friends in an effort to avoid basic responsibility. And the list goes on. The series that I once considered my childhood has taken a dive into idiocy.

Look, there's a reason this angry post is going on so long, and I think it's a good time to explain this. Do you know why I say so much good stuff about cartoons like Teen Titans and Courage the Cowardly Dog? Because they Try. They flex the boundaries of what you can and can't put in animation, and brought some truly beautiful things to the field of animation. When an animation tries, they can do some spectacular things- they can address issues like racism and abuse that gets the issue across without talking down to their audience. There was a time when animation companies understood this, and gave us things like the Titans and Hey Arnold to ponder. They could discuss racism, segregation, domestic abuse and even sexuality through the medium.

It seems like most modern cartoons have lost this luster. Most of today's cartoons rely on annoying characters being idiots with poor animation and inappropriate jokes. I remember when cartoons meant something and really had something to say. You could walk away from an episode of Teen Titans and have something to think about. Nowadays you look at a cartoon and see nothing of value. They're black holes for the attention.

Once upon a time, people saw animation as a means of creation and movement. It could be used to express, to display, or to create art and feelings. It taught people to ponder, taught people to dream and think. To come up with new ideas. To put all of this short: Not only are new cartoons failing compared to the old ones, they stifle the creativity and ability to think meaningfully. You're not just giving us terrible animation, you are literally SLOWING DOWN THE PROGRESS OF IMAGINATION YOU STUPID CARTOONS.

*Pant, pant, pant*...... OK, I'm good. Got that out of my system..