The Death of Animation at Artform (Update: May 24th 2024)

I'll know for years this day is going to happen, but it really is... judging of the upcoming 7th season of the Totally Spies! Intro and to its VERY irritating theme song!

Update: (May 24th 2024) The leaked opening theme was removed by the Zodiak owners and instead, here's the full opening song of this season that is still available. If you become grating to this, don't tell me that you weren't warned! Furthermore, instead of the first minutes of the new season, I'll share the trailer of this weird revival much below.)

Back the show premiered elsewhere in 2001 or '02, it weren't so a choice. It was after all a game-changer of the artform all around, not only to represented teenage girls on any fashion outfits variety on every episodes, but also, it given to France a chance to shine internationally by commissioned five seasons in the 00s, a TV-animated movie about the origins of how the trio formed, an unimpressive spin-off series with a family of siblings that become spies and even a random 6th season in 2012. That is a legacy that sadly, turns backwards by the 7th season announcement... back in 2022 by a backlash on X!

The fact that one of the epitomes of 00s animation weren't an American, neither a Japanese one stays an achievement. But in the 2024s world, the high-school teenage girls and spy tropes don't mix well anymore, in a time where Super Heroes leads the whole Hollywood movie system and when the greatest productions all around are those that were able to tackle the topicals of our time, without to be just a wannabe Hollywood-esque film.

Though they add newer characters, such as Zerlina and Toby for give it anew, some of the protagonists personalities been wasted, either by comitees or fans demands. The early seasons smells so 00s and the former season's animated tools was already dated back it has started. Now, twenty-three years later, Alex is been a selfie obsesser and perhaps most frustrating of all... in the original french version, all the characters have the same tempo voice as it was in the past seasons! Like I have argued on a DeviantArt's journal this morning, the new season seems so stuck to what the audience enjoyed in 2004 even if it have to be made for the 2024s one.

Back in 2022, the announcement of an upcoming season originally named Totally Spies! Whoop has caused a little controversy on X, mostly to the newer characters designs of the three leads, by made it a little more younger! This is not the biggest problem to me. But what made big pains before the new season will begun is how divisive the newer season is, and where they been like out-to-date big stars that tried to be hip again. It's something that was envisionned with The Flinstones after the original show ended its run; by a spin-off about Peebles and Bamm-Bamm at teenagers, Captain Caveman, a somewhat Comedy Show that worked out so well in the older days of Huckleberry Hound, but failed miserably to such an uneven concept for what was intented to be a Stone Age depiction of the suburb life in the 1960s, and also, such pointless outings like Flintstones Kids, the two live-action movies that has says to everyone that it only carry to a longtime past and whatever it came out with the 2019s Yabba-Dabba Dinosaurs? It's something that start to torn the Spies! franchise by would may please only the Zodiak Kids crew. But about the audience...

Reboots are very tricky to be made. From time to time, there was such of a fad that everything was made without the original crew's involvement or concerns of fans for the original shows:

-- They have killed the 2016s Powerpuff Girls when the three original voice-artists been not carried to reprise their roles. 

-- The 2017s Ducktales reboot is one that tried to please both fans of the 1987s animated show and the original comic-book series, but in the end, satisfying neither. 

-- The 2020s Animaniacs for example, would been to be destined at a staple of how reboots of past works have to be done, but additional seasons do left us the impression that anyone from Warner Bros. Animation seems to not care. 

-- Looney Tunes Cartoons was the go-to for relaunch the says property on brand-new stand-alone animated shorts by be showing first in theaters, but times have passed by, and it been a HBO Max content by results of cartoons that are more erratic and gross than anything of what Bob Clampett, Tashlin, Freleng, Jones or McKimson would have thinking back these characters were originally made.

-- All the problematic with Tiny Toons Looniversity, from Babs and Buster became siblings instead of pals to not approached Charlie Adler and Tress MacNeille to reprise the leads to why Sweetie Pie (Think of what a female Tweety Bird have to be!) being an insane patriarchy hater.

The list goes on and then, speaking of Totally Spies! became hip again, but not for the "right" reasons!

Mentionning anything related to animation is like praising ghosts friends instead of those I really have. There is no points, neither wits, to made a mature talk with online juvenile animation fans who pretend to known more about cartoons than those who do or did it as a job. Thought animation is NOT a genre, it's been more apparent in the minds of average people. One day, it going to burried away by be a distant memory like the way westerns were washed out of everyone's mouth by the over-saturation of that as fast that it begins. If I mention anything about this show or the characters in the street, not sure they would figured what I meant.

This is why the newer season gets lots of division to fans and non-fans in the internet, on a time the tiring spy and high-school teenage girls tropes became something that comes from a past we want to never revive. It's a result that most of the current animated productions are done by elites and comitees and are made like datas and algorithms for make pedophiles and fans at crazy. And sadly, even the Spies! are victim of the rampant and unsatisfying cheat of AI since the past year. Because of Internet, the Influencers rage, the Netflix culture, social medias and so, the traditional ones, artists, animators, creators, producers, anyone who have a job in the animation artform/industry don't have any respect. They deserve better than relaunch a dusted property of an animated series that have worn its welcome already by the eventual 2012s franchise's end.

Author's Note: Though the original goal of this blog was meant to mention anything about Brandy & Mr. Whiskers, the header picture needed a deserved upgrade, and this blog also need a new name. Sure, additional reviews and critiques of the remaining series' will be wrote, but a blog about a so-forgotten series is less a priority than I have originally envisionned. This will be the pattern for this particular blog from time to time.