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View Poll Results: Was making them Teenagers a good idea?
Yes 23 51.11%
No 22 48.89%
Voters: 45. You may not vote on this poll

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Old 03-21-2019, 05:51 PM   #41
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So... kids don't like Batman or other adult superheroes? Or pro wrestlers?

I mean, don't get me wrong, ofc there large amount of young protagonists in media aimed at kids/teenagers exists for a reason, but when I was a kid I recall liking pro wrestlers and many other kids I knew liking Batman or another adult superhero. So this whole idea that kids automatically cannot relate to or like adult characters seems flawed.
Kids are going to look up to characters like Bat Man and other Superheroes and like them as being the figures fighting for good. But kids often relate to characters that are kids like them, which is why the sidekicks are kids and young teenagers because it does give someone in the show they can see themselves as.
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Old 03-21-2019, 08:02 PM   #42
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Originally Posted by victory_angel View Post
Kids are going to look up to characters like Bat Man and other Superheroes and like them as being the figures fighting for good. But kids often relate to characters that are kids like them, which is why the sidekicks are kids and young teenagers because it does give someone in the show they can see themselves as.
That kind of backfired in OT when Zach was introduced.

Not many kids liked him.
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The biggest villains were the censors. What they could do without being held back is my question.

Shredder could've done more than blow up the Channel Six building. I don't mean as far as murdering Splinter, but think of the possibilities if censors were not an issue.

Shredder and Krang combined had the biggest arsenal of any villains in all of the cartoons.
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Old 03-21-2019, 08:11 PM   #43
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Originally Posted by Prowler View Post
So... kids don't like Batman or other adult superheroes? Or pro wrestlers?

I mean, don't get me wrong, ofc there large amount of young protagonists in media aimed at kids/teenagers exists for a reason, but when I was a kid I recall liking pro wrestlers and many other kids I knew liking Batman or another adult superhero. So this whole idea that kids automatically cannot relate to or like adult characters seems flawed.
I don't write the psychobabble, I just observe and report.

Case in point, She-Ra (and the entire cast) was made into a teenager in the new series for this specific reason.

Obviously the entire theory is full of holes and has been disproven repeatedly, but again, it's a line that the focus groups wholeheartedly buy into at the moment, and it's a factor in designing characters in kids' shows.

Like, they can't even argue that they made April and Casey into kids "so they could tell more and different stories," because they didn't bother to follow through with that. It was 100% about "Kids relate better to Other Kids" and nothing else.

Flawed theory, but I didn't write it.
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Old 03-22-2019, 12:42 AM   #44
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That kind of backfired in OT when Zach was introduced.

Not many kids liked him.
Zack wasn't there to be likable. He was mostly there to be a human sidekick of the Turtles who was the age of the target audience. So, in other words, he was there to represent the audience.
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Old 03-22-2019, 01:28 AM   #45
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Which is why it's a little ironic that despite their intentions he wasn't well liked. lol
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Old 03-22-2019, 05:04 AM   #46
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Originally Posted by victory_angel View Post
Zack wasn't there to be likable. He was mostly there to be a human sidekick of the Turtles who was the age of the target audience. So, in other words, he was there to represent the audience.
Which is also where THIS guy comes in...

"I wanna be a ninja, I wanna be a mutant, I really identify with you guys so much I wanna be like you guys!"

How many fanboys are actually like that?
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Old 03-22-2019, 05:12 AM   #47
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Which is also where THIS guy comes in...
http://www.cc.wwbtc.com/wp-content/u...Pulverizer.jpg
"I wanna be a ninja, I wanna be a mutant, I really identify with you guys so much I wanna be like you guys!"

How many fanboys are actually like that?
Personally, I liked Zach better than Timothy.

Its a shame nothing ever came of Timothy in the end.
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The biggest villains were the censors. What they could do without being held back is my question.

Shredder could've done more than blow up the Channel Six building. I don't mean as far as murdering Splinter, but think of the possibilities if censors were not an issue.

Shredder and Krang combined had the biggest arsenal of any villains in all of the cartoons.
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Old 03-22-2019, 06:35 AM   #48
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Zach

Quote:
Originally Posted by victory_angel View Post
Zack wasn't there to be likable. He was mostly there to be a human sidekick of the Turtles who was the age of the target audience. So, in other words, he was there to represent the audience.
Zach claimed himself to be almost 14 in The Fifth Turtle, but I think he lied. He was probably something between 9–10.
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Old 03-22-2019, 10:04 AM   #49
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Originally Posted by victory_angel View Post
Kids are going to look up to characters like Bat Man and other Superheroes and like them as being the figures fighting for good. But kids often relate to characters that are kids like them, which is why the sidekicks are kids and young teenagers because it does give someone in the show they can see themselves as.
I dunno, man. I hated both Scrappy-Doo and Zach when I was a kid.

Quote:
Originally Posted by victory_angel View Post
Zack wasn't there to be likable. He was mostly there to be a human sidekick of the Turtles who was the age of the target audience. So, in other words, he was there to represent the audience.
Too bad I hated him when I was a kid. Not to mention the name of the Episode was The FIFTH Turtle. At first, when I read that title, I was like "HOLY S***". I actually thought a new actual Turtle was joining the team... but all it was was a kid who was a huge TMNT fanboy.
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Old 03-22-2019, 12:26 PM   #50
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Originally Posted by The Great Saiyaman View Post
Which is also where THIS guy comes in...
http://www.cc.wwbtc.com/wp-content/u...Pulverizer.jpg
"I wanna be a ninja, I wanna be a mutant, I really identify with you guys so much I wanna be like you guys!"

How many fanboys are actually like that?
Unlike Zack, Timothy at least had a purpose in attempting to bring Donnie's pacifism to the surface. I guess this character wasn't liked enough to continue the story. Either that or the writing team didn't consider that hanging plot thread with everything else that was going on.

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I dunno, man. I hated both Scrappy-Doo and Zach when I was a kid.


Too bad I hated him when I was a kid. Not to mention the name of the Episode was The FIFTH Turtle. At first, when I read that title, I was like "HOLY S***". I actually thought a new actual Turtle was joining the team... but all it was was a kid who was a huge TMNT fanboy.
Scrappy Doo wasn't liked by anyone, he was pretty much an idea for a character they came up with when their show had jumped the shark and was beginning to go on the decline. So they decided to create what was to be the opposite of Scooby. Where Scooby was big but was too much of craven coward to really do much except run for the hills. Scrappy was ready to scrap with anything, but couldn't do much because of his size. His bravado also got old really really fast, and with the exception of being occasionally referenced in more recent Scooby-Doo series he has phased out entirely. His last outing was during the first live-action Scooby Doo movie where he's the surprise twist villain of the story, which was a surprise you could see a mile away.

There is an episode of one of the more modern Scooby Doo shows where Daphnie sees a statue of Scrappy and when she starts to say it looks like him. Fred stops her and says "Don't say it, we agreed we'd never talk about him again."

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Too bad I hated him when I was a kid. Not to mention the name of the Episode was The FIFTH Turtle. At first, when I read that title, I was like "HOLY S***". I actually thought a new actual Turtle was joining the team... but all it was was a kid who was a huge TMNT fanboy.


Zack is pretty much there to be a stereotypical stand-in for any kid who wished they could hang out with the Turtles...or any superhero for that matter. I don't know if there is a way to really make the Zack likable really, even if they fleshed him out there would still be a kid hanging out with the turtles and getting into trouble because he's trying to help in their missions.
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Old 03-22-2019, 12:37 PM   #51
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The new pop psych theory going around is, "Kids are incapable of relating to characters who are older than them, because they instinctively see anyone older as an 'authority figure' - parent, teacher, etc. - and kids don't like authority figures, so if we want to make a character popular (and of course, sell a toy) they have to be close to the same age as the target audience."
New? I wouldn't Call Bucky and Robin new
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Old 03-22-2019, 03:43 PM   #52
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Creating a kid sidekick is a little bit of a different approach than de-aging an established popular character based on the mistaken impression that contemporary kids won't accept them unless they're a peer, though.

The reasoning is the same - "Give kids a character they can relate to" - but the "Why" and "How" are very different.
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Old 03-22-2019, 04:23 PM   #53
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Robin is technically the only kid sidekick concept that became popular, and it wasn't until decades after he was introduced. Old 40's-70's comics and Adam West Robin are hated to this day, it was really only during the 80's and onward that Robin became "cool" and that was because Dick became Nightwing.
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Old 03-22-2019, 04:37 PM   #54
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Would you care to enlighten as to why an unpopular character would stick around for 40 years? I mean, if Dick Grayson really was that hated, why make keep him around for both Batman and Teen Titans?
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Turtles is basically the red-headed stepchild of Nick.
Hahahaha!
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Old 03-22-2019, 04:47 PM   #55
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Batman comics themselves got incredibly silly and kid-like in that era, so he fit the time period. You would have to ask old people who grew up with the comics when they originally came out in the 40's-early 70's to see what they thought at the time. They were the target audience.

Also it's not like all modern era Robin's were liked. Look at how disliked Robin is in Batman and Robin and Batman Forever.
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Old 03-22-2019, 07:31 PM   #56
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To be fair, casting an actor who was clearly in their mid-20s AND writing him to be a whiny bitch didn't do the Robin concept any favors, as far as those two films are concerned.

I'm a huge Robin fan and I loved the costume they came up with for "Forever", but even I wanted to strangle Chris O'Donnell to death. The execution simply wasn't good.
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Old 03-22-2019, 08:30 PM   #57
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Robin is technically the only kid sidekick concept that became popular, and it wasn't until decades after he was introduced. Old 40's-70's comics and Adam West Robin are hated to this day, it was really only during the 80's and onward that Robin became "cool" and that was because Dick became Nightwing.
But it was more the case of HOW he became Nightwing which made him popular than just adapting a new identity, there was a good reason for Dick Grayson to abandon being the "Boy Wonder"





It was quite a show of realism in the New Teen Titans series which struck a chord with people, everybody has that coming of age moment.
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Old 03-22-2019, 08:34 PM   #58
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And then a year or so later, they retconned it so that he got fired from being Robin after The Joker shot him, and then Bruce replaced him with Jason 5 minutes later for no reason other than "Batman's A Huge Dick And Also A Hypocrite".

Good stuff.
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Old 03-23-2019, 12:42 AM   #59
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You would think Batman would've learned to either stop hiring Robins or to get rid of the Joker for good.
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Old 03-23-2019, 08:34 AM   #60
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But also a lot of other modern depictions of Robin were always popular. The Batman: TAS Robin who debuted in 1992 was always well liked. I remember even as a kid liking him instantly and wishing he showed up more since he doesn't even appear in most of the episodes.

Robin in the 2003 Teen Titans cartoon was also always very popular. I also like Robin in Young Justice.

I think modern cartoons (and by that I mean from the 90's onward, Superfriends Robin was still mostly bad/lame/whatever), learned how to make Robin cool from the start. That's why you can have a 13 year old or whatever Dick Grayson in recent cartoons and people still find him cool.
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