Which parts of the various TMNT series are "illustrated radio"?

[pannoni1]

During the 1960s as Hanna-Barbera and Filmation made limited animation mainstream, Chuck Jones (of Looney Tunes fame) noticed that many of the new mass-produced cartoons for TV were better understood by just listening to the audio without looking at any animation as opposed to turning off the audio track and following the animation. He described this as "illustrated radio". This practice was still around during much of the OT's run, save for the possible exception of Season 1 which is equally good with the animation and audio track along with the Red Sky seasons which do just the same effect. But then episodes such as European Vacation clearly sound better via the audio only as opposed to just looking at the animation. By the time you get to 4kids this effect is pretty much gone, though some Nick episodes border on this. Which animated TMNT episodes/series do you feel suffer from the "illustrated radio" syndrome the most?

[oldmanwinters]

I don't know if I'd call it "suffering" from the effect. Granted, the animation is rarely the strongest part of any episode, but the fact that the stories hold up well enough on their dialogue is quite a compliment to the voice acting and witty dialogue.

[MsMarvelDuckie]

I had never heard of this, but I get what you mean. Sometimes I'll put on something I've seen a hundred times and just listen to the dialog, SFX, etc, while I do other things, without even watching it. Never done this much with animation, though. Usually only with Disney movies. (that I've seen many times.)

[oldmanwinters]

And in my opinion, there isn't one episode of the 4kids show that can cut it as a radio quality listen.

[Pterobat]

Probably all of them.

You guys are reading it too literally: Chuck Jones wasn't talking about cartoons that could be totally understood by looking away from the screen, but about a general problem he saw with TV animation.

He was noting that TV animation had more restrictions in their animation than the theatrical shorts he worked on. On TV, time was longer, budgets were smaller, leading to animation that was less fluid and detailed than the theatrical Looney Tunes shorts.

Because theatrical shorts had a higher budget, because they were shorter and didn't have to meet a weekly schedule, they could have higher framerates and let the story be told with the characters' body language and facial expressions as well as the dialogue.

TV cartoons, otoh, had to rely on more dialogue to carry the story, since they didn't have as much fluidity in their animation.

The TMNT cartoons, no matter how good they look, suffer from these inherent limitations. Not that they don't still look good and aren't tremendous fun, they're still TV cartoons, and have some differences between this and the theatrical quality of cartoon that Chuck Jones worked on.

Even the Toei season one of Fred Wolf doesn't look as strongly animated as a really good Bugs Bunny thing.

Basically, there's a certain faction of animators / animation scholars whose gospel is that the quality of a cartoon can be judged on the quality of its animation/artwork, and nothing else--not the writing, not the story--matters. Chuck Jones was a great animator, but it sounds like he's firmly in that camp.

Even if he meant it contemptuously, it's not really an insult to TMNT cartoons to say they rely more on dialogue. Relying on dialogue is a fine thing, and a part of TV animation as a whole.

[sgtfbomb]

This mostly only applies to Hanna-Barbera cartoons, which are often noted for milking what they can out of a tiny budget. They would do things like loop backgrounds, only animating eyes when a character isn't talking or moving, re-use animation, and here's the most important one, the reason why the term "illustrated radio" DOES NOT apply to all televised cartoons, a lot of the action would be off-screen. When Scooby Doo crashes into a wall, we don't see it. We see Shaggy's reaction. The frame is "bumbed" and a loud "BOOOOOM!" is heard, implying the action.

[Pterobat]

Hanna-Barberra had the worst excesses of cheapness when it came to TV animation, true, but most TV animation still wouldn't be able to measure up to Jones' lofty standards, hence his complaint.

[CyberCubed]

I'm often amazed at how Japanese anime can release 52 episodes of a single show a year.

The Pokemon anime is still going with over 800 episodes and aside from 1-2 week breaks at the end of a year, they release 52 episodes consistently every year. How do they do it?

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

I'm often amazed at how Japanese anime can release 52 episodes of a single show a year.

The Pokemon anime is still going with over 800 episodes and aside from 1-2 week breaks at the end of a year, they release 52 episodes consistently every year. How do they do it?

Anime like Naruto, One Piece, etc. have several fillers. Not to mention they take 10 episodes to get to a certain point that could have been wrapped in just 2-3 episodes. They reeeeeeeeally love to drag so the anime adaptations don't get too close to the manga.