*sigh* I... hate this show so very
much. I can't even begin to accurately convey how much I loathe this
sin against animation. Everything about this show hurts me. The
characters, the writing, the animation, EVERYTHING. And yet...
Cartoon Network seems to believe that this show's worth playing at
least for times a day (while great shows like Adventure Time only get
played once). And, AND...!! I've just read that there's going to be a
television movie... ha... ha ha.... HAHAHA –
Um... Sorry. It's just... I grew up at
a time when quality cartoons were on air. Powerpuff Girls, Courage
the Cowardly Dog, Dexter's Lab, Johnny Bravo, Samurai Jack, and Ed,
Edd, n Eddy are shows that I to this day hold very close to my heart.
It wasn't a matter of watching anything with funny noises and bright
colors. They had substance, character, and styles all their own. As
time went on, the content in CN wavered a bit, but there were still a
fair number of hits (Chowder, Robot Jones, Flapjack, Camp Lazlo).
Then came Johnny Test...
I first watched Johnny Test on KidsWB
was still around. At the time, they brought on a number of cheesy and
horrible cartoons (Coconut Fred still haunts me with it's awfulness)
and one of them was Johnny Test. I didn't think anything of it at the
time other than “this is a complete ripoff of Dexter's Lab. Years
went by and KidsWB became CW4Kids and Johnny Test just became just
another forgotten cartoon... or so I thought.
Cartoon Network, in their infinite
wisdom, decided to buy the rights to the show and air it on their
time-slot. I was still indifferent. After all, it was just one out of
a dozen show on the network. Whenever it came on I just bared with it
until something good came on. Then there was a period in time which I
wasn't able to afford cable (Roughly two years). After moving to
Florida, I got to start watching Cartoon Network again. I had
somewhat mixed feeling about the new shows that were being aired.
Some were fantastic (Adventure Time, Regular Show, The Amazing World
of Gumball, The Thundercats remake) and some... need to be thrown in
a wood-chipper (Sidekick, Scaredy Squirrel, Almost Naked Animals).
What surprised me was the fact that Johnny Test was still on air. Not
only that, but it had more air time than any other show on their
network. Now, when I come home from school, my nephew is either
watching the Nickelodeon (I'll save that for a later post) or Cartoon
Network and it depresses me that he's so eager to watch something
that's nothing more than loud noises and bright lights.
Now that I've covered my “history”
with this show, allow me to break down why exactly this show is
garbage.
-The Animation-
People often ask “is the quality the
of animation in a cartoon really all that important?”. To that I
say yes. It seems petty to
complain about the animation but it reality, it's one of the more
important factors in a cartoon. The visual presentation of a cartoon
is the very first thing that the audience notices and as such it is
the very first thing that captures their attention. For example, when
I first tuned onto Adventure Time, the two things that I found
interesting was the animation and the art design. The animation was
top notch and the characters each had a unique look to them.
The animation in
Johnny Test is terrible. It's stiff, choppy, and the character design
is hard to look at times. The range of expressions on the characters
faces are extremely limited and can be described as such: happy, sad,
angry, mad. It isn't made any better by the fact that the art design
is bland and generic. The character design looks like something that
a talented second grader doodled on his notebook: it looks decent at
first glance, but the longer you look at it, the more you realize
that said second grader has a long way to go before drawing anything
good.
-The Characters
and The Writing-
I
felt the need to put these two together because when you really thing
about it, a good character is made through good writing. The
characters in Johnny Test, whether main or minor are nothing more
than grating, whining, stereotypes. Stereotypes of what you may ask?
They're stereotypes of what adults think
kids like in cartoons.
Johnny is a school hating, video game loving, junk food crazed, kid
who thrives on doing EXTREME activities.
Now I know what your thinking: that sounds dreadfully generic. Fear
not, for through the benefit of, um... “imaginative” writing,
Johnny manages to have a character all his own; and that character is
an annoying, idiotic, selfish, whining, insipid, jerk. I have to give
them credit, it takes legitimate talent to make a character this
tremendously unlikeable. I would even go as far to say that he could
compete with Twilight's Bella for the title of most annoying
protagonist in fiction.
To further my point, allow me to compare Johnny to Timmy Turner from
Fairly Odd Parents. They're both similar in their hobbies, interest,
and character roles. Not to mention, they both have access to a
limitless supply of power through two other characters (Timmy through
wishing, and Johnny through science). However, the differences
between the two are as such:
- Timmy, while naive, and at times selfish, always means well. He
has a genuine desire to do the right thing and a fair majority of the
time his wishes are for the benefit of his friends and family (though
they tend to go wrong one way or the other). Not to mention, he's
shown many times that he's willing to make sacrifices, both minor and
major, for the sake of others.
- Johnny puts his desires above everything else. Whenever something
goes wrong he has to be coaxed by other characters to do the right
thing by either his sisters or his father. Whenever he makes a
mistake that threatens the lives of everyone in town, his main
concern is not getting in trouble for the damages. Whenever something
goes wrong, it's almost always his fault in some way, shape, or form.
The Test Sisters (Susan and Mary) are arguably worst. Fellow Johnny
Test haters say that Mary is the closest thing to a decent character
in the show. I see what they mean to some extent, as she seems like
the more level headed and focus of the two... BUT, it doesn't
compensate for the fact that both of them are shallow, air-headed,
nitwits. Other than their creepy stalker-like love for their next
door neighbor Gil, they have no discernible personality what so ever.
The most that can be said is that Susan is has a hatred for Eugene,
for his immense crush on her (you have to love the hypocrisy of her
disliking someone for being a stalker when she herself is stalking a
boy she likes).
Their
parents (who's names I have forgotten), aren't quite as bad in my
eyes, or at least the mother isn't. She doesn't play a part often in
the show, and when she does, she's usually scolding Johnny and his
sisters for the stupidity of their actions. Her only characteristic
is that she's a workaholic and other that, she's just as bland as the
rest. The father on the other hand is another story. Every time,
every single agonizing time he's on screen, he's whining and
complaining Johnny's room not being clean, him not eating his
vegetables and pretty much anything that you'd expect the stereotype
of a parent to speak. You might be able to argue that “he's a
parent, he can do that”. As I've said, all does is complain
about
the problem and rarely does he ever do anything about it. He is hands
down one of the most inactive fathers
in fiction.
As for the villains in the series... there's nothing really much I
can say. They manage to be completely bland while be over-the-top at
the same time. The only villain in the series that I come close to
finding amusing is Eugene, A.K.A Bling Bling Boy and it's really in a
so-bad-it's-funny sort of way.
Oh yeah, then there's Dukey, Johnny's talking dog. He's annoying and
inconsistent in his motives. Sometimes he's the voice of reason,
other times he's the one who encourages his stupid behavior. I hate
him. That's all I really have to say.
Now let's talk about the writing. As I've said, the faults with the
characters are mainly attributed to the poor writing. The dialogue in
a Johnny Test episode can best be summed up as such: Joke, joke,
randomness, joke, joke, progressive dialogue followed by joke,
randomness, joke, joke, randomness, episode end. There are some
reading this right now who are probably thinking “well it's a
cartoon for kids. What's the problem with making jokes?” I like to
once again compare this show to Fairly Odd Parents. FOP has a
similar format in it's writing, but the writers in the show make a
serious effort to make sure that each episode of their show differ in
how they're presented to us. Not to mention, the writing itself,
while not perfect, is fast paced and has a sharp wit to it.
If
you've seen one Johnny Test episode, you've seen them all. The
writing is so cliched that you'll see what's coming every single
episode. The humor consistently falls flat and it does so on multiple
levels. The most noticeable problem is the fact that they throw out
jokes every two seconds and they feel that it's necessary to scream
their lines. The jokes themselves are stale and I wouldn't mind that
if the characters had the courtesy to let the audience breathe.
Instead, we're constantly bombarded with bad jokes that stockpile
into a ugly mess of a television show.
-The Voice
Acting, Sound Effects, and The Music-
The voice acting helps add to the annoyance factor of the
characters. It's bad enough they're hard to look at but they're also
painful to listen to. Johnny's voice is exceptionally horrible. It
sounds like the voice actor is making a horrible Gary Oak impression.
His father sounds like thirty year old man who never fully experience
puberty, Dukey sounds like a gay stereotype, Susan and Mary sound
like the Chimpetes it they're voices were pitched down slightly, and
every other character sounds roughly the same. I'm not trying to
imply that they are all voiced by the same person but their voices
sound like the main characters with minor tweaks to them.
As for the sound effects, this complaint is more of a pet peeve of
mine than anything else. Every single time they point or move their
arms, we hear the sound of a whip crack. The transitions are always
included with a guitar riff as are a fair majority of the sound
effects. This wouldn't be so bad it weren't as overused as the jokes.
I defy you to find ONE moment throughout the entire series where
there is at least two seconds of silence.
The music is SO. DAMN. GENERIC. I honestly can't say anything more
than that.
- The
“Parodies”-
(Bare in mind,
what I just described was how ALL of there parodies are. All of them.
ALL OF THEM.)
-The Plagiarism-
And no, I don't
care if the creator of the show was on board with the fourth season
of Dexter's Lab. If anything, that makes it even worse. He worked on
a show with clever writing and likeable characters, so he should have
a set standard from that.
I know some of
you are wondering what exactly is plagiarized in this show. Allow me
to break it down for you:
As mentioned
before, the format of the show it clearly lifted from Fairly Odd
Parents. That's not to say that FOP was the first to apply the style
of “average kid with access to great power”, but the way that
they handle it is all too similar. A average, school hating, video
game addicted, extreme sport loving, kid has access to a limitless
supply of power. This power is accessed by two people who also
function as the voice of reason when it goes wrong.
Now let's
contrast these two shows.
--Fairly Odd
Parents--
Cosmo and Wanda
are characters that stand out because of the personality and
character design; We have no problem differentiating them. Because of
their differences, it opens up more opportunities for humor through
character interaction. Not to mention, their relationship with Timmy
is somewhat endearing due to their parental love for him.
--Johnny Test--
Susan and Mary's
characters DO differ to some extent, Mary being the more mature of
the two, but for the most part, they're relatively the same
character. Because of this, character interaction between them has
very little weight or value. Not to mention, I understand their
twins, but their similar character design attributes to their
inability to actually stand out from each other. Their relationship
with Johnny and almost always hostile and when they ARE on each
other's side, they're still at each others throats.
Then you have
Dexter's Lab. Really, all I need to say is that Johnny Test is a role
reversal of Dexter's lab. Age swap Dexter and Deedee, change their
gender, switch their roles and make them twins. Viola! You have
Johnny, Susan, and Mary. Even the parents are just a blatant role
reversal. Look at the character design of the dad from Johnny and
then look at Dad from Dexter's lab. Don't you DARE tell me you don't
notice the similarity between them.
In the end, this
is the one flaw in the show that makes it stand out amongst other
terrible cartoons. Now in all fairness, it's no crime to have a show
that follows a similar formulaic pattern as another show. I'm a fan
of the Canadian cartoon Kid vs Kat, and I've noticed many times
watching it that the relationship of Coop and Mr.Kat resemble that of
Dib and Zim from Invader Zim. However, the type of humor and writing
in both shows differ enough for me to give it leeway.
Johnny Test on
the other hand, not only copies the format of Dexter's Lab and FOP,
but it constantly attempts (attempt being the key word here) to
possess humor similar to those shows. This ultimately results in the
viewer desiring to watch shows that handle that type of humor well
*points to shows mentioned above*.
For those who do
enjoy this show, and are probably thinking that I'm just being overly
cynical to what seems to be a harmless kids cartoon, let me ask you
something: What's your favorite joke from Johnny Test? What's your
favorite episode? For that matter, what about the show would compel
you to watch this show over the other shows on Cartoon Network? In my
many debates on the merit of this show, not ONCE has anyone been able
to answer these questions. That just goes to show how weak the show
is. I can tell you my favorite jokes from show I love and some
episodes I know by heart. (“There's two halves to every melon,
Professor Scam!”). Having watched almost every episode of Johnny
Test in the hopes of seeing what the appeal is, I can't recall one
moment that even made me smirk, not ONE bit of substance that I would
carry in my subconscious (except the negative aspects).
Well, I'm burnt
out. So I'll end this with a summarized version of this rant: Johnny
Test is an ugly, unfunny, putrid, heinous piece of incoherent
garbage. It panders to the lowest common denominator and it even
fails at that. I would rather sit through a marathon of Dino squad
and Almost Naked Animals then sit through this bull's hit. It it the
scum of animation and a spit in the face of animation artist who
worked much harder and haven't garnered half of its success. It's an
ungodly abomination that pushes Twilight to levels of competence that
it'll never be able to reach.
In other words,
Johnny Test sucks.
