Confessions of a Comic Book Guy is a weekly column by Steve Bennett of Super-Fly Comics and Games in Yellow Springs, Ohio. This week, Bennett looks at attempts to revive three older properties: Power Rangers, Dragon Ball, and Looney Tunes.If I seem to be continuously writing on the subject of people attempting to revive classic comic and cartoon characters it's only because I'm repeatedly given the opportunity to do just that. This week I have three examples:
Last week the New York Times had an interesting piece with an even more interesting title; "Disney Sells A Franchise That Mothers Didn't Like" by Brian Stelter and Brooks Barnes. It was about how HaimSaban had bought back the rights to the Power Rangers from Walt Disney and had licensed them to Nickelodeon. Here's the interesting bit, well interesting to me anyway:
Disney had high hopes for the characters, exploring additional licensing and even a feature film. But focus group research soured Disney on them. Mothers, the research showed, disliked the violence - particularly the hand-to-hand combat--that is part of the franchise's DNA. Ultimately, Disney decided not to brand the Power Rangers characters as Disney products, which made the franchise something of a black sheep at the company.
Disney had been trying to sell the property for well over a year; thanks to the acquisition of Marvel they now had plenty of boy skewing characters of their own making them even less interested in keeping the Rangers around. But Nickelodeon President Cyma Zarghami (the executive with, in my opinion, the coolest name in the entertainment industry) called the violence in Power Rangers a "nonissue".
Violence would have to be an nonissue at Nickelodeon given their other recent acquisition. There's been a lot of loose talk concerning the death of manga and anime in America but is it really dead or just ready for a revival? Me, I think the latter, given that you have the right property and you couldn't ask for a better prospect for a comeback than Dragon Ball Z Kai which premiered on Nicktoons Monday night. It's a series perfect for our cost conscious tough economic times as it isn't a remake of Dragonball Z but a condensation of the original so it more closely follows Akira Toriyama's original manga. It's also been given a digital high-definition remastering and a re-recorded soundtrack with some scenes getting new effects or re-animated footage.
But the bottom line is it looks darngood and what's even more important it doesn't look in any way 'old'; unless you tell them today's kids will never realize they're being fed day old bread. Nicktoons does seem a rather strange fit for the show seeing as how it's (a) anime and (b) has non-stop fighting, two things that the network isn't usually known for. But they're doing a top-notch job of promoting the program and it may very well turn out to be their signature series (i.e.; AMC and Mad Men), the series that gives them the wider brand name recognition they're looking for.
Though of course all of the above does raise the question if Power Rangers was deemed "too violent" for Disney by the mothers of America I really can't see them exactly embracing Naruto Shippuden.
It's full of painful honesty specifically when it comes to Warner's reputation for "ham-fisted campaigns to breathe new life into the franchise", referring of course to Tiny Toons Adventures, Baby Looney Tunes and especially The Loonatics Unleashed. For those who don't remember it was a short-lived but excruciating attempt at turning the characters into an anime funny animal version of the Legion of Superheroes. Warner is so serious about stopping anything like it from ever happening again framed art from Loonatics hangs in their animation offices as a reminder of what not to do.
Even with their best intentions as a given it would be easy to be cynical about The Looney Tunes Show's prospects but I want to end on a note of hope which is why, like in the piece, I'll give the final word to animation historian Jerry Beck, author of the coming 100 Greatest Looney Tunes Cartoons.
"Bugs is down but not out," Mr. Beck said. It's very, very difficult to reweave older characters back into the culture, but I'm glad that Warner is at least not giving up on these guys."
The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.