Revivals: What Works and What Dosen't

When it comes to revivals, there's always a major sense of hypocrisy. You have people who quickly write off new animated shows are terrible and keep begging and making petitions to Disney, Cartoon Network, and Nickelodeon to bring back all their old shows, instead of letting the modern audience watch what currently appeals to them. People complaining how "Cartoon Network, Nick, and Disney are such trash now. I miss shows like [INSERT A CARTOON FROM THE EARLY TO MID 2000'S HERE]". The people who are butthurt that Disney Channel, CN, and Nick aren't airing nothing but reruns of all their old shows, which is what Discovery Kids did for while before re-branding into The Hub. I hear this all the time at school. It's a lot worse on Internet though. When some sort of revival does happen, people attack what they've been begging for. Letting their nostalgia get the best of them and attacking the revival because it's either not how they remember the original run of the show it or how it's updated for the modern audience. A lot kids my age and older now have really gotten into this nostalgic rut, and are requesting more than ever to see the shows they grew up with, and the networks are actually starting to listen.

Many channels are actually starting to get into the whole nostalgia craze right now, especially Nick. Even though Nick has had The 90's Are All That for quite sometime, they recently revamped the block into an additional network called The Splat. Remember when The N (Now Teen Nick) and Noggin (Now Nick Junior) used the share the same channel? Nick has now re-branded The 90's Are All That is it's own block-channel as The Splat, which follows the exact same format that The 90's Are All That did, but with less repetition of certain shows. The Splat names come from the fact that a lot of people (including me) miss the old Splat logo Nick used have before the 2009 re-brand.

The Splat. Nick's "new" fueled by nostalgia network that airs from 10PM to 6AM.

Cartoon Network has also done this. This was pretty why Boomerang was created. To house classic cartoons and later on old Cartoon Network shows. Boomerang still does this but since it's 2015 re-brand, they're trying to focus on some new content and become an established network that's second banana to CN. CN did have a nostalgia block in the recent years. Back in 2012, they revived Cartoon Planet, where aired a variety of old Cartoon Network shows (but that format latter on became corrupt when they started to add newer shows to block). Disney Channel (which at this point, I've completely stopped watching since Phineas and Ferb ended, moved the rest of their animated shows to Disney XD, and all their good live action shows ended) currently has a block called Disney Replay, airing a bunch of their old shows on Wednesday nights/Thursday mornings.

I already miss the Cartoon Planet revival.

Disney's fueled by nostalgia block.

But now, some of our cries to actually revive old shows make new episodes of them have been answered. Nick, once again the trying to be the front runner in this announced that they were going start reviving a plethora of their old shows. Not too long ago they announced a new Hey Arnold! TV movie, and a whole Nicktoons theatrical film. Moviepilot also announced that Nick was also going to revive As Told By Ginger, but the validity of that is up for debate.

A new Hey Arnold movie? Sign me up!

CN is also starting to do the same. Now we've known about The PowerPuff Girls revival for quite sometime now, and minor stir of controversy it caused when they announced that the original cast wasn't coming back. CN also announced they're rebooting Ben 10, which I'm not sure how that's gonna go down. But the biggest thing was Adult Swim announced Samurai Jack's return and that Genndy Tartakovsky had returned to CN, which caused massive excitement

Promo art from the upcoming Powerpuff Girls revival and the Samuari Jack revival announcement

While all these revivals are great, 90's and early 2000's kids (is that a term yet?) need to remember that, these revivals (the Nick ones) aren't just for them, but more for the modern targeted audience, as Chris Viscardi stated. Which is why we need to make sure we don't let our nostalgia get the best of us, as it may stop us from enjoying these revivals. We might see as it huge disappointment if he get our exceptions for these new revivals, and then end up bashing the very thing we asked for.

Another thing I want to get into is what shows actually need a revival. On Facebook over the past year, I've seen petitions from people to revive shows like Ed Edd n Eddy or Spider-Man: The Animated Series (The 90's Spider-Man cartoon) to name a few. The thing is, in my opinion, neither of the shows need to be brought back, along with a variety of other old shows with perfectly wrapped up endings.

 

Whoa Whoa Whoa! Calm down! Here me out. As much as I'd love to see new adventures of The Ed's, there'd be no point. The movie wrapped up the show perfectly. A revival wouldn't make any sense. At the end of Ed Edd n Eddy's Big Picture Show, the Ed's finally achieve everything they worked for throughout the entire series. They finally get Jawbreakers, they're finally in with the rest of the cul-de-sac kids, and we finally see Eddy's brother. The only unanswered question show leaves is that we never got to see Double D with out his hat uncensored. Other than that, a revival isn't needed. Why would the Ed's try to scam their new friends? They wouldn't need to anymore. The only way an Ed Edd n Eddy revival would work is if we got a spin-off of Jonny exacting his revenge on the cul-de-sac now that he's the neighborhood punching bag. Other than that, Ed Edd n Eddy doesn't need a revival.

As nice as an Ed Edd n Eddy revival would be, it doesn't need one.

Same goes for Spider-Man: The Animated Series, which I'm surprised that people are petitioning to bring that show back. I loved Spider-Man: The Animated Series as much as the next guy but that show doesn't need to be brought back either. Mainly because it sounds ridiculous. The show's been off the air for almost 20 years and there's been four Spidey shows since that SMTAS ended. This show doesn't need to brought back.

This show was fantastic! And despite the fact we never found the real Mary Jane, this show doesn't need to brought back.

There's a variety of shows were a revival would make sense. A Hey Arnold! revival makes senses because the show leaves a variety of unanswered questions, which this new movie aims to answer. A revival of the original Teen Titans series would make sense, as that show also leaves unanswered questions. In the last episode "Things Change", we never learn is that girl actually is Terra, or just simply a girl who looks likes her. Character Designer Derrick Wyatt stated that if a Season 6 were to made, it would be about the Titans setting up international towers and fighting the monster from the Season 5 finale. An OG Teen Titans revival would make sense. Along with a similar show, Young Justice, which was cancelled abruptly. A Young Justice revival would make sense. The problem with that is a doubt CN would revive both the original Teen Titans and Young Justice, so fans would have to vote on that.

If CN were to revive one of these shows, which one would you pick? Tell me in the comments.

And now for my favorite revival that would make sense, Sym- Bionic Titan. Sym- Bionic Titan is probably one of the best shows CN brought to the table during their dark ages. It was a perfect mix of John Hughes high school drama and giant robot battles. The writing was great, the story line was great, the animation was great, the voice acting was great, EVERYTHING WAS GREAT. Then it got cancelled for the most bullshit reason. They couldn't make a toy line off of it, which they totally could've. The could've made figures of Titan, Lance's Manus armor, Illana's armor, and of Octus. I don't know what Stu Synder was on when he pulled the plug on Titan. Sym-Bionic Titan, like the previous shows I've mentioned, ends in a complete cliffhanger. A New Beginning clearly isn't a series finale, it was season finale, as there were more episodes of the show written. There are so many unanswered questions I and many others want answers too. Who revived Octus (The popular rumor is that Lance's father survived going into his portal and is a member of G3)?  Is King even still alive at this point? Are Newton and Kimmy gonna to get back together (I think I might be the only one who wants an answer to that)? She was about to cry when she got that text from Newton. Are Lance, Illana, and Octus ever gonna get back to Galauna? Are the Mutradi going full out invade earth and blow the three's cover? We may never know. Titan NEEDS a revival. That could happen now that Genndy Tartakovsky's back at CN. Tara Strong, the voice of Illana also teased back in October about a possible return for Titan. THIS NEEDS TO HAPPEN!!!! Alright, I've rambled about Titan for too long. 

Alright one last time. PLEASE A TITAN REVIVAL IS HAPPENING!!!! Alright, I'm done for real this time.

Overall, there's shows where a revival would be useful, and there's shows that don't need revivals just because you miss your favorite shows from your childhood, and you don't like what your old favorite network is currently airing. However, this whole nostalgia/revival phase the networks could a good thing in the end. You might end up liking the revival or continuation just as much as you liked the original series. Like I said earlier, when sort of things happen, we let our nostalgia get the best of us and shoot our exceptions up unreasonably high, which is why we could up thinking the revival is such disappointment in the end (unless it's just flat-out awful in content). I think we it comes to these upcoming revival, we should keep an open mind, not let our nostalgia get the best of us, and enjoy that show. And if that doesn't work out, I guess we could just go back to hypocritically complaining.

SIDE NOTE: Hey guys. I know, this my first post in awhile. I've been focusing on a lot of other things, but you should expect a lot more posts coming soon! Tell me what you thought of this post in the comments.