[Pet Projects] - Cartoon Tweakery.

[xyzzysqrl]

A while ago, some folk I know started up the Radio Star Weasels project. It was, in short, a concept piece: What if there was an eighties cartoon that nobody ever heard about? That would be awesome. We should totally write that.

For various reasons, this project dissolved. I am not restarting it, that's not my place.

The idea stuck with me though. I love the goofy cartoon aesthetic of the eighties, and I love certain varieties of cartoons from that period. I also love a number of one-off pilots, things that never actually got produced, things that were devised to ride a coat-tail or two and the market fell out. Stuff like that.

So what if there WAS this cartoon with everything that was awesome in the eighties in it? Something designed from the ground up to push my nostalgia buttons like a monkey with a typewriter?

I'm going to find out by trying to design it. I've named this Pet Projects, to start with. I'll be labeling these posts so you can skip them if you want. I'm just going to blurt out my thoughts and notes and whatever the hell comes to mind, really. No pressure if you'd rather skip.



So, what is Pet Projects?

I'm intending to make it a homage to the stuff I liked when I was a kid. Brightly colored, full of action and creative use of inherent powers, with lots of character personality and multi-part plotlines.

I'm trying to decide between five and six characters. Various 'pet' type creatures, of course. The way I figure it, Large Multinational Quasi-Evil Corporation would have been experimenting with, say... Genetic Thermoriboflavic Tuning (is genetics too 90s?) on a variety of creatures and mutated them (mutants is good!) into Talking Cartoon Animals with Superpowers And Odd Fur Colors. Designed as the ULTIMATE MARKETING TOOL, these Pets exist as magnetic waves, conceptual ideals waiting to be saved to disk and put in a toy body.

In the meantime they spend a lot of time on a really insipid television show... until they find a way to escape into The Static Between Channels. Their goal is to avoid capture by the Marketing Drones (in a robot sense) while they try and work out a plan of escape into Hard Reality. Lots of genre-jumping action occurs. Mmm, pasticheriffic.

--
Animal ideas!

Guinea Pig
Rat
Mouse
Dog (of course, but what kind?)
Cat (But dogs and cats have been Done.)
Turtles (...wait, no, also been done)
Iguana
Frog
Rabbit
Squirrel (self-insert! self-insert!!)
Raccoon
Goldfish?
Basically anything soft and cuddly, or found in an eight year old's wish-list. (PONY PONY PONY)
--

My first thought was an elemental team. But those have BEEN DONE really hard, and I'm not sure I could really bring myself to do that. Okay, so what about less normal powers that still fit a theme? The reason I'd like six characters is to get a mix of abilities and a balance as well. Okay, balance. That's good. Balance between what?

Technology and Naturalism might work. Three cybery characters, three that work in more naturalistic ways. Now, I could do that with five, too... two tech, two nat, one that's a weird fusion... but that runs the risk of making one character too awesome. Which would make him/her the obvious hero focus of the show, and I'm not sure I want that.

Why am I trying to determine powers before I even have an idea of CHARACTERS? Because marketing tools. I'm trying to work out something... that would appeal visually on screen, but not be -too- hard to develop into a toy gimmick. Then I can start to evolve a character around that.

--

Since my basis here is a loving pastiche of all the cartoons I adored as a kid, the genre isn't going to stay static. They might spend a few story arcs on a space adventure channel, or in prehistory, or in any number of goofy fantasy worlds. Will this be too jumpy? Will it prevent a sense of character identity?

--

More notes later. Just wanted to get the basic idea for the storyline down and such.

Comments

[indicoyote.livejournal.com]

<3 That is possibly the best thing ever. ^.^

[waterotter.livejournal.com]

Yeah, genetics is a bit 90s. For some 80s mutations, you want radiation and chemicals. Chemicals can do anything! Because SCIENCE!

[waterotter.livejournal.com]

Also, for the real 80s vibe, you have to make the toys first, and THEN make the show.:)

[relee.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, slime. The turtles with their ooze, yeah, but everybody was about slime back then.

[relee.livejournal.com]

Cosmic Rays, man. COSMIC RAYS.

Virtual pets are WAY too 90s. At most, these magnetic creatures would be put onto audio cassette tape.

There has to be at least one character that's a little kid who is clumsy and mostly useless but still gets to hang around with the other characters, who are cool. This character is meant to be associated with by the children who watch the show, 'cause he's just like them.

Ray-guns are just flashlights, in the eighties. You could make them like, space cowboys. There were lots of space cowboys in the eighties. You could give them a Deluxe Super Robot too. I never understood why they called it the Deluxe Megazord, honestly. I don't remember there being a non-deluxe Megazord.

One of the good things about Space Cowboys is that you can stick them into any genre and all they need is their rayguns, and they can contribute to anything else. Riding pteroadacyls? Who doesn't? It's the eighties! Futuristic stuff? No problem, they're SPACE COWBOYS! Fantasy with dungeons and dragons? No problem, ray guns and broadswords, baybe! Let's ride a dragon! And a pterodactyl!

Also they'll have the castle playsets for every world they visit, so there has to be a castle everywhere, especially in the prehistory setting.