Take That/Western Animation: Difference between revisions

 

* ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'' has featured many:

** The show took occasional jabs at ''[[Ren and Stimpy]]'', particularly the long gaps between new episodes. One notable example also mocked their tendency to re-use old animation with newly dubbed voices, with a scene with Bart, Lisa and Marge doing this and commenting on how ''[[Ren and Stimpy]]'' do this all the time.

{{quote|'''Marge:''' "Yes, and when was the last time you heard anyone talk about ''Ren and Stimpy''?"}}

** Seems this rivalry is over now. Just recently ''[[John Kricfalusi]]'' did the couch gag for a recent episode.

*** In "Treehouse of Horror XIII", Peter Griffin can be seen in the middle of a crowd of thousands of cloned versions of Homer.

*** In "Missionary: Impossible", Betty White hosts a TV pledge drive, urging viewers to call right away "if you don't want to see crude, lowbrow programming disappear from the airwaves." As she says this, she turns off a TV that has the ''[[Family Guy]]'' logo on it.

**** Notably, this episode first aired at a time when FOX was first threatening to cancel ''[[Family Guy]]'' and critics have written the show off as a crude ''Simpsons'' knock-off with [[Manatee Gag|pointless jokes]] and [[Dead Baby Comedy]] which softens the Take That a little.

** "Black Widower" takes swipe at ''[[Dinosaurs]]'': "It's like they saw our lives and put it right up on screen!" In return, ''Dinosaurs'' had Earl commenting they've made one big successful show and now others are making cheap rip-offs of it. Baby Sinclair replies, "Don't have a cow, man," a regular catch phrase used by Bart Simpson.

** "Last Temptation of Krust" references the trope itself, when guest star [[Janeane Garofalo]] mocks Krusty's TV dinner jokes: "Take that, Swanson's!"

'''Bart:''' What? They've given you thousands of hours of entertainment for free! What could they possibly owe you? If anything, you owe them!

'''Comic Book Guy:'''*beat* Worst episode ever. }}

** In one episode, Lenny and Carl are at a church ring toss game, and Carl remarks, "Ah, it's all a big scam." Lenny asks, "This booth?" Carl replies, "No, religion in general."

*** Similarly, in ''The Movie'', as Grandpa starts speaking-in-tongues in church:

** Another episode has [[The Lion King|Mufasa]] appearing in the clouds only to say to Lisa "You must avenger me [[Kimba the White Lion|Kimba]]...I mean...Simba." An obvious stab at ''[[The Lion King]]'' [[They Copied It Now It Sucks|for coming out after the anime series]].

** One Halloween episode has Ned, after getting [[The Dead Zone]]-esque powers of predicting people's death by touch, commenting upon seeing that Rosie O'Donnell's musical being closed down that he "didn't need special powers to know that was coming!" an obvious take that on the quality of the musical. Also falls into [[Hilarious in Hindsight]] (or [[Funny Aneurysm Moment]]) when Rosie O'Donnel's revived talk show ends up being cancelled without even a series finale.

*** The bulk of the episodes attacked ''[[Family Guy]]'', portraying the show as little more than [[Manatee Gag|an unconnected string of meaningless pop culture references selected at random by Manatees.]]

**** [[Seth MacFarlane]] has responded that this is pretty much an accurate description of how the show is written. Is a Take That still a Take That when its subject says it's true?

*** The episodes also attacked its own channel, Comedy Central, for "pussing out" and refusing to allow them to air a cartoon depiction of Muhammed, which the episode argued was necessary to preserve America's freedom of speech.

**** Which turned out to be a weird sort of [[Funny Aneurysm Moment]] in light of what came later on Family Guy. But at least Family Guy has managed to keep the avails limited to every other episode or so, as opposed to South Park that's got at least one per episode.

** Then ''Broadway Bro Down'' featured Randy trying to sabotage a Wicked production to save his daughter from "subliminal subtext." "It's time to put an end to Broadway!" He slips into a spider man costume and heads off to ruin the production...

{{quote|'''Chef:''' You've made them so dull and boring that they're actually going to a Phil Collins concert!

'''Doctor:''' [[My God, What Have I Done?|My God. What have we done?]] }}

** The show leveled a Take That at the entire concept of celebrity guest appearances, most notably by having George Clooney provide the barks for a gay dog as his only contribution. Clooney apparently took it in good humor and was granted an actual speaking cameo in the film.

** Speaking of Clooney, he's had a few Take Thats leveled at him. Including one from this [[wikipedia:Smug Alert!|this episode]] and ''[[Team America: World Police]]''. Clooney has taken it all in stride.

*** When telling the story of Scientology, they play it entirely straight and the [[Take That]] is actually them [[Not Making This Up Disclaimer|adding the caption at the bottom that this is what Scientology actually believe.]]

** The episode "Canada On Strike!" is a Take That aimed at [[Unions in Hollywood|The Writer's Guild]]'s strike in attempt to get "all that internet money." Notably, Parker and Stone are not members of the Guild.

** Possibly the episode's title, "Roger Ebert Should Lay Off the Fatty Foods", was to make fun of Ebert for giving poor reviews to ''[[Orgazmo]]'' and ''[[Baseketball]]'' both starring Stone and Parker. The only reference of Ebert in this episode was the constellation of his face and his thumb down.

** The episode "Whale Whores" is one long Take That at ''[[Whale Wars]]'', with Stan joining the anti-whaling activists from that show only to discover they are a bunch of boring, ineffective wimps who never accomplish anything. The show's star, Paul Watson, is horribly killed by a harpoon and later called an "incompetent media whore."

*** Some critics have noted that the past few seasons have featured mostly episodes revolving around daytime TV shows no one really cares about. The food network, Ancient Aliens, Cash for Gold, Hunt for big foot, I Shouldn't Be Alive, Nascar, and Professional Wrestling among others. I doubt many South Park fans even knew what Whale Wars was, dulling some of the satire.

** ''Bender's Game'' feature 3: First is George Takei's head ramming a ship into one driven by [[Star Trek: Enterprise|Scott Bakula]] and tells him "Thanks for [[Ruined FOREVER|ruining]] [[Star Trek|the franchise]]!". Second, there's the gratuitous take that to [[Robin Williams]] when they run into "[[Mork and Mindy|Morks]]" and kill them while telling them [[Seinfeld Is Unfunny|they're not funny]] and need to shut up. Third, there's when they reach the kingdom of "Wipe Castle", where you can eat lots of burgers without gaining weight [[You Fail Biology Forever|because they give you diarrhoea]].

*** In general, ''Bender's Game'' vacillates between an [[Affectionate Parody]] of ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]'', a mild and still affectionate Take That against some of the more egregious tropes of the game (such as the very Gygaxian use of multitudes of random-roll tables) and a flat-out Take That against the anti-D&D hysteria of the '80s (with Bender becoming an over-the-top parody of the "steam-tunnel gamer" urban legend -- the gamers who supposedly lost their minds and grip on reality playing D&D). Of course, anyone who's played the game will be able to tell you that their portrayal of the game was hilariously innacurate, for the sole reason that the players were actually using the d12. Even whatever edition would exist a thousand years from now, the d12 will still have fewer uses than even the d3, which is both nonexistant AND geometrically impossible.

** In one original episode they go down into the sewers. The mutants there can only use what people flush down the toilet. What do they have to read? Only crumpled up porn and copies of ''[[Atlas Shrugged]]''.

** In the 100th episode, the mutants in the sewers are given scholarships to Brown University (a real world Ivy League school), which is shown to be there in the sewers with them. Leela questions if it is a legitimate university and not just a sewer cleaning service.

** ''[[Robot Chicken]]'' is very similar in that respect.

*** Which lead to the hilarious ending of ''Blue Harvest''. And it gets even better [[Actor Allusion|when you realize exactly which two people do the voices for the characters involved...]]

{{quote|'''[[Actor Allusion|Chris]]:''' Look! [[G.I. Joe]], [[Transformers]], [[Thundercats]], [[He-Man and the Masters of the Universe|He Man and The Masters of The Universe]]! [[Self-Deprecation|Yay! Those shows existed!]]<br />

'''Stewie:''' How's it feel to be on a major network for 30 seconds?<br />

** One episode had Peter, Brian, and Peter's stepdad spend a whole three minutes bashing [[Madonna]].

*** In the [[DVD Commentary]], they admit that it was [[Filler]].

*** Matt Groening was pissed off about that episode, to the point where he actually stopped speaking to Seth MacFarlane for a while. MacFarlane realized that he had probably gone too far and ultimately had to apologize.

*** It didn't help that when Fox refused to air the sequence, Seth responded with a long rant on the DVD commentary for the episode where he said ''The Simpsons'' was awful and Fox was showing unfair favoritism toward it -- which is true, but the real reason Fox refused to air the bit is because it features Quagmire ''murdering kids'' (Bart, Lisa, and Maggie).

** And a deleted scene from "Lois Kills Stewie." "There's the guy who watched ''[[The Simpsons]]'' back in 1994/And won't admit the damn thing isn't funny anymore."

** Peter, Brian, and Stewie have an entire song dedicated to how they feel about the FCC (or rather, he, since [[Talking to Himself|Seth MacFarlane voices Peter, Brian, and Stewie]]).

{{quote|'''Peter:''' If you're watching a TV show and you decide to take your values from that... you're an idiot. Maybe you should take responsibility for what values your kids are getting. Maybe you shouldn't be letting your kids watch certain shows in the first place if you have such a big problem with them, instead of blaming the shows themselves. Yeah.}}

** There were a few shots at ''Entertainment Weekly'' magazine earlier in the show's run. One scene had the magazine as a suggestion for toilet paper, and another one had a character beat up a reporter from it. This was possibly done in response to the negative reviews that the magazine gave ''Family Guy'' in it's initial run (even calling it the "fifth worst show of the year" during the second season).

** Or the "Please Please Please Get a Life Foundation" sketch, which was a major Take That aimed at [[Nerd|a certain subset of]] [[Fan Dumb|fans]].

** In one of the Wheel of Morality segments (itself a sarcastic comment on [[Executive Meddling|government meddling]] in children's programming), the moral of the day is: "You can teach an old dog new tricks, [[Evita|but you can't teach]] [[Swept Away|Madonna how to act.]]" Another is: "If you can't say anything nice, you're probably at the Ice Capades."

** In an episode commentary for one of ''The Simpsons'' DVDs Matt Groening mentions that the producers of ''Tiny Toons'' requested permission to use ''The Simpsons'' theme song in the show and were denied. With that in mind, the bitterness makes more sense.

** ''Tiny Toons'' was loaded with Take Thats and parodies. [[Walt Disney]], video games, Madonna and even [[You Bastard|their own fans]]! The writers must have been REALLY bitter...

{{quote|'''Brain:''' Yes, finally! The Happy Sappy Children of Many Lands ride! Where cheering music will spread the message that a mouse should rule the world!

'''Pinky:''' Oh no, Brain. Narf! You're thinking of that other park in Orlando. }}

** Since Milt Appleday is a clear [[Mr. Alt Disney]], Sonny might also have been a dig at Micheal Eisner.

** Outrageously ''[[Inverted Trope|Inverted]]'' due to the fact the current president of Cartoon Network, Stuart Snyder, triggered [[Network Decay]] after making the movie into a live-action cartoon series, [[Out of Jimmy's Head]], which flatlined like no other, and then used it as a jumping-off point for CN Real and the like. Now, it's [[Self-Deprecation]].

* Usually [[Garfield]] has the last word in the theme song for ''[[Garfield and Friends]].'' In one episode, he gives a [[Take That]] to [[Heathcliff]].

** In another episode, he says that his show has what he calls "the Garfield Guarantee", which involves a [[Take That]] against both [[The Smurfs|annoying blue people]] and [[Transformers|giant robots]] at the same time.

** Also, in "The Incredibly Stupid Swamp Monster", Roy calls his agent and asks "Isn't Hanna-Barbera casting? What about cable? I hear they're doing a ''funny'' version of ''[[Ren and Stimpy]]''."

** The Buddy Bears from ''[[Garfield and Friends]]'' were intended as a Take That against ''The Get-Along Gang'' and, to a lesser extent, anything else that promoted [[The Complainer Is Always Wrong]] — the head writer for the series always found that Aesop [[Family-Unfriendly Aesop|disturbing]].

* ''[[Megas XLR]]'' has a company by the name of PoP TV. The logo shows this is an obvious reference to MTV. If at any point there is something from a company to destroy. The first will be one for PoP TV, usually after hearing a soundbyte from a show parodying one from MTV. This is because the series creators had a show called ''[[Downtown]]'' on that station, which was cancelled.

* The last episode of ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'' before the 4 part finale was a retelling of the entire 3 seasons as a play, and consisted of a long chain of affectionate Take Thats at both their fans and [[Take That Me|themselves]].

** In the episode "Sokka's Master", Aang tries on a ridiculously elaborate [http://iroh.org/screencaps/ep44/ep44-116.png set of armor], which he's unable to move in and falls backwards while he's still wearing it. The [[DVD Commentary]] confirms that this was a swing at the type of [[Rummage Sale Rejects|ridiculous]] and [[Impossibly Cool Clothes|impractical]] choices in character/costume design that the series creators don't exactly agree with.

*** Specifically, it was Mike and Bryan's response to Nickelodeon asking them to give Aang such a set of armor so they could use it in toys.

*** Isn't that last one less of a [[Take That]] and more of a [[Shout-Out]]?

*** Didn't Dora turn out to be Pandora who had an evil plot to trick Mandy into opening her lunchbox and destroying the world?

** [[Dora the Explorer|Explorin' Lauren!]]

*** Heh, [[Lauren Faust|Lauren]]...

** An episode in the series itself, after the art style change, featured an episode that had a scene where a network TV spokesperson previews a new line up of shows with bad premises and bad actors meant for the "teen/young adult" group. Either a shot at the WB! or at prime time TV in general.

** One of the Mr. Freeze episodes of ''[[Batman: The Animated Series|Batman the Animated Series]]'' involved an amusement park magnate who wanted Mr. Freeze to grant him immortality through the process that had made Freeze cold-blooded, so the magnate would have time to implement nefarious long-term plans. This was a subtle dig at Walt Disney, both for the rumors that Disney had himself cryogenically frozen at death, and for the extreme political views Disney is said to have had.

* ''[[Justice League]]'' featured a scene in "Injustice For All" where statues of the widely-hated [[Wonder Twins]] are violently smashed during a battle.

* After ABC was bought out by Disney and dumped ''[[Re Boot]]'', the season 2 finale had Megabyte's ships be called "'''A'''rmored '''B'''inome '''C'''arriers". "It's the ABCs! They've turned on us!" "Treacherous dogs!"

** Another episode is a whole-episode [[Take That]] against ''[[Teen Titans (animation)|Teen Titans]]'', unfortunately, it's much more [[Shallow Parody|shallow and poorly-done]] than the above, or their [[Affectionate Parody]] of ''[[Looney Tunes]]''.

* The ''[[The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack]]'' episode "Panfake" was a poke at a Disney cartoon that was being made (cancelled as soon as Cartoon Network found out), which was a ripoff of the series premise. The creator hoped that the ripoff (called Poopdeck) would air around the premiere of this episode, but it, again, was canceled.

** In the same episode, Bat-Mite briefly views the rubberized Batsuit from the much-maligned ''[[Batman and Robin (film)|Batman and Robin]]'' film, and dismisses it as being "took icky".

*** Likewise, Bat-Mite conjures up the [[Darker and Edgier]] [[Frank Miller]] Batman from [[Dark Knight Returns]] but dismisses it as being "too psycho".

{{quote|''Stacy:''Imagine if you had to choose between a blood-thirsty undead walking corps and a slobbering hairy-lupine manbys for a boyfriend.}}

:: The song of the episode mocks Twihards and their habits, shopping choices, general gothic attitude.

* ''[[The Boondocks]]'' has too many of these to count because it's based on a comic built around the trope.

* ''[[Freakazoid]]'', in the episode "[[Candle Jack]]" :

{{quote|"Legs. What's all the fuss about?"}}

** She also gives Jasmine the hairstyle of said mermaid, but complains it "Looks like every other Princess under the sea".

** Another Looney Tunes short from the 90's, "Blooper Bunny" relentlessly made fun of the fuss Warner Bros. made to promote Bugs' 50th anniversary.

* A ''G.I. Joe'' episode has Cobra creating a childrens cartoon called The Likables which is a blatant ''Smurfs'' parody. It involves two green trolls turning a purple troll's color green and saying "when everyone looks, thinks, and acts the same, we can achieve world peace". Followed by Duke turning off the tv and saying "this has got to stop".