Further Thoughts on Teen Titans Go! - Let's Get Serious

On Wednesday, a crossover review with me and Gregs Chan1 appeared on YouTube.

My apologies that the audio quality is terrible, and note that it's completely improvised and the only editing I could do was for the credits.

I plan to spend this completely improvised blogpost explaining further why I'm not a fan of Teen Titans Go! and this episode particularly

These were my general notes for this review - some of these points may be have been covered but some weren't (also, some points are covered in the review that I haven't mentioned here, so check it out) I've added a few bits relevant to those points

Brief background on TTG

DC’s latest batch of animated shows may have good ratings but haven’t done well enough outside of television. Green Lantern the animated series was excellent but they couldn’t convince toy sellers to stock their merchandise after the movie. Young Justice suffered its premature cancellation owing to toy sales as well. Their latest attempt at a serious show, Beware the Batman, ended up moved to Adult swim after being pulled from the schedule without warning. I’m still considering a full review of that series but in the wake of all that, it was time for a new approach.

As part of the new DC Nation block, a series of shorts were made, the most popular were a few called ‘New teen titans’ which featured the cast in comedic situations, so someone at CN felt it could be extended into a show.

Teen Titans Go was created on a shoestring budget, so the sales of merchandise isn’t really as necessary for the show to be a success, especially given the massive number of episodes. It has drawn in viewing figures, particularly with the younger audiences, and it’s now on its 3^rd season of 52 episodes but critically it has not been well received. Let me be clear on my own feelings, IT SUCKS! I do not mind superheroes making jokes, what I mind is making a joke of superheroes and that’s what this show does.

Casing point, let’s get serious, the first of several episodes created as a direct response to criticisms

Episode itself

We start with Robin taking down the original Hive villains but the others are distracting him by making fart noises, I am deadly serious.

Fortunately, the real heroes are there. Aqualad, Miss Martian and Superboy arrive to take out the villains. Just a note for show-writers who don’t do their research. Superboy can’t fly! Aqualad berates the trio for never taking their jobs seriously. Making several references to terrible past episodes. Aqualad’s the only one of the 3 to talk, because he was voiced by Khary Payton, who voices Cyborg.

Now, here’s the first mistake, feeling that serious = brooding. People generally find brooding annoying. Robin points out the reasons that all of them should be broody, Cyborg’s half man, half machine which he says is cool – f*ck this show

Starfire wonders whether being more serious could fracture the team, considering the number of arguments I’ve seen on this show, I highly doubt it. So anyway, there’s a montage of them becoming more serious – or dark and gritty as this show thinks serious means – you know how Loonatics Unleashed is nearly universally hated, I’ve just destroyed your argument.

So they all give ‘serious’ dialogue which must be intentionally badly acted because these voice actors have actual talent, unlike the writers. They fight HIVE again and Cyborg becomes a transformer because why not, and they destroy a rocket. Aqualad and co come in and congratulate them, but suggest that now they’re too serious.

And if you want to destroy the entire premise of the episode, we have the next scene, where Cyborg and Beast Boy have a ‘serious’ argument over a carton of juice!

Raven begins to absorb their anger and feel conflicted about herself, I know it’s deliberately contrived but what about this is funny? She decides to leave the team and Starfire decides to leave and we get a close up of everyone’s serious faces and you want to leave that imagery out of kids show?

Anyway, somehow it causes the Tower to explode and everyone drifts apart. In some of these episodes the Titans have died, how is this worse? Anyway, they promise it’ll be back to normal next episode.

Analysis

If you watched this on initial broadcast, you’d fallen into a ratings trap. This Young Justice/Teen Titans Go crossover features barely any Young Justice, 3 members, only one of whom speaks.

It’s the first of quite a few responses to criticisms of the show, with Aqualad being a strawman for the audience. His criticisms are astonishingly accurate but instead of addressing in an amusing fashion of self-mockery, they go on the attack and try to say “this is what the show would be like.” Attacking critics rarely looks professional, and this show does it 4 times, at least 4 I’m aware of.

The Return of Slade (or the lying title) tries to excuse everything because “it’s for kids” it’s an excuse that I hate with an unbridled passion because there are many kid superhero shows that do not make a mockery of their superheroes. Hell, even the Marvel animated series, dull and annoying as they are don't do this. The 4th Wall is slightly better in that's a bit more self-aware but it loses points for trying to accuse the audience of being pedophiles! It does however give a defence for the lousy animation. Their time restraints. I said in the review that they looked worse than cartoons from the 70s before they worked out how to merchandise and I stand by that but I do realise the reason Flash animation exists in the first place, to speed up the animating process. Larry T is the best of the bunch and focuses on their 1 fan (Britain's Got More Talent beat you to the punch - but given animation time I'll let that slide) it's honestly up there with my favourite episodes as the message is slightly more inclusive. "If we take on everything, we may lose what few fans we have and we likely won't regain you back" I can at least respect that.

Let’s talk more about Young Justice. Young Justice is a series beloved by many, and many were upset that this show seemingly replaced it. This episode is a f*ck you to them because it promises what it does NOT deliver! There may even have been people who like both this show and Young Justice who might be upset with that. The Young Justice characters appear only briefly in 2 scenes and don't do anything necessary for the plot. There are other ways this plot could've happened without them. Maybe by having the bad guys get away because of these stupid antics, would've explained them randomly turning up in stock image-ville later on.

The jokes are… the usual brand of humour for this show, as in not funny in the slightest. Low brow humour works when mixed with other brands of humour, this show is nothing but low brow humour. Hell, there were only maybe 3 jokes in the entire episode. The fart noises which wasn’t funny, the Raven stand-up, which was only slightly funny and the ending which also wasn’t funny. If you can’t tell me a good plot, you could at least make me laugh but this episode is so focused on critic bashing it FORGOT TO BE FUNNY!

Part of the biggest problem is the characters. To find a character funny you have to have some form of connection with them. These Titans act like babies with little personality, thereby it’s impossible to find any of their antics funny. So a lot of the scenes of them goofing around come across as boring and annoying. 

I can only hope that Justice League action takes on an approach similar to Steven Universe than this drek.

Also, I'm serious when I said check out Mr Enter's views on the series, I won't be reviewing any more episodes.

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