It used to be good and fun, but now, what happened??
Hello, everyone, welcome to ReBlue Rants! On Newgrounds! Today, let's talk about a web series that I actualiy like and as of today, I still grew up with it. Presenting: Pencilmation from 2004!
Okay, this is not going to be the usual 'Positives or Negatives' type, instead, it will be more like a rise and fall review of the series from it's start, to it's decline. Similar to Saberspark's 'What Ruined?' videos. Now let's get started to the rise and fall of Pencilmation right away.
Pencilmation was a series of cartoon shorts that was created in 2004 by Ross Bolinger, a.k.a. the person that inspired me to draw. The first short introduces us to a unnamed character that will soon will be later redesigned numerous times and was called 'Pencilmate'. The series was proved to be one of the most successful cartoon short series ever created, from likeable characters and memorable shorts. One of the most famous of them all is 'Hank Hanky', a character that was extremely part of my life. I bought his t-shirt, I watched the Hank Hanky show, and of course, have the Pencilmation shorts on DVD! It features rare animations by Ross, all of the classic Pencilmation shorts, rare drawings, postcards, and even a drawing of a smiley Hank IN a PayPal cost paper! Ross Bollinger was one of the best animators of them all and as a fan of him, I wanna thank him for that. The cartoon was still a success though, with clever references to Mario, Hulk, and even the infamous 'Elsa and SpiderMan' ones. The cartoon never gets old. Just look at those comments!
Now, later, Pencilmate was introduced to the cast. But the premise is the same: the characters interact with the pencil leading into hilaraious results. Now, that doesn't mean that almost all Pencilmate shorts are bad, but there are some worse ones, so the Pencilmate era of Pencilmation is hit and miss. Such as 'Cake it and Bake it'. But I praise everyone for their hard work and talent (and also effort) they have put into these shorts. Notably Joshua Palmer because of the smoother animation he had put into these shorts.
Now, Elsagate came into the scene. You know, these stupid videos that tried to parody some franchises, but instead getting into adult situations? Yes, I hate that one. Now naturally, when color was introduced to the series, Pencilmate was now warming out it's welcome, and featured more characters in the series such as the red guy, the old senior, and the character that I personally hate, Mini P.. Look, I still praise the animators for their talent still, but...now most of the video titles now consist of adding 'Pencilmation Cartoons for Kids' or 'Pencilmation Compilation for Kids', and it was extremely stupid for Ross Bollinger to do something like this! And that is now refered as the death for Pencilmation. No, I am not kidding, here is an example for a video title from one of the recent Pencilmation shorts, this time is 'For Crying Out Loud' and answer me why Pencilmation is now dead and truly jumping the shark!
See? Did you look at the title? How 'out of ideas' can Ross handle? 100? Anyway, most of the stories for today's Pencilmation are now getting worse and worse and worse! Seriously, it is now going into the Elsagate writing. The most infamous one was 'Remote Controlled', which has the most disliked story I have ever seen. But many people liked it! Why?! Oh, the comments section for now is now garbage and not understandable, most of the comments are Spanish, gibberish or a toy channel praising the short without noting the problems! Okay, just take a look at the comments from old Pencilmation videos.
And now take a look at the comments from TODAY'S Pencilmation. Cringe alert, you may hate yourself saying 'I don't want to live on this planet anymore!'.
Looking at these comments, is basically what I have mentioned before: kid channels praising it without pointing the problems. The most hilarious comment I can ever suffer was the Wumbo one from Justin Y.! This can make it for a great internet meme reference! Remember the SpongeBob episode where Patrick says 'I wumbo, you wumbo, he she me, wumbo?'? This can have like a crossover!
Now, moving on to the problems of the comments section are the spanish ones. Seriously, they are just praising it with no mentions of what is bad. Here is an example of them, I am going to put 3 of them to make sure that I am mentioning this. Cringe alert!
An example of why these spanish comments are out of place for Pencilmation. They are just simply saying first and the other telling them to shut up. Next one.
Here is another example of these comments. Now, Zury Reyes is saying that if the world will stop. Following this are gibberish replies, a comment that is boatloaded with emojis, and the other is saying that they don't allow spanish (or french!). Now, next one and last. Hope I don't get exposed...
Now, this is a comment of Joseph Chahuayo saying, whatever the heck is! 'Cause I have no idea where to start typing to the comment...
Overall, Pencilmation is not going everywhere. It started as a good quality cartoon for everyone, and had slowly became to one of those YouTube Kids cartoons, with s**t quality titles, comments and of course, the stories. I don't recommend watching the modern shorts. I recommend watching the old shorts shown in here, Newgrounds. Now, Ross Bollnger is a nice guy, but what about Hank? When is he going to return answering our calls and questions? Man, poor Hank Hanky needs to come back! We need this guy back like, forever! But no, Ross decided to not give a f**k about returning Hank Hanky and instead focus on Pencilmate and the gang and more cringy comments. Like with The Fairly OddParents, I recommend watching the old ones. In fact, watch the first Pencilmation I have ever watched, called 'Home is Where the Hurt Is' and 'The Hank Hanky Show'. But by all means, do NOT watch the new Pencilmation shorts.
RATING:
Old shorts: 9.5/10 (Good!)
New shorts: 1.0/10 (Meh.)
(C) Asael Polanco
(C) Bollinger Animation