What the fuck is up with these shows on Disney Channel lately?

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icenine0

New member
When me and the misses weren't married yet, sometimes we'd spend the evening at her parents' house, and watch TV together, generally Disney Channel. This was around 2002-2003. I kind of dug the shows that were on, so it didn't bother me. Even Stevens was good, Boy Meets World was awesome, So Weird was alright, Jett Jackson was even good enough not to turn the channel.

But has anyone seen it now? That's So Raven, Suite Life of Zack & Cody, Life with Derek, Hannah Montana? Every single one suck. And you know the main thing that pisses me off about them. The overboard laughing audience.

Now there are some shows that have worked GREAT with laughter. Seinfeld. Everybody Loves Raymond. Married with Children.

But these fucking shows have a laugh every 10 seconds. At the longest. Go ahead and turn one of these shows on if you don't believe me. For me to laugh out loud at something on a TV show, it's got to be pretty goddamn funny or clever. The laugh track on these shows are not believable at all. Those motherfuckers laught at EVERYTHING. Here's how these shows work:

Person 1: Are you ready for the big dance?
Person 2: What dance?
Person 1: The one Friday! Remember?
Person 2: Oh yeah. I forgot
*Audience laughs*

WHAT THE FUCK. It's like NBC for kids.

*edit* Reworded laugh track to laughter, since my main point that there is laughter, not what causes it
<P ID="signature"><hr />of07</P><P ID="edit"><FONT class="small">Edited by juggaleaux on 07/13/07 09:27 PM.</FONT></P>
 
> Now there are some shows that have worked GREAT with a laugh
> track. Seinfeld. Everybody Loves Raymond. Married with
> Children.

And the Flinstones
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I had a similar experience with a previous favourite channel of mine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film4Film4</a> is the current favourite), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNXCNX</a>. It was awesome. I've never seen any channel before or since with such a varied collection of good animation. Awesome stuff.

It lasted about 11 months.

The reasons for this are varied, but I'd say the placement of the channel had something to do with it. On Sky (the largest broadcaster that ever carried it), CNX was on channel 244, sandwiched between various obscure, low-budget channels. It was pure chance that I ever found it. But seeing how the British nation is quite deprived in terms of quality animation, I immediately pounced on it.

Regardless, the replacement was http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toonami_(UK)Toonami</a>, which was in the kids section rather than general entertainment, so it lost a lot of the good stuff. But it was still decent quality. We got a full run of Outlaw Star for one, and Samuari Jack.

But as time went on, Turner's ability to screw things up became apparent. The introduction of Pokemon marked a serious decline in quality, and the elimination of all other anime marked another. Some decent western animation held it together, but it was clear to all that things weren't getting better.

Then came March 6th 2006. The rebranding. With a new (more invasive) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_on-screen_graphicDOGtag</a>, new (more irritating) ident, and new (shit) live action programming. Previously, I had said Toonami was the linchpin of the kids section. As long as it remained decent, all the others would hold. At the start of March, there were eight kids channels in my favourites listing. By the end of March, there were none.

That's how bad the rebranding was.

Since then, the live action programming introduced with the rebranding (awful, awful stuff) has been killed off due to very poor viewing figures, but there's been no recovery. In fact, Toonami has become Cartoon Network TOO, and things seem to have gotten even worse.

In the end, I have to think of the question "Who killed Toonami?" and there's only one answer. The people who made it in the first place, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turner_Broadcasting_System_EuropeTurner Broadcasting</a>. With only one exception (the removal of that god-awful live action programming), every single change made it worse. It was good while it lasted, but Turner seemed determined to screw it up every step of the way.

I think it was worse, because unlike some other stuff where I left a decent thing and came back to see it had changed, I ended up watching the decline of this one every step of the way. It hurt.
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Wait, Married with Children had a laugh track? I remember the actors standing there as they 1st appeared and waited for the clapping to end. It was all fake?<img src=smilies/cry.gif>
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> Wait, Married with Children had a laugh track? I remember
> the actors standing there as they 1st appeared and waited
> for the clapping to end. It was all fake?
>
Oh wait. I think that WAS real laughter. I'm pretty sure it was because the audience would even scream shit like "Go Al!"

Still, it had an audience and it worked great.<P ID="edit"><FONT class="small">Edited by juggaleaux on 07/13/07 09:21 PM.</FONT></P>
 
> In the end, I have to think of the question "Who killed
> Toonami?" and there's only one answer. The people who made
> it in the first place, Turner Broadcasting.

Sounds like what happened to ZDtv here in the US. Let's see...started off as ZDTV, had great tech/computer oriented programming (aaah...The Screensavers, Call for Help with teh awesome Leo Laporte), and some programming devoted to video gaming (just a show or two)...eventually it broke off of it's parent company, and thus could no longer be 'Ziff-Davis' Television, and became TechTV.

There were a few changes, but it was still pretty good. For awhile it was totally awesome, but then it got sold to G4 (videogame oriented channel), and the two became G4TechTV...there were a few good shows, (whatever did happen to Martin Seargent?) but it wasn't as good as TechTV in some ways. Then eventually, G4 just kind of 'ate' TechTV, and it became G4 again, after which it started to suck because it became almost completely different than TechTV or ZDTV before it. I think the only show that survived mostly intact was X-Play (formerly Extended Play, formerly...something else before that). No more computer help programming, nothing. I mean, Attack of the Show isn't a bad show I don't think, but there aren't enough of original folks on there anymore, and it doesn't replace the tech help shows.

Ah well. I kind of mourn it because it was once hands-down my favorite channel, I learned a lot from that channel back in the day.
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> I think the only show that survived mostly
> intact was X-Play (formerly Extended Play,
> formerly...something else before that).

Gamespot TV. That's the answer you were looking for.

I thought they renamed it to tech TV because ziff-davis was bought by rival company c|net, which is also why they renamed gamespot tv.

EDIT: oh, yeah, I think Adam Sessler is the only original guy on the network too.
<P ID="signature">"The other day i was at the park and was wondering why frisbees look bigger and bigger as they get closer to you...."
"...and then it hit me."</P><P ID="edit"><FONT class="small">Edited by ToastyCheesy on 07/14/07 07:00 AM.</FONT></P>
 
> I thought they renamed it to tech TV because ziff-davis was
> bought by rival company c|net, which is also why they
> renamed gamespot tv.

Um, probably. I never knew the actual reason, but it did get renamed after Ziff-Davis was bought out and the network became "TechTV", so that'd make sense.

> EDIT: oh, yeah, I think Adam Sessler is the only original
> guy on the network too.

I think you're right. I don't think I can think of anyone else who was there from the beginning to it's merged completely with G4 days. There's a few people that I don't think were around until TechTV that are there still though.
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Let's not forget Disney Channel's banal shitfest of animated horrors. We have such sucktacular shows for our viweing displeaure like:

American Dragon Jake Long.

Some asshole who makes irritating wise-cracks every five seconds and hangs around his friends Loud Mouthed Black Stereotype Girl and Dumbass Stoner Fucktard. Jake likes asking girls out to dances, so he can ditch them at the door and dance with some blonde girl and ignore his date completely.

Seriously, this show makes me want to buy the studio so I can make one final episode in which http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobo_%28DC_Comics%29Lobo</a> is hired to kill that asshole, and does so by beating him to death with his whiny kid sister. He then proceeds to kill the entire cast of character in various over-the-top/bad ass ways, then gets drunk and flies off on his motorcycle laughing his ass off with a bag of cash for a job well done. After I have aired that episode, I will fire everyone who EVER worked on that show, for they had brought forth an abomination that should never have been made to begin with.
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what we need here is a rapier to put a nice big "Z" on the screen and then play some Legend of Zorro reruns
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The Disney Channel should show nothing but Duck Tales 24/7.
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> The Disney Channel should show nothing but Duck Tales 24/7.

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DuckTales is the rock. I didn't know it until recently, but it was actually based on a series of comic books.

> The Disney Channel should show nothing but Duck Tales 24/7.
>

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> The Disney Channel should show nothing but Duck Tales 24/7.

At first, I've read "Duct Tape", I was like what the... ?
Yep, pretty tired.
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