What A Cartoon! - Amphibia "Cane Crazy/Flood, Sweat, And Tears"

I'm very glad Duckmeat picked this for a WAC because it's really inspired me to check this out when it eventually hops on Disney+. It fits neatly in the Gravity Falls/Owl House model that Disney's been circling around lately but with a more off-kilter sense of humor. I've enjoyed all of the new Disney TV shows that follow in this track including Ducktales and Star Vs. And a quick voice acting note. Henry said Brian Maillard who voiced Leopold also voices Chopper in the 4kids One Piece Dub. While that's technically correct, (the best kind of correct), Maillard voices Chopper in his heavy point form. 4kids regular Lisa Ortiz voices regular Brain Point Chopper. Just another one of those random choices 4kids did.

SilkiePJ

We have a pink axolotl named Kirby, so I'm glad Henry said that he at least finds them cute. And of course, my daughter has a pink plush of the axolotl from Gravity Falls.

littleterr0r

I had also not heard about this show before it hit the WAC schedule so I checked out the first two episodes before this podcast and had a really good time! I didn't realize it was Brenda Song until checking the wiki to find out and I have to say I hope she does more voice acting because she's damn good in this. After reading about the showrunner and finding out he was Asian-American, I was relieved since one of the show tidbits I had read was him discussing how his childhood trips to Thailand had inspired the show, and the cartoonish touch of replacing the Thai with Amphibians would come across as pretty problematic if it'd been coined by a white guy.

Dylan (batmanboy11) Freitag

Funny you guys should mention Kermit and Muppets Now: It was just announced TODAY that the original Muppet Show would finally be coming to Disney+ in February. It's sad that show never got its DVD run completed, but we'll take what we can get. It's quite something to see you two both bring up the callout thing: I've been on Tumblr for a long, long time so I know where much of this culture came from. It's that armchair mindset where, instead of investigating actual cases of abuse, you just sit back and try to "find secret clues" in someone's art. But that's no guarantee of anything, an abuser could make the cleanest, nonsexual show ever and these armchair activists would be none the wiser because no one's looking out for the real victims here.

Harry Thornton

I’m glad that Disney TVA is just putting out some really solid cartoons rn. Even though it’s a bit of an outlier, I think Big City Greens might be my favorite of the bunch, and I hope you guys do it one day. I love Amphibia and Owl House too, but BCG is by far the funniest and most heartfelt. Plus, I relate to its core cast a lot more as a more rural kid recently thrust into the belly of New York. This was a great episode, though!

Tashmon Dimps

I’m glad y’all addressed the controversy in a very direct manner. It feels like the art industry has gone through the hardest reckoning in the #MeToo era because so much of a modern artist’s presence is online and it’s a relatively localized industry. John K was already an outsider when the news of his grooming broke but Dan Schneider was Nickelodeon’s cash cow when he was finally ousted in 2018 and Chris Savino struck gold with Loud House and touched so many cartoons over 20 years before his allegations forced him out. I do believe there is a troll effort that fans the flames like Julia Vickerman of the maligned Powerpuff Girls reboot and Netflix’ Twelve Forever had a 10 year old post dug up that insinuated she was stalking a teenager at a carnival and whether or not it was a joke can anyone say that’s a good look for a representative of their brand? I don’t know where the silver lining is or if the next generation of online people are just savvier about what they post publicly, but I do think the community has gotten a lot better at communication. The controversy surrounding Amphibia and She-ra were stamped out within a day with the loudest voices setting the record straight. And as community driven as the online art community is that kind of organization is what’s needed to address actual trolls and misinformation.

Justen Brown

Holy cow this episode was amazing! First off, thank you so much for the hard work and time you both put into this episode. I had a lot of fun hearing your guys' thoughts on the show and learned some new things I hadn't known about Amphibia before. Secondly, I have some info I found about the Amphibia opening and it's theme song. According to a Reddit AMA Matt Braly did 4 months ago, Disney studio leadership initially imposed a lyrical version of the Amphibia theme song (which I'll post a Youtube link to at the end of this message). However, Matt didn't want the lyrics over the opening because as he explains it, 'I don't dislike the song in isolation but I don't think it fits the show or the lead character. Like, who was this sweet voice singing? Certainly not Anne, our rough and tumble lead.' For a few months during production the lyrical version became their theme song which Matt said gave him a lot of anxiety to the point where he couldn't even attend internal Amphibia screenings. But fortunately in the end he was able to find his voice and confront studio leadership until they let him use the instrumental for his show. So there you have it! Once again, this was a wonderful What a Cartoon episode and I'm really grateful for the opportunity to pick a cartoon. Thank you so much guys! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuMysCU98dQ