Why do modern cartoons need to have an overarching plot? What's wrong with episodic plots?

CalArts trash.

Because culture has changed. Episodic shows were great when people only wanted to kill time and not care if they missed an episode of two. Now people want to follow characters in a story with a beginning and an end.

exhibit A: (pic)
the way people talk about this, you'll assume mystery incorporated is the norm (there is a main story) and not the exception.

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That they've been overdone again and again for 50 years until we puke?

The problem is some can't decide which to be and are terrible at balancing the two.

Neither allow or dissuade creativity. That's all on the writers.

>WAAAAH WHERE'S THE PLOT FUCK THIS FUCKING SLICE OF LIFE
>WAAAAH THERE'S TOO MUCH PLOT HOW DO YOU EXPECT ME TO FOLLOW THIS
Literally kill yourself, the only bad thing that ever happened to western animation was idiots like you.

>THERE'S TOO MUCH PLOT

when did anyone ever say this on Yea Forums?

Oh wait, I forgot...
>WAAAAH YOU JUST PULLED EVERYTHING OUT OF YOUR ASS AND TOOK TOO LONG TO EXPLAIN THINGS FUCK YOU INCOMPETENT SJWS YOU'RE WRONG BECAUSE I'M TOO FUCKING STUPID TO PAY ATTENTION TO FORESHADOWING OR HAVE PATIENCE

I thought the general consensus is that that show is good if you can get passed the ugly art style.

Everything needs to be serious and dramatic I guess, comedy and slice of life are childish you know.

Because until pretty recently, you could only watch shows as much as a network felt like airing them. That generally meant you'd only get to see one episode a day at most. Nowadays, people can watch things at their leisure, which generally means they watch in bigger chunks and will burn out faster if there's no plot to keep them invested.

Story arcs allow for more world building and character development.

I feel like this post is onto something about, how the networks handle these shows is what causes this drastic shift in what people want to see out of a cartoon.

>What's wrong with episodic plots?
The age of cable and casual viewing is dying.
>Why do modern cartoons need to have an overarching plot?
Streaming encourages watching multiple episodes at once.

Most don't, and there's nothing wrong with having either. A great cartoon can craft episodes that stand out on their own, while still servicing the greater narrative. Cape shit cartoons usually do this well.

Also, is SU supposed to be an example? Because that show was always meant to have big story arcs from the get-go.

Who wants to see a stagnant group of charaters get into le wacky situations and never grow from them compared to characters that actually have stuff happen to them and causes them to learn and grow like actual living people that gives us viewers something fun to talk about.

>characters just bumble around doing nothing of value wasting everyone's time
>but it's okay because i can just call it a SLICE OF LIFE and that will deflect al the criticisms

If the slice of life episode is good, then honestly i'm all for it, but when it's utter dogshit and getting white knights to defend it BECAUSE it's slice of life, that's when you piss people off.

Episodic plots have no payoff. They’re just borin x

That's your opinion. I rather not be stringed on for multiple episodes, expecting an exciting conclusion, only to have a dissapointing payoff after all the buildup.

Because they try to rip-off anime and forget that some anime shows are episodic too.

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It's an incredibly easy tool to keep viewership up. There's less pressure to make every episode well-written or entertaining when you constantly tease viewers to keep tuning in for that elusive payoff.

LOST taught everyone how easy it is to make a big profit this way, so lots of people followed suit. Then others felt that you couldn't compete unless you had a serialized plot, and it became the norm.

When you add consumers like who think "if it's trendy it's inherently better," you have a big mindless market demand for serialized plots.

It's not so much a reflection of changing times as it is just a gimmick that's convenient for the industry.

They don't, the writers just want their dumb gag-a-day and monster-of-the-week shows to have the same 'deep lore' as anime or straight-up action cartoons, so they try and mesh the two and fail.

It's kind of amazing how Felix The Cat: The Movie could be considered a prototype of every modern cartoon in this respect.

Yeah the characters are pretty well done and so is the dynamic between them (Which seems harder for some artists to do with Scooby-Doo for some reason) The humor's not bad too, if that's your jam. The art style really is a shame though.

>Why do modern cartoons need to have an overarching plot

Most of them don't

>What's wrong with episodic plots?

Nothing. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. All depends on how well they're executed.

Wander over Yonder was forced to spread it's lore out across the seasons (to the point where we'll never see what they had planned) because the higher powers only wanted episodes that could be re-run, I reckon that's the case for other shows as well, if you want lore you need to space it out across something with a bit more slice of life.

Tons of people. Mostly the fags who want to cut out major elements out of settings because "lol nobody cares."