There is an uncomfortable trend at the moment in the animation industry simply referred to as the remake or the rehash in other cases, this is taking a popular cartoon from eons ago and remaking it for a new audience but some of these so called remakes aren't really up to scratch and here are a few examples in what doesn't work.
The movies are terrible at this especially when each of these rehashes use CGI combined with live action; this is true with Yogi Bear, Alvin & the Chipmunks and the Smurfs, all of which are icons in their respective countries but as movies shown in this style it really doesn't work; and now that Disney want to try it, guess which franchise they're going to attempt this with.
Yep Rescue Rangers, a show which has no right to be involved in this type of animation to begin with considering there is only one prominent human character in the cartoon.
Warner Bros are really guilty of this, their recent rehashes of Scooby Doo & Looney Tunes does little to keep it's audience, in fact their problems are more to do with messing with the formula. Scooby Doo tried to go all contemporary by attaching an origin story and a complex plot to the simple chase villains dressed up as ghosts, Scooby Doo never had any problems adapting with the times providing it kept formula but has a hard time outside of that. In the case of Looney Tunes and probably Tom & Jerry as well, they suffer from being politically incorrect for modern audiences, the jokes and gags that were acceptable in the 40s & 50s are not so acceptable now so modernizing wasn't kind to them, in fact some say that the likes of Bugs and Daffy are too domesticated to be funny anymore.
Strangely enough classic American cartoons are also involved in rehashes with the likes of Rocky & Bullwinkle along with the very recent Mr Peabody & Sherman. Both of which are ancient by today's standards but makers insist on bringing it into CGI and making a film about it.
More recently we also have the likes of Pac-Man and Sonic coming back in CGI series and both sound like a desperate bid to regain fans when both franchises are practically dead in today's market. Even Powerpuff Girls are getting the same treatment as they return in their own CGI series but the makers insist the formula is still the same.
Remakes aren't all bad, Thundercats was actually good, if not better than the original, it is possible to remake things without ruining it. Other shows such as Ninja Turtles and Biker Mice from Mars both managed to survive being remade and improved as well.
So yeah, in most cases remakes and rehashes aren't exactly good for the industry, the idea of fixing something which isn't broke isn't always the best course of action to try and revive a long forgotten franchise. Only a small minority seem to succeed in this regard but as time moves on and nostalgia seems to only get more popular by the second, it's only a matter of time before I end up re-watching my whole childhood in CGI.
