Dean Winchester
06-30-2004, 03:02 PM
the fact that the characters stay frozen at the same age? The Simpsons are going into season 16, and South Park is in the "middle-hiatus" period of season 8.... and both of them are expected to run at least a few more seasons.
With shows like these, and Rugrats (which is like in it's 13th year), is the secret to these shows the fact that the characters never age (yes, in season 4, the SP kids went from 3rd to 4th grade... but in 7 years that's not much)? With The Simpsons, Bart is still 10, Lisa's still 8 and Maggie still sucks on a passafire 14 years later, so you'll never hear the "remember how good they were before the kids got older?" complaints you heard about shows like The Cosby Show, 7th Heaven, Growing Pains, and other series about families. I also think South Park stays fresh because the kids are still 8-9, if we had a 15 year old Cartman, it just wouldn't be as funny.
What do others think? Is the fact that cartoon characters stay the same age a vital ingredient on helping keep animated series fresh at a point in their run where the live-action counterparts are wrapping it up?
With shows like these, and Rugrats (which is like in it's 13th year), is the secret to these shows the fact that the characters never age (yes, in season 4, the SP kids went from 3rd to 4th grade... but in 7 years that's not much)? With The Simpsons, Bart is still 10, Lisa's still 8 and Maggie still sucks on a passafire 14 years later, so you'll never hear the "remember how good they were before the kids got older?" complaints you heard about shows like The Cosby Show, 7th Heaven, Growing Pains, and other series about families. I also think South Park stays fresh because the kids are still 8-9, if we had a 15 year old Cartman, it just wouldn't be as funny.
What do others think? Is the fact that cartoon characters stay the same age a vital ingredient on helping keep animated series fresh at a point in their run where the live-action counterparts are wrapping it up?