100 live-action things and 100 animated things we should still watch in 100 years
"Stereotypes on their own aren't funny, and just trying to make them over-the-top as possible can send very mixed messages. We've been learning this since the (19)60s."-Mr. Enter, Animated Atrocities #81
Tastes and times change. It is easy to see what media stood the test of time if you were born a few years after something originally premiered and you see how much the next generation of the same demographic likes it 30 years later. I was 16 when Back to the Future turned 30 years old in 2015. Well, that isn't really the best example because its story was already meant to span multiple generations in 1955 through 2015, that's a 30-year radius. I love to watch The Goonies and Explorers, and I was also 16 when they were 30 years old in the summer of 2015, like Back to the Future. Here's a better example: I was 14 when all three Star Wars films turned 30 years old in 2013, and the people working on Phineas and Ferb who watched them as kids over 7, as well as child and teen actors in Phineas and Ferb (who voice Phineas, Candace, Ferb, Isabella, Vanessa and Gretchen), enjoyed the original Star Wars trilogy so much that they made their own Star Wars crossover movie with Christopher Corey Smith, Ross Marquand and April Winchell as the three main Star Wars characters, and cut out the PG parts of the story to make it G-rated for Phineas and Ferb, which had better results than you might think. It was definitely better-executed than 4Kids trying to make One Piece Y7-rated. All of the titles on this list have survived 5 years when I made this list. Let's see if they can make it to 100.
However, it is difficult to predict if something will last 100 years and still be viewed by more than just film historians if any footage lasts more than a century. A lot of films that are 100 years old by 2015 may look old and outdated now, but they were cutting-edge technology for the time, so who knows what type of film and animation technology we will get in the 22nd century? Will early 21st-century animation still look passable in the early 22nd century? Could 2010 drawings/CGI look all right in 2110? Regardless of what film or TV we will get in 100 years that will eventually outdate today's films, I still have a good feeling that...newer film or TV from the late 20th century and onward, when they turn 100 years old, are more likely to be seen by more than 100 people, for 5 reasons.
1. In a newer age of distribution and recording/streaming technologies, more copies exist to be watched wherever VHSes and DVDs are sold. Even when those go out of style, whatever new things replace them will likely do a better job. But we shouldn't do everything on the internet in case an apocalypse causes the internet to go out, or vice-versa.
2. It really depends which media's values of storytelling and comedy age the best. Some do not last 30 years because of jokes, messages, or character depictions that slowly become tasteless after a long period (which is how I felt about Pucca after the 11/9 MeToo movement.) If a story is timelessly entertaining or relatable for years to come, like Toy Story and Monsters Inc, then that is how you know it stood the test of time for a generation.
3. Shows that actually take place in the future are likely to stay in style closer to that time when everyone can talk about what it got right or wrong. That is why I believe Star Trek, Futurama, Wall-E and Milo Murphy's Law (which has its creators voice time travelers from 2175) would be enjoyed more when they are 100 years old and technology has advanced a lot, or maybe they influenced then-future scientists to develop that technology in the real world. In 2015, Back to the Future was all the rage when people on the internet were talking about real things Back to the Future 2 predicted.
4. When cartoons like The Simpsons, Rugrats, Family Guy, Spongebob Squarepants, The Fairly OddParents, American Dad, Friendship is Magic and Bob's Burgers can appeal to most everybody in their target demographic, and go on for more than a whole decade as a new generation of their demographic can enjoy newer seasons of the exact same series, chances are most episodes in the original three-to-five seasons of any of these programs are still watchable when they turn 100 years old.
5. Animated characters who existed before TV was even invented, such as many of the Mickey Mouse characters from Walt Disney or the Looney Tunes plus Tom and Jerry from Warner Brothers keep getting re-invented over and over again, and The Flintstones and Scooby-Doo are old Hanna-Barbera properties that keep getting reincarnated, so who's to say some of these programs won't get remade by someone who cares about doing the original property justice in a century from now?
Note to self: Remove 50 of the live-action titles from 1990 or later.
Tastes and times change. It is easy to see what media stood the test of time if you were born a few years after something originally premiered and you see how much the next generation of the same demographic likes it 30 years later. I was 16 when Back to the Future turned 30 years old in 2015. Well, that isn't really the best example because its story was already meant to span multiple generations in 1955 through 2015, that's a 30-year radius. I love to watch The Goonies and Explorers, and I was also 16 when they were 30 years old in the summer of 2015, like Back to the Future. Here's a better example: I was 14 when all three Star Wars films turned 30 years old in 2013, and the people working on Phineas and Ferb who watched them as kids over 7, as well as child and teen actors in Phineas and Ferb (who voice Phineas, Candace, Ferb, Isabella, Vanessa and Gretchen), enjoyed the original Star Wars trilogy so much that they made their own Star Wars crossover movie with Christopher Corey Smith, Ross Marquand and April Winchell as the three main Star Wars characters, and cut out the PG parts of the story to make it G-rated for Phineas and Ferb, which had better results than you might think. It was definitely better-executed than 4Kids trying to make One Piece Y7-rated. All of the titles on this list have survived 5 years when I made this list. Let's see if they can make it to 100.
However, it is difficult to predict if something will last 100 years and still be viewed by more than just film historians if any footage lasts more than a century. A lot of films that are 100 years old by 2015 may look old and outdated now, but they were cutting-edge technology for the time, so who knows what type of film and animation technology we will get in the 22nd century? Will early 21st-century animation still look passable in the early 22nd century? Could 2010 drawings/CGI look all right in 2110? Regardless of what film or TV we will get in 100 years that will eventually outdate today's films, I still have a good feeling that...newer film or TV from the late 20th century and onward, when they turn 100 years old, are more likely to be seen by more than 100 people, for 5 reasons.
1. In a newer age of distribution and recording/streaming technologies, more copies exist to be watched wherever VHSes and DVDs are sold. Even when those go out of style, whatever new things replace them will likely do a better job. But we shouldn't do everything on the internet in case an apocalypse causes the internet to go out, or vice-versa.
2. It really depends which media's values of storytelling and comedy age the best. Some do not last 30 years because of jokes, messages, or character depictions that slowly become tasteless after a long period (which is how I felt about Pucca after the 11/9 MeToo movement.) If a story is timelessly entertaining or relatable for years to come, like Toy Story and Monsters Inc, then that is how you know it stood the test of time for a generation.
3. Shows that actually take place in the future are likely to stay in style closer to that time when everyone can talk about what it got right or wrong. That is why I believe Star Trek, Futurama, Wall-E and Milo Murphy's Law (which has its creators voice time travelers from 2175) would be enjoyed more when they are 100 years old and technology has advanced a lot, or maybe they influenced then-future scientists to develop that technology in the real world. In 2015, Back to the Future was all the rage when people on the internet were talking about real things Back to the Future 2 predicted.
4. When cartoons like The Simpsons, Rugrats, Family Guy, Spongebob Squarepants, The Fairly OddParents, American Dad, Friendship is Magic and Bob's Burgers can appeal to most everybody in their target demographic, and go on for more than a whole decade as a new generation of their demographic can enjoy newer seasons of the exact same series, chances are most episodes in the original three-to-five seasons of any of these programs are still watchable when they turn 100 years old.
5. Animated characters who existed before TV was even invented, such as many of the Mickey Mouse characters from Walt Disney or the Looney Tunes plus Tom and Jerry from Warner Brothers keep getting re-invented over and over again, and The Flintstones and Scooby-Doo are old Hanna-Barbera properties that keep getting reincarnated, so who's to say some of these programs won't get remade by someone who cares about doing the original property justice in a century from now?
Note to self: Remove 50 of the live-action titles from 1990 or later.
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