The Simpsons never age: there is baby simpson, the two school children, the parents, and Grandpa Simpson. This seems to be true for most cartoons (I can't think of any cartoon characters that age.) Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Sure they do - one good example is the Flintstones. For years there is no Pebbles - then she's born. She grows up and later gets married. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
The characters of the comic strip Gasoline Alley aged:http://www.tcj.com/growing-old-in-gasoline-alley-ninety-four-years-and-counting/
It happens occasionally in the comic strips: Cathy, For Better Or For Worse (both of which were shut down), Doonesbury, 9 Chickweed Lane (both of which are still going strong). Blondie and Dagwood, on the other hand, haven't aged since they were created in 1930. They just run the gags into the ground. Animated cartoons are more difficult to age, which is why it's very unusual in that medium. I would really love to see Bart and Lisa Simpson grow up. Since they don't, the gags have become stale and I gave up watching it 20 years ago. "South Park" has the same problem. They let the kids get one year older (one year, whoopee!) and then they froze them in time. I don't watch that show anymore either. "King of the Hill" ended just as Bobby began to grow up. I was disappointed. But I have to confess that I don't mind it with the Muppets. I really don't want to see Kermit get old. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Thoughts and Notes Y'all need some better cartoons. There's a great way around the aging problem: Tell a story, move onto the next project. Ninety-nine percent of anime, for instance, is rubbish. Indeed, I've never seen the end of Inu Yasha because, frankly, four seasons, a sequel, and however many television movies do, in fact, run the charm into the ground. To the other, though: Black Lagoon: Twenty-nine episodes, including the Roberta's Blood Trail miniseries. Blood +: Fifty episodes. Darker Than Black: Twenty-six episodes, including one off-cycle, comic-relief OVA to round out the broadcast set. Darker Than Black—Gemini of the Meteor: Twelve episodes, four intermediate OVAs describing the period between the two series. Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt: Thirteen episodes. FLCL: Six episodes. And there are stories that drag on forever, to the point that nobody really cares. Like Bleach, with sixteen seasons, three hundred sixty-six episodes, two OVAs and four movies. What I'm getting at, though, is the difference between a story and a commercial enterprise. The story can be the commercial enterprise, but the commercial enterprise is more than simply the story. The Simpsons? Commercial enterprise. Family Guy? Commercial enterprise. South Park? Commercial enterprise. Comic strips? Garfield, commercial enterprise. Boondocks? Commercial enterprise. (The animated television show has been absolutely hilarious, but lacking any cohesive story it is a good thing they capped that at three sesons and forty-five epsidoes. And, yes, there is a movement afoot to get a live-action film built solely on crowdsourcing funds. Depending on who they cast as Uncle Ruckus, it could be a worthy addition to the enterprise.) Doonesbury? Well, it's run over forty years, but it has an underlying story. And if you follow the strip long enough, it gets creepy. I remember Kim Rosenthal's first words ("Big Mac"); how strange was it to see her and Mike get married? Trudeau's cast and crew might be a massive commercial enterprise, but there's also a story there. Look, anime is not the end-all of cartoons. Even the best of them have their occasionally ridiculous moments, like the character explaining everything you need to know and then saying, "But you already know that." With any pop culture artistic endeavor, the question of why becomes fundamental. When there really isn't any story, and everything is just a patchwork of gags, bits, sketches, and routines, there is no reason to change. The larger problem, of course, comes back to five hundred channels and nothing good on. These projects do not come to our living rooms just because someone wants to tell a story. They arrive in our living rooms because someone thinks they can make money. Consider Aeon Flux. When it was a series of shorts, it was gripping, thrilling, and even bordered on profound. The worst thing in the world that could have happened to its testament did; it got picked up for a regular series. At which point Aeon began actually speaking. Which completely ruined the character. The show was hit and miss, to be certain, but it had its moments of profundity. Of course, those were all just parts of the story, and had nothing to do with the central enterprise. Aeon is supposed to be sexy. There's nothing sexy about robotic border guards that surgically maim children as punishment for straying over the line while retrieving a soccer ball, or whatever. But of all the Aeon Flux episodes I watched, that's the only thing I remember clearly. The difference between that handful of shorts and the MTV series is the difference between potential greatness and being just another waste of broadcast resources and viewing time. The Simpsons is a genuine television pioneer, but that was also a long time ago. We've known for a while that it's all about the money, and everyone I know has been tuning out over the last few years because they just can't take it anymore. Family Guy nearly filled the void left by a flagging Simpsons enterprise, but we've known it's about the money the whole time, and ever since FOX finally came up with enough money to get MacFarlane back to work on the series, it's been bloody apparent. Remember, though, when you're watching television, you are viewing art as defined by a ledger.
^ in reference to the flinstones, I did find it disappointing that the cartoon emulated pebbles as what seemed to be a 13 year old getting married to bam bam with also a 13 year old persona.
