Green Lantern the Animated Series & Focus Groups

Just thought I'd share this article from IGN. It really made me smile. Basically, Giancarlo Volpe made a short comic strip illustrating his experiences with focus groups during his time working on the GL animated series.

GLA remains one of my favorite cartoons and was one of the victims of the Great Superhero Cartoon Culling of the Late 2000s. But I'm glad that the show's creators stood their ground.

Check it out:

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna rewatch GLA again....

Although I've never seen the series, this comic makes me want to give it a try.

Go! Get it! ITunes, Netflix, Amazon!

This makes me sad :(

GLA took a risk that Young Justice and (to an extent) Beware the Batman all took, they wanted to portray complex characters. All these DC shows wanted to do was go past the norm, try something different. Offer a darker, more mature take on a kid's TV show yet still cater to audiences of all ages. And what happened to all these shows? Cancelled. What what is still on television right now? Marvel's Avengers Assemble, Hulk: Agents of Smash, and Ultimate Spider-Man, dumbed down versions of these characters that can only be enjoyed by a child (or a few adults and teens).

At least DC tried, Marvel just fell down after the cancelation of Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, The Spectacular Spider-Man and Wolverine and the X-Men… It appears nowadays, companies just care for the profit and catering towards the audience that will buy their merchandise, and not the young adults like me who still enjoy watching the old Timm-verse Justice League. Disney and Cartoon Network, get your crap together!

@manneffest: perfectly said. I'm waiting for the day when we can have truly compelling and interesting action/superhero cartoons again.

@manneffest Indeed. It was a sad time to be a superhero fan during the Great Culling. Every single freaking good superhero cartoon was cut down in favor of dumbed-down rubbish. Marvel lost three critically-acclaimed cartoons and now we're stuck with the trash that is Avengers Assemble and USM. DC cancelled both Young Justice and GLA in favor of 'Teen Titans Go'. It really depresses me; and it's pretty damn sad that one by one, all these cartoons got cut down.

The part that infuriates me the most, though? None of these shows were complete. All of them had set up long-running plot threads for future seasons that we'll never see resolved now.

Almost none of this is true.

Its always been about money and profit. Thats a sad truth about western animation, that isn't anything new

I'm not saying these new cartoons were the cause of the cancellations, if that's what you're implying - I'm saying we lost these old cartoons and are now stuck with these new ones.

Then how did, Batman The Animated Series, Superman The Animated Series, Batman Beyond, Justice League and Justice League Unlimited, Teen Titians, X-Men: Evolution, and the dozens of TV shows Marvel had in the 90s, how did they survive so long? Has the mentality of the current audience changed? I don't remember buying squat when Justice League was out, only when it was over did I ever buy some action figures. These old shows were not canceled after one or two seasons, and I cannot understand why they could survive and these other gems we had in the late 2000s and early 2010s all become distant yet fond memories.

Oh yeah, lol, then you are right. Call the current Marvel animated U garbage is actually giving it a compliment at best.

Marvel itself was actually the reason the three cartoons you were talking about got cancelled. Spec Spider-Man and Wolverine and the X-Men were co opted by other studios, when Marvel took all rights and control after Disney bought them they all got nixed, both shows were intended to have another season. Similarly with Avengers EMH, Marvel took that show off to create a new animated universe. It didn't really have anything to do with networks or focus groups...just Marvel/Disney.

As for Teen Titans Go, the show was never created to replace YJ or GL, it was always intended to be shown with Beware the Batman while YJ and GL were on break. Its juts that it is the only show that survived because it was the kind of show CN was looking for at the time.

People always like to over simplify things. Like there is a bunch of guys in suits somewhere that just want to cancel all their super hero cartoons...there is a bit more to it than that. Its a combination of numerous things, like everyone complained when Young Justice was apparently being cancelled, yet, probably nobody was lining up to buy the DVDs or video game or tie in comic.....you know what I mean?? The people that produce the cartoon need to make money somehow.

They all sold toys, or had deals with fast food chains for happy meals and sold things like pajamas, lunchboxes etc.......you know, merchandising. Especially Batman TAS. That show was huge at the time it came out. It even had a feature full length film that did incredibly well on home video.I remember Batman TAs had all sorts of action figures when it was out, you could find every Batman but the regular one, stealth strike Batman, jungle fury Batman. It was ridiculous.

In fact, the whole western animation diagram was really revolutionized in the 1980s by shows like He-Man, Transformers and GI Joe, all of which were made as 20 minute shows to endorse toys.

Action figures aren't really popular anymore, so that is a major blow for a lot of super hero cartoons. It was definitely one for Young Justice

@veshark: we did not lose these shows "in favor " of TTG. We were getting that anyway,

You'd think Bruce Timm's track record would speak for itself. I'm not going to tell Stephen King how to write a horror novel, because he obviously already knows how. Same with Bruce and animated super-hero shows. I wonder if something like this happened to the X-Men animated series in the 90's? I think it lasted only one season.

@cattlebattle: Really? Well I wasn't old enough to watch BTAS when it was out, and I was unaware they had a butt-load of merchandising. You would think though that the big superhero craze today would be good for these Superhero shows. Alas, I guess the lack of merchandising was detrimental to those lost shows.

@cattlebattle

Ok alright, I see where the confusion came from. When I say 'in favor'; I didn't mean DC cancelled Young Justice because they wanted to replace it with Teen Titans Go. I meant "DC cancelled YJ while they still allowed a series like TTG to run". Hope that clears it up.

Some do. Th e Avengers make a ton of money through merchandise. They sell all those toys like the foam Thor Hammer, Hulk Hands, Iron Man mask, stuff like that. Not necessarily action figures but I guess kids still do con their parents into buying crap