9 Story, Please Don't Ruin Season 17 of Arthur

Like many people, I hold near and dear to my childhood. And most things from my childhood I still enjoy - The Brave Little Toaster, Arthur, etc. And some things that I didn't care for much when I was a kid, I like now (i.e. Mister Rogers). And some things I just plain out don't like anymore (half of the stupid Disney movies we had to sit and watch in Daycare - or Barney.... definitely Barney). And yet others I have been mortified to never fully enjoy again, but that's a story for another time.

So like some others, I still watch some PBS Kids shows that keep me entertained (mainly the PBS Kids GO! shows; I've got to stop using parentheses after every sentence). One of these shows is, indeed, Arthur, as you may have guessed by the title.

Well, Arthur has had many different voice actors (and I mean a LOT - check out the list on Wikipedia) and a few different animation studios making it. The most recent of these animation studios is 9 Story Entertainment - or as I like to call them, 9 Macromedia Flash Animators working from a storyboard and whom produce no enjoyable entertainment. Okay, I've never actually called them that before now, but I should have.

Most of the shows that they animate are stupid anyway (like Half Naked Animals). But the thing is, for half of these shows - their horrid Flash crap (and believe me, I've seen some GOOD Flash work - but it looks like these shows were made by a team of lazy animators in Flash) works because the animation style fits the show. The thing is, it doesn't fit Arthur, especially not after 15 years of GOOD and FLUID animation.

They did bad enough on season 16 (you could very seriously tell the drop in quality of the show. It's not a small change like the last time they changed studios). I just hope they don't do the same thing for season 17.

I am not an animator and I know that animation is hard work (REALLY hard!), but there are animators out there that can do a better job than 9 Studios did with Arthur.

This ends our broadcast for tonight, folks.