My Reasons for Hating the Zelda Cartoon

[DuelMark]

I must infom everyone on this forums that the one thing about Zelda I have hatred for is DiC's cartoon show. I'm aware there are a few people on these forums that DO like this show... however... it doesn't stop me from being as venomous to it as Linkara is to One More Day or Nostalgia Critic to The Garbage Pail Kids Movie.

This little topic is basically me expressing things I absolutely DESPISE about this show. Be forewarned I'll posting several times, each discussing what I (rarely) like and hate about this show. I am in no means trying to bully or be disrespectful to anyone... if you disagree, that's fine. Feedback on whether you do agree or what you think of this show is okay as well.

But I figure I should start with my first issue. The opening.

To be fair, it looked promising at first. The music is nice, we get our premise out right away. Link must guard the Triforce of Wisdom from Ganon under Zelda's orders. Giving this nice idea that there will be adventure, action and excitement...

And then I lose all respect right after they jump off the bridge and Link says that ear-raping line... Unlike other shows were they get bad AFTER the opening ends... it's right before it ends that things start to suck.

 

[finaldrumgod]

Well excuuuuse me DualMark! Joking aside though, I hate the cartoon too.

 

[Michael Heide]

What I hate the most about this cartoon is the wasted potential. Look at cartoons like Captain N (which came out at about the same time) or Dungeons and Dragons (six years older) or He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (six years older). Neither of them were masterpieces on a level of later cartoons like Gargoyles, the Dini/Timm Batman series or Animaniacs, but they were solid fantasy/video game cartoons. With Zelda, you had a rich franchise full of magic, monsters and heroism, and most of it was wasted in favor of "Excuuuuuuuse Me" shenanigans. Even with those, the real potential shines through in almost every episode, but they never managed to do it justice. What we ended up with was a show that was just okay, slightly better than the idiotic Super Mario cartoon, but still far from great. Which would be alright, but it could have been so much more...

 

[Nayrinarore]

hahahahahaahahhahah come on man you gotta admit you laugh everytime link says "excuuuuuuuuse me princess"

but yeah, i agree with heide up there that it was a complete waste. it could have been an amazing show, like sonic x

 

[DuelMark]

My ears!!!
At least I know someone who does already.

Anyway, let's see how the show all started. With Link waking up... anyone notice how in Zelda games, usually those that feature Link and Zelda with, occasionally Ganon, start with him waking up?
He gets out of bed and... this is it. THIS is the Zelda cartoon. This is my wasted dream come true here. Do I need to explain how it totally blows?
"Okay, we need this first episode to make a great impression. How should it start?"
"Oh, how about with Link, a 12 year old who isn't very brave trying to overcome his fear of heights? It shows how he's going to progress and become the hero of the land?
"No, that makes him sound too relatable."
"How about with Hyrule under King Ganon's attack and Link, a lowly peasant dreaming to be a knight, saves Zelda and Impa, the lady from the instruction booklet, from a ravenous moblin?"
"No, that sounds too epic. Plus who bothers reading booklets?
"How about we make Link a full grown guy waking up out of bed with no pants being ungrateful and annoying?"
"PERFECT!!!"
I say this because people I know say there wasn't much to go with in terms of story when it came to Zelda on NES. I disagree, there was plenty to go with... as long as you read the manual. This is a problem I have with DiC's other video game shows, it feels like they didn't bother reading the manuals, just listen to young and inexperienced children and taking their fanfic ideas.

I may as well say it. I wasn't into Zelda as a young kid, I didn't grow up with the NES or SNES. No, I was a child of the 90's, so I got into it with Ocarina of Time. And if you think I'm someone who didn't watch this BEFORE Ocarina of Time, think again. I did watch this show on reruns with others like Transformers, which I'll make some comparisons to from time to time since it IS a better show from the 80's as well as one of my all time favorite shows.

Let's talk characters.
Link is... annoying, loud mouth, ungrateful, unlikeable, unfunny, uninteresting and just plain badly written. I believe it was Miyamoto himself who said Zelda is a coming of age story for Link for the players to identify with. I like the coming of age stories, where someone from no where becomes a hero because they're people we can relate to. This... person is someone we CAN'T relate with. He treats being a hero like its his job. Always wanting something in return as well as being too perverted to work. What does he do when he greets Zelda? Whistles at her and behaves like a peeping tom, because that's certainly the most disrespectful thing you can do to the person you want as your girlfriend. Link, or Pervert Pan as I prefer to call him, just annoys me because he doesn't act like a hero. To be fair, he is genuinely concerned for Zelda's well being. However, he's lazy and immature, always wanting to get out of doing chores and prefers sleeping in the dirt. Pervert Pan is always trying to get a kiss from Zelda, seemingly caring for nothing else but making out. I honestly never felt sorry for him when she was swooning over that spoiled prince. Heck, when it looks like he's about to die, I actually root for the villain. That scene where he's neing electrocuted underwater, I'm hoping for it to cut to black and play the Looney Tunes Outro like the Nostalgia Critic's gag. He also NEVER shuts up, always cracking some lame one liner. Oh hey, it's like Spider-Man... only Pervert Pan isn't funny, clever or impressive with them. This supposed teenager is my least favorite character in the entire show. His character doesn't fit a hero at all. His actions are more like those of a supporting character, like a rival or some bully that the hero would deal with... like an uncharming union of Bulk and Skull, not the main hero. It would work if from beginning to end they'd give him some development so that's he is less a jerk each time that'd be tolerable, but he's a pain to watch EVERY second he's on screen.
And I say supposed teenager because... is it me or do they look like they're in their 20's?

Princess Zelda isn't the worst character of the show, but she is the LAMEST Zelda ever... its all in the character. Don't get me wrong, in theory, a character like her's COULD work if done well. Note that I said theory, could and if... It's just that it really comes off like they had no idea HOW she was written so they would frequently switch her character with another.
"Okay Bob, give it to me."
"Well, she's a competent character. She doesn't accept Link for his ineptitude and idiocy, she's a better fighter and she actually saves him. She is involved with the all of the fighting, she makes the plans and she's the real main character."
"Okay, but this IS a story that takes place in the medieval era where the hero falls for the princess. Not to mention princesses weren't allowed to learn how to fight save for archery, plus the point of the game is Link rescuing her. Plus if she's competent, what is the point of having Link?"
"Well then... she STILL needs Link because she gets captured, so he saves her and she's in love with him."
"But I thought she was a competent character who didn't fall for his charmless personality?"
"She's BOTH."
Her character just always seemed sporadic and I never felt like she was a princess even with her dad being called king. I get into my thoughts about their "romance" later. Plus, she was ungrateful...

Spryte was just a WASTE of animation. I don't count her as Link's first fairy partner, not because she wasn't in the games, she was just a completely useless character. She didn't DO anything. All she did was just gush over Link, get jealous over Zelda and annoy me with her voice. Sure, Navi was annoying but at least providing exposition about creatures and locations was something. Just one episode out of 13 did she so ANYTHING... Kiss n Tell, where she joined Link to find out how to cure his froggy form and ended up curing him... and it NEVER happens again. Furthermore, why was she here in the first place?
King Harkinian... is the predecessor to the Saltan from Aladdin... only not fun or charming. That's all.

Next up... the "villains".

What I hate the most about this cartoon is the wasted potential. Look at cartoons like Captain N (which came out at about the same time) or Dungeons and Dragons (six years older) or He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (six years older). Neither of them were masterpieces on a level of later cartoons like Gargoyles, the Dini/Timm Batman series or Animaniacs, but they were solid fantasy/video game cartoons. With Zelda, you had a rich franchise full of magic, monsters and heroism, and most of it was wasted in favor of "Excuuuuuuuse Me" shenanigans. Even with those, the real potential shines through in almost every episode, but they never managed to do it justice. What we ended up with was a show that was just okay, slightly better than the idiotic Super Mario cartoon, but still far from great. Which would be alright, but it could have been so much more...

I agree with you... except for Captain N. That too had potential thrown out the window.

 

[Djinn]

I think part of the problem here was that the game is a fantasy genre game. But the show did not have a single fantasy writer working on it. They were only churning out some generic video game show to go along with the Super Mario cartoon for Fridays. They knew the character names, the monsters, and video game sound effects and just went with that. Somehow they decided to create some sort of sitcom situation with the characters by making Zelda a rebellious "do things her way" princess and Link the egotistical jerk who's adventures only exist in his own imagination.

The real wasted potential is that they had absolutely any direction to go with Zelda at the time. Only the very first game existed when the show was produced, and the extremely limited story allowed for absolutely any characterization. All that was known was the land was called Hyrule, Link is the guy in green, Zelda is the princess' name, Ganon was the blue pig, moblins were bad, fairies were good. The game never gave any hints on the character's personalities, what the triforces were at all, what the kingdom looked like, or who lived in it. Given the very limited source material to build from, they could literally do anything with the series and it would still work. All the official information on the history of Hyrule, tribes, Hylians, Ganondorf, etc all came about with Link to the Past and after. Again for reasons unknown, the writing team was not interested in creating a fantasy story with fantasy characters.

 

[Awkward Turtle]

Excuuuuuuuuse me princess!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[monkeefun]

I can honestly say I enjoy the cartoons. I find them badly written, the characters can be a little hard to take at times, but I like them. For me it's more the feeling of nostalgia when I watch them. I remember watching them when I was little with my older brother when they originally aired. I actually own them on DVD now and still pull them out regularly.

 

[Shadsie]

I have a little nostalgia caught up in the old LoZ cartoons, but much like Captain Planet, I'll rewatch clips of the things on YouTube and realize how bad they were If a person enjoys them, I'm not going to knock that - people can enjoy what they want. And even though I hate Link's cartoon personality (as opposed to the truly "heroic" personality of the games), I do think the line "Excuuuse me, Princess!" is epic. At least, it's the stuff of epic jokes.

I think the fanart team doing the "ZeldaAnime Project" comic do a better job with the cartoon's themes than the cartoon did. *Grin.* It's a nostalgia-throwback thing and is based primarily on the cartoon, but check it out - it's actually good.

Oh, I re-found a fan art you might enjoy!

http://lilith-chan.deviantart.com/favourites/?offset=600#/df90sg

 

[DuelMark]

Okay... I'm back my friends.

*Inhales and exhales in pain*

Looking back at this show, it pains me how Nintendo or any of the video game companies at the time didn't bother seeing what DiC was doing. Sure, they needed money and publicity, but if you were going to let someone make a cartoon out of your product, make sure they put some effort. I just can't understand it, DiC entertainment, who were already earning their nickname "Do It Cheap" made all of the cartoons based on games from the NES. The only exception I know of is Ruby Spears' MegaMan, and guess what? THAT ONE DOESN'T SUCK!!! Why were the only ones at the time making these shows?! Ugh...

Anyway, let's talk about... the "villain".

To be fair, the idea that Ganon was once human didn't cross anyone's mind so I didn't expect it. I always found the NES artwork of him goofy. Sure, in real life a humanoid boar would be badass (can I use that word here?) but I always thought it looked more like a muppet. I also liked how there was little to no mention of him. I like how they mentioned "Gannon" in the intro text and instruction booklet, making him seem like a big deal. It's like a movie where you don't see the main villain until near the end after they've given him massive build up.

This is our problem, we already see this Ganon. I called the Ganon in the artwork muppet-like but I could forgive that, especially since it is the NES era, therefore we could imagine this guy larger and meaner looking. This guy looked more like... well, Porky Pig's grandmother. Sure, the face is okay but the rest doesn't look that threatening. I never really liked the idea of a sorceror leading evil forces, I always imagine Ganon a king or a prince even in the NES game. Kind of like Sauron, being extremely powerful and dangerous. Ganon in the cartoon, however, didn't make any impression. He wasn't all that threatening, nor was he that interesting... He appeared in all but one episode, that idiotic water park episode. Can't say he's my favorite character or that I missed him, he was more or less the poorman's Classic Shredder and Krang. Classic Shredder and Krang, despite their incompetence and child-like behavior, at least held a certain charm to them and once in a while proved to be a threat. Ganon here never came off as a genuine threat, more like he was attempting to be a parody, so I'm wondering exactly how he got the Triforce of Power to begin with... The again the king's forces didn't exactly seem better than Link. Maybe that's why they needed him.

The monsters, however, were just embarassingly pathetic. Moblins, Stalfos, Octoroks... all of them pathetic, boring and just idiotic. I tend to believe the success of shows like Ninja Turtles gave people the idea that all cartoons should have incompetent henchmen. The monsters were basically the Foot Robots combined with Bebop and Rocksteady... only they couldn't give them the cool designs, the occassional competence, anything that made them genuine threats and they don't possess ANY of the charm that came from their stupidity. I never got the impression these were the kind of monsters an evil being would use, nor did they ever prove to be truly capable of victory, as shown in the final episode when they actually got themselves killed repeatedly.

Like I said, there were 80's cartoons like that, but there were valid reasons for it. Example, in The Transformers, the Decepticons never did win that many times, but in the early seasons it made since given how the Autobots outnumbered them, plus it doesn't help that they didn't get along as much as shown with Starscream and the rest. Plus, in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, I like to think that they were at least putting effort into their comedy than Bob Forward did with Zelda by being more clever and giving the heroes and villains better personalities.

So yeah, villains were pathetic...

Tomorrow... if I get off work and find a date in time, I'll talk about the one thing I DO like about this show.

 

[DuelMark]

I'm back and... I'm here to talk about the ONLY thing I appreciate about this show.

The music.

Yes, you heard me, there is something I like, music.

The opening theme is a nice rendition of the classic Zelda tune. The BGM not only sounds like decent renditions but also fit certain moments... if they were done correctly. The action music is decent (the action isn't but I'll get to that) the normal music in scenes that are SUPPOSED to be funny is nice. As bad as this show is, the music remained good. Kinda like Power Rangers Turbo.

Speaking of, if my lazy research is correct, the music was done by Saban. Yes, the same Saban responsible for my childhood heroes, the Power Rangers. The music obviously isn't Ron Wasserman's work but Saban had a library of great music (Except when they did Masked Rider... ugh, hate that show more).

This is short because really that's it. That's all I like about this show. While the music can be impressive, it isn't worth everything else.

Back to me earning hate later.

I have a little nostalgia caught up in the old LoZ cartoons, but much like Captain Planet, I'll rewatch clips of the things on YouTube and realize how bad they were If a person enjoys them, I'm not going to knock that - people can enjoy what they want. And even though I hate Link's cartoon personality (as opposed to the truly "heroic" personality of the games), I do think the line "Excuuuse me, Princess!" is epic. At least, it's the stuff of epic jokes.

I think the fanart team doing the "ZeldaAnime Project" comic do a better job with the cartoon's themes than the cartoon did. *Grin.* It's a nostalgia-throwback thing and is based primarily on the cartoon, but check it out - it's actually good.

Oh, I re-found a fan art you might enjoy!

http://lilith-chan.deviantart.com/favourites/?offset=600#/df90sg

Already seen the artwork. It brought joy to my face. Thank you for linking it.

 

[DuelMark]

This is the last part, then you can go back to ignoring this topic.

First, let me briefly describe the action scenes.

"Lazy, boring and forgettable"

Link barely uses his "sword" like an actual melee weapon. I know it can shoot magic in the game, but he overuses it to point that the "fights" are just poorly done. And to be honest, I rarely like the sword beams. Maybe its because of the badly done usage in Masked Rider, maybe its becase I prefer a sword being used like a sword, but unless its in a crescent form and is released by slashing the sword, they come off as silly and lazy. The same with here. The writing for these fights is pathetic. It doesn't make our hero look badass, it makes him look lazy and ineffectual in a real fight and the writers and animators lazy to show actual punching, like in Transformers.. which, despite weaker animation, had much more exciting action scenes.

Then there is voice acting. All of the cast have rather bad voice acting. Link, Spryte and the King and annoying, Ganon's is laughable and Zelda is just... bland. Conversely, Transformers has each character voiced well and fitting their personalities.

Optimus Prime's voice was deep but had a very gentle approach to it, making him seem more human in his tone. Link's voice was more obnoxious and irritating.

(BTW off topic, for those who want to know since you can tell I love Transformers, I HAVE seen Transformers Prime. I love it so far but... I HATE Bumblebee and Soundwave. Like Movie Bumblebee's radio, THIS Bumblebee makes R2D2 type sound effects to speak and Soundwave records other people's dialogue and plays it back to speak. And I don't care how well written the explanation is, to me it is STUPID. Admittedly I didn't mind Bumblebee using the radio to speak in the first movie, mostly because he started talking at the end, needless to say I was disappointed they cut out his lines in the sequel. But the idea that the Transformers need to use more technical ways of communicating is very, for lack of a better word, mechanical and its just sad. The Transformers should have their own unique voices, something to match their personalities, roles, alternate modes and such. Maybe what I want is too expensive given the budget for the series, but it makes them more interesting and, again for lack of a better word, human than other robots. They can think and feel like humans can. Recording someone else's line to speak makes me fear that at some point Soundwave is going to find a bomb but can't tell anyone because he has no pre-recorded lines about bombs and they're talking about something totally unrelated, like how Starscream found a glitch in Zelda Twilight Princess.)

Finally, let's discuss the show's weakest flaw, the real reason it completely failed, bad writing.

This is seriously one of the worst written shows I've ever seen in my life. Living in the castle, Spryte, the badly written and uninteresting romance, dialogue, lame attempts at humor and that stupid catchphrase should NOT have been in this show at all. The Legend of Zelda is an adventure game... ADVENTURE. An adventure isn't just something that happens in one day, its something that takes a long period of time. The game was a kid going through a hero's journey, not a perverted teen arguing with an ungrateful princess. If Dungeons and Dragons, an EARLIER cartoon could succeed in our heroes in a long adventure to stop a competent villain (voiced by Peter Cullen, who I'll get into soon), why couldn't this one?!

Now people have told me that they loved it for giving them hints to the game. Yes, hints like using a banana peel on Gleeok or avoiding a fountain full of springs because water monsters live there. Seriously, this show came out on Fridays and the hints were practically in the instruction manual. I'd say just by the strategy guide or talk with friends.

Couldn't it have at least had more episodes BASED on something from the games? Ignoring those "helpful hints" that don't help at all, let's count them. There's the episode where the triforce breaks and the "heroes" must collect the pieces and... that's it. I don't even need ALL my fingers to count how much it has in common with the game and how many episodes were faithful.

Let's now talk about story. Some time ago, I encountered a troll on DeviantArt who bashed Transformers for animation and praised this cartoon. One of the reasons I'm always praising Transformers and how come it became one of the most popular franchises ever... is NOT because it had spectacular animation. Of course it wasn't the animation, but you all have to remember, it was the mid 80's. Something he, along with others, don't realize that in the 80's, animation WASN'T something that made a show memorable. I freely admit, half of the time, the animation in Transformers Generation 1 (G1 to proud fans like me) looked terrible. BUT what made shows in the 80's memorable were how well written they were. And while there are some episodes like B.O.T. I'd say are best left forgotten, Transformers is arguably the best written cartoon of the 80's.

Let me break it down, while most were the basic Decepticons do something to destroy Autobots or steal something for energy, let me map out the series strong points.

1) We learn where the Transformers came from and how they came to Earth.
2) The Autobots and Decepticons take on Earth forms as well as reveal themselves to the world and what they'll do to it.
3) Each character has their personalities shine through. Optimus Prime being noble, brave and selfless, Bumblebee being young but energetic and friendly, Jazz being approachable and eager to learn about wherever he goes, Megatron's desire for power and willing to let other worlds die in the process, Starscream's cowardice as well as his greed and wish to usurp Megatron and so forth. That's just naming a few... there's Silverbolt being a leader to get over his fear of heights, Aerialbots learning why they fight the Decepticons and be Autobots, Omega Supreme's rather tragic past, Combaticons being renegades for two episodes.
4) Interesting new characters.
5) Season 2 featuring more character driven episodes. Obviously to help boost toy sales, but they at the very least make the Autobots likeable and Decepticons likeable in terms of how cool and evil they are.
6) Origin for characters like Constructicons, Combaticons, Aerialbots, Omega Supreme and even Optimus Prime.
7) The human teenager's romance arc, while brief and unimportant to the plot, feels more natural than "Excuse me" all of the time.
8) Characters die... not go into some silly jar, DIE.
9) Main hero dies, comes back to life as a "zombie", dies again and is permanently brought back and saves the universe.
10) Character development, from a rookie suddenly thrusted into being Autobot leader, the once great Decepticon ruler suffering insanity, a once great Decepticon warrior gives up his destructive ways.

Conversely the Zelda cartoon just came off as redundant and uninteresting. Hero wants a kiss, princess says no and insert dumb line. She decides to kiss him but something happens that changes her mind. Fairy is annoying and useless. Ganon has a plan that involves his minions idiocy ruining it just a simple hole in his plan. Little, if ANY information about the world of Hyrule. No actual start. No idea where Link came from, where the Triforce came from, how Zelda knows magic, what happened to the queen, where Ganon came from, how he got the Triforce of Power or anything. That's a problem I see with a lot of DiC's cartoons, poor writing and no real explanation for stuff.

Example: Where did that talking power glove come from and what happened to it?

Bottom line: If this was a cartoon based on a successful video game, why couldn't it have more episodes based on events and levels FROM the game?

 

[ZoraDeadpool]

i think it should've been more like the shows based off DC comics, if Nintendo gave the rights to make a Zelda tv show to WB you can bet that it would have been so much better

 

[DuelMark]

Which will lead me to a topic I'm going to bring up sooner or later.



Probably the latter.
Optimus Prime is the greatest fictional character ever. Nuff Said.

 

[Linknerd09]

I don't like that zelda cartoon. Never liked that show. That qoute "well, excuuuuuse me, princess" is annoying. I highly doubt that the video game character link would say that. The second thing I hate is that zelda is pretty bossy.She's making link do this and do that. Hate the tv series.