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Nick Cancelling Invader Zim
orn writes "Lots of my slashdotting friends turned me on to Invader Zim not so long ago. Well, aintitcool.com is reporting that the show is being cancelled." Now that really sucks. Zim was absolute genius in terms of art, use of CG, and just flat out hilarious writing. I'll miss this one a lot.
Don't get me wrong, I absolutely loved the show, but I always felt uncomfortable about its placement on Nickelodeon, a kid's network if there ever was one. The show's content, much like the class "Ren and Stimpy" episodes back from when Jim K. still had control of the show, is just too subversive for little kids. The show is more akin to things like "Family Guy" and "South Park" than it is to "Wild Thornberries" or whatever inane kiddie trash Klasky-Csupo is barfing over Nickelodeon these days. Hopefully the show will find a new, better home on Comedy Central or another such station where it would be a much better fit.
Loneliness is a power that we possess to give or take away forever
It also seems that Nick is cancelling other shows as well, such as Spongebob Squarepants and Hey Arnold. At that site you can petition for the show not to be canceled. There are 1797 Signatures right now. Help out now!
The http://slashdot.org/aintitcool.com link in the article is wrong. Use this instead.
--Metrollica
According to the article, it isn't being axed immediately--next season there will be only six episodes instead of 20, which means there will still be 16 more new episodes to wait for.
However, it is still disappointing. I've only seen Invader Zim a couple times (my cable company doesn't carry that channel) but it was one of the best shows I've seen in a long time. Unfortunately, I believe Nickelodeon marketed it to the wrong audience: it should have been aimed at teenagers and adults. Most young children don't appreciate it enough.
Perhaps if Invader Zim had been on another network, one that doesn't focus on children's entertainment, it would have fared better.
NoItAint.com!
Free Java games for your phone: Tontie, Sokoban
Time to write Nick and your cable company- remember, if you want them to give a damn, send a paper letter, not just a quick email. Companies that totally ignore email will usually at least read a nicely typed non-form-letter via US Mail. If you're lucky, you'll get a form letter in reply...
I'd go so far as to say that Invader Zim is one of the best new shows in years, and by far the most original animated show on the air (only because Simpsons and Futurama have been pretty sucky lately).
No Zim, no more reason for me to watch any of the rest Nicks' sanitized freak show of a network.
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
disclaimer: I work at nickelodeon, but not in programming.
disclaimer2: Zim is my favorite animated show.
I can't say much for our programming department, I don't even really know who they are being as I don't work with them, but I sure would love to give them a swift kick in the ass.
Firstly Zim premiered and showe Friday nights at 9:30.. no wonder the ratings weren't that high, they barely gave it a chance in that slot. Reruns during the week were scarse and oddly timeslotted as well.
Secondly, its too good for Nick. Its quite simple, as Ren and Stimpy was too good. Its offbeat, its different, its interesting.. that means its scary to network executives who would rather contract another cookie-cutter piece of crap show from Klasky Csupo than take a risk on something exciting such as Zim.
Thirdly, they did very little in the way of promotion. I can't tell you how many people tell me that they've never heard of Zim, despite either watching Nick themselves, or having children that do. What do you do with the bastard child? Ignore it and hope he goes away.. good job.
Fourthly, Zim appeals to a very odd demographic which makes it hard to target. Its too dark for kids, its too weird for older parents, its almost right for the teenage crowd, but they're usually doing something else friday nights. It REALLY appeals to most 18-27 year old I've talked to, which unfortunately is not Nick's market. We've become the MTV of the pre-teeners, since MTV is now filled with teenagers.
Fifthly.. wait is that a word? Ok nevermind, I've gone on too long. I'm just quite upset at the news and I hang onto hope that someone here will get their head straight and give Zim another chance, its one of the most original, refreshing, and fun cartoons to come out of any network in a long time. No more rugrats, no more Arnold, Spongebob can stay, but he must OBEY THE FIST.
-ride the pig, -nA
^nA! Creatures in my Head
The article suggests that Nick is pulling Zim due to poor ratings- yet how can they expect good ratings when they randomly move the show to a new time slot every week? When they randomly show 'Wild Thornberries' in the slot Invader Zim was scheduled for, causing my Tivo to waste valuable recoding time? When they fail to supply episode descriptions 90% of the time?
In my opinion, the worst sin of Nicktoons is the 'splitting' of episodes, where they take the individual segments that make up a 30-minute episode of Zim, CatDog, etc and package it with some live action slime game or other filler into a fifteen minute slot.
Worse than that, they tend to start shows early and end them late, especially with these 15-minute half-episodes, so TiVo misses large portions of the cartoon.
With the cancellation of Zim, I have one less reason to bother turning on the TV anymore.
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
Most die-hard Zim fans probably know this, but if you're a fan of a show but not familiar with Jhonen Vasque's other work, you owe it to yourself to get ahold of a copy of Squee and Johnny the Homicidal Maniac. The first is the more accessable and Zim-like; the second is Jhonen's quintisential work, but it is much darker and more philosophical. All his work is available from Slave Labor Graphics. (Avoid Fillerbunny and especially the Bad Art Collection; these are for die-hard fans only.)
More info:
Link
Link
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Link
The reason Invader Zim, Spongebob, and 2 other shows are being dropped has everything to do with 16 out of 19 writers signing union cards.
There is no unionization in the animation industry, and Nickelodeon means to keep it that way.
Nick staffers demand union representation
There was a story on yahoo! news last week that made the link clearer, but I can no longer find it.
--
Industrial Workers of the World
So. Who buys the ratings bullshit?
Honestly. There's a lot more shows that pull in worse ratings than Invader Zim and that don't have the same cult following that Zim has behind it.
I think Nickelodeon didn't think when they gave a man who happened to author a comic called "Johnny The Homicidal Maniac" a Children's TV Show.
Go watch Dark Harvest. What kind of Kid wouldn't get nightmares from watching that episode? Honestly... just whenever he opens his mouth and you see all the guts inside.
Not to mention the unaired FBI Warning episode, which is as such simply because it was apparently too controversial (Anybody care to shed some light behind why? I think it had something to do with Sept11...).
This is a Viacom move, I'm guessing... and thusly political. Nickelodeon is Viacom's Kids Network, and being that Zim, much like Undergrads, The Oblongs, The Simpsons (so far the only one out of that list that was actually promoted _right_) and a pantheon of other cartoons aren't geared towards kids, were promoted as kids' shows, of course it's going to get pulled...
The problem is the only more recent controversial cartoon that actually managed to survive through all of it got worn out in the first year (*coughSouthParkcough*) and after that it wasn't really funny anymore...
So it's not a kids show. I honestly think Viacom should look around at its other channels (MTV?) for support of Zim.
And while they're at it, they should push someone in Canada to pick it up. I hate having to watch all the episodes on my computer.
Karma: Non-Heinous
That was a great post. I appreciate hearing your awesome insights and am certain that you have a wonderful chance of getting laid in the near future.
In a perfect world, Zim would be picked up and added to Cartoon Network, who would then play an Adult Swim block every night.
In an even more perfect world they would also pick up and renew The Critic, then steal Family Guy and Futurama from Fox and give them slots where they have a chance at getting eyeballs and ratings.
In a perfect world...
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so the Cartoon Network can keep buying them and playing them during the stoner^H^H^Hdaytime hours.
Goat sex free since 2001
How is ZIM any worse than, say, MAD Magazine?
Having ZIM around would have made my school years far more endurable. "My GOD! It's not just me! Somebody else out there also sees that nearly all the people populating this school are dangerous, immature, socially retarded, materialist, petty morons! Whew! I was beginning to think there really WAS something wrong with me like everybody keeps saying!"
I guess the only thing that bothers me about ZIM is that it utterly condemns humanity; while ZIM does actively attempt to expose the everyday bullshit we must live with in this world, watching would lead one to think that there isn't anything good or worthwhile out there at all, which is completely false.
Rather than cancel ZIM, I'd prefer to see it stay on while infusing Nick's programming with shows which carry underlying messages which promote honor and noble living. I seem to recall things like, "G-Force" having a positive effect on me as a kid. I'd suggest the promotion of stuff like "Sailor Moon" if it wasn't for the weird sexuality of it, and the whole bit about girls being tough and capable, but only so long as the strong male lead can rescue them on a regular basis. What shit.
And "Pokemon" is basically just, "Cock-Fighting for Kids."
Now THAT'S creepy.
-Fantastic Lad
First of all I have seen a small number of Zim episodes and was not impressed. While it does have it's moments (I enjoy GIR), most of the material in it was loud-obnoxious-gross-out stuff, kinda like Ren and Stimpy in their bad episodes. I just don't know how people call this inspired. Again, I could be missing something. Please enlighten me.
Secondly, all the posts about Zim being the best cartoon in years must not realize that Adult Swim exits and in particular the hour from 11-12p.m EST that they show "Williams Street" productions.
I highly recommend checkin it out Sunday and Thursday nights on the Cartoon Network. That's not to mention that they play Cowboy Bepop for you anime fans.
just my opinion, ignore it or mod it down at will
impto
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I personally think since the "MTV-ising" of Nickelodean started they sorta went downhill (then again, I AM an adult -- perhaps I should stop watching cartoons as well?) The only cartoon I truely care about nowadays is Dexter's Laboratory, because even though I've seen some episodes a number of times they continue to surprise me. Plus, a great majority of episodes were funny. If either it or SpongeBob were to leave the airwaves permenantly I would probably be a little upset.
I throw Invader Zim into the same pool I throw Rocko's Modern Life, Ren & Stimpy, Sheep in the Big City and the Grim and Evil show in -- supposedly "adult" cartoons that just come off like college students' art projects.
CmdrTaco, have you ever notice how often shows are taken off the air when *you* like them? Once a month we are treated on Slashdot with "Gee, I liked this show and now they are taking it off the air!!!". I don't think the shows are the problem, its you. Do us all a favor and stop watching television! That way these cool shows will stay on the air. You are a TV Show Jinx.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
> How is ZIM any worse than, say, MAD Magazine?
I haven't seen ZIM, but Mad, in its original form, was a Harvey Kurtzman showcase. The content back then was largely too complex for kids.
The Kurtzman/Elder/Krigstein parody of George McManus' Bringing Up Father in Mad #17 is a good example -- it's a dark take on McManus' use of domesic violence as comedy.
Kurtzman was pushed out of Mad after a couple of years, and his later magazine Help! was also Not For Kids; R. Crumb's Fritz the Cat pseudo-rape comic was published there, some of the first non-greeting-card stuff Crumb published. (Terry Gilliam also worked for Help.)
And EC in general was really an adult comics line back then (Tales from the Crypt, etc.); the Comics Code Authority killed off all EC comics but Mad (which was billed as a magazine, and thus not for kids, because only kids read comics, right?), and Mad was steadily dumbed-down over the years to increase sales to kids. But back before the CCA dark times, EC almost a low-brow Fantagraphics, a tiny niche for grown-ups' comics.
[sigh...]
> The whole point of subversiveness is to open
> eyes.
Yeah, but it still needs to be aimed at kids to be really subversive. Otherwise it will just be disturbing; they won't understand what's being subverted. Crumb's How Snoids are Born (Snoid Comics, Kitchen Sink Press) is a glorious treatise on how dysfunction is passed down through generations, but I sure wouldn't give that comic to a kid (in the comic, the Snoid masturbates to thoughts of dismembered women; the droplets of jizz turn into little Snoids; the Snoid then shoos the offspring out the door with a broom, saying "Scoot! 'An don't let me see yer ugly faces around this neighborhood!"). A kid wouldn't get that comic; hell, I'm expecting some AC flames from folks who don't get it. The target audience matters.
"Whatever happened to fair use?"
-- Duff-Man