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CartoonMania: The Movie: The Beginning of the End

@marzacz, @toomania, @t00nl00zer

I think it's safe to say that one of the best ways you can end a series off (especially an animated one) is with a movie.

Whether it'd be an simple hour long special or actually having the same runtime of an actual feature-length film, it's always fascinating to see what a series can do with an outing that.....

1#) Has a much longer runtime than the average episode.

2#) Serves as a satisfying conclusion for the series.

And most of them tend to stick the landing.

Leroy & Stitch, Recess: Taking the Fifth Grade, The Proud Family Movie, Aladdin and the King of Thieves, Ed, Edd n' Eddy's Big Picture Show, Plus Est Vous, The Venture Bros: Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart, Predacons Rising, Teen Titans: Trouble on Tokyo (though everyone loves to act like it doesn't exist), Turtles Forever, Hey Arnold!: The Jungle Movie....

Fucking SOZIN'S COMET man!

However, there are two finale movies I can think of that unfortunately fumbled the bag in that department.

Phantom Planet and the topic of today....

CartoonMania: The Movie.

But before we go into it, first we need to talk about the series it originated from.

CartoonMania was an animated web-series that ran on YouTube from 2017 to 2019.

The series was created by one Matthew Littlemore (better know by his YouTube name: Animator320).

CartoonMania focused on the life of his not even hiding it self insert of the same name, imagined here as a young man living in a 100-story house with 320 of his own cartoon characters.

Matthew started working on the series back in 2016 with OpenOffice (a PowerPoint knock-off) and completed a good chunk of episodes in that year.

However, they wouldn't be released to the public until August 8th, 2017, when the very first episode, "Slapstick", was uploaded to the Animator320 channel.

Over the next two years, the series ran for a total of 32 episodes, with three seasons overall.

But while he was working on the series, Matthew was also working on a much more ambitious project.

That being a feature-length film based on CartoonMania.

And that film would officially release on September 20th, 2019, serving as the finale for CartoonMania.

Which is kinda ironic since it was gonna mark the beginning of something new.

But in a cruel twist of irony, it would end up being the finale to CartoonMania as a whole.

In general, this film essentially reflects both rise and eventual downfall of CartoonMania.

Along with being the perfect example of a lot of the series' biggest flaws.

The Story:

The film sees Matthew finally accomplishing his dream of getting a job at an animation studio.

However, his boss goes by a three strike basis and Matthew had already gotten two strikes due to him losing his temper (as usual).

And if he loses it again, that's strike there and he's out of the job.

So now, Matthew has to control his anger in order to keep the job he's always wanted.

But while that's going on, the toons find themselves in danger thanks to a mysterious figure that keeps trying to bump them off.

So now it's up to Matthew and the gang to find out who this mysterious figure is and put a stop to their plans.

And along with that, Matthew's gotta prove whether or not he truly cares for his toons.

On paper, while the story is fairly simple, it sounds like it could work really well for a movie based around CartoonMania.

However, it completely falls flat due to the most important aspect of any movie.

The characters.

Matthew:

After haven watched through the entirety of CartoonMania, Matthew himself is a particularly interesting character.

Because he's kind of the perfect balance between being uninteresting and kind of insufferable.

And I wanna ask everyone who has watched CartoonMania....

What do we really know about Matthew?

Honestly, not really much.

He's essentially the series' resident straight man.

And those kind of characters have been done well before like Bob Belcher or Hank Hill.

But the reason why they worked so well was because they had defining traits outside of being the straight man.

Matthew really doesn't have any outside of having a bad temper.

And that temper really makes him kinda insufferable.

I swear to God, more than half of his dialogue throughout the series is him screaming or yelling.

If I can remember correctly, I saw a comment saying that Matthew was basically Benson from Regular Show but without the character depth.

And yeah, I agree with that statement.

Also, Benson is actually funny.

Yeah going off topic real quick, but one of CartoonMania's major flaws is its lackluster humor.

You could say its....

Which is not helped by the amateurish voice acting and somewhat stiff animation.

One of the 32 episodes and film, there was only ONE really actual funny moment.

Going back on topic.

There's the whole conflict about him wanting to keep his animation job, as he states it being his lifelong dream

The film was like, the only time this has ever been stated throughout the entire series.

Before then, it was only really hinted at due to the creation of his toons.

If this was actually stated or showcased throughout the series, it would make the central conflict a lot more engaging.

There's also the other conflict about Matthew needing to prove that he actually cares about his toons

And while he has shown that he does truly care about them (both in the movie and in the show), it feels pretty hollow since if you thought Matthew was a personality vacuum, his characters aren't much better....

The Toons:

Everyone has already said it before, and I'm gonna say it here too.....

THIS SHOW DID NOT NEED 320 FUCKING CHARACTERS!

That's just way too many!

And it's not helping that they're suppose to be main and supporting characters.

Even with shows with famously big casts like The Simpsons, their's like, a quarter of this!

And as a result, most of the the characters are really uninteresting.

Not helping is how most of them don't even talk or have names!

(Or at the very least in the case of the latter, ones that are said out loud in the show)

And this essentially comes at the cost of the main toons.

Even though are 320 characters, there are six that serve as the main toons.

They're basically to Matthew like what The Sensational Six are to Disney.

Timmy Tiger, Tanya Tigress, JoJo Violet, Stanley the Half-Man, Half-Camel, Penny Bleat, and Victor Virus.

And this was something that Matthew established fairly early on when starting CartoonMania.

But if you've actually watched the series, you're probably wonder why they were chosen to be the main toons.

And that's because of how they were underutilized in the series.

Stanley is really the only one of the six that actually makes sense to be a main character.

He was one of the most prominent toons, and I think he had the second most amount of lines in the entire series (right behind Matthew of course).

But besides that, he's just fine.

Just the standard strong guy who's light on brains but heavy on heart.

Victor is an interesting one to talk about.

Although he was mostly silent, he did appear quite a lot throughout the series and was regularly refer to by name.

Not only that, he did talk a few times.

And personality-wise, he's by far the most interesting.

Victor is a sweet and kind person, who suffers from an constant adware flu that causes him to sneeze adware mucus all over the place.

As a result of that, he's rather shy and a bit of a social outcast, due to him kinda being a threat to everyone's well-being.

He's also somewhat insecure about his existence.

Since in his sole focus episode (and funnily enough, the last official episode of the series) "Whatever Happened to Victor Virus?", he finds out that his creation was a mistake on Matthew's part.

I do wish more as done with him (outside of a particular element I'll be talking about in a bit) because what's here is actually pretty solid.

But outside of those two, everyone else leaves much to be desired.

JoJo did appear quite regularly throughout the series and was referred to by name, she NEVER talked at all.

The movie was the very first time she talked.

And from what I've seen, she might the most generic smart person I've seen in any cartoon.

I know those kind of characters are pretty tricky to get down right, but man, they didn't even try.

Penny is in the same boat as JoJo, but she actually did get to talk in the series (albeit in the last episode).

Personality-wise.......

Dear God......

If you know CartoonMania, then you'd know that Penny is universally regarded as the WORST character in the series.

And that's because of her two sole personality traits.

The first is that she's the resident wise-ass.

And while those kind of characters have been done well before, she unfortunately falls flat due to the fact that she's not funny.

But once again, this is CartoonMania, that's to be expected.

And the second......I'm gonna put a pin in that for a little bit because it actually goes into another major problem with the movie.

And lastly, we have Timmy and Tanya.

Out of the main six, Timmy and Tanya are considered to be the most important to Matthew.

Basically, they're his Mickey and Minnie Mouse.

So with that said, you'd think they would get a lot of focus and lines throughout the series, right?

Brother.

Out of everyone, they got the worst treatment.

Just like JoJo, they did not talk at all.

Not helping is how they were never referred to by name.

So if you only watched the series and didn't check out the comics or Matthew's socials, you wouldn't even know what their names were.

And for the cherry on top, they hardly appeared in the show!

Out of the 32 episodes, I think they appeared in less than half of it!

That's not a good look.

And even in the movie where they actually talk and are referred to by name, they still barely appear!

Only having a little less than 10 minutes of screentime.....in a movie that's an hour and 37 minutes long.

As for their personalities, they're the mischievous tricksters who love to pull all sorts of pranks on Matthew.

An aspect that hadn't been showcase in the series until this very movie.

Once again, because they barely had any screentime.

This all even crazier to think about since they're the ones who drive the main climax.

Speaking of which.....

Lucifer Killingsworth and The Climax/Ending:

Yes, that's actually his name.

And I thought Marvin McNasty was the most obvious villain name of all time.

But yeah, Lucifer Killingsworth is kind of a weak villain.

Now on paper, he could work.

He's a classic straightforward villain, and many of the greatest villains of all time were those.

And as for his motivations, while they are simple and seem kinda dumb, they're still pretty solid and kinda funny.

Literally wanting to destroy Matthew's life and kill his characters for exposing him as a cheater back during an art contest.....when they were 13.

Yeah, he's literally doing all these terrible things out of a childish grudge.

And I know that sounds stupid, but remember, one of the greatest villains of the 21st century was also driven by a childish grudge.

So with all that said, why doesn't Lucifer really work?

Well for starters, he's barely in the movie before he's revealed to be evil.

Or more specifically, as himself.

During the middle chunk of the film, there's a masked figure responsible for nearly getting the main toons killed.

When Lucifer returns to the house in his real form, he reveals that it the masked figure all along.

Yep, this film decided to make Lucifer a twist villain.

And not an actual good one.

He's about on par with the infamous twist villain trio from the 2010s Disney films.

As he suffers from the same problem they do: barely appearing before his villainous reveal, and not having any hints to foreshadow his true nature.

This could've easily been fixed by having him actually talk during his scenes as the masked figure.

To foreshadow his eventual reveal.

And during his scene as the inspector, they could've had him show some kind of underlying resentment towards Matthew.

And in the case of Matthew, have him think that Lucifer looks kinda familiar.

But alas, they don't.

Once again, Lucifer had the makings of a fairly solid villain, but his execution was just lacking.

Hell, even Matthew himself has agreed that Lucifer was a pretty weak villain and wished that he did more with the character.

But now, we come to the climax and ending of the film.

Via a message from Lucifer, Matthew finds out that Timmy and Tanya were kidnapped by him (off-screen) and are being held hostage.

And if wants to get them back alive, Matthew will have to bring the $10,000 that he won from the art competition years ago and give to Lucifer.

But thanks to some dropped by Victor earlier, Matthew finds out that he's actually planning to cap his ass immediately after getting the money and turning The Tigers into fur coats.

Matthew finds himself in a predicament, not sure what to do now.

But thanks to his toons, he realizes that he has to save The Tigers.

And thus, we're treated to one of the greatest scenes in cinematic history!

Well after that glorious scene, Matthew and the toons break into Lucifer's lair and start attacking him.

Although Matthew is able to free The Tigers, they quickly find themselves corned by Lucifer and his gun.

And soon enough, he pulls the trigger and Timmy gets shot.

Which would be a legitimately tragic and heartbreaking moment if wasn't for the fact that I (and I'm sure most of you reading this as well) don't give a shit about Timmy.

Remember. He barely appeared in the series nor did he even talk.

And he wasn't any better in the movie.

But anyway, as a result of this, Matthew goes full-on Benson on Lucifer and lets out the mother of all screams.

And the scream ends up being so powerful, that it straight up EVISCERATES Lucifer as if it was a Ki blast in Dragon Ball.

However, it's quickly revealed that Timmy is still alive as he got shot in the arm.

But anyway; the toons all rejoice, Matthew is able to keep his job after telling his boss everything that happened, and they all lived happily ever after.

Except for Lucifer, who, ya know, died.

And I felt absolutely nothing since nearly all these characters are either underutilized or incredibly one note.

Also, you remember that pin that I briefly mentioned earlier?

Well, it's finally time to talk about that!

The Romance:

You wanna know what really happened to Victor Virus?

I think he got molested!

Yeah, it's time to talk about this Titanic of a ship.

The power couple of CartoonMania: Penny x Victor.

And one of the worst pairings I've ever had the displeasure of witnessing.

You remember how I said that Penny had only had two personality traits?

Well the other (and most prominent) is her love for Victor.

Yeah.....

Penny basically has the same problem that Millie from Helluva Boss has, but even worse.

But at least with Millie, they tried to make it look like she has a character outside of just being Moxxie's wife.

Not really well, but at least they tried!

They didn't do so with Penny at all!

The relationship between Penny and Victor was a thing in the series.

But it was more in the background due to them barely even talking.

And when they were shown together, it was simple stuff like surprise kisses, hugs, making googly eyes at each other, and playing around.

Doesn't seem so bad at first.

Honestly, it seems kinda cute.

But with the movie and their much greater prominence, the problems with the pairing start to become obviously.

Apart from the fact that one of the parties doesn't even have an actual character separate from the relationship, the main problem with the ship is just how they're portrayed.

One thing that is important to note is the age of the characters.

Penny is canonically 5, and Victor is 4.

Yeah, pretty young.

And so, the way their relationship is depicted in the film is pretty questionable.

-When Penny walks in to greet Victor, a sexy saxophone solo plays.

-They consider going to the park together a DATE.

-Penny is usually flirting with Victor.

-She actively tickles him, which he enjoys.

-She also looks at him a lot with BEDROOM EYES!

-And they kiss! And not like a quick peck on the lips or on the cheek. They fucking MAKE OUT! They be looking like this!

Them already being in a relationship at such a young age is already really strange, but the way they're depicted in this film makes their relationship pretty awkward and a little uncomfortable to watch.

Also, I love how the movie has to constantly point out how cute and romantic they are.

I always laugh my ass off at this because of it's SO corny!

And if you wanna feel even more uncomfortable, check out the comics.

-The tickling is more prominent, with Victor even doing it back to Penny.

-Penny tends to coddle Victor a lot. In fact, she's pretty possessive of him. Literally THREATENING people whenever they just wanna talk to him.

-She constantly hug, kiss and cuddle him.

-She openly admits that she would die if anything happened to him.

-Penny often calls Victor by terms of endearment like "sweetie" and "honey".

-And she even sometimes refers to Victor as her "BABY".

You see the problem, right?

They're literally doing all this stuff at an age that they really shouldn't be!

If they were adults or even teenagers, it would be fine.

But the fact that they're canonically pre-school aged makes all incredibly uncomfortable.

In fact, many people have said that the way Penny treats Victor is low-key kinda sexual harassment.

And while I'm not entirely sure if that would be the right term (since Victor clearly enjoys what Penny does), I can totally see why people would consider this to be.

And Penny calling Victor her "baby".....

Dude.

I've never seen any couple do that before.

I mean, I've seen plenty that have called each other "baby".

But never one that specifically referred to each other as their "baby".

Also, that's something a parent would say to their CHILD!

Not a lover to their significant other!

Ironically, this kinda gives the relationship some weird predatory vibes.

Even though they're literally around the same age range!

Like, how do you do that?!

But hey, leave it to Matthew Littlemore to make a consensual relationship between two people of similar ages feel creepy and inappropriate.

But anyway, there's also two other ships in this movie: Timmy x Tanya and JoJo x Stanley.

While they might not be bad as Penny x Victor, they're really just....nothing!

I guess Timmy and Tanya feels more satisfying (in a sense) since their bios do state that they both have a secret crush on each other.

And it's explicitly shown in the comics.

However, the aforementioned lack of screen-time and talking is really biting them in the ass!

And JoJo and Stanley.....what can I even say?

They have even less to work with than Timmy and Tanya.

Funnily enough, Matthew himself has even gone on to admit that the romance of this film was rather forced.

And ever since, he's kept the pairings as just friends.

Except for one.

Wanna guess which pairing it is?

Future Plans:

Immediately after the movie, Matthew started working on a REBOOT of CartoonMania!

Though technically it was more of a sequel series, as it was gonna take place after the events of the movie.

But anyway....

This reboot would've seen the characters getting slight redesigns

Not to mention there were plans for Lucifer to return as a ghost, planning to enact his revenge on Matthew and his toons.

It seemed like this reboot was actually going to put more of a focus on the main six toons, given how they were mostly underutilized in the original series.

Plus fleshing them out more.

For example, Penny was gonna be a magician.

Plus fleshing out the main location of the series: Toon Lake City.

Not only that, but Matthew's animations had greatly improved.

Looking at the ones done for the reboot and comparing them to earlier episodes of CartoonMania are practically night and day!

It seemed like Matthew was really going places.

And with CartoonMania: The Movie, you could argue that he and the series were at their absolute peak!

But then 2020 came around and everything just went to shit for the guy.

Downfall:

I'm sure just about all of you reading this are saying.....

But before we get into....that, let's talk about something real quick.

Even before you know what was revealed, Matthew was already a rather polarizing figure.

He was infamous for say a lot of dumb and hypocritical shit on Twitter.

Like how a project should be about quality, not quantity.....

SAYS THE GUY WITH 320 FUCKING CHARACTERS!

Plus he was kind of a jerk, often trashing on the works of other people and actively insulting people, and had a pretty big ego.

But in July 2020, Matthew's polarizing reputation would go down the drain.

During that time, several members of the CartoonMania crew would leak screenshots and other media from Matthew's Discord server.

And these leaks revealed that, in the kindest way I can put......

MATTHEW IS A FUCKING FREAK!

The leaks revealed several messages from him on the server that was basically him being absolutely horny!

Talking about all sorts of freaky things and being horrendously downbad.

Like, I know we have all our urges.

And we have our....ways....of channeling and handling them.

But dude, this was not the right way.

Even Mineta would look at some of these messages and be taken aback by how unhinged they kinda are.

If you wanna see how unhinged these messages were, I suggest checking out the Twitter account: Animator320 Archives.

As the name suggests, it's an archive for the leaks.

They were originally on a Google Doc, but that was eventually deleted.

If you want to check it out, here's the link below.

Looking through that made be feel like Mr. Incredible as he was looking through Project KRONOS.

But anyway, but the thing that really got Matthew near-universal scorn was that he did NSFW work.

Which like, that's not really anything to criticize.

There are plenty of people on this site that do that.

Hell, even people in the industry!

Have you seen the work of Bruce Timm?!

So with that said, why was the NSFW work that Matthew did so bad?

Well the thing is that he did it with his characters.

Okay, I know that still doesn't sound all that bad.

Just kinda odd given how they look.

I don't know how anyone could find these characters attractive.

But here's the thing.

He specifically did NSFW work with the characters who were canonically UNDERAGE!

And guess who were the fucking favorites for that!

Yep!

Matthew made NSFW work featuring Penny, Victor, Timmy and Tanya.

With the former two (obviously) being the most prominent.

He didn't even have the decency to at least age them up!

He still kept the same ages they were in the show.

BTW: If you're curious about how old Timmy and Tanya are, they're both 8.

While it wasn't like, straight up porn, the art he made was definitely not appropriate for these characters.

Some of these art-pieces included...

-Penny posing seductively while wearing a bathrobe.

-Penny wearing a crop-top and short-shorts while shaking her.....tail.

-Penny doing that again, but in a devil costume while Victor (who's wearing an angel costume) looks down, blushing.

-Tanya in various belly dancing-esque attire.

-Victor tickling Penny while in their pajamas, with Penny having her shirt lifted up.

-A diagram on how Penny and Victor two would have SEX!

-Penny doing a literal orgasm face!

Matthew also shared some info that nobody asked for.

Like how in the future, Penny and Victor will eventually get married and have tons of kids.

Even though he makes it clear that toons don't age.

And how when computer viruses turn 16, 17 or 18, they have a sexual drive and stamina far greater than the average human.

There was also a little bit of roleplay/fanfic with his characters, specially Penny and Victor.

One major thing to note is that Matthew had a massive tickle fetish.

Which was already foreshadowed in the series and in the comics, thanks to Penny and Victor.

But here, it's even worse.

As these roleplays have the two straight up tickling each other until they actually fucking CLIMAX!

And just to add salt to the wound, Penny calls Victor "DADDY".

I'm not making this shit up.

Once again, check the link I placed above.

Apart from how disgusted I feel from having to read, may I remind you, two literal PRESCHOOLERS busting it, I genuinely don't know how the fuck anyone can get off on something like tickling.

My knowledge on fetishes is quite limited (because I'd like to keep my sanity), but seriously, how does tickling make anyone bust a nut?

Speaking of fetishes, Matthew also had a really big belly dancing fetish.

Which he exclusively did with Tanya.

And it was a lot more obvious, as in her bio, she's flat-out stated to be a belly dancer.

And of course, there's the infamous 69th Floor animation.

In the series, the 69th Floor was a mysterious floor of the house that was left completely ambiguous when it came to what it was or what it had.

Kinda like the what was in the suitcase in Pulp Fiction.

Matthew was left absolutely shocked by what was on the floor, as Wacky Quacky was the one to made the blueprints for the house.

And whenever people ask about what's on the floor, Matthew always refuses to answer that.

But unfortunately, this animation answered that question.

The animation features Tanya, Penny and JoJo belly dancing in revealing attire.

With gratuitous focus on the.....private areas.

Yes, I was unfortunate enough to see the animation and yes, I deeply regret seeing that.

And when you have a really good memory like I do, it's pretty hard to forget or suppress something like that.

I swear, every time that remember that video, I feel like Tetsuo Shima.

And unfortunately, it doesn't get any better back in real life.

Many of the members of the CartoonMania crew were left incredibly (and understandably) uncomfortable by what Matthew was doing.

Not helping was how he also wasn't treating them all that well.

But the two stand-outs were Uranimus (the voice of Tanya) and Tenor R. (the voice of Timmy and Victor)

They would both reveal that Matthew was starting to implement fetishy shit into the scripts for the CartoonMania reboot.

One particular instance was a planned episode where Tanya was gonna be turned into a superhero, obtaining a new ATTRACTIVE body as well!

As you would expect, they were not comfortable with this.

Tenor was also uncomfortable with the constant love and tickling that Victor got from Penny.

Made even worse by the fact that when this was going on, they were both minors!

With Uranimus being 16, and Tenor being 14.

There was also the fact that Matthew frequently called Tenor his "little bro", which kinda gave him pedophile vibes.

And Uranimus was being forced to say some pretty inappropriate things.

In the end, the entire CartoonMania crew left Matthew, and thanks to the backlash he received due to his recent exposure, Matthew left the Internet and deleted all his social media accounts.

And that's about it.

Matthew does still have his YouTube channel up, but he rarely posts on there.

His latest video was an animated music video featuring his characters singing "We Built This City" by Starship, uploaded on New Year's Eve of 2023.

The animation is essentially part of a planned reboot for CartoonMania titled 320 Freleng Avenue, putting a particular emphasis on the city of Toon Lake City.

Along with featuring redesigns for the CartoonMania characters.

Including Matthew, who now goes by a new name: Sylvester Nelvana.

The video is incredibly impressive, given how well animated it is.

You can tell that Matthew had really improved since the CartoonMania days.

However, it's clear that he hasn't learned from his mistakes.

Take a look at the redesigns for the main characters

Now at first glance, they seem pretty solid.

Even better than the ones before.

But then you notice Tanya.....

And yeah, that speaks for itself.

Also, he's still obsessed Penny x Victor.

Conclusion:

Everytime I look at CartoonMania, I can't help but feel bad for it.

Despite how much we love to rag on it and its creator, it did admittedly have potential.

In competent hands, it could've been a really solid series.

However, the series ended up just being mid.

And even though Matthew is planning on rebooting the series, I think it's safe to say that's not gonna go anywhere.

Given his past controversy, it's gonna be a miracle if he's able to find anyone he can work it.

In that sense, CartoonMania: The Movie ended up being something of a tragedy.

It was met to mark a new beginning for the series, but instead, it ended up being its undoing.

However, one thing that is kinda sweet is that so many people have also realized the wasted potential of CartoonMania have been doing their own takes on the series.

And yes, they are all better than the original.

One of my favorites is with the DeviantArt user, Randomemoji0, whose been doing a series of comics based around and using the designs 320 Freleng Avenue.

However, with some much needed changes.

Like making Tanya a tapper dancer and putting her in something else besides that fucking belly dancing outfit.

And Penny and Victor just being best friends.

If you want to check them out, here's the link to their account below.

But anyway, that's all for now.

Before I go though, I wanna share this exclusive alternate ending to CartoonMania: The Movie.