Where the hoo-ha did "Toon" come from?
By
80sBaby,
Posted on: 2012-01-09 24:26 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
Ya know this thread made me wonder also, so I did what came to mind first. PM'd a redname. I got a response,
Excerpt: '' In the days of alpha going into beta before release Jack and the Marketing Manager (at that time) were talking and the name ''toon'' to describe a model was brought up. It was referenced from then on in during some of the early posts by Developers and Marketing Personnel. Probably spawned from that. ''
So, there we go. I guess. The more you know?
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Roger Rabbit was never quite a kid's movie. I mean, it was, but it was sufficiently adult that it could never be considered "kid's stuff".|
Originally Posted by 80sBaby
The best part is that he's using Roger Rabbit as his go-to example. A movie almost 30 years old. Since that time cartoons have clearly become more than simply "kid's stuff."
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Originally Posted by Wing_Leader
This strikes me as true only in a superficial way, ignoring decades of cultural history behind both "cartoons" and superhero comics.
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| And yes, video games and comics are indeed considered for children by the vast majority of people who don't play/read them. But I believe they are considered a children's pasttime even by many of the adults who do play/read them just the same. Just because they participate as adults doesn't mean they think of the activity as any less juvenile, or are any less prone to apply juvenile-sounding terminology. |
And why do you assume that I view video games and comics as juvenile just because I refer to them as cartoons? Again, you are ascribing beliefs to me for no reason whatsoever other than your own biases, that I must believe X because I use the word Y. A favorite comedian of mine, Louis CK, uses pretty much every single vulgar word, ever. Literally all of the vulgar words. But he's not a racist, not a homophobe. He uses those words for a very calculated reason, it's just not the reason you might think it is based on what you expect when you hear the words.
"You don't lose levels. You don't have equipment to wear out, repair, or lose, or that anyone can steal from you. About the only thing lighter than debt they could do is have an NPC walk by, point and laugh before you can go to the hospital or base." -Memphis_Bill
We will honor the past, and fight to the last, it will be a good way to die...
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But what if I were to call it a cartoon? Would that diminish it?|
Originally Posted by DarkGob
Again, you are ascribing meaning where none exists. Cartoons are a medium. That's it. You don't see people going around saying "Don't call the Mona Lisa a painting, that diminishes it."
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It's a hand-drawn, two-dimensional representation of a subject, after all. Just like the "cartoons" in comic books.
FUN FACT: That burst of light when you level up is actually the effectiveness escaping from your enhancements all at once.
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Going off topic and letting my fanboi flag fly, but IMO Roger Rabbit is an adult movie with asides for kids, almost the reverse of a typical Disney animated picture, like, say Aladdin. I personally consider it one of the strongest offerings in the film noir genre, in the same class for me even as classics like the Bogart/Bacall version of The Big Sleep. The classic noires depended almost entirely on innuendo, and would seem like kid's stuff today too; the tension and vice are in the subtext.|
Originally Posted by DarkGob
Roger Rabbit was never quite a kid's movie. I mean, it was, but it was sufficiently adult that it could never be considered "kid's stuff".
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WFRR is an extremely dark film--IMO darker than even stuff like Chinatown. It's possible I'm guilty of reading too much into it, but the film suggests to me that evil is everywhere and even the most light-hearted aspects of life are filled with possibilities of danger and betrayal. (That one scene with the animated shoe is pure sadism, for example, and IMO much more disturbing than "realistic" violence portrayed in many horror and action movies.)
I would end by tying this back to the game somehow, but I've got nothing.
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Thank you for taking the time to research and give us the likely answer to the initial question. We now return to our regularly scheduled debate "Is Toon a Derogatory Term."
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Originally Posted by Lulipop
Ya know this thread made me wonder also, so I did what came to mind first. PM'd a redname. I got a response,
Excerpt: '' In the days of alpha going into beta before release Jack and the Marketing Manager (at that time) were talking and the name ''toon'' to describe a model was brought up. It was referenced from then on in during some of the early posts by Developers and Marketing Personnel. Probably spawned from that. '' So, there we go. I guess. The more you know? |
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Originally Posted by Cathulhu
Thank you for taking the time to research and give us the likely answer to the initial question. We now return to our regularly scheduled debate "Is Toon a Derogatory Term."
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Where, EXACTLY in this game do you see photorealistic representations of humans?|
Originally Posted by Doctor Roswell
Also, a "cartoon" is a drawn picture, or a story told using drawn pictures. The characters contained therein are "cartoon characters." Calling Fry from Futurama a "cartoon" is like calling Jack Bauer from 24 a "TV show." In my opinion.
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Hmm?
They're all rendered with a certain "comic book" style. Comic book, comic strip, animated comic = cartoon.
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The thing that's fingernails on a chalkboard to me are people who try to enunciate acronyms.|
Originally Posted by Coyote_Seven
BTW, it's "ROTFL". Stands for "Rolling On The Floor, Laughing". Over the years, the T has slowly been becoming more absent. Yes, people are so lazy that they'll even shorten things that were already shortened!
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Like the first time someone pronounced ISA (Industry Standard Architecture, an old motherboard connection before PCI, AGP, and PCI-E) as "eye-sah", I gave them a look like "Who the hell lobotomized YOU this morning?"
"Wow mom! I was lazy and saved A WHOLE SYLLABLE!"
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Originally Posted by Dr Harmony
Nothing much to add other than I hate the word "toon" too.
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Toon.
<.<
>.>
Toon.
<.<
>.>
Toon.
<.<
>.>
T{NO CARRIER}
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BULL SCHNITZEL!|
Originally Posted by Wing_Leader
Except that to the best of my knowledge, in the entire history of superhero comic books prior to the MMO age, characters were never called toons by readers, fans, writers, artists, or editors.
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Spider Friends?
Superfriends?
Space Ghost (the original).
You know, saturday morning CARTOONS?
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That's okay, I've played with you in CoH. Nothing's changed.|
Originally Posted by Tyger42
Yes. And I've never seen one where I could control the characters in it.
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*BA-DUM-BUM!*
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Where, EXACTLY in this thread do you see me saying anything of the sort? Read the post you quoted again.|
Originally Posted by Hyperstrike
Where, EXACTLY in this game do you see photorealistic representations of humans?
Hmm? They're all rendered with a certain "comic book" style. Comic book, comic strip, animated comic = cartoon. |
Characters in a cartoon = cartoon characters. Characters in a TV show = TV characters. Characters in a comic book = comic book characters. Characters in a video game = video game characters.
FUN FACT: That burst of light when you level up is actually the effectiveness escaping from your enhancements all at once.
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It could be that not all people can type fast enough while playing so shorten words so they can keep up with the team,I know I,m one of them.|
Originally Posted by Doctor Roswell
Ultimately, I think "toon" comes from the same places as "ur" and "ppl":
It grates on my nerves just a little, too. Can you tell? |
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Originally Posted by DarkGob
comics are basically cartoons
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Originally Posted by Wing_Leader
This strikes me as true only in a superficial way, ignoring decades of cultural history behind both "cartoons" and superhero comics.
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Originally Posted by Wing_Leader
Except that to the best of my knowledge, in the entire history of superhero comic books prior to the MMO age, characters were never called toons by readers, fans, writers, artists, or editors.
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Originally Posted by Hyperstrike
BULL SCHNITZEL!
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)Now, it is a different story for the producers, artists and writers at television networks who pay license fees to use those comic book characters as cartoon characters in their television properties. But these are entirely separate entities, and the difference merits some acknowledgement in this completely titillating debate over semantics.
If I may interject some Reason (capital R) into the debate, this oh-so-important debate--before it scrolls into oblivion in a day or two--you gotta know, "toon" isn't going away, and in fact we should all expect its usage to grow. I've never used the term; well, never used it to describe my characters anyway (*elite snicker*, no, I jest, I jest. Maybe.) But I've got two eyes and a brain, so I can see how it's an easy-to-type word, with a kind of slang sound to it. People are gonna use it. No big surprise. This is a big world, with lots of different folks, with lots of different perspectives. And that's just Primal Earth! Har, har. Live alongside them, or lrn 2 enjoy ur headaches.
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Dark-Eyes � Doctor Serpentine � Stonecaster � Skymaiden � The Blue Jaguar
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It was that Jeffrey Kaztenberg really pushing "adult themes" in the animated features at that time. It paid off well here (Compared to when he wanted Pixar to turn Woody from an insecure character to a jerk).|
Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex
Going off topic and letting my fanboi flag fly, but IMO Roger Rabbit is an adult movie with asides for kids, almost the reverse of a typical Disney animated picture, like, say Aladdin.
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I'm still surprised Disney never brought it back under the Disney brand, but rather chose to keep it Touchstone after all these years. Especially since, for a while, it was promoted so heavily with Toon Town at Disneyland.
And not to mention, it features one of the greatest slang words known to man - cack.
As in "Marvin Acme. The rabbit cacked him last night"
"I saw my advantage and took it. That's what heroes do." - Homer Simpson.
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Jeez, I have no idea how you people read the forums at such tiny page lengths. 100 ppp (posts per page!), thanks very much! Can't imagine clicking around that darn much. Haven't even hit page 2 yet, boy howdy.
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Originally Posted by Captain-Electric
At page 5 in the thread
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Originally Posted by Dispari
I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.
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Originally Posted by Doctor Roswell
Where, EXACTLY in this thread do you see me saying anything of the sort? Read the post you quoted again.
Characters in a cartoon = cartoon characters. Characters in a TV show = TV characters. Characters in a comic book = comic book characters. Characters in a video game = video game characters. |
Howabout this for a capper?
Thanks for playing.
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
At the risk of over-quoting myself, let me re-present this, with the important parts bolded and italicized, since apparently just italicizing doesn't make it clear enough. Or maybe certain people are just dead-set on missing my point on purpose.
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Being present within a specific form of media doesn't make a character synonymous with that medium. Captain Kirk is not a television series, he's a television character. Marty McFly is not a movie, he's a movie character. Lara Croft is not a video game, she's a video game character. Atticus Finch is not literature, he's a literary character. Stewie Griffin is not a cartoon, he's a cartoon character.|
Originally Posted by Doctor Roswell
Characters in a cartoon = cartoon characters. Characters in a TV show = TV characters. Characters in a comic book = comic book characters. Characters in a video game = video game characters.
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If you really need the ham-fisted, drill-it-into-your-head approach, fine: the operative word here is character. A character is a character, not the medium in which the character is presented -- no matter how many different types of media the character has appeared in. If you take a photograph of me, I don't become a photograph, I become the subject of a photograph. Being in something doesn't make me that thing. Referencing myself in this post doesn't make me a forum post, it makes me the subject of a forum post. Being in a cartoon wouldn't make me a cartoon. It would make me a cartoon character.
FUN FACT: That burst of light when you level up is actually the effectiveness escaping from your enhancements all at once.
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No, but the characters called "toons" in it were the zany, slapstick kids' cartoon stars...|
Originally Posted by DarkGob
Roger Rabbit was never quite a kid's movie. I mean, it was, but it was sufficiently adult that it could never be considered "kid's stuff".
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| Again, you are ascribing meaning where none exists. Cartoons are a medium. That's it. You don't see people going around saying "Don't call the Mona Lisa a painting, that diminishes it." |
Virtue Server
Avatar art by Daggerpoint
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...except that "toon" to refer to MMO characters existed before COH was even a spark in whacko Jacko's eye. So, it may be an answer, but it's an inaccurate one.|
Originally Posted by Cathulhu
Thank you for taking the time to research and give us the likely answer to the initial question. We now return to our regularly scheduled debate "Is Toon a Derogatory Term."
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Originally Posted by Hyperstrike
Where, EXACTLY in this game do you see photorealistic representations of humans?
Hmm? They're all rendered with a certain "comic book" style. Comic book, comic strip, animated comic = cartoon. |
Let's try this again: Cartoon = the animated film/short/etc. NOT Bugs Bunny. Bugs Bunny is a cartoon CHARACTER, not a cartoon. ( The term "toon" to refer to characters such as Bugs Bunny comes from WFRR, and the characters referenced in that were all the "loony tunes"-esque characters. Hence the association carries over for a lot of people when used to refer to MMO characters ) Raiders of the Lost Arc is a movie. Indian Jones is a movie CHARACTER, not a movie. 24 is a TV show. Jack Bauer is a TV show CHARACTER, not a TV show.
Get it? Or do I need to use smaller words?
NOBODY refers to COH as a "cartoon". Most call it a "game". Why, then, would you use a term ascribed to cartoon characters to refer to the characters from a game? "Char" is just as short and FAR more accurate. By the way, I've never seen anyone use the term "toon" to refer to, say, Lara Croft, either. So it's specifically MMO characters. Are there enough holes in the "Well, it's because video games are animated pictures and animated pictures = cartoons" theory yet? I could go on to point out how that definition makes ALL films "cartoons"....
Virtue Server
Avatar art by Daggerpoint
I say toons.
I say alts.
I say characters.
I say whatever i feel like
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It's an antiquated meaning that's no longer relevant, so yes I quite happy dismiss it.|
Originally Posted by Tyger42
You're the problem here. You're dismissing common perception. Nobody perceives "painting" as meaning anything less than what the Mona Lisa is. Most people in the US, however, have a rather immature perception of what a "cartoon" is. But, again, no one's calling video game character's "cartoons", so saying it's just a shortening of that is nonsense. No one has EVER used the "long version". As I said before, they're not calling them "short for Cartoon". They're specifically calling them "toons". Which is a term that previously applied to a very specific type of cartoon character. It's not that we're ascribing meaning that doesn't exist. It's that you are refusing to accept meaning that DOES exist.
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Originally Posted by EU_Damz
I say toons.
I say alts. I say characters. I say whatever i feel like |
"You don't lose levels. You don't have equipment to wear out, repair, or lose, or that anyone can steal from you. About the only thing lighter than debt they could do is have an NPC walk by, point and laugh before you can go to the hospital or base." -Memphis_Bill
We will honor the past, and fight to the last, it will be a good way to die...
In our SG, usually we use the term "chara", which is, of course, a shortened version of the word "character".
10joy
I am not sure if this its true, but I have heard that the word "toon" (in reference to an RPG avatar and its associated stats) originated with a little-remembered game called The Realm, originallyreleased in 1996.
A possible point of confusion is that when graphical MMOs originated, it wasn't always clear whether the word "toon" included only the graphical parts, or both the graphics and the stats (ie the class, build, equipment, etc). Compare the words sprite and model which clearly seperate the animated parts of the character from its--for lack of a better term--"data entity."
[Unnecessary personal/technical sidenote: I am known to confuse the issue further in my own amateur programming. In my naming of classes, the term "Toon" is strictly the "Viewable" entity, composed of any sprites, effects, sounds, etc, and the "Character" or "Creature" is the stats, usually containing reference values for art assets used by the Toon, but not actually responsible for rendering them.]
The word toon itself is listed in the Online Etymology Dictionary as being attested by 1985 or so. The word may indeed have originated with the Roger Rabbit book as stated above.