This is Phantom- This is Phantom- This is Phant- Welcome to the cradle of the world, Africa And here, the cartoons may have heart, but they are bizarre. Seriously, Most of the cartoons I’ve seen here are like nothing I’ve ever seen before in animation. Having this strange, alien-like pace to them, but swimming in their own atmosphere. And even if these cartoons are lousy, Some of them are the first animation to ever come out in Africa. So I hope the creators keep producing and improving. Some of these cartoons are not available on cartoon crazy that is biggest site to watch cartoons.
So let’s check out the And of course if you do like these cartoons, That’s great. It’s just my silly personal opinion, And I’m glad you can enjoy them. Anyway, onto the countdown. So this cartoon is… Wait, what? Wh- Slow down, slow down. What? La Blague cartoons last a whopping… 15-30 seconds. And tend to consist of one badly animated [Adobe] Flash scene of something random happening to two people. And tend to be about as funny as a… modern-day newspaper comic strip. Like… it doesn’t have to be funny. We’ll just see two people do something random, then a Looney Tunes sound effect will happen, and then, we’ll hear some canned laughter.
Take this scene. I think this scene is so simple we don’t actually need a translator. Nothing was said, how was anything lost in translation there? Behold! He pointed at the collapsed woman with a stinky man in the alley, canned laughter, and then BOOM! We’re onto the next joke. I certainly wouldn’t want to see La Blague disappear, because it seems to be the most popular cartoon on AfrikaToon, the most popular African cartoon channel I could find. But quantity certainly feels more important than quality here. I mean, it’s not like it works when I do that. Look, I’m Strider! Howdy, howdy, howdy! Now that feeling you have of being violated and cheated out of 10 seconds of your life.
That’s the feeling I get with La Blague cartoon. It’s got an English dub. Hooray! I mean, the English dub sounds like it was produced by Video Brinquedo’s tone-deaf frumpy sister. Jabu: Okay, let’s go. Jabu: I’m gonna take some pictures of awesome animals. But at least I can… almost understand what they’re saying. As to be expected on a zero budget, The cartoon animation resembles a… lazy 5th grabe Adobe Flash project, That doesn’t so much move but waddles on the screen.
Jabu: What a long tongue! But I do like the animation when it doesn’t attempt to move. I mean, look at those backgrounds. Those trees are… growing out of the house roofs, but At least they’re not making me nauseous. The story is, our hero, Jabu, has a magical talking drum! because I guess a talking monkey would be too close to Dora the Explorer. Come to think of it, I think Jabu’s jungle does a better job. While I like the intentions of this cartoon, it comes off only as a slightly more interesting version of Dora the Explorer.
But despite being Dora-inspired, I do give the English dubbers credit. Because the English dubbers don’t speak in that strange intonation that Dora talks in. Anteater: Time for me to use my superpower. Jabu: I don’t understand. You see, Dora? Even freaking zero-budget Africa can do it! What’s your excuse for teaching children Bizarro English? You may have even heard of this one. And well, I don’t like it. Though you probably wouldn’t remember it, because, I just looked at this cartoon and I barely remember it.
I give it credit, the animation is solid. if… unsettling at times. The problem is the jokes are about as stimulating as a Taiwanese accountant’s textbook notes. The premise is Lego tourists… exist. And the animals make funny faces sometimes. Uh… Rejoice? And like all animations and games with this intense level of stimulation, It averages about 500,000 views per video. It’s another of those zero-dialogue, flashy animations that parents will put on loop for their 4-year-olds. Jungle Beat is thoroughly inoffensive to children, it’s just not going to challenge them. In any way. Africa’s first 3D cartoon based on fairytales. So let’s pick it apart.
Well, to start with, its animated backgrounds are lifeless, That look about as realistic as a cereal box Fruit Loops maze. Secondly, I’m not quite sure if we’re looking at humans or African Chimps! No no no, wait. That one is definitely a chimp (Baboon!)! *something in African…?* But why is a chimp cooking an African lady in a pot? It’s times like this I wish I knew Arabic. Fortunately, I have Google Translate to help us understand this strange, confusing, monkey-man cartoon ???: (Just let Google Translate do its thing) My dirty monkey-head hands conflict with glamorous doozey necklace bonk. Okay, this is even worse than my Mexican translator.
The weird part is, despite being made in Africa, It actually kind of feels racist to itself. The lips are made unusually big, and I’d expect this sort of African behavior in the Censored 11 on Looney Tunes. It’s a good effort for Africa’s shoe-string budget but doesn’t meet the standards of the rest of the world. Hailing from South Africa comes the most creepy, lousy animation I could find in the cradle of the world. Are we looking at claymation, puppets, or microwaved Ken dolls? This is the kind of cartoon that is so painfully drab that you just want to give it a lukewarm cup of tea, your tax forms, and ask it what your total business expenses were last financial year.
Interested obviously takes some influence from Star Trek. “What influence?” you might ask. The BAD kind of influence. The influence of the worst of early Star Trek. Where the viewer could spend 10 minutes watching a door slowly close or watching a ship slowly fly to the edge of the screen. This is followed by plenty of creepy, lifeless puppets, uttering such… riveting dialogue. Such as, “Sirrrr. I like that they’re trying to set up a complicated story, but how are African kids supposed to take an interest in this? I mean, this is a space adventure! You’ve got the infinite unknown reaches of the universe at your fingertips! Would we not get at least… one space battle? Hell, just explore an alien planet.
Do something! Don’t just sit in the ship doing nothing! It’s like the most boring possible route you could take! Who wants to go on space adventures when we could sit in the ship… and talk! I can’t tell if Interster was meant to be a kids’ show or a… elaborate inquest into the limits of human patience. 24 minutes of just sitting, and talking just… ARGH!!! At least throw a pie at the table or something! Hell, bake a pie, don’t just sit there! The faces are creepy and lifeless, the voices are sterile, the colors are brown and washed out and the dialogue is cliché! Interest may have been a genuine effort by South African animation to make a sci-fi series, but it sadly left nothing but an unpleasant, crept out feeling in my gut.
It’s drab, it’s ugly, it’s just… AGH! Africa, you can do better with nothing! I believe in you, Africa! But as I’ve said, clearly all this animation has been done on a minimal budget. And by that, I mean a nothing budget. The few animation departments in Africa seem to be shut down rapidly. Unable to sustain themselves in a difficult environment for animation. But my respects go to the African animators for trying to give kids original African animation to grow from. Because if there’s one thing all these African animations have, it’s the heart. I hope Africa keeps trying and keeps improving.
