Teen Titans: A Review

 

I really, really wish children television networks would stop trying to create shows for children.

As counter intuitive as it sounds, the way that networks approach the creation of television shows that are designed for kids is becoming ineffective. I get it—as a writer, it’s important to know who it is you want to take part in your creation because it gears the entire project in a specific direction. Someone who wants to write for teenage boys probably wouldn’t jump on the teen romance bandwagon, and another person interested in the young girl readership wouldn’t have much luck writing about giant robots that smash each other to pieces all the time. Everything that is thrown at the wall and considered for production on networks like Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network needs a specific age bracket tacked onto it in order for the writers, animators, and producers to know how to set up and develop each episode. Having specific people in mind when creating a show helps to keep it focused.

My problem, however, is that this line of thinking can only take you so far, and television networks have become far too reliant on the status quo of “girls like Barbies and pink and cute things” and “boys like cars and fighting and heroes” that they limit themselves in terms of what they will and won’t allow on a show based on what focus groups and marketing tell them interests a particular type of people. After all, it’s a business, and networks create shows to make money. When they can no longer do that, they will drop the show from their lineup, often leaving behind angry fans.

 

In the case of Teen Titans, a show based on five teenage superheroes who live in a T-shaped tower and fight crime as one team, the original target audience was the six-to-twelve age bracket, a section of the population that, at the time, Cartoon Network thought was being largely ignored because of the popularity of shows like Samurai Jack and Justice League which were geared more towards pre-teen and teenage boys. According to Executive Producer Sam Register, the goal with Teen Titans was to create “a good superhero show for kids,” and this idea is prevalent in every episode of the show. What sets it apart from many other shows at the time is that it ended up reaching a larger audience than what the network intended. That younger group of kids remained, but as the show progressed and gained attention, the general audience expanded into a much larger fan base—and one of its primary elements were teenage girls.



For many television shows, having girls—teenage or otherwise—making up a large portion of your audience is a death wish. The primary mode in which networks make their money is through marketing, and everyone knows just how much stations love to mass-produce toys. According to marketing advisors and higher-ups in the networks, "girls don’t buy toys; they buy clothes and dolls and cute things." It's the status quo. So if you have a show that is grabbing a female audience and wasn't intended for that demographic, there is no longer a strong enough market for your precious action figures according to researchers. They cancel the show and move onto another idea, often leaving excellent stories, characters, and animation in the dust. This happened with a variety of Cartoon Network creations, most notably Young Justice which had everything going for it and was canned after just two seasons because there were too many girls making up the fan base.

That’s why I think the fact that Teen Titans managed to survive as long as it did is a great feat. People consider it to be one of those cartoons that were canceled too soon. It couldn’t ever reach its full potential, explore the characters further, or establish more complex story lines. But if you look at the track record for other canceled-too-early shows, Teen Titans managed to stay on the air far longer than it should have, completing five seasons and three years of television airing. It isn’t as long as things such as Spongebob Squarepants, now in its ninth season after fifteen years, but it’s a heck of a lot better than having two measly seasons and ending on a cliffhanger. Considering where it came from and where it went, I’d say that Teen Titans had enough of a run to give it substance and was canceled at a good time. Sixty-five episodes are plenty for people to chew through, and it isn’t so much that story lines and characters begin to get lost and quality starts to go down the tubes. And when a show such as Titans attracts the dreaded “female fan” and still manages to stay afloat for several seasons, I’d call that a victory.

The show itself is based off of the comic of the same name (specifically the New Teen Titans stories of the 80’s) while taking some liberties with the characters that appear and the type of personalities that they possess. Robin (Scott Menville) is situated as the leader with Cyborg (Khary Peyton), Raven (Tara Strong), Beast Boy (Greg Cipes), and Starfire (Hynden Walch) making up the rest of the team. They are in charge of protecting a city dubbed “Jump City,” warding off villains that try to take it over while also dealing with their own personal conflicts with themselves and each other. Keeping the target audience of six-to-twelve in mind, simplicity became the goal. None of the characters appear without their uniforms and secret identities are never mentioned. Initially, I thought this was a lazy approach to animation, like the creative team didn’t want to worry about designing another version of the characters or writing the other sides of their lives into the plots of episodes. However, according to creator Glen Murakami:

“It was really important to me that little kids watching it could identify with characters. And I thought that the minute you start giving them secret identities then kids couldn’t project themselves onto the characters anymore. And that was important to me. I know it’s kind of important to have secret identities and stuff like that but we wanted everything to be really, really, iconic."

So if simplicity was the goal, how did Teen Titans manage to rope in a larger—and older—audience?

There are several reasons. As I mentioned before, limiting what a show can and can’t include because of the intended age range can have a crippling effect on quality. But Teen Titans managed to get something right that many other young-kid-shows don’t very often: they gave children some credit. That may seem dumb, but it literally means everything for a kids’ cartoon. Shows that go for the teeny-boppers often trade good characters for stupid gags, toilet humor, and ridiculous plotlines that would only work for someone who wasn’t old enough to comprehend its insanity. Teen Titans succeeded in having a team of writers who not only knew how to capture fantastic characters but also how to get them to interact in a way that was appealing to both little kids and older viewers.

Every single one of the main five Titans is their own individual. Sure, the stereotypes of characters are there, but rather than making that the only aspect of who they are, the writers give everyone another layer (or five) of depth that makes them more than just “the leader” or “the womanizer” or “the emo one.” They downplayed Starfire’s sex appeal (thank goodness) in favor of someone who is sweet and innocent but far from stupid or ditsy, Beast Boy is a charming lady’s man who likes to crack jokes but also cares for his friends and wants to be an important member of the team, Cyborg is the tech-head with big muscles who struggles with his identity as a person beyond his robot half, Raven keeps her emotions in check and enjoys the darker sides of things while remaining a book-lover and dealer of some great snide remarks, and Robin is the ever-confident leader who lets his sense of duty sometimes get in the way of his relationships with others.

Whoo. That was a long sentence.

I could go on about the superb qualities of these characters, how each have their strengths and weaknesses, and no one ever hits a point where I want to punch them in the face, but I won’t. I’ll just say that the dialogue displayed in this show that highlights the relationships between everyone is almost flawless. They are not portrayed as whiny teenagers; their drama is significant and complicated. The voice work is excellent, although I would have liked to see someone a little younger play Robin.

And now a big sticking point: the animation. Some people love it, some hate it. Teen Titans has long been considered anime by the masses, and even Sam Register referred to it as such. The problem with that label is that it is applied to anything America produces that looks remotely like anime, as if Western animation fans are chomping at the bit to see us pull off a great anime without the aid of Japan. Like other shows such as Avatar: The Last Airbender and Young Justice, I feel that the correct term in this case is anime-inspired, which is something different from straight-up “anime.” There are elements of anime present in Teen Titans, most notably their exaggerated faces whenever there is extreme emotion and the large size and shape of several characters’ eyes. But that’s where the similarities stop for me. In fact, I see more of Warner Bros. style in the animation, and even the crazy body movements and faces are reminiscent of cartoons such as Animaniacs and Tiny Toons (both of which were products of Warner Bros.) rather than the influence of anime. Many of the designs of other minor characters and most of the villains are much more Bruce Timm than Miyazaki.

Regardless, the combination certainly produced a unique look for the show, one that I think works well. Every minute is fun to watch, much like Looney Toons or other programs of a similar nature, because the characters are expressive and constantly moving. They defy reality in ways that capture the essence of reality. If that makes any sense. They portray what reality feels like—such as the big-eyed-sweat-drop-open-mouthed-sensation that can’t be physically expressed in such an exaggerated form in real life. I’m also a sucker for the way masked eyes move, and Robin’s animators take full advantage of it. Even with just white spots, he has as much expression on his face as the rest of the cast. All of the character designs are appealing, although at times I feel like the desire expressed by Murakami to make Robin cool backfires with his spikey hair that defies logic in many ways and the cumbersome-looking gloves that take up too much space on his arms to be practical or even comfortable.

The villains themselves are all fun in their own ways, with Slade’s design being the best for me. He’s a re-vamped version of Deathstroke, with one eye that has plenty of expression and eeriness. It’s never revealed why he only has one eye, but it doesn’t matter—there’s enough of his character to go around that such a detail becomes irrelevant.

The one exception is the design of Terra, a key player in season two and one of the most hideous things to come out of Western animation. The poor thing has a perfectly round head with eyes bigger than a Disney princess and two slits for a nose. Her arms and legs are horribly stylized in a way that makes her look like she just walked out of Pepper Ann or Doug: rail-thin and lacking any real joints. It’s an ugly combination.

In general, the animation is solid. Nobody goes off-model or unintentionally levitates across the ground when walking and every character expresses his or her own unique body language. The fight scenes are fantastic, but that is more or less a staple of comic-book related television shows, since it seems to be the only part most networks are concerned about getting right in the first place. I give them props for trying out different maneuvers with the fighting so that each character is able to shine without taking over or making fights feel repetitive.

The story lines themselves are not always complicated, but they are always creative. Episodes like “Mad Mod,” “Fractured,” and “Episode 257–494”allow for an endless amount of creativity on the part of the animators and writers and they take full advantage of it. They are wild, weird, funny, and an absolute riot to watch for all of the insanity and colorful nonsense that is thrust on screen.

On the flip side of the coin, and perhaps the biggest reason that this show draws in the older crowd, would be the sprinkling of darker and more mature themes throughout the series. I love it when a show is deceptively simple, and Titans has that element in spades. There are some episodes with genuinely frightening imagery, whether it’s a horror movie monster or a gigantic ruler of darkness. But the best moments come when the dark tone is directed at one of the heroes and centers on either a personal demon or something physical that they must overcome. The episode “Haunted” comes to mind, in which Robin convinces himself that Slade has returned yet no one else on the team can see him. His psychological torment in that episode reached heights that I didn’t think they would ever go on something that clung so hard to their age demographic. Raven’s battle with her destiny hits dark spots, and the world that they present in the wake of its fulfillment is bleak indeed. Yet despite that, they are able to balance the comical with the serious, and nothing ever feels needlessly dark or too much to handle.

All of these elements together make for an excellent show, but I wouldn’t be doing it justice if I didn’t talk about the things that fall flat. First and foremost, the gimmick of “Titans—GO!” which Robin shouts whenever they fight after an initial wise crack. I get that it’s part of the show’s identity, but it feels goofy to me in light of the way they handle everything else. The frequent use of self-referential humor would imply that it’s not meant to be taken seriously, yet the way it’s said doesn’t lend to that conclusion. Beast Boy’s use of the word “Dude” is initially aggravating—I can’t stand pop culture references or lingo in movies and TV—but to its credit, it did begin to grow on me. Either that or I had just been brainwashed to not care anymore. I don’t know. I watched this entire series in the span of a week. Things started running together.

After the episodes dealing with Raven’s destiny and the destruction of the world, the show begins to peter out. The animation loses its solidarity, with Robin’s face moving in strange ways and the overall look of it coming across as sloppy. I didn’t like how the first half of the season cuts down on the appearance of the Titans, with the opening two episodes centering on the far less engaging Doom Patrol. It felt gimmicky to me, like they were trying to impress execs while the threat of cancellation loomed over them. I loathe the three main villains that head the Brotherhood of Doom. The concept of a brain being an evil villain is asinine to me, almost as much as a giant French gorilla being his sidekick. Madame Rogue’s accent and character are ridiculous and annoying. Everything is far too easy for her, and it’s frustrating to watch smart characters get fooled by her unlimited abilities and the fact that they can barely hit her. The series finale was appalling in the sense that it felt like they were starting a brand-new season and then fell off after one episode. It could have ended with the defeat of the Brotherhood and still felt coherent; but instead they thrust another plotline about Terra returning without any of her memories and Beast Boy struggling to accept that she’s not the same person she was before. There was no reason to include this. It leaves too many strings dangling and too many questions. How did Terra free herself from being stone? Why doesn’t she have her memories? Does she have her powers and just not know it? Why is she in school? Who is that giant monster that they were fighting? Did they defeat it? What did Slade want with Beast Boy? Just to mess with his head? It’s too much.

There was also apparently a point of contention amongst fans when it came to the absence of adult heroes. This never bothered me up until the point where all of the Titans are being ambushed and taken captive, including Robin, and no help seems to be in sight. My problem isn’t that the help doesn’t arrive—it’s that the show implied that people like Batman DO exist and therefore would require an appearance when something as serious as the Brotherhood arises and intends to wipe out an entire generation of heroes. For me, it’s too hard to suspend disbelief that the adults are “letting them handle themselves.” There’s too much at stake. If they wanted to leave it up to the young heroes, fine, but don’t go out of the way to let the audience know that Batman and Co. exist in this universe and then leave them out of such a serious story line.

But aside from those things, Teen Titans is one of the better shows produced in the early 2000’s, a time when kid’s programming was lacking the same spark that it had in the 90’s. It has some of the best characterization in a show that I’ve seen (adult fare included) and deserves the cult following that it developed after its cancellation. I can’t say for sure why this wasn’t chopped early on, but I believe it had to do with the fact that the target demographic was still being hit. Their original audience was just as much on the bandwagon as their older siblings, and now that the youngsters have grown up, they make up a large portion of the fan base even as high school and college-aged adults.

And of course, that group of people can translate into fans of the comic…if DC can figure out how to market it.