Pinky and the Brain vs. Anime
by Anthony on Aug.25, 2009, under Uncategorized
Not something that’s really sticking with the theme here, but I thought this was thought-provoking.
I’ve been thinking about the old cartoon tv show called “Pinky and the Brain” lately quite a bit. That may have something to do with the fact that I watch it quite often, not sure. Anyway, I was comparing it in my mind to other shows and I think I realized something very interesting. Pinky and the Brain seem to be like the first anime in America. Here’s my thoughts on this very important matter.
° Anime (the more adult focused parts of it) tends to be making jokes or ranting against something in the current day society. Pinky and the Brain had much of their humor making a parody out of something that we do/did/had/or followed. Quite interesting and usually politically bent.
° Anime’s characters are usually outlandish and completely unbelievable. What’s more outlandish than two genetically altered lab mice bent on taking over the world? Only quite possibly a little boy who got a demon locked inside him taking over the entire city (Naruto reference). Either way, both shows have this going for them as well.
° Although both anime (in general, now it’s getting less this way) and Pinky and the Brain have the humor and references that only an adult could get, it’s still fun to watch for those who don’t get all the jokes. Pinky’s stupidity and the Brain’s ideas still get a laugh out of everyone even if they don’t get the Bob Dole jokes that he sprinkles in there liberally.
° And finally… they don’t appeal at all whatsoever to anyone that doesn’t particularly love them. If you’re an anime fan, then you clearly love anime and want to watch it and the same goes with Pinky and the Brain. However, there’s no halfway point there, you either love it or you don’t want to watch it ever again.
So anyway… I just wanted to put that all out there, something I felt was really interesting. I honestly do believe from the points above that Pinky and the Brain was probably the first American attempt at anime.
So how’s that for thought provoking!?
