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What do you think is *generally* the optimal number of main protagonists for a cartoon?
Personally, I would say three or four. A good example is the Rugrats; although there were originally five main characters if you include Angelica, Phil and Lil blended together in a lot of episodes, which was probably the intention. Either way, each episode was even-handed with giving all of the kids some focus and input on the situation at hand. After the second movie when Kimi was added, I always felt like the focus on each main character was poorly balanced in some episodes and spread too thin in others.
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I kinda prefer pyramid style, with 1 MAIN, main character, but 4ish main characters, and another 4 secondary characters who frequently star in episodes.
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Large casts are perfectly fine for an ensemble comedy because it's all about telling jokes, so there's not a lot of emphasis on character development or narrative intricacy
You gotta be careful about having "dud characters" that result in bad episodes/segments though.
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>>94536624
>>94537186
>You gotta be careful about having "dud characters" that result in bad episodes/segments though.
That was the big issue with all those Spielberg/WB shows in the early 90s, though. Tiny Toons, Animaniacs, Taz-Mania, they all shat out like 30 characters all at once and maybe 8 of them were funny at best.
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>>94537349
What you don't like the mouse that does big sneeze and the bird who does big scream?
So much potential!
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>>94536624
Five. Besides pic related, GF has five characters in the intro, Avatar has a main "team" of five (sorry Suki), TMNT has the turtles + Splinter, etc.
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You need 4-5 for a show like Teen Titans, Avatar, or Rugrats where aren't many ensemble characters, but you can generally do with 2-3 if there are a lot of supporting cast members.
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>>94537406
You really could narrow down Tiny Toons to Buster, Babs, Plucky, Hampton and Max and it would be a much tighter show.
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>>94537349
Those shows just straight-up dropped characters that appeared in the intro after, like, 2 shorts if they weren't funny. Buddy Boar, Minerva Mink, and Fifi La Fume only starred in 3 shorts at the utmost before getting dropped.
Maybe they should've made sure the characters were actually funny before putting them in the theme song.
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>>94537671
>Buddy Boar,
So what exactly was supposed to be the difference between Buddy Boar and Didgery Dingo on Taz-Mania, anyway? Both were wheelin-dealers always looking for a get rich quick scheme and used Taz as a means to an end. There was no distinction between them, which I guess is why Buddy got dropped and Didgery became the only swindler character.
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>>94536624
I'd go with seven, plus any amount of anthagonists you may add along the way.However, exploration is mandatory for each one of them if you don't want them to fall in the "secondary recurrent character" hell pit.
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>>94537717
Buddy was genuinely nicer to Taz
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