Monday, July 7, 2008

Classic Cartoon Characters Revamped!


Hey Girls!
Have you heard about how some old cartoon characters are being redesigned for the 21st century? The cartoon character Strawberry Shortcake from the 1980s now looks quite different with tighter clothes, longer hair, bigger eyes, and lipstick. She also appears to be older than her past self, and instead of carrying around a calico cat she sports a cell phone. The pictures above show how incredibly different she looks from her 1980s character!

The Care Bears are going to be changed too. American Greetings is going to be putting out a new line of bears this fall which have less belly fat and longer eyelashes. But aren’t teddy bears supposed to have big bellies? Why are they promoting "thinner" bears?

Probably most of you don’t know the character Angelina Ballerina, but if you check out the pictures on the right you’ll notice what a different look she has now then she did in the 1980s. It seems to me that she has slimmed down a lot!

Even the teenage mutant ninja turtles will be changed by their creators, 4Kids Entertainment, so next year they will have bigger muscles in video games.


Walt Disney Company is even planning on changing Mickey Mouse! According to Robert A. Iger, Disney's chief executive, Mikey "needs to evolve to be relevant to new generations of kids."

Corporate owners of these fictional stars seem to think that their characters will sell more if they have an updated look for children of today, but still remind parents of the characters they grew up with. They think it will appeal to parent’s nostalgia to see the characters from old shows they used to watch and lead them to buy the character's products for their children.

What do you think? Will this marketing plan be a success? Was it a good idea to change these classic characters or should corporations have kept them as they were? Are corporations putting too much emphasis on slimness and looks? Let's here your thoughts on this girls!

2 comments:

Rebecca said...

o my gawd. that is aful. first off, it looks that thery're trying to show that u always need to be up-to-date wth the new trends. and, parents totally like the shows that they kno more than the new ones.

teddy bears are sopposed ti be chubby, cute, huggable, lovable creatures. not skinny peices of fabfric. why r they changing "care bears" bears?? the 'care bears' r sopposed to care about ppl, not being skinny or chubby. this totally shoulod go in "hopw aggravating"

what has happened to sweet strawberry shortcake?? u see things
that r matked down as "hanna montanna clothes" or "thats so raven clothes", 4 older kids. now, the same is gonna happen with 6-year-old shows?? i remember reading strawberry shortcake books. i always stopped thinking about the fashions of a six-yesr-old's life when i saw how cool she was without dressing "cool".

they shouildn't be doing this.

it's aufull!

:( :( :( :( :(

Ginger said...

Very upsetting. I wish things weren't this way. Of course these things might change a bit over the years, but cartoons don't have to become skinnier!!!!!

I wish there was a way to stop this!!! Children are going to see Stawberry Shortcake, and Angelina Ballerina, growing thinner and thinner and think this is the natural way to go. If children are exposed to this early in life, its staying.
We have to do something.