Funny enough, "cutting down on costs" and "not having a voice actor" isn't actually what makes a good cartoon.
this post was submitted on 16 Oct 2023
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Two things:
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Back before audio was really available with film that is pretty much what we had. The character would do something then a card with the dialogue would show up. When "talkies" came along everyone made them for a reason.
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I think the concept would be interesting but would get old. Dialogue is often used to advance and explain plot, the types of stories that could be told would be greatly limited without dialogue.
Imagine Breaking Bad, but mimed
I'm aware of silent movies.
You could have other characters still talking. Maybe something like Lassie where they just know what the Mime is trying to say.
I also just remembered "fools paradise" which just came out is almost like this. The main character suffers from a disease where he is unable to speak for the entire movie.
Roadrunner & Coyote. Tom & Jerry (mostly, there was some weird talking occasionally). Shaun the Sheep. Pink Panther.
Lots of examples of famous main characters who lead shows with little to no dialogue.
There are also characters like Snoopy and Gromit who are silent characters in shows where others speak, but there are long stretches where they do their own thing with no dialogue.
I fail to see how it would cut down on animation costs. It's way easier to make a mouth move these days than to animate the entire body doing pantamime.
But I do see a lack of "silent" cartoons. Tom & Jerry is the only one I think is still going.
There have been plenty of silent (or mostly silent) cartoon characters, even if they weren't actual mines.
Would also be boring as shit to watch.
Two lines of dialog for why you need both of those things:
"A runabout; I'll steal it! NO ONE WILL EVER KNOW!!!"
Roundabout by Yes
Have you seen Wall-E? One of my favorites. So many feels for a little guy who can't talk.
As much as you'd save on not having a voice actor, I'm pretty sure a modern cartoon or anime that doesn't have a protagonist who speaks wouldn't do as well as it did in the past when you had the real old cartoons that came out before sound came with movies and you didn't need a live orchestra.
I can't speak for anyone else, but I'd be get kinds bored after a few episodes of not hearing the protagonist speak at all. Closest I can think of that we've gotten is probably the remake of Dororo that came out somewhere close to a half decade ago. And that's with a protagonist who only really started speaking gradually more as the series progressed.
Technically in Ranking of Kings protagonist doesn't have a voice.
Isn't this Tom and Jerry? Exaggerated expressions, focus on the soundtrack and no dialogues
But we're no more in the 50s, the market is flooded and kids want something extra. Bonus points if it's something that pretends to be educational by doing some number counting during the episode, but actually the franchise has been optimized to sell toys
I'm sensing a Netflix zelda cartoon in the making.
Let's make it twilight princess themed so we don't even have mouths moving.
Made me think about the old silent movies!