Jackie Chan's Revenge

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Originally uploaded by tohoscope.

And how Buffy helped.

There seems to be a trend emerging from the new crop of cartoons. And it seems to me that it's got to do with Jackie Chan and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. How's that? Lemme walk you through it.

JACKIE CHAN ADVENTURES came out a few years ago and dispite being based on an actor like MISTER T and yet not being voice acted by it's namesake it did well. Really well. So well that when WB decided to have a new BAT MAN cartoon in conjunction with the release of BATMAN BEGINS they used the same production team from JACKIE CHAN.

I'm sure the exectutives at WB are all happy that THE BAT MAN is a big hit. Putting it on the schedule as the lead-in to YU-GI-OH helps, but there's something else, right? Recently Disney begain airing AMERICAN DRAGON JAKE LONG and it has similarities to JACKIE CHAN. Asian American tween fights supernatural evil, in a sort of cross between JACKIE CHAN ADVENTURES and BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER. Then WB's Cartoon Network premires THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JUNIPER LEE which features an Asian American tween who also fights supernatural evil except in this case it's a tween girl with a younger brother in a fictional city of Orchid Bay instead of a tween boy with a younger sister in New York. Yeah, I know I'm spliting hairs here. Still the mark of both Buffy and Jackie are there. Add to this Marathon's MARTIN MYSTERY on Nickelodeon (although it debuted on THE FOX BOX) where we find the production crew from TOTALY SPIES doing a sort of cross between Buffy and MEN IN BLACK. All it's missing is the Asian American.

More thoughts as I get my head together...