What the HELL is “So Retro”???

#shorts #retro #animation #cartoon #retrogaming
Just what is this new “So Retro” meme going around in the animation community right now???

[@wakiloon]

The Simpsons didnt even create the couch gag lmao. Its fanmade but the show-runners loved it so much that they used it

[@WinslowCD]

The couch gag was also made by the same guy who did the pixel art in Gravity Falls

[@ewetwentythree]

​@@WinslowCD wooowwwww

[@dabatman5187]

I thought that was the case

[@TeeArCreep]

Hopefully they had permission/gave credit. Riiiiiight?

[@DuskusCB]

Paul Robertson, dude’s a freaking pixel art god

[@hankenthusiast6187]

In defense of Gumball, that bit wasn't meant to full on be like it was in a game, Gumball was just excited to see Ochos Uncle, who he thought was Mario, that he imitated Mario in real life

[@TheEmoCat]

there was also a pixel art fight between gumball and darwin that looked amazing

[@carl6982]

Exactly dude xdd, theres tons other instances gumball did amazing retro 8bit type vibes, theres a whole episode being an rpg type game i dunno what mark was talkin bout dx..

[@fanOfMinecraft-UAs_channel]

​@@carl6982 When they travelled into that game and defeated THE AWESOME STORE art really looked good

[@ironmaster6496]

Yeah honestly Gumball always nails it's videogame parodies, like when he tries to imitate the 8bit spider cheat codes and ends up glitching in the middle of the GTA SA tank cheat XD You really have to at least know the game to get that one

[@YourLocalCommenter0]

​@@TheEmoCat True that Street Fighter style battle Gumball and Darwin did is a video game reference done right.

[@RenegadeHatter]

Fun Fact: The Gravity Falls and Simpsons examples looks so good because they were in fact done by the same artist: Paul Robertson. He was also the head artist on the Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World videogame; you can tell he puts a lot of pride in his work.

[@montogomery478]

Noice

[@Plushimator]

Why do I get the feeling he did Amphibia too

[@carcinoVantas]

god i love the scott pilgrim sprites theyre so tasty

[@zachgamemaster3329]

So that's why Not Ryu looked so familiar

[@superkiller4436]

Also because you can easily recognize his art style so ye.

[@shadyomar8931]

that gumball episode was mad funny, but if we’re talkin good pixel art from that show, the street fighter parody they did looked really good

[@DToTheB]

Yeah people forget that gumball being shaped like an 8 bit character wasn't meant to be actual pixel art, it was meant to be part of the joke

[@LambdaMiscellaneous]

That street fighter parody also was *HAND DRAWN.* Not just a pixel filter, the artists actually just made pixelart.

[@rogeras5966]

Yeah, I was looking for this comment

[@ZorrotheArtist]

@@LambdaMiscellaneous I think that’s still one of my favorite episodes of the show. But to be fair, it’s hard choosing a favorite episode when literally the entire show is fucking awesome.

[@SuperMandibleclaw]

i will not have simpsons game slander

[@DougBurgum4VP]

I unironically liked the Simpsons game

[@megasussythefirst]

That was a mastapeice

[@karenaugustyniak4925]

That game was my childhood

[@TheRedMeerkat1]

I remember convinceing my parents to buy it for me because "it's the Simpsons they're appropriate" I played through most of it until when will Wright showed up and just kept yelling "I'm Will Wright, Bitch" I think that was the first time I ever actually heard someone say the word Bitch and I remember being so shocked and scared that my mum would find out

[@Nintendo_Homebrew]

I played that game on my Wii and now I am going to complete it, I already complete the Nintendo DS version

[@Toaster003]

First thing that jumped to my mind was literally any FNaF minigame

[@onedude1389]

Lol

[@onedude1389]

The man behind the slaughter

[@Disbanded9998]

It looks like Atari stuff

[@Disbanded9998]

The FNAF story pixel art things look like Atari things with too much color

[@toxicstarbot6701]

​@@Disbanded9998 which is very fitting lol

[@patrickd.397]

Thank god there’s finally a term for it now, this aesthetic has been bugging me for years

[@toaster4975]

It's not new. Mark is just too young to have experienced people saying it in the mid-90s through the 2000s.

[@nxdiaz5916]

@@toaster4975who the hell in the 90s was calling the NES aesthetic “retro”? By that metric, the Xbox 360s graphics are also retro

[@Terminal_Apotos]

Fr

[@ReeksofChees3]

@@nxdiaz5916 yeeeeaaahhh…. About thaaaaat…

[@multiversally]

Glitch Techs has this as their entire aesthetic but pulls it off really well, I can't recommend the show enough

[@widerekxxanimations6842]

I remember watching the show during vacation, it was good

[@Fuges]

I watched the first episode and it wasn’t really my thing, a lot of the gamerspeak in the show was annoying

[@juliannocartagena2007]

I haven’t watched it in a really long while… And I don’t know when Season 3’s coming….

[@xofi.]

​@@juliannocartagena2007 SEASON 3'S COMING?

[@acmeanvil3022]

Yes, I was just about to say this!

[@inthestorm2002]

For both the street fighter episode and the one where Soos tries to practice dating through a video game dating sim I found the pixe art spot on! I guess we all will also debate what dictates what is retro

[@onedude1389]

The date-simulator it's a reference to DDLC

[@geeblercobbler]

​​@@onedude1389 Didn't it come out before DDLC?

[@slabman6262]

@@geeblercobbler yeah it did

[@onedude1389]

@@geeblercobbler Let me see

[@onedude1389]

@@geeblercobbler Oh yeah,DDLC actually came after the emission of Gravity Falls

[@niblet8308]

Gotta shout out Paul Robertson who's responsible for most of the actually good uses of pixel art in tv shows

[@Toastworldstudios64]

He's the goat

[@Eraser_Tracer]

Didn’t Gumball do the Battle thing as well in that one episode?

[@mystiikl8442]

yes they did, the episode was called the words

[@bomberbosses4707]

I think that one was pretty well done

[@Eraser_Tracer]

@@bomberbosses4707 Same

[@MutilateTheMeows]

"BIG HEAD! BIG HEAD! BIG HEAD!"

[@cristoffer9024]

What about the episode darwin gets a phone and they team up to fight… thingy guy

[@robbie3612]

One of my favourite examples of this phenomenon is in the South Park episode where the Roman Catholic church gets publically condemned for..........you know....and Maxie has to make his way through the underground dungeons of the Vatican to retrieve an ancient scroll, and it's shown in the exact art style of Pitfall! on Atari 2600. This example is quite unique as they show a relatively overlooked retro game rather than something super obvious like Mario or Street Fighter, and keep in mind this was in 2002, a while before the retro video game craze truly took off.

[@mushroomdude123]

I don’t think there’s anything that nailed the retro vibe better than Shovel Knight. Every detail was made with the NES in mind. All the music was made in Famitracker (which emulates the actual soundchip the console used) and the pixal art and color choices stay in line (mostly) with what the NES could actually output. Plus it takes heavy influence from Megaman, Castlevania, and Ducktales while still feeling very original. The only compromise is that the game is in widescreen, but other than that, it’s a near console acurate NES game made with modern software.

[@windowsxpnt2347]

I mean if you did some clever designing with the assets for your nes game, you could have it designed around an anamorphic widescreen image (basically a 4:3 output intended to be stretched to 16:9)

[@carl6982]

This "so retro" feel would be more like when family guy did their jackass parodies, and they somehow managed to take all the soul out of the skits xdx...

[@carl6982]

and it's animation, it's supposed to be the other way around xd..

[@doonishsan]

Gumball did do the retro good once, with their FF episode.

[@thehydrationman5500]

Same goes for the episode where they imitate street fighter

[@SirenVA]

I’m resisting so many urges right now

[@SMFH999]

🤨

[@bbBlu3]

gumballs was purpposly like that for the bit but in another episode you can see gumball and darwin fighting in the pixel art style and it looks great!

[@matthewmangan6251]

first, pixels don't have outlines, second, if they're aiming more for the 16-bit style, do not have too large spaces of one colour third-make sure the entire thing is pixels

[@shart_squelcher]

IM TOTALLY RETROING OUT

[@smartistepicness]

that moment was very #retro.

[@larrylaffer3246]

I suppose it's a little off subject here but my favorite kind of retro throwback is the Sonic Mania or Postal Brain Damaged kind. That being using modern tech to make a old school feeling game but without the limitations they had back then. Like it's cool to do something with limitations in mind to give it a period accurate feel, but sometimes it's also nice to be really able to make a game that developers back then couldn't of even dreamed of making then.

[@mohawk1010]

i remver hearing somwhere that for a mania they specifically went for a style thats better then the gensis but less then the Saturn

[@Elec.Balloon]

Shovel Knight is also pretty good about this as well

[@larrylaffer3246]

@@mohawk1010 Something that wouldn't have been too out of place on the SEGA CD basically; A Sonic 3 and Knuckles CD if you will. One that would've combined Sonic 3 and Knuckles perfection of the overall core Sonic gameplay but taken advantage of the additional horsepower of the SEGA CD and it's CD quality audio. "Sonic Mania's Special Stages however harken back to the Saturn. They're a throwback to Sonic 3D Blast's Saturn Port and it's Special Stages. Which were a bit of a remake of sorts of the ones in Sonic 2."

[@majamystic256]

I still have to play both of those games sometimes

[@larrylaffer3246]

@@majamystic256 Mania is definitely worth it. Postal Brain Damaged is probably too, as I've heard nothing but good things about it.

[@kioombathekirbygoomba5346]

That one part from Atlantis SquarePantis was always my favorite part of that episode ❤

[@SammySesame]

Yeah, it's one of my favorite post-movie specials of all time.

[@CaptainCat101]

People love nostalgia. It sells like hot cakes

[@GoonSquad_TV]

this is just another "mario does mushrooms" thing where people making fun of the joke are more present than people actually making the joke

[@tylerb.gaming762]

Mario doesn’t even like regular super mushrooms anymore let alone Psychedelics

[@tammid8423]

To be fair that one was fucking everywhere at one point

[@Disbanded9998]

I remember once i made that joke making an image

[@pieofchart]

Wanna know what I think? This is something you'd never be aware of if you didn't use Twitter

[@Disbanded9998]

I don't even use it

[@jp-toaster]

I agree

[@supersmashseandx1991]

Icwould love to see a cartoon done entirely with pixel art

[@Elec.Balloon]

The pixel art/chip sound design wasn't the main focus of Gamer's Guide to Pretty Much Everything. But every time I saw it as a kid, it always felt off. Now I freaking know why - they didn't really put much thought into it

[@thekillersandvich1150]

pretty sure that the simpsons game pixel art was supposed to look bad that was the joke

[@lemonadesnake]

@@8088mphpretty sure it was implied, assuming since those games were most likely licensed and ea didnt have the rights to them

[@SoloSlater]

Somehow Community (a show that is usually not animated) did the retro game thing right with that one episode from Season 3 I forgot the name of it though

[@smcphee8499]

Amazing of Gumball also has street fighter. And the pixel art was good.

[@headphonesaxolotl]

I actually like these just because it tends to be more funny. It doesn't need to be perfect, as long as the art shows it's supposed to be like a video game.

[@Dinonuggieman]

“I wash myself with a rag on a stick” -Bart Simpson

[@OblivionSpl]

'Everyone claps'

[@masterreece1098]

Seeing retro games portrayed in shows, movies, modern games etc always gives me a spark of nostalgia because when I was younger I played a lot of retro games online, mainly things like sonic and Mario or pokémon

[@Chicomite]

It would be awesome in the Castlevania series if Trevor, Alucard, or even Richter in the next season has a dream or enters a doorway or something and gets transported to a 16-bit or 32-bit style Castlevania level.

[@krimsonkatt]

Castlevania the show was cancelled after Season 3 because Netflix turned what was supposed to be a faithful reimagining of the games starting with CV3 into their own lesbian vampire fanfiction and ruined the continuity with S3. Konami didn't like the direction the writers took after they gave Netflix more creative freedom to adapt Curse of Darkness and cancelled the show. Netflix utterly failed with S3 redeeming dracula like 1000 years before it was supposed to happen and butchering the plot of Curse of Darkness to make gay Alucard sex scenes (Alucard was supposed to go to sleep after CV3 until SotN) and lesbian vampire cult shenanigans while ignoring much of the actual plot of CoD. They also revived Alucard's mother for no reason and reconned supernatural lore into the series. We're never getting more netflixvania because S3 was so bad and so poorly received due to Netflix writers once again butchering a popular Japanese franchise like they do with anything they touch.

[@Chicomite]

@KrimsonKatt noooooo! Damn, well at least I'm not waiting for something that's not coming anymore, thank you. I agree with everything you said. They did butcher the CV3 storyline, and did my boy Hector dirty by making him a wuss and a side character(Curse of Darkness is one of my favorite games, Vania or otherwise). But seeing that incestuous bisexual threesome with Alucard was shocking, it came out of nowhere. If that's what they wanted to do, they should've set it up a little at least, it was just bam, here ya go. There were no hints he's ever been like that in the game or the show, but the showrunners and writers just get to make whatever they want canon? Obviously it's modern politics, if the show came out in the 90s, Alucard would be like he is in the game, focused on his mission, no time for that crap. But like u said, they kept him awake when he should've went back to his casket. I guarantee they were in the writer's room going "Is Alucard straight? Yea? Why not make him bi?", feels kinda disrespectful to both actual bi ppl and to us 20+ years long CV fans. That same thinking is why we have stuff like a black Cleopatra currently getting slammed for racism, just shove whatever makes you as a writer feel good into your project.

[@hapeecartoons2238]

The teen titans one doesn’t actually look bad. I don’t think they were trying to pull off a retro look more of an arcade look. regular show can be excused because the whole style isn’t meant to be realistic whatsoever. Id even say it would probably look really bizarre to have sudden really crisp pixel art in regular show when they don’t even use 3d models for vehicles. Regular show has a scribbled / sketched on a notepad feel (in my opinion at least) with its animation style. Gumbal’s could’ve definitely taken the extra effort to make it look like a real sprite, specially with all the other styles the show has managed to pull off. But I guess you could also excuse it by saying that gumbal is a purposely flat simple 2D character, which the show (and his character) has referenced numerous times in the show. The Simpsons one is definitely the worst example though. They had no excuse to make them look like actual sprites, especially when they were doing 2d animation for cutscenes.

[@SanzerMations]

with gumball the joke there was that he was pretending to go through a mario level only to be met with the mario seen in the episode and with regular show the pixel stuff was meant to be mordecai and rigby hallucinating after eating tree barks

[@hapeecartoons2238]

@@SanzerMations I cannot tell if you’re joking or not with the regular show thing you mentioned cause that feels like an episode they would’ve one And yeah true, there was also a purpose for why gumbal went pixel mode too hah

[@SanzerMations]

@@hapeecartoons2238 the regular show thing was from the Survival Skills episode

[@OtakuUnitedStudio]

Arcade and retro aren't exclusive terms, but you make a good point. Most people thing of retro as console games, but arcade games from the time were way more powerful.

[@dracopug]

I personally appreciate when artists limit the colour depth of the pixel art to give it an actual retro vibe.

[@LeoGaming55]

That last clip has the over world of Earthbound and the gameplay of Legend of Zelda

[@Sonic_the_hedgedog]

That's Teen Titans GO for you.

[@krimsonkatt]

The sprites were inspired by three sources: BS The Legend of Zelda (Tileset) Final Fantasy Tactics (Starfire sprite) The Legend of Zelda (concept) The Tileset used isn't earthbound, it's based on BS Legend of Zelda, a JP-exclusive SNES remake of Zelda 1 distributed through Nintendo's stelliaview system in the late 90s.

[@theearthboundchildren]

that wasnt earthbound lmao

[@LeoGaming55]

@@theearthboundchildren Sorry, but you misunderstood me. I meant that it was *like* Earthbound. I knew that it obviously wasn’t

[@Local_user]

Amphibia theme song takeover the pixel theme was just amazing and the theme takeover was a banger

[@KRISPYFRlES]

"HUMAN... WHY ARE YOU SO RETRO 😧"

[@Bendernity]

That futurama reincarnation segment was also pretty good with the “retro” style.

[@TheWorldsLargestOven]

The pixelated couch gag is a fan animation that the show producer added to the show.

[@temporal_timelord1293]

Me I'm retro.

[@Sly88Frye]

Oh yeah. That 8-bit The Simpsons intro was pretty amazing

[@emihead]

i was one of the people who pioneered this bit back in late 2022 and it's so bizarre seeing where it's at now

[@mystiikl8442]

hey aren't you the vs imspostor per sssson

[@smollmoth6376]

Whenever i think of "So retro" i think of that one mario gif using very mismatched sprites

[@jotchuaysuhermano4552]

“Yo this edibles ain’t shit I’ve eated like 5 of them and nothing has hap-“

[@Peacewalker26]

Great music choice! Edit: it’s rare hero from ridge racer btw

[@blake2521]

Retrosmark when

[@Jonah.i_dont_know]

this is so freaking #retro

[@TheUltima_Werewolf]

The Gravity Falls one is my favorite, the pixel art looks amazing!

[@nathancartoonplushstudios2728]

I love the pixel art style I wish these some that are good and original ones in the future

[@hardcoresonicandspongebobf4169]

You should talk about the amazing world of gumball

[@dolomitilino9015]

You know it’s hard to realize that my favorite videos are now 30 years old. Even games I picked up while in school are more than 10 years old now

[@KingKKoolTM]

This is so retro

[@SammySamSams]

the gumball scene where darwin and gumball were fighting like in street fighter is probably my favorite

[@literally_just_spazmatism]

BRO THE COUCH GAG HAD THE "I wash myself with a rag on a stick" BART

[@spence8507]

The one you showed from Gumball looks decent, but the street fighter parody pixel art from Gumball looks really good.

[@Cholent_King]

Something about street fighter parodies makes the animators suddenly care about pixel art

[@mageyplss]

A pet peeve of mine is that whenever any cartoon or movie mentions a video game, they have to make it pixel art, and I don't mean minish cap pixel art, I mean mega man pixel art. WHY THERE IS NO POINT IN DOING THIS UNLESS IT IS SPECIFICALLY IN A TINE PERIOD WHERE THAT KIND OF GAME WAS POPULAR

[@Disbanded9998]

It's either pixel art or a ridiculously realistic fps

[@thegreatnahwhaile]

My favourite example is weirdly enough aqua team hunger force

[@ohmethiasknight5009]

That early 2010s so retro pixel art aesthetic was a blight on pop culture,

[@loganryoung2384]

Boltgun. A recent retro doom style game for 40k fans.

[@nightwatch3889]

ADULT SWIM DID AN AMAZING RICK AND MORTY PIXEL ANIMATION

[@baalfgames5318]

As bad as Atlantis Squarepantis is, the Video Game animations in Sandy's segment are pretty neat. :)

[@solaramoeba]

Communitys video Game Episode looked so accurate to me

[@benjamincuevas9627]

Would have been nice if the Simpson's used the arcade beat'em up sprites.

[@UltraZack69]

I like that TTG episode where titans play retro games (Pacman,Legend of Zelda,Mario and etc.)

[@djdraws4555]

To me, I think what makes it so bad is that it looks like a bunch of squares or edges around the character rather than actually making them look pixelated or 8-bit

[@v3_ljk0]

Giffany from gravity falls

[@enderraltorgamer24-teamesq6]

Famboy and chum chum even has this but its not the only game reference there its also one at the end of an episode about a virtual 3d game that feels at the end like when bowser turns into a giant on new super mario bros wii

[@OblivionSpl]

Gumball did have a good pixel art bit in season 2s 'The Words'

[@TheNormalAsian]

The pixle for gravitate falls was so good. The really used the pixle art trying to make it look high quality usage to its full potential. Thats what the pixal art in sf was doing.

[@oliverpuppetproductions8753]

my favorite pixel art was the episode of the sitcom "community" where the main cast is scanned into a video game

[@jimmymcmanus9467]

Community episode is a great example

[@Petzel11]

Bobs Burgers S4 E4 was all about an arcade game called Burger Boss, and it had really good pixel art, like it looked like it was from the NES or something

[@LucasIsHereYT]

I just wish people stopped calling stuff 8-bit when they use like nine million colors.

[@ShenDoodles]

I always go for accuracy when I'm doing retro-inspired things. I even set the internal resolution to be incredibly low so that the pixels are forced to be aligned at all times.

[@raymonddfigueroa8382]

this is my biggest problem with the Cuphead show, if you're going to make a show based on a videogame that got famous due to it's 1930's rubber-hose style of animation, then you should actually make it look like a cartoon of the era, and not just make the characters arm sometimes loop in a circle and say: "LOOK GUYS ITS JUST LIKE THE REAL THING!" It would've been expensive as all hell to make it so, but at least then it's existence would feel justified.

[@TheLils15]

You gonna fund it? Lol mdhr don't got that type of money to create the whole cuphead show like the game

[@iamhere490]

​@@TheLils15Pretty sure the game and the show don't share the same source of funding

[@ScooterCat64]

@@iamhere490 It would still coast far more than what Netflix would want to put into it, as much as I don't like the Cuphead shows artificial computer-y look

[@owenwilson2869]

Keep up the good shorts 👍🏻

[@Burnyourphone]

I know it's not a cartoon, but I liked the one they did in Community

[@Person-wz6iy]

So #Retro.

[@toganium4175]

The Amazing World of Gumball has a character named Moonchild Corneille, who is pixelated and looks quite nice.

[@hectormontes7056]

The dreaded Mega Man recolors, they’ll never go away

[@Thewolfguys.cartoons2000]

I’m pretty sure Robot Jones was the first cartoon to reference classic gaming like the Atari 2600 sfx in the intro

[@BasementDweller_]

Never heard people using the term so retro.

[@Leifyon]

Amphibia made a pixel art theme song a few years back, it looks amazing imo

[@spencerboyce6227]

Bro that video game episode of big city greens is jarring

[@lizaraVR]

oh damn I know a lot of animations and games trying to be pixel but failing miserably. pixel stuff can be very very cool as you said rumble mcskirmish in gravity falls, but so many people just try to scratch the nostalgia itch either because of their own itch or because they see the popularity in certain groups.. not a fan of the trend but the sarcastic term is definitely a fitting one

[@atavious2491]

I like it when cartoons and video games do this. Ironically enough that both mediums still require the labor/process of animation. Basically it's like chocolate and peanut butter or peanut butter and jelly. They go hand and hand. Take in the fact that the overall style of Japanese animation has already set some standard of how to animate a little bit more realistically, like human characters and emotional expression. I like to think the Scott Pilgrim books started this trend with how there's video game references in those stories

[@runesofrude]

Gravity Falls had another video game episode about a 90s looking dating sim

[@slvtfordice100]

I really loved the one pixel girl in gravity falls, the one that was obsessed with soos😭

[@superanimations1428]

Amazing world of gumball had one of the best retro style fights

[@PatLund]

Him: "New term" The Term: "Retro"

[@KBzDvSt]

The show Community has a pretty fantastic episode like this!! It incorporates elements of late eighties, early nineties, early 00s flash games and late 00 xbla games

[@Brickworks3000]

Bro forgot about gumball and Darwin’s insult fight. That shit looked great

[@nerdnetta1749]

That one amphibia intro looked kinda cool

[@ichiban1336]

I was trying to pinpoint what Rumble actually resembles more closely and actually it may be (inadvertently probably) a reference to Darkstalkers sprites, got that same digitized drawing aesthetic that the classic Darkstalkers games had.

[@thecaptain7259]

Gumball also had an entire episode dedicated to a Final Fantasy parody

[@FirstTry9948]

I know Gumball has a lot of parodies to video games like mario and street fighter, but isn’t Ocho himself considered an in-lore video game character? He’s got the style, he’s got the groove, he’s even had episodes of himself.

[@AdditionalPixel]

That gravity falls episode is one of my favorite episodes of any show ever!

[@anthonyslaptheknee9344]

I think its because they forget about a lot of restrictions sprites have. something I notice is that they look very vibrate even though a part from some games the colors don't pop as much