The launch of Disney+ seems like a good excuse to make this week’s Fast Five all about cartoons. From a redesigned theatrical film, to Netflix’s newest deal for kids’ shows to the cartoonish digitization of dead celebrities, the big news of the week revolved around those of us with kids and those of us who are just kids at heart.

NETFLIX WANTS TO KEEP KIDS AWAY FROM DISNEY WITH A NEW NICKELODEON DEAL

Disney+? What Disney+? That’s the question Netflix hopes its subscribers will be asking now that it’s found a gap to fill the Disney-sized hole in its catalog. Netflix has the adult market taken care of with its slate of originals, but has always relied on outside deals with companies like DreamWorks Animation and Disney to make sure it had children’s content on tap. It looks like that’s not going to change, as the streaming leader has signed a reportedly $200 million deal with Nickelodeon to create new shows based on its existing characters. First up will be a spin-off of what is probably Nickelodeon’s most popular property, SpongeBob SquarePants, which will follow Squidward as he goes on his own adventures. With Disney pulling all its shows and films to showcase on the new Disney+ streaming service and HBO Max, which will already have the entire Warner Bros. Looney Tunes library, taking streaming rights to Sesame Street, competition has been fierce for the wallets of adults who want something to keep their kids occupied. Netflix is again investing in existing characters from other brands instead of trying to create its own from scratch. This is also an interesting strategy for the newly merged ViacomCBS. Instead of hoarding its series for its own mega streaming service, the company has instead taken advantage of all the new OTTs by licensing its content at high prices, as seen by HBO Max paying almost half a billion dollars to stream South Park.

PARAMOUNT UNVEILS THE NEW SONIC THE HEDGEHOG

This week, Paramount dropped a new trailer for its big-screen adaptation of the Sega video game character. While this might not normally be news worthy, it’s the circumstances around it that makes it stand out. You see, Sonic the Hedgehog was supposed to be released in theaters during the first week of November and will now be released next February. The reason for the change? The original trailer debuted Sonic’s new look. Gone was the cartoonish character video game fans know and love and in its place was a terrifying hyper-realistic hedgehog in tennis shoes. And while I was excited because I will see anything with James Marsden (Hop is an underrated film), the rest of the world revolted against the new look and said in unison, “I’m not seeing that.” Paramount panicked and pulled the movie so it could completely remake it with a new Sonic. Will it be worth it? Based on the reaction of the new trailer, Paramount may have found a way to get people into the theater who normally would have waited to stream it. The audiences who turned on the project rejoiced that Paramount actually listened to them and gave them a version of Sonic who looks like he was plucked out of a video game and not from a David Lynch nightmare.

DISNEY ALSO LISTENS TO FANS AND ANNOUNCES A SIMPSONS RE-RELEASE

One of the centerpieces of Disney+ was supposed to be over 20 seasons of The Simpsons, but there was one problem: Diseny announced early on that the highest quality version of its catalog would be available on the streaming service. Unfortunately, the highest quality version of The Simpsons is the widescreen HD remaster created by FX when the network bought the show’s rights back in 2014. In order to make the 4:3 series fit widescreen TVs, FX had to cut characters off at the tops of their heads and, in some cases, cropped out visual jokes taking place at the top and bottom of the screen. Fan outrage hit FX and the company gave viewers the choice of watching the original version on digital platforms. When fans turned to The Simpsons on Disney+ they found a superior picture quality that had also been formatted to fill their screens. The outcry was fast. Why not upgrade the picture quality to HD while maintaining the original aspect ratio like the company did with all its early movies? Snow White looks amazing and hasn’t been cut, cropped and zoomed to fit widescreen TVs. Disney has answered those fans and announced it will release the original version of The Simpsons in early 2020 so viewers can choose for themselves which version to watch.

JAMES DEAN WAS JUST A START, A NEW COMPANY WANTS TO BRING BACK ALL THE DEAD CELEBRITIES

Remember last week when I told you about the new film that will co-star a digitized James Dean? Well prepare for an onslaught of deceased celebrities to make an appearance in a project near you, as the two companies behind James Dean, rights licenser CMG Worldwide and digital studio Observe Media, have merged to create a new company that will specialize in recreating the over 400 celebrities whose likeness rights it holds. Who needs a career defining performance from Denzel Washington when you can have Malcolm X play himself? While most people will picture the worst coming out of this, imagine Rosa Park and Jimmy Stewart in a buddy-cop comedy, this will most likely be used as a modern-day version of what was seen in Forrest Gump. That movie was heralded for the technology it used to put Tom Hanks next to historical figures who had passed on. So while we may have to deal with Aaliyah starring in an independent film she never would have chosen to do if she was alive, we may also get more accurate versions of historical figures when they make cameos in serious biopics.

DISNEY+ WARNS VIEWERS OF “OUTDATED CULTURAL DEPICTIONS”

While the launch of Disney’s new streaming service wasn’t without its faults (the ability to continue watching from where you left off was disabled because the strain caused the entire app to crash), one big question about the archived content was answered. Some of Disney’s older cartoons have problematic characters based on cultural stereotypes. People pondered how the company would deal with this. Would they edit or censor the movies? Would they remove them from the service? Disney went with the best plan. Not showing Song of the South. Then they went with the second best plan which is to screen everything the way it was originally presented but with a title card that warns of “outdated cultural depictions.” This may not be as in-depth as the almost three minute Whoopi Goldberg video that was presented with the Looney Tunes DVD collection (it’s available on YouTube and is worth a watch), but then again I don’t think Disney characters ever starred in anti-Japanese propaganda cartoons, so maybe they only need a title card. The warning appears before Dumbo, Peter Pan, Lady and the Tramp, The Jungle Book and The Aristocats.