Times where live-action is better than animation.

[Daikun]

It's often true that animation can outshine anything live-action can do, and animated adaptations can often turn out better than previous live-action adaptations (or later ones--are we listening, Disney?). However, there have been times (though less common) where the opposite is true, and this thread is to list them off.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid - The recent Disney+ specials pale in comparison to the live-action films produced by Fox. The specials, due to their shorter runtime, have to breeze through or skip pivotal moments from the books, so they have less time to breathe.

The New 3 Stooges - Did you know the 3 Stooges have a cartoon? (Not counting The Robonic Stooges by Hanna-Barbera--I honestly think those are pretty decent.) This was produced when the original Stooges were still alive, and they reprise their roles for this series, but man, this cartoon is baaaaaaaaad. Really bad. The cartoon suffered from a pacing issue--it was much slower than the theatrical shorts produced decades earlier, so the jokes were predictable as a result. The humor also had to be watered down for children's television, so the chaotic nature of the shorts is lost here.

The Banana Splits - No, the Splits don't really have an animated adaptation (unless you count their appearances in Jellystone), and I admit I'm probably cheating a bit here. I watched this series when it came to Boomerang in the mid-2000s, and wow, the animated segments on that show are extremely weak. Whenever the show came on, I used my DVR to fast-forward past those segments. I consider them some of Hanna-Barbera's weakest works--adaptations of Arabian Knights and The Three Musketeers with all the hallmarks you would expect from the studio's most creatively bankrupt era.

Can anyone think of any other examples?

 

[Pooky]

If you're gonna mention the 3 Stooges cartoon, than the Laurel & Hardy cartoon should be noted too.

 

[Fone Bone]

Jim Henson put the kibosh on the Muppet Babies spin-off Little Muppet Monsters because the animated segments were so inferior to the puppet stuff. Like it was bad enough that you noticed (which blows my mind) and Henson canceled the damn show himself out of shame and embarrassment.

 

[[classic swim]]

There’s a decent mix of Black Dynamite episodes I really enjoyed. And still, none of them compare to the quality of the original film.

Black Dynamite (2009) was just a lightning in a bottle movie. Takes all the finer qualities of 70s blaxploitation films and makes the most faithful homage out of the genre. It gets so much of it right, and the humor is more everlasting than most of what’s on the TV series.

 

[Silverstar]

The Banana Splits - No, the Splits don't really have an animated adaptation (unless you count their appearances in Jellystone), and I admit I'm probably cheating a bit here.

Actually, the Banana Splits did have one prior animated outing: a TV special titled The Banana Splits in Hocus Pocus Park (1972). It mixed animation with live-action sequences, the latter of which were shot at King's Island in Cincinnati, Ohio. The Splits were costumed characters at the beginning and end of the special but during the bulk of it they traveled to the animated world where they became cartoons.

 

[Dantheman]

Jim Henson put the kibosh on the Muppet Babies spin-off Little Muppet Monsters because the animated segments were so inferior to the puppet stuff. Like it was bad enough that you noticed (which blows my mind) and Henson canceled the damn show himself out of shame and embarrassment.

For the longest time, I did not know this was the reason why CBS aired Muppet Babies in an hour-long block. But looking back, it made sense, airing Muppet Babies reruns in Little Muppet Monsters' place, and when the ratings of those came in, CBS decided to stick with that.

 

[Dr.Pepper]

This is probably a hot take, but I like the live action remake of The Jungle Book more than the original. I also seem to remember liking the live action Cinderella more than the animated one, but I haven’t seen it in years.

 

[Dylan James Yi]

I think the animated series of Back to the Future, the animated series of The Mask, the animated series of Men in Black, and the animated series of Stuart Little are still catchy and good. Still like those animated series based on live-action films.

 

[stephane dumas]

The New 3 Stooges - Did you know the 3 Stooges have a cartoon? (Not counting The Robonic Stooges by Hanna-Barbera--I honestly think those are pretty decent.) This was produced when the original Stooges were still alive, and they reprise their roles for this series, but man, this cartoon is baaaaaaaaad. Really bad. The cartoon suffered from a pacing issue--it was much slower than the theatrical shorts produced decades earlier, so the jokes were predictable as a result. The humor also had to be watered down for children's television, so the chaotic nature of the shorts is lost here.
Can anyone think of any other examples?

I wonder if the New 3 Stooges would have been done by another studio than Cambria productions if things would have been different? Besides the new 3 Stooges, Laurel & Hardy, let's mention also Abbott & Costello

Btw, the Police Academy movie series is more better than the cartoon.

And it'll be a long while before we got a cartoon adaptation of Cobrai Kai, after the first attempt of a Karate Kid cartoon back in 1989.

 

[Dantheman]

I remember reading an issue of the Police Academy comic book Marvel had out and being surprised they changed Commandant Lessard's first name (From Eric to Lucky). Being cursed with the ability to pay attention to details like that does that to you.

Was it rights issues? Or because it was geared toward younger kids, they wanted it made absolutely clear this was NOT the Commandant Lassard that got "pleasured" under the podium from a sex worker hired by Mahoney in the first movie? Probably.