Animation : Animated Series Question for all; by Jordan Weaver

Someone once told me that there are only three real stories: Children need their parents, people need their siblings, and people need their lovers - three kinds of loves if you will. If the relationships in your story only have one kind of relationship, then it will not be enough. Two of the three are ideal. If you go with the last two, then you eliminate the "family" relationships, and it can still work.

I had an idea about a family of Vikings that are displaced in the future where its all high tech, and are totally out of touch ....but I could never figure out where it would go long term .....

I don't think so, but most of the buyers do. Successful stories usually have relationships in them, but they don' need to be family. Primal is about a caveman who lost his family but now pals around with a dinosaur. Samurai Jack is trying to get back to his time and family. Both were created by Dexter's Lab phenom Genndy Tartakovsky.

Yeah, so there usually needs to be an element of family included .... and even as I think of other cartoons I enjoy that had success .... They all had a family element .... Hey Arnold, Daria, Duckman, He-Man and The Masters of the Universe, ReBoot ..... All family in different ways. I'm always thinking about how to create a good cartoon pitch, and this is the hurdle every time .....

I would suggest you watch Arcane which is loosely bast on the game, League of Legends which focuses on the "darker" aspects of families, and relationships. It's on Netflix.

On Amazon, check out, The Legend of Vox Machina which is based on the Table Top Role Playing Group Critical Role's first campaign they did on YouTube.

Vox Machina are a group of Mercenaries and the series' first season covers their first BIG qdventure. It also shows what happens when you let a group of screwups be heroes.

I was also going to suggest Berzerk and God Killer also on Netflix or, perhaps, the Godzilla series ( the one Netflix made, NOT the cute ones ). They're not, as focused on the family dynamic and are quite dark and nihilistic.

Thing is. And I realize as a woman of 61, my tastes are a touch different than the current generation's. But, I want people I can root for.

The people I most want to root for and care what happens to are those who can face adversity and NOT be a total dick.

But then, I also prefer hopeful.endings.

I appreciate the helpful suggestions, I will look into a few of those for sure .... I'll probably rewatch The Mitchells vs The Machines too .... I started watching one of the Godzilla ones, i think it was Singular Point on Netflix, and it was not what i expected.

The old Warner Bros. shorts didn't have many families: Bugs Bunny was essentially alone in the world against a constant barrage of predators like Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam, Tasmania Devil and Marvin the Martian.

I think all stories need some aspect of a group dynamic to be compelling, as character development only makes sense in the context of how characters deal with other characters. But I think the term "family" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in your question. Look at things like Archer, Naruto, One Piece, Regular Show, Thundercats, GI Joe, and the list goes on. Now if you want to argue these are all "families" I guess you could in a metaphorical sense, but more importantly they're groups of people constantly interacting with each other. Star Wars Clone Wars, Bad Batch, and Rebels are all about characters that are not biologically related (unless you want to count all clones as brothers), yet they're all compelling narratives with multiple seasons of storylines because they're about character dynamics.

I think Castaway, proved to be a great story without a group dynamic. My Dinner With Andre and Sleuth come to mind - two characters. Most marketable stories utilize a group dynamic and mostly needed for series, but movies are a different beast.