User blog comment:Rhonda the stalker fan!/Total Drama 30 Day Challenge: Day 8/Happy Anniversary Total Drama!/@comment-5931267-20180708053325

For me my favorite thing about Total Drama Island has less to do with the show, and much more to do with me. Around the time TDI came out I was starting to get pretty tired of cartoons and really anything animated. I thought I'd outgrown the medium, and that there was nothing left for cartoons to offer me. All of my favorite shows like Teen Titans, Danny Phantom, Samurai Jack, Powerpuff Girls and a bunch more had already gone off air. The shows that were still on were either shows I liked that were on the verge of being taken off air (a lot of Cartoon Network and Nick shows went off air between 2007 and 2009), shows that I used to like but had gotten stale (hi Spongebob), or shows I never liked to begin with.

Then TDI came out, and a whole lot of things changed. I got super into the show from the very first episode, I liked the colorful cast, loved the sadistic host, and had fun with the humor. My friends and I all talked about it the next day at school and gushed over how much we all liked it. We decided that we all (the eight of us at the time) would watch it together every week. Thus started a tradition that lasted TDI's entire run of us going to my house every Thursday, sitting around the tv in my basement, and watching the new episodes while speculating on what was gonna happen/who was gonna win. By the end we were all wrong (We picked our choices for winner before the thrid episode.  I picked DJ, and my friends picked Duncan, Geoff, Gwen, Leshawna, Bridgette, Noah, and Courtney). We kept a running tally the entire season of who we thought was going home each week, we talked about our favorite moment in each episode before everyone left, and we speculated on what the next chalange could be. It was one of the best times watching a show air I think I've ever had. The same group got together for Action and World Tour actually, but we kinda lost steam by Revenge of the Island and decided to kill the tradition (we were in high school at that point and had drifted a lot).

The key point is that TDI was the first show I think I got truly invested in with a group of people. Before my experience with cartoons had been entirely to myself with very little interaction with other people over what they thought. With TDI there was a conversation, an additional reason to be invested beyond simply watching and enjoying the cartoon itself. It's the reason I got back into animation so heavily in 2008, it's actually what lead me to discover anime (outside of DBZ, Digimon, and Pokemon) for the first time. TDI is one of the most important shows I've ever watched because it shaped my interaction with animation, and inspired me to explore the medium. Witrhout it I may have given up on animation (and really tv in general), and I'm so glad I didn't. It's lead to a suprising amount of friendships, and obviously me discovering this place (though I always wish I'd gotten here sooner).

TDI is just really important to me, and it's one of those must watch shows I know I'll be showing my future kids one day.