The fact that anyone even knows about that dis in the first place is because of John K., who the Internet decided was the be all, end all voice of animated comedy based on creating Ren and Stimpy

Just for the record, “CALarts style” is not a real thing and almost everyone who fronted the shows displayed here never set foot in CALarts in the first place. The fact that anyone even knows about that dis in the first place is because of John K., who the Internet decided was the be all, end all voice of animated comedy based on creating Ren and Stimpy and then being shit canned after barely eking out two seasons because he was a pain in the ass to work with and couldn’t make a deadline to save his life. Then he coasted on just that for a decade while grooming and gaslighting girls one third his age. Gee, what a guy.

If you’re wondering why so many cartoons these days have similar character designs, it’s nothing more than a simple indication of what children find aesthetically appealing these days. Formal abstract non-angularity is in, idealized human physicality is clearly out. Then again Occam’s Razor is indeed a thing, and a big reason almost all 80’s cartoon characters looked like Arnold in his prime was because he was the biggest star at the time, the shows were toy commercials first and the factories didn’t have many variations of plastic molds for the action figures.

Lauren Faust attended Calarts.

that’s not even what does shows a look like

similar yes but they’re not exactly the same.
and with gumball it would be easier to make a list of art Styles it didn’t use

Also one thing worth mentioning almost every pony in G4 used the same body model