User blog comment:Truteal/A big discussion on Total Drama/@comment-1037137-20141004080700/@comment-25285054-20141004183943

The only PI characters that can be considered not cartoony are Sky, Jasmine, Dave, the twins, and maybe Shawn and Scarlett. (Shawn is only included because he was taken rather seriously as a protagonist). Don't get me wrong, like some of the cartoony characters, but still. The robotic island was only focused on for a couple episodes, but it still implies they were on a robotic island for the whole season.

Ella isn't a total snow-whie ripoff, she's more like a parody of princess cliches which I think is done somewhat well.

I do think PI used it's over-the-topness better than ROTI a bit, since that season was basically trying to shove the whole toxic waste thing down my throat for 13 episodes and I groaned whenever one of those stupid mutant creatures came onto the screen (and the contestants don't even properly react to them)