It's not nearly as bad for a cartoon show to not really do anything thematically with animal characters because cartoon shows are a visual medium and the animals add visual appeal. So the characters being animals still serve a purpose.
In a written story (a non-visual medium), this is a problem, because there's no point in adding visual appeal to a character the reader can't see (and, okay, if you are really, really descriptive with your prose, constantly reminding the reader, maybe you can work it, but Patten usually goes out of his way to point out that the furry authors he's complaining about don't do that, either). The characters being animals no longer serve a purpose.
I think the problem a lot of furry authors have is that they look at something like this (or, for that matter, something like Robin Hood, where the characters being animals is just about the single most arbitrary thing ever) and say "But this works!" And it does. In this medium. Different mediums have different rules, and what works in one medium does not necessarily work in another.
It's not nearly as bad for a cartoon show to not really do anything thematically with animal characters because cartoon shows are a visual medium and the animals add visual appeal. So the characters being animals still serve a purpose.
In a written story (a non-visual medium), this is a problem, because there's no point in adding visual appeal to a character the reader can't see (and, okay, if you are really, really descriptive with your prose, constantly reminding the reader, maybe you can work it, but Patten usually goes out of his way to point out that the furry authors he's complaining about don't do that, either). The characters being animals no longer serve a purpose.
I think the problem a lot of furry authors have is that they look at something like this (or, for that matter, something like Robin Hood, where the characters being animals is just about the single most arbitrary thing ever) and say "But this works!" And it does. In this medium. Different mediums have different rules, and what works in one medium does not necessarily work in another.