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Gaah! I'm rather glad that I've been temporarily turned into a frog at this point. I can't beleive what I'm hearing... uh... reading!

Because, I mean, c'mon THUNDERCATS? CAPTAIN PLANET?!? Oh my Goodness! Next you'll be telling me that the D&D cartoon was "Good" because it wasn't... the animation was substandard, the characterization was painful and the storylines hurt. They hurt me to watch. Also, it didn't really captured the spirit of its, admittedly, not-very-high-spirited subject.

And Thundercats? Argh!

See, I liked EEK! The Cat! Which parodied shows like Captain Planet and other cartoons with mind-numbing morals, ill-thought-out "messages" to the kiddies and a complete lack of humor and common sense. As well as pretty creaky animation techniques.

Pfeh. At least weirdo crap like Aeon Fluxx or even, heck, the new Scoobie Doo (although I say this loosely) TRIED to improve on the Genre. And What about Grendy Tar... Tartakov... Tratoko... Tart... whatever. That Dexter's Laboratory guy. He tried to pep up the medium. Or how's about Samurai Jack? That was really nice artwork in that show. And what about the new Teen Titans, huh? The show actually made a pretty dull comic book MORE enjoyable.

Gah! What I'm saying here is that, for me, the 80s and early 90s pretty much WERE when cartoons were crap.

I'm gonna sit here and ribbit for a while.

RIBBIT RIBBIT

Hey! How come I can't turn this into a thought balloon anymore?

rofl Yes, I liked that episode to! (of Bugs Bunny) My sons LOVED Thundercats and really, the artwork and stories were FAR better than the badly drawn crap they call artwork these days and the stories are lousy.

Thank you, Nodijo.

I think, perhaps, you like the artwork from Thundercats because it's an early example of Americanized anime. Am I right? I still think it's kinda clunky. The cartoon network stuff often seems much cleaner to me and I, personally, prefer more simplified illustrations. But, I think I understand your point of view.

Also, I like the Bugs Bunny cartoon where he becomes incensed at the small bounty offered for rabbits and goes around doing rotten things to raise it. I think, when blows up the Washington Monument, the value for a rabbit pelt goes up to something like a million dollars. There's also a scene where he spanks total strangers. HAHAHAHA. I want to see Lionel do that!

rofl

Granted, there was some dire stuff in the 80s and 90s - Captain Planet does indeed spring to mind - there were also some gems.

Disney was getting good again - I enjoyed Gummi Bears, Chip 'n' Dale, DuckTales, TaleSpin, Darkwing Duck, Bonkers, Goof Troop & Quack Pack, plus Aladdin & Hercules spin-offs. Gargoyles was a great concept too. The Disney Afternoon / Disney Club (depending on which side of the pond you were) was amazing. I wasn't a fan of the Little Mermaid or Schnookums & Meat - the latter being where Disney started to get bad again.

Cosgrove Hall came up with DangerMouse & Count Duckula, both channelling a fair amount of Monty Python-esque weirdness that makes you question what the writers & indeed the animators were on at the time smile

Wales' second greatest export (behind the new Doctor Who) was SuperTed, which had a stellar cast considering. I've no idea who did the voices in Welsh, but in the English edition we had Derek Griffiths (who'd been doing children's TV for donkeys' years, including the great Play School) as SuperTed. His sidekick was played by Jon "Doctor Who" Pertwee. Bulk was played by the late, great Roy Kinnear.

You can't mention 80s cartoons without mentioning The Mysterious Cities of Gold. It was an absolute must to be in front of the TV, watching Andy Crane / Phil Schofield in the Broom Cupboard, ready for the next adventure. This was a story arc that went on for 39 episodes, which I imagine is practically unheard-of these days.

We also had two Spanish imports, Dogtanian & Willy Fog. The American voices were a bit annoying (although Dogtanian did go on to play Flounder in the Little Mermaid), so I'm still hunting out the Spanish originals. But the themetunes rocked. I always thought the cartoon Milady de Winter was one of the creepier incarnations.

Of all the cartoons based on a toy line, I was happy enough with Transformers, never liked Care Bears or My Little Pony and absolutely adored Mighty Max. It had an interesting animation style that I don't think I've seen since, all angles and shadows. The voice cast were amazing and it had a pretty high death rate for a kids' cartoon.

Also in the 90s, Warners had a nice resurrection of their cartoon facilities and gave us Animaniacs, Tiny Toon Adventures, Freakazoid!, Pinky & the Brain... I'll skip lightly over Road Rovers & Pinky, Elmyra & the Brain. Plus Histeria was never aimed at my demographic anyhow.

You can't tell I grew up in the 80s and 90s, can you? biggrin

DW

Schnookums & Meat were a blatant attempt to cash in on the the rampant Ren & Stimpy craze. I preferred some of the weird side cartoons to that show--I can't remember the names, but one had a superhero character that was a possum or something who was really a lousy hero, and the other was a weird western parody. I especially remember one episode that had the Polite Coyotes in it--they would devour dying, lost travellers on the desert...with fine china, the right wine & using the correct silverware. lol And there was a voice actor on those cartoons who had a really crazy voice, especially this little old southern lady voice he did a lot. I think it's the same voice actor who worked on "Cow & Chicken" on Cartoon Network, because Cow sounds a lot like that.