80's and 90's cartoons you WOULDN'T let kids under 12 watch now

[Parasondox]

Another day and another... erm... something.

Anyway lets get to the main topic here. I was talking a friend recently about cartoons her and I would watch growing up. We were both born in the early 90's and saw the same things and her I agreed on some cartoons. Let's think about this, back then most cartoons where harmless and innocent when we would watch them after school or before bed time, guess again. If you think about it deeply, and maybe watch them again, you may get a nostalgia trip but ask yourself out loud "what the heck did watch?".

So whether you think they were bad, overhyped, disturbing, and something you just wish you could forget, please write down below of cartoons/anime you saw in the 80's and 90's that you wouldn't recomment to a child now under the age of 12.

ADDED EXTRA: Saw The Ren & Stimpy Show again recently, while I did have a nostalgia trip, I just thought to myself. Wow some parts of this are creepy and I can't believe this was my childhood. Similar to Cow & Chicken just freaky in most part. Street Sharks... that was just bad. Powerpuff Girls I still love and would watch again but "Him" was a cartoon character who's voice scared me back then. Johnny Bravo, you really can't show that to some kids in this heavy PC age.

Heck my 10 year old niece saw me watching Jonny Quest the other day (That's a great show, don't judge me), and she wanted to watch it with me. When it ended she said it was just boring... kids know how to hurt you inside at times lol.

EDIT: Also I want to make clear I am not just talking about shows that may or may not be appropriate whether they understand the true context and manner of that scene BUT the cartoons/anime that you may think could be just too mindless and serve no purpose and think would just be a waste of time. Granted I mention shows that I watched back then and still would watch now but looking at a flip side to it all. There is always two sides to a certain discussion, maybe even 3.

 

[Jamieson 90]

The problem with this is you're looking back at shows aimed at kids with an adult perspective; most of the bad things you can spot will go over most kids heads. Take Pixar family films like Toy Story, they're riddled with innuendos and all sorts which I never picked up on as a kid.

 

[Scarim Coral]

None what so ever! I am NOT going to denined my child from watching the same cartoons that I enjoyed as a kid. As you already said, they won't picked up on some of the adult like reference anyway unless someone educated them on the said adult reference early to them.

Beside even then chances are the children may not liked some of the retro cartoons anyway due to the difference in past social cultures/ reference compared to modern culture.

 

[Parasondox]

The problem with this is you're looking back at shows aimed at kids with an adult perspective; most of the bad things you can spot will go over most kids heads. Take Pixar family films like Toy Story, they're riddled with innuendos and all sorts which I never picked up on as a kid.

I do so your point, however, don't you think that because kids nowadays are more exposed to complex details and contents via social media and the internet primarily, some of those kids (not all) will work out or even find out what those innuendos are? Playing Dick Advocaat here, it's a thought that can play a factor. Gone are the days that you and I may ask our parents "what does so and so mean?", and the response from our parents may be something along the lines of "Oh it means..." and think up an answer or divert the awkward question that was given to them. To be far kids do still ask questions which can be more harder to answer because they say it on some show or music video, so sorry if I offended anyone with that. I am not debating here whether the internet has robbed children of some of their innocence or not because that another subject for another day but it may be noted that children are more informed now than we use to be growing up in the past decade.

 

[RJ 17]

The problem with this is you're looking back at shows aimed at kids with an adult perspective; most of the bad things you can spot will go over most kids heads. Take Pixar family films like Toy Story, they're riddled with innuendos and all sorts which I never picked up on as a kid.

^Pretty much this. A lot of shows - even today, just take a look at SpongeBob - are filled with bits of adult humor so that adults that are "forced" to watch the shows because their kids love them don't go absolutely insane. In fact, I'd argue that's one of the keys for making a show wildly popular.

That said, however, there's still a lot of material in that - even if the kids don't know what it means - you still don't want them exposed to it. Rocko's Modern Life was one of my favorite shows as a kid and there was a lot of adult stuff in there. As the OP pointed out: Ren & Stimpy...hell, that show was basically one step down in crudeness from Beavis & Butthead. As much as I love me some Beavis & Butthead, I wouldn't really call it "child appropriate".

 

[JoJo]

The problem with this is you're looking back at shows aimed at kids with an adult perspective; most of the bad things you can spot will go over most kids heads. Take Pixar family films like Toy Story, they're riddled with innuendos and all sorts which I never picked up on as a kid.

I do so your point, however, don't you think that because kids nowadays are more exposed to complex details and contents via social media and the internet primarily, some of those kids (not all) will work out or even find out what those innuendos are? Playing Dick Advocaat here, it's a thought that can play a factor. Gone are the days that you and I may ask our parents "what does so and so mean?", and the response from our parents may be something along the lines of "Oh it means..." and think up an answer or divert the awkward question that was given to them. To be far kids do still ask questions which can be more harder to answer because they say it on some show or music video, so sorry if I offended anyone with that. I am not debating here whether the internet has robbed children of some of their innocence or not because that another subject for another day but it may be noted that children are more informed now than we use to be growing up in the past decade.

Arguably though, if a child knows enough to get innuendo then there's no reason to 'protect' them from seeing a show containing innuendo. Really, I don't think preteens are much more exposed to these things than we were at their age, they'll still pick it up from their friends like we did. I say childhood innocence is about a child's outlook and inner nature, not how few swears or little reproductive biology they know.

As for the question at hand,I can't really remember seeing anything in an 80s or 90s cartoon that would be inappropriate in my eyes. That said I'm not exactly the most cautious in those regards, for example I let my ten year old sister play GTA V (just freeplay, not the missions where most of the actual inappropriate content is).

 

[AnthrSolidSnake]

I can't say I wouldn't let my kids watch them. Really, as many have said, the "adult" bits would go way over their head, and even if they don't...they already know about it at that point. There's no point in hiding it then, assuming there was to begin with.

 

[McMarbles]

Ren and Stimpy. not because iof content or anything... no, I wouldn't let my kids watching it because it was awful.

 

[Lieju]

I can't think of any. Even if Spider-Man gave me nightmares.

Some little innuendo isn't going to destroy children's brain.

The books and comics I read at that age had much creepier and mature things. (And my mom encouraged me. Her book-collection was where I got many of them, especially the literary classics I read when I was under 10)

 

[Muspelheim]

I endured them without any damage at all. The ever so precious little foals can, too. If they have any interesting in anything predating the third Ben 10 reboot at all, that is.

Children aren't really as fragile as people seem to think. They won't be traumatized for life by seeing a slightly adult subject matter fly past their heads. Nor will they wither into a sobbing heap because someone mentioned death. A pet peeve of mine in general, actually, the poor relationship we have with the fact that people die now and again.

The only real sound parenting thing I've got planned in case of children is to make sure to get them outside now and then. I don't want them to become allergic to everything in the known universe or liable to break down if they aren't in sight of a car for five minutes. Getting them to develop a reasonably healthy attitude to good old mud and a general idea of where milk, eggs and meat come from is the only real concern I have, beyond keeping the spawn alive.

I hope my old video cassettes with old Donald Duck shorts are still available then, though. Donald Duck is the patron saint of my household.

 

[Quadocky]

I really wanna rant about the good oll days but everything I would type could easily be said about whichever period of time.

I really wanted to go all super parental and be all like "Sheesh all things by anything related to spumco should be banned" or whatever. But I think the main issue I want to poke at is that sort of lapse in developing a wider perspective in the world that TV and media in general seems to constantly fail at showing. There is little nuance in narrative, its easy to digest and understand and this becomes problematic as people begin applying simple narratives to very complex nuances of the human experience.

The problem with things like TV and media is that viewing them is not an activity that can 'build character' in a person. When one lacks such they become very dull, frustrated people.

 

[Avaholic03]

None. Because forbidding something just makes it more appealing. So even if there was a show that I thought kids shouldn't watch, I wouldn't bother making it "against the rules". Being a former latch-key kid, I know how it works.

 

[Quadocky]

I wouldn't bother to keep anyone from watching anything, but there are some shows I wouldn't exactly recommend for that age:

- Ren & Stimpy

- 2 Stupid Dogs

- The Shnookums and Meat Funny Cartoon Show

- Cow & Chicken

- Rocko's Modern Life

- Freakazoid

- Invader Zim (2001, close enough)

They're full of innuendos, outright disgusting passages

Eeeeh well Invader Zim doesn't count. At least in my mind its from a different era which is patently LESS offensive on the fact that is more in line with that 'self-aware' humor. The others however... they were operating on the assumption of BEING purposely transgressive in an underhanded fashion "Its a cartoon show! Its for kids!" THAT is what makes it fucking creepy.

 

[balladbird]

I'm not big on forbidding things unless there's just cause, though I can certainly say there are shows I wouldn't care for my kids to watch from that era. Rin and Stimpy, cow and Chicken, and Rocko's modern life among them.

Not for any sort of adult innuendos, most of those are harmless to children, but rather for the personal reason of my utter disdain and hatred for "gross out" comedy.



Honestly, I don't have much reason for my kids to see cartoons from the 80s-90s, though. sure, there were gems like the animaniacs, but on average the quality of kid's programming has skyrocketed a lot since the turn of the century. Writers are braver about exploring plot elements that were once taboo, writing gets sharper, it's been a blast to watch animation evolve.

 

[DementedSheep]

I don't think I would actually ban them from watching it but I wouldn't be to happy with kids of mine watching Ren and Stimpy. Not so much to protect them, just because I worry about my kids horrible taste. I really don't like that style of humour.

 

[Parasondox]

Honestly, I don't have much reason for my kids to see cartoons from the 80s-90s, though. sure, there were gems like the animaniacs, but on average the quality of kid's programming has skyrocketed a lot since the turn of the century. Writers are braver about exploring plot elements that were once taboo, writing gets sharper, it's been a blast to watch animation evolve.

Eh, I'm not quite up to date with recent cartoons (aside from MLP and Adventure Time), but what I saw in the 00's was...bad. Very bad.

Stuff like Yu-Gi-Oh! and its spin off's, The Proud Family, Yin Yang Yo! and so on are either stupid, boring or so over the top moralistic (is that a real world?) that I usually switched the channel in disgust after seeing a few episodes. While there are a few gems like Invader Zim, most I saw wasn't entertaining in any way.

Okay in Yu-Gi-Oh's defense... okay I can't defend it. It was okay at first but the flaws became more notice able and stories just repeated themselves. A duel would take about 4 episode to complete. 4 F***ING EPISODES TO COMPLETE A SINGLE F***ING DUEL!! It was my Saturday morning tele one episode a week. Pokemon finished a damn battle in 5 mins at least who a whole episode to create drama and tension.