Poll: Is it just me, or were cartoons better when I was a kid?

[Irridium]

So true, I miss stuff like Johnny Bravo, Dexter's Lab, Ed, Edd, 'n' Eddy, Courage the Cowardly Dog, Megas XLR, Powerpuff Girls, My Life as a Teenaged Robot, Catdog, (old) Spongebob Squarepants, (old) Fairly Odd Parents, Rocket Power, and, although Nick has nothing to do with this, Cartoonnetwork's greatest sin: The destruction of Toonami.

It left me speechless. It also killed what was left of Cartoonnetwork.

And what do they replace Toonami with?
First that thing called Miguzi, then that piece of shit known as "CN Real".

Whoever thought of that should be beaten.

Meguzi never really "replaced" Toonami. Toonami moved to Saturday, and eventually Meguzi filled the weekday block it left. I never really had much of a problem with Meguzi, especially since Code Lyoko was actually pretty good, but Toonami never should have ended. Moving it to Saturday was fine, but once TOM 4 showed up, it was all downhill from there. They could have easily fixed this by just putting on the old anime that they still have the rights to. But nooooooooooooooooooo, they just cancled it. Idiots.

Yeah, true enough I suppose. I still won't be able to love it due to having nostalgia glasses stapled to my face. But it wasn't all bad.

I remember Midnight Run. When Toonami was on late at night. That shit was Adult Swim before Adult Swim.

 

[Irridium]

One huge reason that there were so many more good cartoons in the early nineties is because there were so many more cartoons in the nineties.

Nostalgia is one thing. I don't watch TV anymore, but I've caught glimpses of cartoons. Sure, Flapjack is unpleasant and disgusting, but so was Cow and Chicken. I hated that show.
Chowder has moments of brilliance, though I haven't seen much of it, and the animation style is a bit of a turnoff to some.
And I really like Phineas and Ferb. Even though it is very formulaic, it uses that to it's advantage. Each episode I've seen uses the episode formula in a clever, fun way.

However, in my world, none compare to Megas XLR. I wish I could find full episodes of it...

Why does CN Real Exist? Why does the Disney Channel show mostly sitcoms? Because kids are into different things now. If there are less cartoons around, there are less good cartoons around. Remember that there were tons of cartoons in the eighties and nineties. But also remember that not all of them were winners.

You can find full Megas XLR episodes on Xbox Live.

It has both seasons on it.

 

[CrazyGirl17]

I've read through this, now it's time to give my two cents:

I honestly never blamed anime for the decline of cartoons, as there are plenty of good anime-eque shows out there like Avatar: The Last Airbender, Ben 10 (the original, anyway), Samurai Jack, Transformers: Animated (which sadly cut short for stupid reasons), and, or course, your friend and mine, Megas XLR. I blame it more on greedy TV executives wanting to cash in on the tweenie-pop craze going on, as well as prissy soccer moms wanting to "make things better for children" or something dumb like that.

Yeah, sure, maybe I shouldn't be saying all this because of the "nostalgia" and that "this stuff is what kids are into nowadays", I just miss the days when cartoons could get away with lines you wouldn't get until you were older (Rocko's Modern Life anyone?)

Whoever posted that Courage the Cowardly Dog clip, ILY.

God, I used to stay up as late as possible JUST to watch that show.

Did this bastard give you the creeps?

"RETURN THE SLAAABBBB, OR SUFFER MY CUUURRRSEEEE!"​

Tell me I'm not the only one :l

YES! I hate watching that episode at night because of him

No arguments there, that guy was CREEPY. The part that unnerves me the most was as the thieve's car was attacked by the locusts the camera pans away for a brief moment... then comes back to show NOTHING THERE. (Shudders)

 

[Denmarkian]

I remember a time where cartoons were not joined-at-the-hip to their corporate overlords as they are now. A time when DIC was the name you'd see at the end of the credits of almost EVERY cartoon you'd see on Saturday mornings. Hell, a time where you would have a 6 hour block of cartoons running on just about every television channel.

(My family had a rabbit-ears TV when I was a kid)

I think the early '90s were the prime time for high-concept/weird-execution cartoons marketed mostly to kids. We were just getting out of the "half hour advertisement" era of He-Man, Transformers, Dino-Riders, M.A.S.K., Jayce & The Wheeled Warriors, The Centurions, Visionaries: Knights of the Magical Light, etc. Kids seemed to actually give a damn about the story, I don't remember if I did or not, but cartoon producers began greenlighting what I would consider more indie-comic ideas to become cartoons:

King Arthur and the Knights of Justice - A high school football team named The Knights, led by a quarterback named Arthur in "the present day", is pulled back in time by Merlin to rescue the real King Arthur and the knights of the round table from Morgana, who has trapped them in some crystal-thing, I don't remember exactly.

Pirates of Dark Water - On the alien world of Mer, a dangerous unknown substance, only referred to as "dark water" has begun consuming the planet. It's up to Ren, a prince, to try and gather the 13 treasures of rule, to banish the dark water. He must contend with Bloth, a pirate also looking for the treasures of rule, but he wants to use them to command the dark water, and take over the world.

Mighty Max - Based on a toy series designed to be a boy's version of Polly Pocket, but weirdly attempted to be educational as well; this series followed the adventures of Max, who has a magic dimensional-rift hat that takes him and two companions, a soldier named Norman and a scholar-bird named Virgil, Quantum Leap-style from place to place that needs fixin' by way of sword and wit. Probably one of the most inappropriate castings for Rob Paulsen, in my opinion.

Bucky O'Hare and the Toad Wars - A Space-faring green rabbit & crew are fighting evil, space-faring toads.

Cadillacs & Dinosaurs - In the future, mankind has developed a ruinous relationship with nature, and dinosaurs have come to walk the earth again. A group of grease-monkeys form a rebellion against a tyrannical government.

Eek! The Cat - Eek is a purple cat who loves to help people, often putting himself in grave danger in the process.

Corollary: The Terrible Thunderlizards - Three dinosaur mercenaries are released from prison and given a mission to kill two primitive humans after the dinosaur scientists determine that if allowed to propagate, the humans will quickly take over the world.

Wild West C.O.W.-Boys of Moo Mesa - Anthropomorphic cows in the Old West

Biker Mice From Mars - A trio of anthropomorphic martian mice, who ride motorcycles, come to future-earth to escape hostile alien takeover of Mars.

Street Sharks - Four brothers are genetically transformed into anthropomorphic sharks, rip-off of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Captain Planet & The Planeteers - I don't think I need a synopsis for this one...

The Ren & Stimpy Show - Again, I don't think I need a synopsis.

And those are just the weekend shows I remember; when Warner Brothers decided to set up a television broadcasting station they got themselves a 2-hour block of cartoons from Steven Spielberg, many of which have been mentioned here. Freakazoid! The Animaniacs, Tiny Toon Adventures, etc. There's one more I remember seeing the pilot of: the dogs of several national leaders are called to a secret base and put on suits to turn into anthropomorphic super heroes. Wikipedia and Google are failing me, so I can't find the name of the show.

Disney also had a good after-school block of shows: The Gummi Bears, Duck Tales, Chip & Dale: Rescue Rangers, Darkwing Duck, and others I didn't get into like Bonkers, Goof Troop.

Now, I'm trying to restrict myself to the early half of the 1990s, 1990-1995, because I think that shortly after that, pressure began mounting to make children's cartoons more "safe", where we get less high-concept adventure, and more zaniness and stupid humor.

While the production values and art styles varied greatly across series, I still believe these to be the halcyon days of cartoons, where people were allowed to take more risks with new IPs and still get them through production.

I feel that nowadays, even in the last 15 years, cartoons (along with most everything) are designed by committee and focus groups, intended to be marketed to the widest possible audience in order to generate a greater return sooner than a niche-market product would.

 

[crudus]

Yeah, Phineas & Ferb is pretty awesome, it has some great jokes. But to me it suffers a bit from repetition. Every single episode is marked out, and if you've seen one you've seen pretty much all of them. (I appreciate that you could say that about The Simpsons and Family Guy too, but I realy think P&F takes the cake when it comes to repetition). And there is a song and dance routine in EVERY F***ING episode. I hate musicals, so it doesn't really do it for me.

Why would they not repeat? Their demographic is 5-10. Kids aren't going to notice or care.

 

[I Max95]

ed edd n' eddy kicked ass

to bad i dont see it anymore it doesnt have courage the cowardly dog's disturbing references *(not that they were bad)or johnny bravo trying to pick up chicks(not that that was bad either)
what made ed edd n' eddy go away

i agree cartoons were much better back then

the last good new cartoon was in my opinion Grim adventures of billy and mandy but they had to get rid of it because billy died once or twice

 

[Mr.Valdor]

Ya, most cartoons I've seen recently suck

 

[DefunctTheory]

Its just you.

 

[Lazy Kitty]

Nostalgia in combination with them actually being better...
At least back then there was Dark Wing Duck!

 

[Bladez]

Back then had all the good ones, like noted earlier (and if u havent noticed in middle and high schools) spongebob became the poster child for acceptance of "randomness" which if u acted like sponge bob before the show had been out for a year you would've gone to a hospital. Now people encourage it. Flapjack = on land sponge bob.. Chowder = practically just spongebob! Now theyre using auto toning in a show called Adventure Time? How much of a sell out is that...

Aswell I dont think we should blame anime either, if you remember Toonami use to play anime a lot. Pokemon was going good till these new shows came out and it became garbage. Plus animes done what american animation has now since South Park and the Simpson, they have adult anime thats not JUST porn, but has the same appeal as those shows. America just cant pull off good animation anymore...

 

[Trivun]

DO THE MONKEY!!!!!

[starts dancing with Johnny Bravo]

And that should sum my opinion up pretty damn well...

 

[captaincabbage]

Dude, shows were way more awesome than they are now. Just look at Thundercats, that shit blew my fucking mind when I first saw it.
Not to mention other shows like X-men, the old animated Batman and Transformers.

 

[captaincabbage]

i just want my giant robot car

Chicks dig giant robots.

 

[DaOysterboy]

I've been an avid cartoon watcher for years and I've noticed the crap that has passed for entertainment lately. The Misadventures of Flapjack is totally fucked up and Chowder makes me want to murder children. When I was growing up we had Transformers, Johnny Bravo, Dexter's Lab, Cow and Chicken, Invader Zim, Batman, Spider-man, Samurai Jack, Darkwing Duck, Rocko's Modern Life, Swat Kats, and everything by Steven Spielberg, just to name a few. Cartoons today are passable to pretty good,and those are far and few between. Is it just the nostalgia bug, or am I actually right for once? Escapists, give me your opinions!
-Note: I watch so many cartoons because I have younger siblings. I do!

Technically, I think cartoons were better before I was even around. I grew up with Disney afternoon, Animaniacs, Pinky and the Brain, Ninja Turtles, etc. and they were pretty good. But nothing is as good as the old Loony Toons from when my dad was a kid. Really.

 

[Urgh76]

I think cartoons took far more risks when we were kids, as such, adults were able to relate with them as well.

I think that, now that we've grown, we're able to appreciate the subtle references to more adult-oriented themes that most shows (namely, the 90's) had used so wildly, to a much greater extent.
Case in point:
You could never show this today. The mixture of pedophilia/psychotic tendencies, as subtle as they may be, would make parents break out in a cold sweat.

I had a MASSIVE nostalgia attack when you posted that.

I hate to admit it, but the episode about Courage's parents always made me......... naughty have to scrape something manly from me lashes

 

[Urgh76]

The older ones were always better IMO. I really don't like most modern cartoons. (I blame anime, and the internet)

Except Ugly Americans! That show is just brilliant while felling like an Acid trip. Though I'm afraid Comedy Central is going to cancel it like they always do.

WHAT ABOUT CANCELLING UGLY AMERICANS!?! i love that show and i even had a Great idea for it!

Spoiler

Leanord and Mark are in a car, Mark's driving. Leanord yells YELLOW ONE! *Punches Mark* Mark: "Ow, where?" *He looks away from Leanord* *Leanord conjures up a yellow volkswagon on his side* *Mark sees it after Leanord points to it* Mark: "Oh"

And then they keep repeating it

 

[Someperson307]

I agree. Family Guy is the only cartoon I watch. I've heard Adult Swim has some good shows. Cartoon Network is dead, though.

 

[braincore02]

Anything's better than Hanna Barbara.

 

[Armored Prayer]

The older ones were always better IMO. I really don't like most modern cartoons. (I blame anime, and the internet)

Except Ugly Americans! That show is just brilliant while felling like an Acid trip. Though I'm afraid Comedy Central is going to cancel it like they always do.

WHAT ABOUT CANCELLING UGLY AMERICANS!?! i love that show and i even had a Great idea for it!

Spoiler

Leanord and Mark are in a car, Mark's driving. Leanord yells YELLOW ONE! *Punches Mark* Mark: "Ow, where?" *He looks away from Leanord* *Leanord conjures up a yellow volkswagon on his side* *Mark sees it after Leanord points to it* Mark: "Oh"

And then they keep repeating it

And at the end Leanord says "Magic." Thats perfect!

As for the whole canceling ordeal, the show is coming up to its last episode of the season. Knowing Comedy Central they might go ahead a cancel it like all new CC shows. But I have a feeling this show is going to be successful and continue into second season.

If it is canceled I'm going on a rampage!