What happened to kids cartoons?

[Moontouched-Moogle]

and Cadillacs and Dinosaurs
Tell me whats wrong with kids watching these shows?

Wow, that actually looks awesome and a little goofy. I'm gonna have to look that one up.

 

[Dark1Elder]

and Cadillacs and Dinosaurs
Tell me whats wrong with kids watching these shows?

Wow, that actually looks awesome and a little goofy. I'm gonna have to look that one up.

Oh it is, and the main character Jack, has a pet Raptor. the whole thing is pretty amazing, but always keeps a degree of comedy. I'm currently trying to find it on DVD, or hell on VHS if i have to.

 

[Moontouched-Moogle]

Also if you want a good series Avatar the legend of Korra will be out soon, and the new Thundercats is good.

This, but first watch Avatar: The Last Airbender. Seeing as it comes first chronologically, and also because it's the greatest show ever made my human minds. Seriously, it's a really funny, heart-poundingly epic fantasy story with complex characters, an interesting and highly-developed world and mythology, and some of the greatest animated fight scenes you'll ever see. Watch it.

But generally, yeah, I agree. Kids shows generally aren't good. We occasionally have some good ones (Invader Zim, Avatar: The Last Airbender, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, etc.), but not nearly as many as back in the day.

Also check out Fillmore! It's an awesome cartoon from the 90s that basically takes the typical "buddy cop" formula and puts it in the context of middle school. So the episode about counterfeit money is actually about counterfeit baseball cards, for instance. It takes all the typical crimes one would expect in a cop show, but adapts them to middle school stuff, and the result is absolutely brilliant. Also, Tara Strong (Twilight Sparkle in MLP, Seth Balmore in Lost Odyssey, Harley Quinn in Arkham City) is one of the main characters, so there's another thing. It may take some internet searching to find, but it's very much worth it.

Yeah, Avatar was good and should definitely be given a look.

As to Tara Strong, I had the strangest feeling that I'd heard Twilight's voice, and the name of the voice actor, somewhere before. I checked her on IMDB and was surprised to see all the other roles she's played that I recognize:

-Paz from Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker
-Ursula and Elisa from Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops
-Timmy Turner from Fairly Oddparents
-Bubbles from Powerpuff Girls
-Rikku from Final Fantasy X
-Melody from Little Mermaid 2

The list goes on and on. She really gets around!

 

[Moontouched-Moogle]

and Cadillacs and Dinosaurs
Tell me whats wrong with kids watching these shows?

Wow, that actually looks awesome and a little goofy. I'm gonna have to look that one up.

Oh it is, and the main character Jack, has a pet Raptor. the whole thing is pretty amazing, but always keeps a degree of comedy. I'm currently trying to find it on DVD, or hell on VHS if i have to.

Oh, excellent! I'll definitely have to check it out then. Glad it has some comedy in it. Because, come on, DINOSAURS AND COOL CARS IN THE FUTURE. You can't help but chuckle at such a silly yet amazing idea.

It's almost as if they just asked some kids what they wanted in a show and made that.
"Hey Tommy, what should we make a cartoon about?"
"How about dinosaurs? And cars! Lots of dinosaurs and cars! In the future!"
"FUND IT!"

 

[MelasZepheos_v1legacy]

Haaaa

Watch Avatar the Last Airbender lately? Not for everyone but dear lord was that show deep when it wanted to be. Maybe not quite as good as Batman the Animated Series (the greatest cartoon ever made bar none) but it was a damn good show. Teen Titans? Samurai Jack? Hell, even Kim Possible was actually pretty well written and animated.

People forget the shit and remember the good. For every Batman TAS there was a Superman TAS, or a Spongebob, or whatever you don't like.

I know people who didn't like Batman the Animated Series. That's all I ever need to know about cartoons. Nostalgia makes opinion even more skewed than it already was. Probably had you watched the Spongebob cartoons you liked as a child as an adult, for the first time, not watching them again, you might find they aren't quite as fun as you remember.

Or you might. Shows change, some get worse, news ones appear to be the good shows. The Simpsons hasn't been good for over a decade, but other shows have come and gone that were just as good as it once was. It's how television works, children's television just has a faster turnover because the kids age out of it faster. You can watch the Simpson's for ten seasons, you'd probably only watch Spongebob for three.

 

[Al-Bundy-da-G]

DBZK on Nicktoons, but then again it's just a shorter and better dubbed version of DBZ.

I know, isn't wonderful? Now it doesn't take 10 minutes for Goku to power up.

OT: Regular Show, Sgt. Frog, and Adventure Time, all in no way at all suck balls.

 

[CODE-D]

The fact that you hold Mlp in such high regard and dis chowder and flapjack means we have nothing in common. I pity you.

the fact your 'pitying' some one for liking something you don't say more about you then it dose me for liking MLP.
this would normally be the part where i'd throw 'i pity you' back at you, but that would make me a lier, and i save that for people that actually deserve it

Mlp has affected your spelling ability.

no that's actually always sucked, which is my teachers fault

and it'd be worse if this site didn't have spell check, and praise Luna for that i say

Anyway back on topic
Generator Rex
Symbionic Titan(even though canceled)
are also good, especially Rex which I thought was going to be stupid at first but man has that story evolved. Love it.

 

[RJ Dalton]

You know, "scratching your head wondering what the hell I just watched" is how Spongebob always left me feeling. It's entirely possible that you've just grown up.

 

[Quaidis]

I shadow what everyone else has been saying. Some cartoons are getting worse, and your perception of cartoons you remember has been skewed by nostalgia. The trick to that is to loosen up.


But if you feel that your daughter's brain is devolving, then please... Feel free to show her LoonieToons from fifty years ago on Youtube, before political correctness took out characters like Peppi and Speedy. I especially love the ChuckJones cartoons, like that one about the kitten that could fly with its tail. Animaniacs is also all over YouTube should you need an alternative.




One thing I have noticed is that cartoon artists have become lazy this decade. There are more and more blocky, uninspiring cartoons compared to the more fulfilling animated crap of the past. But hey, whatever sells.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQlmXU1zqfc&feature=related


Or, hey, if you like kittens, here's a preview of a PussyFoot cartoon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7F_HaVOU5h0&feature=related



Edit - here's the 'Go Fly a Kit' episode I brought up in paragraph 2. It helps to know the titles of said cartoons. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8a5p8ckP7Y

 

[burningdragoon]

Only shows I can think of are Adventure Time and the current new Looney Tunes series. Those are far more intelligent that most Nick shows.

I appreciate them not being afraid to try something new with the classic Looney Tunes characters, but when you change all the character's personalities, use a completely different type of humor, (Except for those Wile E. shorts) and largely change the formula of a show, should they really go and use preexisting cartoon icons for this?

Urgh. They made Bugs a selfish dick who takes advantage of Daffy's new-founded stupidity, rather than having Bugs talk circles around him because of how blinded Daffy gets from his bouts of severe greed. that just kills me- the Bugs-Daffy dynamic was so great, and they went and replaced it, for what?
Tiny Tunes already proved that you can make spinoff characters along similar lines as the original Looney Tunes without messing with the original characters' dynamics.
Urgh. I should stop ranting.

Ugh, the new Looney Tunes is awful. I did catch the original a few weeks ago. Good times.

OT: For the most part it's just you getting older. But there's plenty of cartoons that I enjoy that are new. Maybe not enjoy enough to go out of my way to watch though...

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

To all Nostalgia Driven people everywhere I state this undeniable fact.

When you get older you remember the best parts of your favorite shows and forget about all the crap that it was surrounded by. Then when you look at what is available you see the garbage on the surface and don't search for the gems hidden underneath like you did as a kid and then assume it is all crap.

There will always be crap and there will always be those gems just waiting to be discovered, sometimes there will be lots of good things that come out at once and other times it will be a slow trickle.

Also if you want a good series Avatar the legend of Korra will be out soon, and the new Thundercats is good.

This is true, but the 90's really was a good decade to be a kid. Saturday morning cartoons still existed, side by side with cable channels devoted exclusively to kids shows. Really, though, it's not the current lineup of cartoons that's a problem' it's the ones we had for the decade between the 90's and the current one. There was a definite doldrum between the mid-2000's and the late 2000's; from about 2005 or 2006 to 2009, a lot of great cartoons got cancelled, and the replacements... well, to call most of them "mediocre" would be charitable. There were very few gems in that period, and most of those didn't last very long *cough*DavetheBarbarian*cough*. Since 2009, and especially since 2010, though? We've been on an upswing.

Really, we saw the same thing with TV in general for a while there; in the 90's, genre fiction was all over the place. We had fantasy, we had sci fi, we even had a little bit of horror. Pretty much everything that wasn't a soap opera, a game show, or a cop or doctor show was genre fiction. These days, the genre fiction has mostly been replaced by reality shows, and what we're left with has a very post-LOST and post-9/11 feel to it, which makes it less uplifting. However, that's coming to an end now, too; I think the newfound popularity of Doctor Who in the US may have something to do with it; network execs are finally realizing that sci fi and fantasy are popular genres and are worth producing.

As for a list of current cartoons that are good:

Phineas and Ferb
Adventure Time
Regular Show
Batman: The Brave and the Bold
Young Justice
Star Wars: The Clone Wars (Though your mileage may vary on that one)
My Little Pony: Friendship is magic (I know, you said you didn't want us to recommend it, but I'm making a list of decent shows moreso than a list of recommendations)
G.I. Joe Renegades (I think that's the title; the current G.I. Joe show on the Hub)
The Looney Toons Show (not as good as the originals, or as the Spielberg spinoffs from the 90's, but still not bad)


And that's just the ones that are still currently in production or otherwise airing new episodes. If I were to list all of the good cartoons that are currently in reruns, we'd be here all night.

 

[ccggenius12]

no series can go on forever without losing what made it great in the first place.

Doctor Who would like to have a word with you.

Most dubbed anime I watched on Toonami was actually pretty horrible

Did you give the unedited versions a chance, or did you use what aired as the basis for your decision? While they haven't done unspeakable things to anime like 4kids has, they certainly did not present an accurate representation of all of the series they aired.

Spoiler

There is so much going on in this clip to love it's not even funny

On topic, this is why I love the internet. I can filter out the crap and just watch the stuff I enjoy. You have to figure that eventually the internet will become the most profitable means of distribution. Given that, eventually putting out crap shows won't be tolerable because at any given time you could be watching something better. Shows won't gross high merely because they have an excellent time slot. Failing in that, I still won't have to watch it, so what do I care.

PS on the topic of good old shows, Gargoyles was a bit before my time, but I've heard nothing but good things. Also, Reboot, heard that was the shit.

 

[DefinitelyPsychotic]

More so, what happened to Courage the Cowardly Dog? Granted, it is still on the air, but there aren't any new episodes!

 

[chris11246]

I would like to point out secret mountain fort awesome. I would apreciate someone explaining how thats a good show.

I do understand that most shows are just different but that one I cant understand

I am confused as to why the hell you are quoting me.

because you said cartoons didnt change you did but there wasnt one like that before

 

[TheDooD]

Courage the Cowardly Dog, Dexter's Lab, Ed, Edd and Eddy, Powerpuff Girls, Samurai Jack and Batman Beyond are some of my favorites from the "kids" cartoons

Eventhough Courage, Jack and Batman Beyond had quite a few episodes that were NOT for the little kids. That reminds me I need to find DVD's of those shows.

Yet from Adult Swim. I miss Home Movies I watched that show when it came out in the 90's and it was the funniest shit I saw. Futurama and King of the Hill are up there in my all time favs. Of course the early seasons of the Simpsons were godlike. Now if a remember to watch it Archer is very well made much, much then Frisky Dingo.