We all grew up watching cartoons/animated programming. That's a given. And we all have opinions about what the best decade for cartoons was. So let's talk about it!
Those of us who grew up in the 1980s will champion stuff like Transformers, GI Joe, Jem, others based on Hasbro toy lines. And He-Man, She-Ra, Thundercats, that stuff (even though He-Man was clearly done on a shoestring budget- the creators even admit as much.) And most 1980s nostalgia stalwarts will not admit that, yes, 2002 He-Man and 2011 Thundercats were good- perhaps better than the originals. I do, though I certainly have a soft-spot for the originals. Hell, I was a 1980s kid, so I have a total soft spot for the cavalcade of 1980s cartoons, even if they were nothing more than half-hour commercials for toys with "in today's story" morals to appease parent groups who disliked the pandering.
But I know many of you were 1990s kids. That was a great cartoon decade as well, what with all the killer Disney series like Gummi Bears, Duck Tales, Gargoyles; Nicktoons like Rocko's Modern Life; Batman: The Animated Series, X-Men, the 1990s was a good decade for launching a lot of comic-book based series. I liked the updated Jonny Quest as well- Jessie was cool. I'm thinking 1990s cartoons were really where there was a focus on continuity in storylines. Like there's little to no continuity in 1980s He-Man, the writers pretty much wrote as they went along, and it was 2002 He-Man that tried to make sense out of all of it. The 1990s also saw The Simpsons, which opened the floodgates for "adult/primetime" animated sitcoms.
Early 2000s had some gems. I liked Kim Possible, aforementioned He-Man 2002, early Spongebob, W.I.T.C.H. (which I thought was a good series), Avatar, and Cartoon Network stuff like Dexter, Powerpuff Girls, Cow & Chicken...
And now we come to the 2010s. A lot of us say stuff like "cartoons suck nowadays, they were better when we were kids." It's telling that one of the better series to emerge from the 2010s was the new My Little Pony. It's generally good, to be sure, but a LOT of people argue that it was "the best of the worst" during a cartoon drought. But we're seeing series like Adventure Time, Steven Universe and others seem to get their sea legs. The later eps/seasons seem to be where they get good. And I mentioned the criminally overlooked Thundercats 2011.
So yeah, let's talk about the various decades of cartoons we grew up with, maybe those our younger relatives grew up with/are growing up with, and what was/is good.