The best decade for cartoons

[EmeraldSword]

Agh, I miss those childhood days of looking forward to waking up early Saturday morning to catch the best cartoons on TV in my star wars pajamas, favorite stuffed animal with me, hot cocoa, toast and my cocker spaniel (1987-2005) waiting patiently by my side for dog food or some stimulating activity outside the family room. I watched all those shows you guys mentioned earlier. I was a big fan of MASK, Voltron, Silverhawks, GI Joe, Transformers and Visionaries in the 80s. In the 90s it was Batman ToS, Captain Planet, EXO Squad, Chip & Dale Rescue Rangers, Tailspin, Darkwing Duck, Gargoyles and more.

Like others here, in the late 90s, I started to move on to watching anime after cartoon popularity began to wane a bit here in the west. My first foray was into Robotech in the early 90s then a bunch of more adult anime like Ninja Scroll and Akira came afterwards. I collected a ton of anime in the early 2000s when the DVD boom started and busted after companies began going under after 2005. I can't tell you guys how bummed I was when I found out Bandai Entertainment didn't make it -- because for me that meant the end of bringing Gundam to the west dubbed and able to own from an affordability perspective.

Thanks to Cartoon Network's Toonami/Adult Swim time slot, I think a lot of us got exposed to some cool anime shows that have made us all lifelong fans of animation in general. Shows like Cowboy Bebop and Ghost in the Shell, I have to tip my hat to.

I prefer to watch anime dubbed, so I don't really keep up with all the simulcasts on Crunchyroll these days so I'm a bit out of touch with pop anime culture. I catch new anime nowadays on Netflix when something is released there and will buy an anime blu-ray rarely, but that's about it. But again, thanks to my childhood growing up in the 80-90s, I'll probably remain a lifelong fan of cartoons.

[Dincrest]

Like many of you, I was a "cartoon kid" in the 1980s and in the late 1990s I got into anime, so I tend to have "nostalgia feelz" for 1980s cartoons and 1990s anime.  I remember those days when I'd get up jumpy and cheerful at 6 o'clock on Saturday mornings to watch cartoons and my parents would grumble, "dammit, why can't this kid get up like this on a school day?"  

When I was a child living in Holland, one of my dad's colleagues used to have his retired uncle videotape American cartoons for me and whenever said colleague was in the US, he'd bring back tons of VHS tapes of American cartoons.  I watched the living daylights out of those!  That's how I became familiar with slightly more obscure shows like Mighty Orbots, Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors, Turbo Teen, along with the usual suspects that they showed on BBC (like Transformers, Thundercats, MASK.)  

I also remember circa age 7 or so, this one neighbor girl (who was probably 5 or 6) and I used to run around all the time pretending to be He-Man and She-Ra.  This sticks out to me because to any 7 year-old boy, little girls are annoying as fuck but this particular one was actually cool.  I liked hanging with her, and luckily our parents all got along so we ran together all the time.  I'm not a parent, but that's one thing I realize needs to be in a parenting manual- getting along with the parents of your kid's friends.  

EDIT: And natros- that's a good point that a lot of the folks creating cartoons now are folks our age who grew up with 1980s and 1990s cartoons (which most everyone in this thread has said were fantastic cartoon decades).  In much the same way, a lot of folks creating video games are people our age who grew up with the NES, Genesis/Megadrive, Super NES; came of age with the PSOne, N64...  This is big reason why I feel like we're seeing the positive gaming and cartoon trends we're seeing. 

And note must be made of The Amazing World of Gumball.  That cartoon is insanely imaginative and downright hilarious.  Probably one of the niftier shows to come out in recent years.   

[MeshGearFox]

Oh I just wanted to say that Phineas and Ferb was like my favorite show in college except for that awkward period where I was interested in politics/actually an adult and only watched MSNBC.

[Dincrest]

I'm also thinking about some of the B-list cartoons of any given decade.  Most were just lousy imitations of something better, but some actually had merits.  A big example I can think of is Challenge of the Gobots in the 1980s.  Yes, Transformers was easily the better toy line (Gobots broke too easily, except for a select few) and had the cooler cartoon.  But there was one thing Gobots did a LOT better than Transformers, and that's in how they incorporated female characters.  The Gobots had female 'bots in their ranks from episode 1 and they had solid personalities, practical designs, were always part of the toy line, and there were a bunch of them so there wasn't just the one "token chick" like in a lot of cartoons.  The female Transformers were introduced late in the game, were never part of the original toyline, often had sexualized designs and one-dimensional personalities making them seem like "token chicks."  Even Arcee, who got more screen time than any other female autobot, was just kinda "there."  Even when I was a kid, I noticed that, and I liked that female Gobots were integrated from the get-go and they were cool, like Small Foot.  Small Foot (Gobots) > Arcee (Transformers) any day of the week.  EDIT: When I was a kid, I liked that Small Foot was an impetuous tomboy and didn't look all girly.  That was part of her charm.  Let Sparky be the girly looking one. 

And does anyone remember the cartoon Inhumanoids from the 1980s?  Man, that cartoon had some seriously nightmarish imagery for a kids' show.  These days, parents would be railing against a show like Inhumanoids with warpaint on.  

[Aeolus]

I'm also thinking about some of the B-list cartoons of any given decade.  Most were just lousy imitations of something better, but some actually had merits.  A big example I can think of is Challenge of the Gobots in the 1980s.  Yes, Transformers was easily the better toy line (Gobots broke too easily, except for a select few) and had the cooler cartoon.  But there was one thing Gobots did a LOT better than Transformers, and that's in how they incorporated female characters.  The Gobots had female 'bots in their ranks from episode 1 and they had solid personalities, practical designs, were always part of the toy line, and there were a bunch of them so there wasn't just the one "token chick" like in a lot of cartoons.  The female Transformers were introduced late in the game, were never part of the original toyline, often had sexualized designs and one-dimensional personalities making them seem like "token chicks."  Even Arcee, who got more screen time than any other female autobot, was just kinda "there."  Even when I was a kid, I noticed that, and I liked that female Gobots were integrated from the get-go and they were cool, like Small Foot.  Small Foot (Gobots) > Arcee (Transformers) any day of the week. 

And does anyone remember the cartoon Inhumanoids from the 1980s?  Man, that cartoon had some seriously nightmarish imagery for a kids' show.  These days, parents would be railing against a show like Inhumanoids with warpaint on. 

Female Transformers outside of Acree didn't happen until Black Arachnia and Air Razor in Beast Wars (at least in the US; god only knows what the UK had to deal with since they didn't leave the G1 series until after BW came out; and fuck Japan and its line of series' that culminated in fucking Kiss Prayers).

On the other hand, why do robotic alien life forms need human genders in the first place?


As for the Inhumanoids, was it that Thundarr the Barbarian knock off with the main guy's weapon being a Lance of Light instead of a Fabulous Sun Sword and had a kid with the slingshot (or was it a boomerang)?

I ask, because that title sounds like it could belong to at least a dozen different shows from during or before the 80s, and I'm too lazy to bother looking it up right now.

[Dincrest]

He-Man, Blackstar, Thundarr, Lion-O... all pretty much cut from the same cloth.  Inhumanoids is something completely different.  You're probably thinking of Herculoids.  Inhumanoids was this: opening: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSO_6YxCirQ and a couple of examples of weird scenes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bt0KUz4Yg-Y  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmKqovXOr9E

And there was one (and only one, I think) G1 transformers episode that had some female autobots like Elita One and a bunch of others: http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Female_Autobots  I remember watching it when I was a kid.  I had kept wondering why there were no female robots.  As for why robotic alien life forms need genders, because of cartoon logic- that's why.  It's similar to the "because anime" clause for the creative liberty in animated programming.  Why does Kos-Mos, an assassin robot, look like a hoochie designed by a horny artist who's probably had little physical interaction with actual women?  Because JRPG, that's why.  When watching 1980s episodes of He-Man and the titular hero does things that defy all cartoonish levels of logic and reason and you ask why?  The simple answer is "because He-Man.  That's why."  

I don't know, I just can't bring real physics and all that into discussions about fantasy cartoons.  Hell, Looney Tunes cartoons pretty much defy all conventions.  

EDIT: Then again, perhaps the idea of robots looking humanoid and transforming into familiar forms is so that we can relate to them, see them as "us" rather than "them" so that they'll have ingrained themselves so much into our existence that the robot takeover won't be as difficult, since we'll all have them and thus not fear them.  As for "sexy bots," if something makes a guy horny, he's less likely to turn it into scrap right away and my hesitate.  Kinda like how back in the day, drones were a source of fear because they were wartime reconnaissance or espionage devices that often had hidden weapons, but now we're not so scared of them because people buy or make personal drones, they're in the news (so they're familiar to our life lexicon), and even companies like Amazon are looking into using drones to ship products to consumers that much faster.  And if I'm to believe the Internet, the Gobots were originally a humanoid race who augmented their minds/souls into robots so the apocalypse wouldn't kill them.

http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20060605112731/uncyclopedia/images/b/be/God_kills_catgirl.gif

[Lard]

As much as I am a fan of 90s cartoons (Night hood!), I have to say the 30/40s were the best time.

[Jimmy]

As much as I am a fan of 90s cartoons (Night hood!), I have to say the 30/40s were the best time.

I have to agree, actually. Back then, cartoons were nuts and hilarious. No physics to worry about, no creation of a consistent world. Just funny characters getting smashed by anvils, a spinach eating sailor, and a mischievous Mickey Mouse. I do love to watch classic cartoons.

My wife bought me a bunch of old 1930s and 1940s Popeye cartoons on DVD this last Christmas and there have been some that have literally had me laughing so hard I cried. Like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWmIenz_yRE

[Dice]

The old Superman cartoons were unbelievable looking.

I still love Looney Tunes too, those were a work of art.  The use of music in addition to sound effects was incredible as well.
https://youtu.be/TUCO1hjzb9k?t=9260

I mean, anime is cool and all, but two things: Their frame rate is usually shitty (to their credit though, the designs for characters get pretty complicated), and the lack of synchronized mouth movements.

[Dincrest]

My voice over coach used to be Mel Blanc's studio manager, so I'm often studying the ways of voice acting's grandfathers like Mel Blanc (Warner Bros.), Daws Butler (Hanna Barbera), etc.  

I can never listen to the classical piece Barber of Seville without thinking of Bugs Bunny.  Looney Tunes made classical music cool.

And I think it's telling that the song "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down" became the Looney Tunes theme song.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYcVM-CYnZM

[MeshGearFox]

Looney Tunes was one of those things I never liked when I was younger but later was like, yeah this is awesome.

I really like how oldschools 70s/80s anime looks. Like where it's kind of ridiculous and nothing's on-model ever but you don't care because it had soul and because Kenshiro seriously just punched a battleship to death I mean holy shit.

[Jimmy]

Relevant to the topic, apparently Nickelodeon has dropped hints that they'll be creating a new channel for 90s era programming. Here's a link to the new story:

http://www.eonline.com/news/695724/nickelodeon-is-probably-bringing-back-your-favorite-90s-shows-on-a-new-network-called-the-splat

[Dincrest]

Nice!  I still feel like several of those cartoons would still hold up well today, like Aaahh! Real Monsters.  Although I wonder if hypersensitive parents these days would object to Aaahh! Real Monsters because of its sight gags.  Go figure, my mom actually enjoyed the show.  She thought it was really cute and really creative, particularly the "scary" sight gags.

[EmeraldSword]

I didn't know where to post this, but Netflix is bringing Voltron back in a re-imagining of the series with DreamWorks Animation developing the reboot this year. Wooooo hooo! Hopefully it's good.



Story: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/netflix-dreamworks-animation-expand-streaming-852151

*edit* added old school animation opening, voice sounds like Optimus Prime, heh: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uS5b8aQ6z8

[Aeolus]

I didn't know where to post this, but Netflix is bringing Voltron back in a re-imagining of the series with DreamWorks Animation developing the reboot this year. Wooooo hooo! Hopefully it's good.



Story: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/netflix-dreamworks-animation-expand-streaming-852151

*edit* added old school animation opening, voice sounds like Optimus Prime, heh: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uS5b8aQ6z8

Oh hey. Yet another attempt at rebooting Voltron in the west.