There needs to really be a rule against overplaying the nostalgia card.

[Antiyonder]

There was a thread on the Disney Animation Forum asking why people don't like Yin Yang Yo. The response:


Because it's not Talespin/Ducktales/Rescue Rangers/some other show from the 80s/90s.

Apply that to almost any show Disney is currently airing and it'll be the same reason.

That may be true in some cases, but generalizing is going to get you nowhere.


Yes, I'm a fan of the various 80s/90s cartoons, so explain to me then why I enjoy cartoons of today like:

Kim Possible
American Dragon
The Batman
Jimmy Neuton
Fairly Oddparents

[Golgo13]

It's due to the fact that some of us from the generation of the late 80's/early 90's are starting to become old and crotchity. It's true. Were looking at these new cartoons and saying "why, in my day, we watched Talespin after walking home fifteen miles in the snow."

I can't really blame my generation for being a little uptight as we, and I don't mean this in a condesending way towards others, grew up in the golden age of animation during the 90's. We had Ren and Stimpy, Batman TAS, Animaniacs, all excellent cartoons that still hold up today as the best of the best. Now, in this day and age, things aren't like they use to be. I'm not saying were living in the dark ages of animation, but we're just not completely use to this new wave.

There are still plenty of good animated shows on television. Not as much as there were in our days, but still plenty. I think I'll go grab my cane now.

[Peter Paltridge]

The truth is that during our childhoods, there were a lot more kids shows on that made an effort to be just as entertaining to adults. Now there aren't as many. Whether we can complain about Yin Yang Yo or not depends on whether it's written smart enough. I haven't seen it, so you tell me.....smart as Rocko?

[Gokou Ruri]

I wasn't targeting anyone in specific, but I call them like I see them. I've been to many boards dedicated to cartoons in my lifetime, most are generally posted on by people in their 20s who grew up watching 80s and 90s shows with a strong dislike for all the current shows on Nickelodeon/Disney Channel and constantly preach about how their old shows were superior but don't back up their reasons with anything more than a "Because I said so".

I'm not saying all shows this day are good, but I am saying the same thing for 80s/90s shows. For every Beast Wars, there were 10 Hammermans/Gary Coleman Show/Street Sharks.


The truth is that during our childhoods, there were a lot more kids shows on that made an effort to be just as entertaining to adults. Now there aren't as many. Whether we can complain about Yin Yang Yo or not depends on whether it's written smart enough. I haven't seen it, so you tell me.....smart as Rocko? Smart as in fart/nude jokes? I'm sure YYY has some of those, probably, but I know I enjoy animation from today a lot more this day than shows from the 80s and the like. Sure, Rocko was funny, but there's far more cartoons in this day and age with a plot of some kind. Most action shows from the 80s were pretty formulamatic with no development, such as the old Ninja Turtles compared to the new ninja turtles. When almost any show on Nickelodoen this day and age has plot/character development, I'll take them over shows like Ren and Stimpy which were basically just comedy shows. I grew out of gross out humor, but I'll never grow out of an interesting story.

[Classic Speedy]

Smart as in fart/nude jokes? There is smart humor in Rocko; you're just choosing to let the juvenile jokes bother you. And Rocko has plots; they're just not serious plots. They're meant to make you laugh. But comedy plots aren't automatically inferior to dramatic plots.

[Ebonyleopard]

There was a thread on the Disney Animation Forum asking why people don't like Yin Yang Yo. The response:



That may be true in some cases, but generalizing is going to get you nowhere.


Yes, I'm a fan of the various 80s/90s cartoons, so explain to me then why I enjoy cartoons of today like:

Kim Possible
American Dragon
The Batman
Jimmy Neuton
Fairly Oddparents



Well to explain it you have to keep your categories separate. If compairing Disney shows of the 80/90s with current Diseny toons, I think the reason some like the older ones better is because they took old concepts (classic Disney movie/tv characters) and put a new twist on them in a modern since. They combined comedy, suspense, action, and sometimes drama in a semi continuitum that was rare for US toons at the time. (Like what happened in one episode, in some way or other may have effected one in another.)

Current Disney shows are all pretty self contained for the most part, which isn't bad but it doesn't lend to much character development. I would say, which is odd, they were a bit more mature in nature too. The themes of the shows weren't as..dumbed down then as they are now. Sure they were aimed for kids, but they weren't overly insulting. I find most toons today don't require kids to put much thought into what they are seeing, rather they are just expected to react.

Overall, though I think the real big reason people like them better is, well they just LOOKED better. The animation style looked better than the designs of a lot of current day cartoons which often are very geometric and in come cases ugly looking. Nicktoons is the big offender for intruducing the ugly cartoon, but it works so.

Now shows like the Batman and even Kim have some of the qualities of the old toons (especially the Batman). It has a more mature theme, the stories are suspenseful and there's enough action in it to not lose interest.

In my opinion, the best toon show current on air today is Avatar, doesn't insult, informs, holds your attention, and is the closes thing to a Western anime in story telling we're probably going to get anytime soon. I hope not of course.

[tb4000]

Kim Possible is the only one that really reminds me of the Disney Afternoon type shows, as it has hints of Darkwing Duck-style humor coupled with DuckTales heart, etc.

[Ebonyleopard]

Kim Possible is the only one that really reminds me of the Disney Afternoon type shows, as it has hints of Darkwing Duck-style humor coupled with DuckTales heart, etc.

Agreed. I don't watch it much but from what I've seen I'd agree. Only Disney toon (of the new generation ) I was watching for awhile there was the Proud Family, but that's totatly different from anything they had Ever done before.

[Prism]

I did grow up in the 80's and have a definite preference for both 30's-to-50's and 80's toons. And it's not just because I said so either. For starters, the designs from those eras were mostly good and the writing while a little cheesy solid.There are also several classic shows I dislike including Rocky and Bullwinkle,Underdog and Atom Ant. Not to say that I dislike current shows, I do like Kim Possible,Avatar,Oban StarRacers,Ben10,Juniper Lee,Venture Brothers,Monster Allergy,Trollz,Tom and Jerry Tales,Krypto,Pucca,Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends and several others. Because they have decent writing,chemistry and good art. But there are several other current toons that I can't stand, including The X's,Yin Yang Yo,Squirrelboy,My Gym Partner is a Monkey,Camp Lazlo among others. I just can't stand the writing,art or plots. It isn't always just nostalgia speaking, sometimes the older toons were better crafted then current toons and viceversa.

[J. B. Warner]

I don't concern myself with when a cartoon was made, I concern myself with the plot and the characters. If the stories are engaging and entertaining and the characters are well-developed personalities whom I genuinely care about, then I consider it to be a good show. That's why I have so much respect for "Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends", one of the only modern Cartoon Network shows I like - it fits that mold perfectly. So do a lot of the cartoons of the late 1980s and 1990s. They hold up to me because I can watch them again ten or twenty years later and still be entertained by them, not due to nostalgia, but because they were written so well.

[moe-ron]

There was a thread on the Disney Animation Forum asking why people don't like Yin Yang Yo. The response:



That may be true in some cases, but generalizing is going to get you nowhere.


Yes, I'm a fan of the various 80s/90s cartoons, so explain to me then why I enjoy cartoons of today like:

Kim Possible
American Dragon
The Batman
Jimmy Neuton
Fairly Oddparents

well, Ying Yang Yo genuinely sucks, the characters are annoying, SO ANNOYING.

As for the rest of the shows you listed, theyre pretty good, reasons why people hate "the Batman" is not because it was bad, it is fairly good and enjoyable, but B:TAS was better and in continuity with JL/JLU.

A lot of people may remind you of the cartoons they enjoyed when young, but that doesn't means that shows today are all good, just like in the 80's and 90's, there will always shows that are good and shows that suck.

[Andrew T. Hingson]

It's unfair to say all old cartoons were good, all new ones are bad, all new ones are good or all old ones are bad. In every age there are good cartoons and bad cartoons and it comes down to matter of taste really.

Now overall I feel most of today's cartoons are bit more hollow in a way. Too many cartoons that were built by comitee's rather than by creative minds. Aritst and creator driven cartoons aren't nearly as common as they should be at this point.

On the opposite side of your argument I think it's not fair to call it a nostalgia card. There are some shows I didn't bother to watch again and I only have my memories of them. If I say they're better than such and such then I'm playing the nostalgia card. However, in this day and age we have DVDs of cartoons from every decade at our finger tips. So when I say Darkwing Duck, The Tick, Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers and OG TMNT are great cartoons (still) I speak from recently watching them again (or in some cases the first time). Some old shows don't hold up at all. Those 4 at the least do that much. Then of course there are timeless shows like Batman the Animated series which pretty much no one would say was a bad cartoon (though there are some).

So it's not always the nostalgia card at play it's often enough no card at all. People are going to like what they want to and I still see a lot of quality in the 80s and 90s cartoons I grew up with and still adore to this day. But if you really want to test if I have bias for the things of old then I'll throw that out the window right now. Ninja Turtles 2003 is a fantastic show which is far better than the old series overall. The old series was good for kicks and grins and I still love it (especially the theme song, I really wish they could have used that with the new show but allas I knew it would never happen) but the new show actually has a worthwhile plot, attempts to adapt the comics faithfully, has a lot more action, consistant animation, better character interaction and is overall a far better produced series. And I'd never let nostalgia blind me to that fact.

[Tea]

There is smart humor in Rocko; you're just choosing to let the juvenile jokes bother you. And Rocko has plots; they're just not serious plots. They're meant to make you laugh. But comedy plots aren't automatically inferior to dramatic plots.
And you just explained the reason I'm so disappointed with Camp Lazlo. :sad: They didn't bother to include any adult humor for the people who grew up with Rocko and wanted to check out the show for nostalgia reasons.

[Gokou Ruri]

There is smart humor in Rocko; you're just choosing to let the juvenile jokes bother you. And Rocko has plots; they're just not serious plots. They're meant to make you laugh. But comedy plots aren't automatically inferior to dramatic plots. Like what? Whenever I see people praise it it's usually for the innuendo and "racy" jokes, like Tea said. It's fine as a kid, but as an adult I can just go watch Fox or NBC and see a sitcom that comes right out and makes jokes and plotlines about said "racy" subjects that you can't find in a children's show.


(Like what happened in one episode, in some way or other may have effected one in another.)

If you're talking about continuity, it's heck of a lot easier to find that in today's cartoons than back in the 80s and 90s. Compare Dexter's Lab to Jimmy Neutron. Similar comedy shows, but JN has far more character/plot development and continuity than Dexter ever did.

[Classic Speedy]

Like what? You don't even have to provide a list of the typical "sexual innuendos" that is frequently done with Rocko, because it has enough humor that adults would appreciate more than kids to make the argument. Most of the humor in the show is exaggerating real life to the point where it becomes funny.

The episode where Heffer joins the sausage club is pretty much a satire on religious cults, especially towards the end when the leader says that a certain passage in their bible is a difference of interpretation. It's also a great showcase of how cults can force you to behave exactly like them, such as not eating anything but sausages.

The whole Dracula has been "Done to Death" thing, a sly way of saying there are WAY too many Dracula movies, especially since the story's been around for so long.

The whole Filburt spawning episode is basically a parody of women whose biological clock is ringing, which I bet many young kids wouldn't get. And the episode managed to work in a Close Encounters parody with the recreation of the volcano.

The "one sock missing" thing was taken to a ridiculous extreme by actually having a world where single socks are destroyed purely to piss people off.

What kid can relate to constantly being late to work? That episode had a ton of things only teens/adults could relate to, like the subway train stopping for no reason (arts and crafts), no parking spaces except for five blocks away in the high crime area, and more. Heck, they even worked in a 'disgruntled post officer' jab.

A subtle jab at racism in the shopping episode when the guy behind Rocko starts ranting about sea mammals ("This country would be a whole lot better with them."), and then gets beaten up by the guy whose wife was a sea mammal.

The episode where Flecko the fly sues Rocko offers a funny satire on the sue happy world of the 90s+, in addition to law corruption.

"The Big Question/The Big Answer", again, more satires on race relations, except in this case it's different animals.

"Down the Hatch" had the ear people worshipping a vitamin. Unless you've seen that Planet of the Apes sequel, you won't get that reference.

I'd keep going but I think it's fairly pointless.

[Gokou Ruri]

You can find stuff like that in plenty of cartoons in just about every decade. Heck, I can name an episode of My Gym Partner is a Monkey with a satire look at America's dwindling public school system while incorporating the No Child Left Behind act if I wanted, or the typical 1984 parody about overzealous rulers.

And I don't even like Gym Partner.

[Classic Speedy]

You can find stuff like that in plenty of cartoons in just about every decade. Heck, I can name an episode of My Gym Partner is a Monkey with a satire look at America's dwindling public school system while incorporating the No Child Left Behind act if I wanted, or the typical 1984 parody about overzealous rulers. Oh come on, now you're trying to make me look like I'm blowing smoke. I'm not. It's all in the execution. I don't consider MPAAGM to be a cartoon that plays to multiple levels (from what I've observed, anyway), while I do consider Rocko to be. Thus, it's more reasonable to say that it had a few things that adults could enjoy. Kids could laugh at the physical humor and toilet jokes, and teens/adults could appreciate the satire on modern life that the show CONSTANTLY presented.

And a cartoon can be enjoyable for more than its writing, you know. If a cartoon has well-executed, hilarious sight gags/slapstick, I'll enjoy it. And Rocko certainly does. And yes, I'll concede that Rocko doesn't have deep characters or complex, serialized storylines. But it's not a bad cartoon because of that, far from it.

Galentone, from what I've observed (and correct me if I'm wrong on this), you seem to think that ALL fans of '80s and '90s cartoons are blinded by nostalgia, and that the only good cartoons are from the 2000s, simply because they're newer and don't have the nostalgia attached to them yet. Not really. Some of those '80s/'90s cartoons are just well-done. Heck, I've seen plenty of cartoons from numerous eras I used to think were awesome, and realized they aren't that great outside of the cheese factor (SMBSS, TMNT, Street Fighter), but many others have still held up for a variety of reasons.

[Antiyonder]

The point of my thread isn't about 80s/90s VS Current toons. It's that not everyone growing up on 80s/90s is going to witch (with a captial B) about the current cartoons.

Sterotyping no matter how pretty you word it is sterotyping.

[Hurricane V1]

I think there are a lot of great cartoons these days. The Fairly Oddparents, Jimmy Neutron, Static Shock, Teen Titans, Justice League, Invader Zim, Avatar, Naruto, Code Lyoko, Danny Phantom; I enjoy these shows now (well in some cases I loved the first few seasons) just as much as I enjoyed all my favorites as a kid in the 90's.

Friday nights are still cool on Nick when Avatar and DP are airing. As a kid, I didn't have anyplace to go on Friday nights, so my parents and I would watch Nicktoons on the kitchen TV. I'll never forget how hard WE ALL laughed during the hanging song from Ren & Stimpy. My parents never saw anything like that on television before, though the next day they were calling it totally stupid and pointless. 'Lord loves a hanging, that's why he gave us necks!' But now, I usually have to record new episodes of Avatar and such on Fridays to watch the next day.

We need some more live action shows for kids on Saturday mornings and not just these short lived sitcoms that feature whatever child star is the hottest or most fresh. Whether they be dramas, superhero action shows, scarey themed or just game shows. I used to watch Cryptkeeper's Haunted House, Legends of the Hidden Temple, Are You Afraid of the Dark, Secret World of Alex Mack, Shelby Woo and all that good stuff. Kids have nothing similar to those now.

[Gokou Ruri]

Galentone, from what I've observed (and correct me if I'm wrong on this), you seem to think that ALL fans of '80s and '90s cartoons are blinded by nostalgia, and that the only good cartoons are from the 2000s, simply because they're newer and don't have the nostalgia attached to them yet. Not really. Some of those '80s/'90s cartoons are just well-done. Heck, I've seen plenty of cartoons from numerous eras I used to think were awesome, and realized they aren't that great outside of the cheese factor (SMBSS, TMNT, Street Fighter), but many others have still held up for a variety of reasons. I liked a lot of cartoons from the old days. Beast Wars, Batman/Superman: TAS, ReBoot (though that kind of aired all the way into the 00's so I'm not sure if it counts) it's just I never say how Beast Wars was the end of all animation and now we live in a dark age where every show sucks. Justice League and Avatar should be proof enough for those people. Compared to the marketing blitz of the 80's where every show was basically a toy commercial, I just find it really strange how so many people can say that today's television is in some dark-age. If they want a real dark-age, they should go watch the 70s.

To me, children's television has only improved since the old days. Less censorship (Spiderman couldn't even throw a punch in the 90s show, but now we have brutal fights like Supergirl VS Galatea in Justice League) along with more freedom in creative control (having multi-episode arcs and what not, instead of a simple "monster of the week" formula that plagued a lot of shows back then) All I'm saying is people don't give today's shows nearly enough credit they deserve.

Though to be honest I never saw a lot of the cartoons people liked until only recently (I saw Freakazoid for the first time about three years ago) so that might be why I don't praise it much. I didn't watch it as a kid, only as an adult.


We need some more live action shows for kids on Saturday mornings and not just these short lived sitcoms that feature whatever child star is the hottest or most fresh. Whether they be dramas, superhero action shows, scarey themed or just game shows. I used to watch Cryptkeeper's Haunted House, Legends of the Hidden Temple, Are You Afraid of the Dark, Secret World of Alex Mack, Shelby Woo and all that good stuff. Kids have nothing similar to those now.

Ned's Declassified? Zoey? Unfabulous? Hannah Montana? There's plenty of live-action shows airing on Disney and Nick.

[Cobblepot1982]

I'm one of those Children of the '80s who DOESN'T SAY "everything today bites, everything then was better"- cause a lot of stuff from then WASN'T so great.

Now, flat out, I'll admit- I'm a die-hard '80s fanatic. But I'd also like to admit- one problem I have with several modern cartoons is the animation. Take Johnny Test, Monster Allergy, Powerpuff Girls and Dexter's Laboratory. It's ok to see that animation once in a while, but unfortunately, it's WAAAAY too reminiscient of the crudely constructed 1960s American animation( i.e. Rocky & Bullwinkle, George of the Jungle)- which I find overly disappointing.

Now, back in the '80s, DIC often brought on animators who did mind-blowing animation- check out The Real Ghostbusters and MASK for proof of that.

There were also some really atrocious cartoons from back then- the Littles, Camp Candy, Alvin & the Chipmunks, Muppet Babies...and maybe it's best I DON'T try to keep looking for more examples of bad shows. It wasn't necessarily the animation that made these shows bad( to the contrary; the animation was typically amazing for these)- these shows, watched later, were just completely insulting to my intelligence. It was literally painful to sit thru them.

And many times I've tried to tell people from our generation to not fall in the trap that older generations fall into: the stereotypical nostalgic mindset. I unfortunately have not been that successful, but just know that I've been saved, at least :)

[Tea]

Like what? Whenever I see people praise it it's usually for the innuendo and "racy" jokes, like Tea said.
I didn't say that. By "adult humor," I meant humor appealing to adults. Not just dirty or racy jokes, but current events, politics, parodies, obscure references, etc. Things that would normally fly over a child's head.

[Juu-kuchi]

On the issue of Rocko's Modern Life, it is a necessity in this regard to go watch the episode "Wacky Delly".

That episode transcends into art.

[Baltofan]

I agree, Golgo!

[CartoonSage]

You know, this thread is so true, as I myself am guilry of praising late 80's/90's cartoons...

...Like right now: I LOVED "wacky Delly" thtat episode is one of my fondest memories of Rocko.

[weredog]

I love the 80s. However I do realize that for every Transformers, Pound Puppies ( the first season anyway, it went kind of downhill after that ), Gummi Bears or GI Joe there was garbage like Little Clowns From Happytown, Monchichis or Popples.

[Golgo13]

On the issue of Rocko's Modern Life, it is a necessity in this regard to go watch the episode "Wacky Delly".

That episode transcends into art.

Wacky Delly was one of those in-joke episodes for animators. Those episodes usually tend to portray animation as a tedious and overwhelming job. I can remember there was an episode of Tiny Toons that displayed an animation bull-pen as a slave ship.

Wacky Delly was a much more real depiction of how animation is done: overwhelming episode order, design challenges, storyboard arguements, long nights of animating, criticizing the NEW guy, etc.

[Golgo13]

I love the 80s. However I do realize that for every Transformers, Pound Puppies ( the first season anyway, it went kind of downhill after that ), Gummi Bears or GI Joe there was garbage like Little Clowns From Happytown, Monchichis or Popples.

Popples is easily one of the worst cartoons to come out of the 80's. Not only was it annoying, it was poorly written. There was an episode where the kids were camping and Party Popples pops up and starts spreading streamers and confetti all over the yard for a minute. Then the kids have to clean it up for two minutes. So, three minutes of a ten minute cartoon was wasted on a pointless scene!

[Antiyonder]

To me, children's television has only improved since the old days. Less censorship (Spiderman couldn't even throw a punch in the 90s show, but now we have brutal fights like Supergirl VS Galatea in Justice League) along with more freedom in creative control (having multi-episode arcs and what not, instead of a simple "monster of the week" formula that plagued a lot of shows back then) All I'm saying is people don't give today's shows nearly enough credit they deserve.

1. At lot of what was shown on say Gargoyles wouldn't be allowed today. For instances, on the episode M.I.A., they actually used the word Nazi, where as in Justice League "The Savage Time" they could only use the term Axis Power.

2. Disney feels the need to edit things out of Ducktales and Talespin. I can understand if scenes are removed for the sake of complaint, but I don't recall hearing parents getting in an uproar when Scrooge fired his gun at Fenton. You call that less censorship?

[weredog]

Popples is easily one of the worst cartoons to come out of the 80's. Not only was it annoying, it was poorly written. There was an episode where the kids were camping and Party Popples pops up and starts spreading streamers and confetti all over the yard for a minute. Then the kids have to clean it up for two minutes. So, three minutes of a ten minute cartoon was wasted on a pointless scene!


I don't think anything could be as bad as Little Clowns From Happytown, but Popples was certainly up there as one of the worst. And this is coming from someone who liked the toys. It was dull as dirt, there was no villains, no conflict, just multicolored animal things acting like idiots and making nuisances of themselves for a half hour.

[Gokou Ruri]

1. At lot of what was shown on say Gargoyles wouldn't be allowed today. For instances, on the episode M.I.A., they actually used the word Nazi, where as in Justice League "The Savage Time" they could only use the term Axis Power. They said Nazi in Justice League Unlimited. Axis Power just probably fit better in the context they used than Nazi did in that episode you mentioned (since Axis Power means Germany as well as Italy and Japan)


2. Disney feels the need to edit things out of Ducktales and Talespin. I can understand if scenes are removed for the sake of complaint, but I don't recall hearing parents getting in an uproar when Scrooge fired his gun at Fenton. You call that less censorship? I don't really have an answer since I don't get Toon Disney, just the regular Disney Channel, but JLU had real bullets being fired so it might just be a Toon Disney thing (or a weird case of censorship, we don't know if anyone complained or not)