I was watching a few episodes of the first season of Thundercats. Damn that show is crappy. And I had fond memories of that show until now.
Any shows of that era that actually had decent storylines, character developement
and at least had uncheesy dialogue?
Off the top of my head:
Invader Zim
Ren and Stimpy
Rocko’s Modern Life
Beavis and Butthead
Daria
Aeon Flux (and a lot of other shows on MTV’s Liquid Television)
I’ll think of more later, I’m sure.
All of the ones mentioned so far are from the 90s, I believe. It’s quite a bit harder to come up with quality 80s cartoons.
It’s been a while so it’s difficult to think up 80s shows off the top of my head, but using Google-fu I nominate:
Count Duckula
Dangermouse
Duck Tales
Muppet Babies (hey, I was young enough to watch it back then!)
The Adventures of Johnny Quest
Those, as far as I can remember weren’t created primarily out of a desire to market merchandising, and were more or less decent (Johnny Quest is debatable, although the later series were a lot of fun). Not that some of the 30-minute commercial series weren’t a blast to watch; I remember BraveStarr and Dinosaucers fondly.
GI JOE although a cartoon to promote toys, was heads and shoulders story-wise over its competitors.
Dangermouse! Powerhouse! He’s the fastest, he’s the greatest, he’s the best!
[Stiletto] Si, Baroni [/Stiletto]
A little show called The Simpsons started in the late '80s.
Duck Tales
I always thought Disney’s Gummi Bears was really good, though some may disagree.
It had an underlying story arc, regarding the vanished race of Gummi Bears of Ursalia, it had distinct and developed characterisation of many of the main roles, and it portrayed a woodpunk/steampunk style to its fantasy elements. Plus, it was often very funny.
Chip & Dale’s Rescue Rangers.
Very fun, even today.
Thundercats, Transformers and GI Joe were terrible in retrospect. It’s always bugged my how high school kids delude themselves into thinking those shows are still awesome. The worst offender is Scooby Doo but I won’t get into that because it’s not an 80s cartoon.
Now Ducktales, there’s a show. Not as good as the Carl Barks or Don Rosa comics but still better than you could reasonably hope for.
Animaniacs
Jem and the Holograms: except, didn’t you guys think Rio was a total tool because even though Jerrica IS Jem, he’s still cheating on Jerrica with Jem. No one gets as upset about this as me, it seems.
2nd vote for Muppet Babies
I also used to watch the following: Snorks, Smurfs, Garfield and Friends, Get Along Gang, Richie Rich, GI Joe, She-ra and He-Man, Transformers, Voltron (huge huge Voltron fan, have the action figures still), Captain Planet and the standard Tom and Jerry/Tweety Sylvester/WB stuff, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Berenstein Bears, Flinstones, Inspector Gadget…and that’s about all I can remember.
My dad used to like Fraggle Rock, the regular muppets and Inspector Gadget and would watch those with me and my sister.
Dungeons & Dragons – 1983-1984.
Seeing as that’s based on a game, I don’t think that one counts as “not a commercial.”
Am I the only one who remembers Rude Dog? I think they showed it on CBS. Also there was a pro-wrestling themed cartoon called Hulk Hogan’s Rock’n’Wrestle. Then there was ABC’s Rubik, the Amazing Cube, about some Latino kids who find a talking Rubik’s cube. There was always a five-minute segment afterward called Menudo on ABC, in which the Puerto Rican boy band sang a song in Spanglish, usually about stuff like food or going to the mall.
Kidd Video was grade A.
I like the pixie, Glitter.
Battletech! Which no-one has seen.
Well, not literally. But more people need to see it, if only for the CGI. It could easily have been just a commercial, too, so that it wasn’t make it extra shiny.
Also in the Duckverse Darkwing Duck.
Oh, and also from Cartoon Network Space Ghost: Coast to Coast and Dexter’s Laboratory.
Wow that took me back. “Let’s get dangerous!”