If memory serves, the action figures were in the stores months before the cartoon hit the airwaves…
I give you Bravestar
You’re asking two completely different questions.
The question asked in the OP is totally unrelated to the question in the topic line.
Dungeons & Dragons is one of the better cartoons of the era, but it was as much an advertisement for the games as anything else.
Robotech (the single best cartoon of the 80s, one of only a handful I can still rewatch) had a lot of associated merch (and was only named Robotech because the company that had the rights to models based on Macross were calling them Robotech and insisted Harmony Gold use that name.)
Other good 80s/90s cartoons:
All of the Disney 'toons - Gummi Bears, Ducktales, Darkwing Duck, Goof Troop, Tailspin, and Chip n Dale’s Rescue Rangers, particularly.
The Littles - it’s very, very 80s, but I’ve been getting all nostalgic watching it lately, and it actually holds up surprisingly well.
Indignant Launchpad McQuack, on being called a perpetrator: Who’s a purple traitor?
I forgot that we were talking about the 90s, too. Darkwing Duck was ok but not spectacular. I can’t believe I’m about to admit this in a public forum but the Powerpuff Girls was actually a pretty good show. It was good satire.
I started singing the song, “Darkwing Duck (Let’s get…)” and then I couldn’t remember the next word. I put in “physical.” It really didn’t work.
God I loved Darkwing Duck.
I saw Animaniacs, but I will add “Tiny Toons”, “Pinky and the Brain”, “Histeria!”, “Futurama” and of course “South Park”.
Jim
Maybe that depends on the age group watching the show. I was 5/6-years-old when it aired. I loved it, but I had no idea (or maybe a vague notion) that it was based on a game.
So there’s commercialism there, but it’s not quite on the same level as me constantly bugging my parents for GI Joe action figures and getting Castle Greyskull (which I managed to break before New Years) for Christmas.
Obviously the two best cartoons of the 90s. So good, in fact, that they didn’t even cross my mind when I was trying to think of good “cartoons”. They would’ve been first in a list of good “shows”.
Reboot was a great show.
Earlier today I just suddenly had the Ducktales song playing through my head out of nowhere. What I can remember of it at least.
“Life is like a hurricane here in Duckberg
something something aeroplanes
it’s a duck blur
like solving mysteries and rewrite[?] history
ducktales, woo-oo!
tales of daring and adventure
ducktales, woo-oo!”
Not The Wuzzles, though. At least, not in my opinion. I thought they were singularly uninteresting.
All of the ones that you mentioned were pretty darned good, though.
I really am going to have to start copyrighting my ideas since i came up with that one in '73.
Racecars, lasers, aeroplanes.
Might solve a mystery, or rewrite history [?]
I thought the last line was “Tales of derring-do that end good”? I could be wrong.
I guess vampire ducks are a popular subject. Besides the aforementioned British Count Duckula character, Filmation had a character called Quackula, which the studio was sued over by cartoonist Scott Shaw!, who also had a Quackula character.
Tales of derring-do, bad and good luck tales. (Whoo-ooh!)
Actually, (and someone’s prbably already pointed it out), Battletech was a commercial. You know, for Battletech (the tabletop game launched in 1984, the sci-fi novel series, toy line based on the cartoon, etc.). And while it was pretty good, I have to admit I’m on the side of the over-nerds when I saw that it’s still disappointing when compared to the books.
[rant] The hackeneyed excuse to put together a multi-ethnic lineup of heroes (which flies in the face of the whole Battletech setting, where the nations of space largely conform to old nationalities, and the failure of democracy and modern thinking) is one thing; at least it could b written off as emphasizing the theme of the Clan Invasion bringing the old Inner Sphere nations together. But the pverly-cartoonish ham-fisted way the Clans where dealt with will always be an issue for me. As is their ill-conceived attempts to bring in characters & plot points of the book series when the over-all tone of the two lines is so disparate (one being targeted for kids, and one for the late-teens/early 20’s market).[/rant] :o
Yeah, including the '90’s allows a lot of quality shows. If you expand that to include series based on other works that aren’t mostly made to push a product, then you can include all of Bruce Timm et al’s DC comics cartoons (Batman: the animated series, Adventures of Superman, Batman Beyond*).
I’d also like to point out that some of the shows whose purpose was to push product where actually pretty good and hold up well. Transformers: Beast Wars is one; it managed to stay true to the original series (especially the neat way they tied the stories together in Seasons 2 and 3), while actually involving some damn good writing, with solid characterization, and interesting on-going plotlines. As one of the two main writers has said, the key to Beast Wars success is that they wrote a show that was kid-friendly, but wasn’t dumbed-down for kids. Hell, they even snuck an allusion to Shakespeare in there (when one of the major good guys dies, he delivers part of Hamlet’s death soliloquoy!).
Other than that, I’d like to mention Gargoyles, a Disney cartoon that was surprisingly dark and moody, with great ongoing storylines and character development. It had a ton of Shakespeare stories tied into it, and a large portion of the Star Trek: The Next Generation cast did voice-work, btw. I’m not sure if this series qualifies, because a good deal of (shitty, IMHO) merchandise was eventually made from it. But for the most part Gargoyles seemed to be made for the sake of making a good show to get ratings.
*Hey, it started in 1999! And someone has to push it! 
…God I loved that show. 
How’s about Star Blazers, Battle of the Planets, and Challenge of the Superfriends?
How can it be that no one has mentioned The Real Ghostbusters? That was a high-water mark for 80’s animated storytelling. It had lots of sophisticated jokes and puns, pretty good characters, and references to real folklore, mythology, pop culture, and the Cthulu mythos.
My favorite bit is when a group of Hollywood filmmakers decides to produce a movie about the Ghostbusters. At the end, you see the characters entering the theater to watch the movie, and you see the scene from Ghostbuster with Bill Murray doing the experiment with the Zener cards. This prompts the animated Venkman to say, “That guy doesn’t look anything like me!” (The animators weren’t able to get likeness rights from Murray and the other stars, so none of the animated characters look anything like their movie counterparts.)
Wuzzles was Disney?
Hmm. I don’t remember it well enough to comment one way or the other, in any case.
A late 90s entry but a really really good one, Home Movies.
Jus’ what I came in here to say. Maybe it was a commercial, but it wasn’t just a commercial.
And all of Tengu’s* Disney cartoon nominations—hell, for the animation quality, if nothing else. (Though you left out Winnie the Pooh and Gargoyles.
I’ll vouch for Daria still having an active fanbase.
And one of the better episodes of Beast Wars was written by D.C. Fontana. That D.C. Fontana. :eek: