Smurfette must have been reeeeeally tired after pon far…oh, wait, that’s another series. 
All the cartoons in my post were picked up by my rickety-ass rabbit ear antenna.
doesn’t your ABC affiliate get the Disney’s Saturday Morning lineup?
RECESS, FILLMORE, KIM POSSIBLE, THE PROUD FAMILY, TEAMO SUPREMO & the mostly live action LIZZIE MCGUIRE- all fine shows (tho TS was an acquired taste for me- I think Martin Mull as Gov Kevin helps)
Am I the only one who lets his son stay up to watch ‘Justice League’ every once in a while…? (but only if its a new episode or one we haven’t seen)
“The Simpsons” is made for adults.
“Rocky and Bullwinkle,” “Bugs Bunny,” “The Pink Panther,” and the original Max Fleischer Popeye cartoons were all made for adult audiences. Of them all, only “Rocky and Bullwinkle” and “The Simpsons” were made especially for television.
Most other television animation… notably Hanna-Barbera’s stuff … was NOT made for grownups (except for “The Flintstones,” and a few others). Most of HB’s stuff was made for children… and consequently, rather than pay any real attention to the quality or the writing, they just pumped the stuff out. After all, kids will watch anything, yes?
Conventional wisdom holds that cartoons for adults have to be smart, sassy, well-written, well-made, and of sufficient quality to hold an adult audience.
Conventional wisdom holds that cartoons made specifically for children can be crap, because who cares?
This is wrong. Children can tell the difference, and will quickly get bored with crap. Even as a wee one, I’d rather watch ONE Pink Panther than a dozen Scooby Doos.
How odd, I am 5’6", blonde, I get a fair share of men looking, so I’m probably okay, and yeah, I’m a woman.
What a pansy-ass, butt-licking, weak bunch of crappy animation. As others have said good cartoons are written so adults can appreciate them. I fear for the children of today.
Have you ever seen Ultimate Muscle? Or Jackie Chan? Awsome shows, both of them. Some ABC shows, like Pride Family and Recess, are fun and smart and I can damn well appreciate them. Being an adult an’ all.
Crusader Rabbit and Rags headed down to Cancun with Captain Kangaroo once their retirement bennies kicked in.
The Smurfs were one of the most poisonous shows of their time. Notice how none of the Smurfs could ever solve a problem on their own? Only by banding together could they even so much as successfully tie a shoelace. And that was the death knell for individual excellence in modern society. You know all those signs in HR that say; "There is no “I” in “teamwork.”? They were printed by the Smurf animating team after the show was cancelled. I firmly believe some ingenious marketing drone smashed together all the blue Smurfs and a squished in some pink Strawberry Shortcake in order to create Barney, the one dinosaur in most dire need of immediate extinction.
However popular they might be, Speed Racer, Astro Boy, Marine Boy and Kimba the White Lion all hearlded the doom of well made cartoons. Animae taught Hollyweird vital lessons in how to strip out every last cent of overhead (and quality) from a well-animated production.
Don’t forget Tom and Jerry.
The Simpsons even pay homage to them with ‘The Itchy and Scratchy Show’.
Hell, even the Chipmunks should be mentioned.
*" All right you Chipmunks! Ready to sing your song?
-I’ll say we are!
-Yeah!
-Let’s sing it now!
Okay, Simon?
-Okay!
Okay, Theodore?
-Okay!
Okay, Alvin? Alvin? ALLLLVIIIIIN!
-OKAY!!!
Christmas, Christmas time is near
Time for toys and time for cheer
We’ve been good, but we can’t last
Hurry Christmas, hurry fast
Want a plane that loops the loop
Me, I just want a hula hoop
We can hardly stand the wait
Please Christmas, don’t be late."
La lala lala lala…*
Oh, the memories.
~sniff~
Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego? still comes on? Where and when? I loved this cartoon!
Actually, the OP would have been correct about 5 years ago - nothing but Saved by the Bell clones as far as the eye could see. However, Saturday morning cartoons have been slowly but steadily making a comeback in the last couple years.
I’m very disappointed in this new Ninja Turtles cartoon, though. It’s lame and Raphael’s voice is all wrong! And I really miss Garfield and Friends…
A Bullwinkle flashback:
Bullwinkle is tied to a chair in a room filled with explosives. The fuses have been lit by Boris and Natasha, who have run for cover.
[Announcer voice]: Well, will Bullwinkle be able to extricate himself from this predicament in time?[/Announcer voice]
[Bullwinkle voice]: I will, as soon as I can get loose![/Bullwinkle voice]
“Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego” comes on at 7:00 AM on Saturday in New York. I’m not sure if that’s the original or some spiffy new take on it, although, from what I’ve seen, it looks much the same.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Sinful *
What happened to Saturday mornings in front of the TV eating Lucky Charms?
Being a child of the 60’s/70’s, I can tell you that this very sentence brings back exquisite memories!
The answer may be that some years ago (10-15:confused: ) the Feds insisted on television stations having so many hours of “educational” programs per week, which they dumped onto saturday.
The defenition of “educational” however, is objective to whomever is in charge of programing I guess.
Pokemon/DragonballZ kids have no idea what they’re missing. Oh to go back to the days when cartoons were serialised and were sophisticated enough to sucker in adults as well.
My all time favourites, in no particular order:
[ul]
[li]G-Force (aka Battle of the Planets)[/li][li]Chorlton and the Wheelies[/li][li]Voltron (Lion Force of course - the little wimpy car things sucked)[/li][li]Astroboy[/li][li]Belle and Sebastian[/li][li]Dangermouse[/li][li]The Mysterious Cities of Gold [/li][li]Ulysses 31[/li][li]The New Adventures of Flash Gordon - not to be confused with Defenders of the Earth which was mightily crappy[/li][/ul]
Today’s cartoons certainly lack any kind of semi-interesting and/or coherent plot. The CareBears, My Little Pony, Rainbow Brite etc, along with TMNT started the downfall of quality cartooning. Thank god for the Simpsons - modern day cartooning’s only saving grace.
Wish I remember where I saw an article on the demise of Saturday morning cartoons on broadcast TV - but essentially it’s because of cable. Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, Disney, and Disney’s toon network (can’t remember its name) have effectively sucked away the kiddie eyeballs. Meanwhile, the broadcast nets discovered that there actually were adults watching TV on Saturday morning, which is why NBC, for example, started broadcasting a weekend version of Today.
Another issue: in the case of the Warner Brothers classic cartoons, Time-Warner made the decision to keep those exclusively on its Cartoon Network outlet, rather than continue to rent them out to archrival Disney’s ABC unit. Time-Warner also owns the entire MGM library (Tom and Jerry, Droopy Dog) and Hanna-Barbera, the lesser iterations of which they keep in near-constant run on their Boomerang network. (This is where you realize that most HB stuff stank).
Dude…Smurfs were so gay…80’s style.
From what I can tell, Saturday morning cartoons have largely gone the way of bellbottems and the Rubiks cube. There are still plenty of cartoons, it just seems that:
a) they are all on weekday mornings and afternoons (presumably before and after school), all day long on the Cartoon Network, or at odd times (like the Simpsons or Samuri Jack)
b) the plot primarily consists of a 20 minute pit fight between two sets of action-figurable characters
c) most of them suck
Gone are the days when Hanna-Barbara ruled Saturday mornings with an iron fist. Children today will never learn the Mouse-Cat-Dog chain of command or witness the pure hilarity of a shotgun blast to the face. I guess it’s nothing but Pokemon clones and Power Rangers from here on out.
Dangermouse rocked! I watched that in college. I would definitely buy that on DVD, is anyone selling it?
I guess I have some taste then, even if I do like Pokemon (hey, the first season wasn’t so bad, they even ripped off Ray Bradbury)
Anime, folks. Watch the Utena movie or Eva and you’ll never doubt what cartoons can do again.
“OMIGOD! Times have changed since I was a kid! What kind of sick sadistic deity would allow that to happen? Augh!”