oops :smack: as another poster pointed out I was talking about Superfriends…got the lineups confused, but they’re pretty similar in spirit.
also, Jem should be disallowed as a valid entry, same w/ She-Ra, my sisters used to drive me nuts w/ those cartoons.
I feel sorry for kids nowadays, cartoons BLOW now.
i know xmen was in the 90s, but that too was a great cartoon. I also thought Rogue was smoking hot and viciously sexy. I was relieved to konw that half my dorm did also.
Mysterious Cities of Gold.
You guys must be discussing specifically animated cartoons. Especially since the decade under discussion is that of The Far Side, Calvin and Hobbes, Bloom County, and Mark Alan Stamaty’s wonderful Washingtoon.
G.I. Joe
The suckage of 80s cartoon pales next to the Dysonian suckage of the 70s. When Fat Albert is the creme de la creme, you’re talking Stygian abyss.
It’s “Thundercats, ho!”
Based on how religiously I watched them, my list would be:
1.) Voltron
2.) Dangermouse
3.) Thundercats
4.) Seven Cities of Gold
5.) Transformers/Heman - tie
Based on how popular they still are, though, my objective list would be:
1.) Transformers
2.) GI Joe
3.) Robotech
4.) Thundercats
5.) Voltron
…although in this case my #5 is provisional because I’m not really remembering anything else.
That Robotech was so popular is kinda strange to me. At 24 I still have vivid memories of all the shows on my list and yet I don’t remember watching Robotech. I saw it when I was much older and thought it kicked ass, so if I’d watched it when I was little I’m sure I’d remember it.
Weird.
Also, how about we exclude anything that bridges decades from this list? Duck Tales and TMNT kicked ass, sure, but they carried over well into the 90’s. If we had a thread about the best 90’s cartoons they’d be contenders there too.
Well, if you’ve got some better ones to offer up, feel free. Unless you just came in to piss in everyone’s Count Chocula.
These were my faves: (And no disqualifying any of the girly ones, Mdr. Sisters had every right to watch cartoons, too! :p)
Garfield and Friends
Muppet Babies
Smurfs
Scooby Doo (Does that count? It first started in 1969 but was still going strong in the '80s)
Hmmm … hard to pick a fifth. Since no one has mentioned them, I’ll throw out Rainbow Brite and Care Bears. Remember them?
They started in 1993, making them the greatest 90’s cartoon ever.
YES!!!
This makes 3 people besides myself who remember that one
Ancient Incan Flying Golden Condor-planes rule!
I missed the 80’s, cartoon viewing-wise, and I don’t have any positive nominations to make; however, I would like to suggest immediate disqualification be imposed on any franchises whose raison d’etre was to move product off the shelf at Toys “я” Us. Licensed characters are one thing; Speed Racer would have existed without Speed Racer bed sheets, for instance. But if there had not been Transformers[sup]TM[/sup] brand transforming robot toys in the stores, the television program would not have been made. Same goes for My Little Pony, Strawberry Shortcake, Care Bears, GI Joe, and others of that ilk.
Sorry if anyone thinks the above is thread-crapping.
Who’re you calling a ho?
You are ruining my choc-o-bot action hour memories.
List:
Robotech. It is the reason that anime started to take off. Kids raised by Speed Racer, Marine Boy, and Kimba the White Lion managed to get serial drama from Star Blazers in their later developing years, but 'twas Robotech that started the ball rolling as many a future Anime fan asked themselves: “there’s got to be more of this stuff over there”
Transformers. For the reasons the OP said, plus the fun they often had with the multiple characters. My favorite memory is an episode where a side running joke is Spike trying to teach the Autobots basketball. ONe scen has Optimus rolling the ball across his ‘shoulders’ while at the communcation screen. Sadly, Transformers was ruined by their foray into the future, where every transformer turned into a submarine that look like it had been stepped on.
Star Blazers. Oh! the earth saving drama, and the fairy-voiced villain, Desslock. Later I found out how much of that show was Japanese right-wing fantasy (why do the Gamelon fighters look like WW2 USMC planes?). I got to see the unedited versions of the final Comet Empire episodes (in Japanese) years later…and understand why there was not a third season brought to the US.
GI Joe. Hokey. But hell of a time. My favorite is the Cobra channel episode where Cobra hijacked a communcations sattelite.
Thundercats. Awww, yeah. My biggest beef was the useless Tigra, who had mind powers added for one episode just so he could be a challenge to Lion-o
That was their best effort. Excellent episode(s). I didn’t care for Shipwreck before that episode, but I always liked him afterward.
Oh, hey, did anyone catch Robotix? It didn’t last very long (as the link explains), but I was very impressed back then. It was a nifty concept that seemed to come across well in a cartoon. The toys were pretty cool, too.
I had the giiant build-your-own Robotic T-Rex, with the gun on it’s spine!
Here’s my personal rankings:
Gummi Bears
Count Duckula
Dangermouse
The Smurfs
Ducktales
Talespin
Bananaman
I also liked Darkwing Duck, but I think that’s a 90s cartoon.
Considering how closely the animation, toy, and comic-book companies were working at the time, how can you distinguish where one begins and one ends?
To take my field of expertise, Transformers started as a set of toys imported from Japan by Hasbro, but all they had were the toys. It was Marvel Comics that came up with the Autobot/Decepticon war and the idea that they were sapient beings. And it was later work by Sunbow (a studio formed by Marvel and Hasbro) that created the looks of the post-movie characters, which was then fed back into new toy designs.
i recently bought the entire 99 episode DVD + Movie Box Set and I must say it was the greatest purchase ever made by man. Way better than Seward’s Folly or the Yankees buying Babe Ruth.
the wisdom of Optimus Prime plus his battle skills will never be matched again in any cartoon. Soundwave was by far the coolest Decepticon, and Frenzy and Rumble were his coolest Casseticons. Grimlock was great as were the rest of the Dinobots, but surprisingly they weren’t used that much in the cartoons despite their wild popularity. Rodimus Prime = George W Bush, a complete moron who had no business leading anyone. As Hot Rod he was acceptable, not as leader of the Autobots particularly since he didn’t necessarily lead in half the episodes he was in.
I remember the day Optimus Prime died. I was but a wee 9 year old child, naive to the fact that corporate america was deciding on what I liked in my Transformers. I was also REALLY traumatized when the same shots that would hit the Autobots in the cartoons wouldn’t cause a dent, now were lethal and making smoke and death come out of Ironhide’s mouth. Very scary.
And then it happened. Prime died. At Megatron’s hands no less. To add insult to injury, though they tried to make it seem like Prime had it won but had to stand down due to Hot Rod being held hostage at gunpoint, Megatron to that point had laid a more severe licking on Prime. Then he died and turned black…and I remember inside my head yelling NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! IT’S NOT TRUE!!!
i felt like crying and throwing up. I watched the movie again a few wks ago, same reaction.
later in teh series, they had Prime come back after the Quintessons had programmed him for evil, but he snapped out of it and committed suicide by flying the ship into the sun to protect the Autobots from himself…“Autobots, return to Cybertron, this is my final command”…he said all this w/ one arm and eye. 
finally he came back again, and by that time even i knew as a 10 yr old the run was over. But what a run it was 
Does The Simpsons count? If so, that is the greatest. If it doesn’t qualify, then my favorite was The Super Dimension Fortress Macross (For U.S. fans: Robotech).