Best cartoon era for kids

[Ed Liu]

I grew up in the same era as Silverstar, and while I loved the cartoons at the time, I'm not so wrapped up in nostalgic bliss that I can't see them as the trash that they are. I had massive love for Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends when I was young, but watching a re-run on Toon Disney was one of those, "I liked THIS?!?" moments. I'm pretty sure most of us watched He-Man at the time specifically to point and laugh at it the next day at school, since we recognized it as crap from the start, and none of us were ever fooled by the consequenceless violence of G.I. Joe and Thundercats or the idiotic moral lessons tacked on to make them "educational." To quote a wiser mind than mine: Nostalgia doesn't want us to remember this simple fact: SUCK IS ETERNAL, and a whole lot of those 80's cartoons really sucked.

At this point, I'd probably say that the best era of cartoons for kids is still the Golden Age of animation, way back in the 30's and early 40's, since most of those toons were "all-ages" in the best sense of the word. As a result, I don't think the kids ever felt that they were being condescended to, and the cartoons themselves were wonderful. We're still watching them, enjoying them, and learning from them, which really should say something. The 90's had some great cartoons, but that was also the era when they started getting harder to find, and many of them were awful from a technical standpoint -- stiff and cheap and without that tiny bit of charm Filmation managed to work in there. The early part of this decade had some pretty good ones, too, but it's just too close to tell whether they'll hold up over time.

-- Ed

 

[Master Toon]

I grew up in the 90's where some of the classics like Looney Toons and HB shows like Yogi, Huck, The Filtstones, Top Cat, Scooby-Doo etc. were shown in syndication. I think the 90's was the best because it had more variety. Most old cartoons follow the same formula and some were carbon copies of each other. In most 90's cartoons you weren't only entertained but along the way you learn some stuff as well. That's the way I see it at least.

 

[zoombie]

Was the 90's really considered the time of the cartoon renaissance among insiders? I just made it up when I said that before.

On the extras of the season 1 and 2 Ren and Stimpy show DVD is a John K. interview, John K. comments on that. Love him or hate him, and I know a lot of people around here hate him or at least hate his work but that is irrlevent to his conversation, but I thought he made a valid point and I agree with him.

He commented on how cartoons in the 80's were mostly driven from toy merchandise and how to incorpate them to make money off toys, and said when Nicktoons began they wanted to do cartoonest driven cartoons. He said sarcasticly "Cartoonest driven cartoons, what a concept." Or something similar.

I think the cartoons in the 80's with a few exceptions, was aimed at one age group or one gender. Not many cartoons in that time made effort, lets make a show that kids of all ages and maybe even some adults, that both boys and girls will like. They were focused on one specific demographic, not saying it is a terrible thing, it worked out for them.

The 90's went back to the golden age method let's make a show that almost everybody could enjoy.

 

[zoombie]

Actually, that post is pretty interesting, as it proves that not everyone will be rose-colored glasses and nostalgic about the era in which they grew up.

I am half way there. I consider myself both a child of the 80's and 90's child. I consider the 90's the best era in my life time, but think todays era has the edge over the 80's.

 

[Kitschensyngk]

Definitely the 90s, with the advent of Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network.

The 60s come in at a close second. I've seen a few of them on Boomerang and some of them are quite entertaining.

The 70s were too bland, the 80s seemed more intent to sell you stuff, and the majority of today's cartoons are either too educational, too stupid or too focused on card game tie-ins.

 

[zoombie]

The 70s were too bland, the 80s seemed more intent to sell you stuff, and the majority of today's cartoons are either too educational, too stupid or too focused on card game tie-ins.

Maybe I am stereotyping on just programs I familar with. But that vast majority of the card game tie-ins shows you are referring to (Caotic is one exception) that are based on toy and video games that we see now a days are from Japan. The programming from Japan it is like the 80's cartoons that came from North America.

As far as cartoon for kids, Japan is living in the 80's, no offense. And some of them are excellent BTW, mostly better than the 80's toy merchandise shows that we made. Digimon is a brillant show, despite its corporite tie ins.

One pet peeve I have about the cartoons in the 80's, (I don't want to pick on the era too much, but it needs to be said) is those educational messages at the end of the episodes. After the episode is over, they would have a one minute episode in which the characters break the 4th wall and give an educational message. I thought that was condisenty and talking down to the audiance. You can incorporate those messages within episodes without breaking from the storyline and moving smoothing along. Since I brought it up already, Digimon had a lot of educational messages, and they never needed to break the 4th wall to deliver them, and the story moved smoothly. Pokemon was also the same way as well, though sometimes the narriator would spell it out for you when Ash learned a lesson.

You don't have to be so bladent to teach a lesson. I don't mind merchandise driven cartoons if they are good. If it is a good show, I don't care where it came from, but those educational messages I disliked, it talked down to the audiance. And the number one rule of preforming, don't talk down to the audiance.

 

[Zorak Masaki]

I enjoy all eras actually. The 60s had classic HB stuff like flintstones, space ghost, jetsons, mightor, etc as well as the last gasps of theatrical cartoons,and of course rocky and bullwinke, the 70s had a lot of formularic stuff, but also shows that were able to rise above the formula (wait till your father gets home, the barkleys, and even certain superfriends eps for example). The 80s was merchandise driven but also had several excellent comedy cartoons (real ghostbusters, heathcliff, new adventures of mighty mouse, garfield and friends) and the action cartoons did have lots of excitement and catchy theme songs, and occasionally good to excellent writing and animation. The 90s were the return of creator-driven shows (simpsons, doug, rugrats, ren and stimpy, beavis and butthead, 2 stupid dogs, etc) and WBs golden age, as well as the decade that anime started taking a foothold in the US. And the 2000s has given us adult swim (for every assy mcghee, they still have stuff like venture bros and boondocks, two of the greatest adult toons ever) and some toon revivals (he-man, transformers animated) that are superior to their older counterparts, and the greatest DCAU show (IMO) Justice League/JLU, not to mention great comedy cartoons like chowder and johnny test. I like to look at the good of the industry as opposed to focusing on the bad.

 

[Uncle_Lina]

Everyone here's going to say 80s or early 90s anyway, so what's the point.

 

[Racattack!Force]

Definitely the 90s, with the advent of Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network.

Don't you mean Nicktoons, since I'm sure Nick was around since the 70s.

 

[Dr. Zin]

For datapoint purposes, I should note that by real-world numeric standards, I was well into "grownup" by the time the '90s rolled around, that being the period I cited upstream as my pick for "best era".

(We will ignore Statler and Waldorf making comments from the box seats about "Peter Pan syndrome"....)

 

[Antiyonder]

Have to go with the 90s.

Aside from the reasoning stated so far, there was a thread discussing the fads and trends surround animation. The 90s followed the martial arts trends, but regardless, the decade still had a good help of diversity. Even if say Gargoyles was Disney's response to Batman The Animated Series, it still had it's own feel and was pretty different when you examine the two shows.

 

[stephane dumas]

the best cartoon era could also varie by country, here in Quebec Canada in the late 1970s-early 1980s we got a mix of reruns of classic Hanna-Barbara cartoons, the 1967 Spider-man, Marvel Super-heroes, Rocket Robin Hood, the adventures of Tintin (the 1960's Tele-Hachette/Belvision version) with the first broadcasting of animes like Albator (Captain Harlock), Capitaine Flam (Captain Future), Candy Candy and Goldorak (UFO Robot Grendizer)

 

[Dr.Pepper]

I will say '90's to mid '00's. This is when CN and Nick had decent shows and a watchable schedule. I have noticed that a lot of '80's cartoons have catchy themesongs that make you want to watch the show.

 

[fanboy]

To me, would be late 80's until early 2000's. Sometime after 2002, almost everything went down the hill! (with very few good exceptions)

 

[Mad Mod 49]

90s all the way. It may have been the worst era for comics, but it was the best for animated shows. 60s-70s and the current era have some good or even great things in them, and the 90s did have some real crappy shows, but overall 90s wins out.

To quote a wiser mind than mine: Nostalgia doesn't want us to remember this simple fact: SUCK IS ETERNAL, and a whole lot of those 80's cartoons really sucked

So the entire concept of Nostalgia or Nostalgia itself is bad (as that link says) just because the shows it can sometimes blind people too happen to be crappy? What about the good ones? Heck, what about Nostalgia outside of TV shows? Not to mention that blogger seems crazy. Wiser mind, indeed.

Moderator Note: This post has been edited for language. Keep it clean, people.

 

[zoombie]

For me, the 90's did introduce to me gray characters and world of gray. The show that changed the way I looked at things was Gargoyles. How they humanised the villains, and put real flaw in the heros, I never saw that type of show before. It was so different to me. Before thing it was simple some characters are good and some characters are bad. There were others shows that came before probably, but I didn't see them.

Before than, it was always black and white. Sure I have seen shows when characters redem themselfs. But redemption doesn't make you a gray character, it means you went from black to white, not a gray character.

 

[Infusions]

90's.

So much variety in shows, there's no way you could not be happy.

Also, Johnny Bravo FTW.

 

[Henk55]

To me, would be late 80's until early 2000's. Sometime after 2002, almost everything went down the hill! (with very few good exceptions)

Yeaah, 2002, I've always had feeling something went wrong after that

If we're talking bout Television, I can't really make the decision between the 60s and the 90s because I haven't seen enough of the 60s cartoons. I remember how I loved Wacky Racers and that.... spin off show with those 7 dwarfes trying to save Penelope or whatever. I've seen both of them on Boomerang recently I've realised how great they were! I love funny music and how funny everybody looks. Well all the episodes are basically the same cartoon though, buuuut... They are funny!

90s to 2002 had some real gems... first Ren & Stimpy, Cow & Chicken, everything Genndy Tartakovsky, Eds, the best period of the Simpsons(I've actually liked them much much more when I was 10-12 years than I do now), SpongeBob, a lot more....

I've always thought Scooby Do and all the other derivate 70s cartoons were painfully boring and hated how everything looked Poo Brown. 80s cartoons... I don't get them. They had funny corny intros though.

 

[Pomegranate]

The pre-60s had lots of cartoons that were geared towards general audiences rather than just youths and the 90s also has more well-written and plot-driven cartoons than the 60s-80s and the current era both do.

 

[cyde]

I had no fave era.