Cartoons that made a big pop culture splash but are now disproportionately forgotten

[Classic Speedy]

Beetlejuice. It was a visually appealing cartoon with lots of cartoony humor, appealing characters, more wit than the movie, and some interesting animation during the "commercial" segments. Yet, it's never brought up when discussing 80s/early 90s cartoons. It did get a complete series boxset a few years ago, but it's not even streaming anywhere. Even Rescue Rangers is more fondly remembered (and I mean BEFORE the movie). Of course, the movie itself isnt that well-remembered either, maybe it's time we do a remake that's more in vein with the cartoon.

It's funny, I definitely watched Beetlejuice when I was a kid, but I can't remember any of the specific plots. It didn't stick with me like some of the other cartoons around the same time- Tiny Toons, Ren & Stimpy, The Simpsons, etc.

Now the intros on the other hand, those did stick with me. They're still some of my favorite opening animations of all time.

 

[Pooky]

Beetlejuice... Of course, the movie itself isnt that well-remembered either, maybe it's time we do a remake that's more in vein with the cartoon.

Hmm, I think you might be underestimating the endurance of the original film. It's still fairly popular in merchandising, especially around Halloween. And there's a hit musical version and a sequel in production.

But I agree Beetlejuice is a good example of an animated spin-off that had a life of its own beyond the movie, and is now somewhat forgotten

 

[[classic swim]]

I’ve discovered awhile ago that Superjail has mostly faded away from consciousness. Both in a casual sense and even with the hardcore Adult Swim clique.

Everyone eventually moved on from it, where as Metalocalypse is something I atleast know still has hoards of fans.

For me, summer of 2008 had marked the end of Adult Swim’s golden age. That was the last time I had a particularly warm and fuzzy feeling about it before I started watching less and less.

However, Superjail was one of those things where it felt like it was turning a brand new leaf in media.

It had a lot of gore in it, and its overall purpose was pretty much gore. But in spite of that; Superjail was far from another generic late 2000s cartoon gorefest.

Superjail from a visual standpoint back then was pure animated wonder. And I believe it still can be even when shows like Primal now exist.

It was a huuuuuge step-up for Adult Swim as things all around at the time were stagnating.

There used to be a bunch of flack from fans when Adult Swim was done with the show. Although I do believe it ended at the right time.

The show was still heavily remarked upon when sister show Ballmastrz was on, (no one even knows what happened to that) and now it feels like both have been forgotten about entirely.

 

[JoeMabbon]

Shrek which went from being the first big non-Pixar animated film franchise to a meme generator. Puss in Boots seems to be only thing aspect of the franchise that's still drawing breath.

The Land Before Time. I actually randomly remembered it existed and looked it up under the mistaken impression that they were still making direct-to-video sequels. Turns out it petered out in 2016.

On the anime side of things, Tenchi Muyo. That franchise was huge in the late 90s and very early 00s. But none of the spinoffs have gotten close to the original three series in terms of popularity and the franchise is kinda a relic now.

 

[Mostezli]

However, Superjail was one of those things where it felt like it was turning a brand new leaf in media.

As someone who watched a couple AS shows here-and-there during their heyday, post-Superjail!'s "revival" was easily the most exciting to tune into because that definitely paved the way for the next generation of similar/familiar content - a branding which AS hasn't given up on since then.

 

[[classic swim]]

As someone who watched a couple AS shows here-and-there during their heyday, post-Superjail!'s "revival" was easily the most exciting to tune into because that definitely paved the way for the next generation of similar/familiar content - a branding which AS hasn't given up on since then.

I think it was vastly influential even outside of Adult Swim.

That large influence is part of why I’m a little sad it’s been lost on others.

Now it seems like it’s lumped with Happy Tree Friends as washed up cartoons from the past that were edgy and had blood.

I know Superjail hasn’t aged entirely well with some of the dark humor but overall it’s animation history and it bums me out when others are so dismissive of it.

 

[Pooky]

Shrek which went from being the first big non-Pixar animated film franchise to a meme generator. Puss in Boots seems to be only thing aspect of the franchise that's still drawing breath.

I'm curious to see how the Puss-in-Boots sequel does. The Shrek memes have always been pretty incomprehensible to this 1986-model dinosaur, but it's now impossible for me to tell where the sincere Shrek nostalgia ends and the ironic Shrek memeing begins. But at any rate Shrek is discussed a lot on the internet; it was in the Top 10 most discussed films on Twitter last year for example; all the others were current films. I don't think Rise of Gru's success was primarily meme-driven, but it certainly didn't hurt on opening weekend. I just don't know if Shrek's online following will transfer to a sequel to Puss in Boots. The "original" seems semi-forgotten, a shame as it's better than most or all of the Shrek films IMO.

And speaking of 80s dinosaurs...

The Land Before Time. I actually randomly remembered it existed and looked it up under the mistaken impression that they were still making direct-to-video sequels. Turns out it petered out in 2016.

Genuinely popular and successful in the 90s, but after that I think after that it mostly stayed (in)famous on the "wait, there are how many?" basis (although, as many of us have since learned, the number of Land Before Time movies is actually quite restrained compared to a number of anime franchises).

That last film (the 14th, released in early 2016) almost seems like it was made/released as some kind of dare or inside joke. Revive a film series already known for excessive entries for a single film after almost a decade, and then just leave it at that. Odd.

Have to at least give them some credit for making it (judging from trailers/clips) visually fairly consistent with the previous films. Must have been quite a challenge so many years after traditionally animated films stopped being any kind of norm in America.

 

[Dr.Pepper]

Do movies count now? If so I’m definitely nominated Dinosaur. I belive it was second only to Lilo & Stitch as the highest grossing Disney animated feature of the 2000’s, but everyone seems to forget about it. I don’t even hear people mention it when talking about movies they’re nostalgic for.

I also want to mention Disney’s Tarzan. Not an obscure movie by any means, but it seems like it’s the ‘90’s movie that comes up the least (except for Rescuers Down Under). Despite this it was the highest grossing movie of the second have of the ‘90’s by a wide margin.

An American Tail is another. It came out before I was born, but didn’t it have a pretty big cultural impact? Animation fans are more than aware of it, but I’m referring to the general public. I know I heard “Somewhere Out There” on mainstream radio as late as the late ‘90’s. I’d almost argue that Fieval Goes West is more well known. I have a friend who said she had Fievel Goes West on VHS as a kid, completely unaware that it was a sequel to anything.

 

[Pooky]

If so I’m definitely nominated Dinosaur. I belive it was second only to Lilo & Stitch as the highest grossing Disney animated feature of the 2000’s, but everyone seems to forget about it. I don’t even hear people mention it when talking about movies they’re nostalgic for.

I think this is a prominent example of a film that dazzled the eye but didn't touch the heart or stimulate the brain. I remember the consensus being that it was a disappointment compared to the dialogue-free teaser, but to be fair, it was the #5 film for the year worldwide (#11 in the US, and in the UK as it happens), wasn't excessively front-loaded, got an "A" cinemascore and sold well on VHS and DVD, so I guess quite a few people did like it. It deserves to be remembered for its part in the development of Maya if nothing else. I guess its main popular legacy is the Countdown to Extinction ride at Walt Disney World.

I’d almost argue that Fieval Goes West is more well known. I have a friend who said she had Fievel Goes West on VHS as a kid, completely unaware that it was a sequel to anything.

I think it really benefited from the close association between VHS tapes and keeping kids entertained in the 90s. The VHS market was growing in the mid-late 80s when An American Tale was released, but had really come along (and become a lot more affordable) by 1992. Plus at the time it had the record for the shortest gap between theatrical release and sell-thru VHS (four months, at a time when it was often a year or more), and it's wackier style fitted in with a lot of stuff that was going on in animation and the time (Tiny Toons/Animaniacs, Ren & Stimpy, the commercial revival of Looney Tunes etc.)

It's been a while since I've seen them but I always preferred Fievel Goes West. Feature length Animated out-and-out comedies have become commonplace over the last 20 years, but it was somewhat to novel to see one utilising American-style traditional full animation, and come to think of it, it still is.

 

[Red Arrow]

Do movies count now? If so I’m definitely nominated Dinosaur. I belive it was second only to Lilo & Stitch as the highest grossing Disney animated feature of the 2000’s, but everyone seems to forget about it. I don’t even hear people mention it when talking about movies they’re nostalgic for.

I also want to mention Disney’s Tarzan. Not an obscure movie by any means, but it seems like it’s the ‘90’s movie that comes up the least (except for Rescuers Down Under). Despite this it was the highest grossing movie of the second have of the ‘90’s by a wide margin.

An American Tail is another. It came out before I was born, but didn’t it have a pretty big cultural impact? Animation fans are more than aware of it, but I’m referring to the general public. I know I heard “Somewhere Out There” on mainstream radio as late as the late ‘90’s. I’d almost argue that Fieval Goes West is more well known. I have a friend who said she had Fievel Goes West on VHS as a kid, completely unaware that it was a sequel to anything.

I don't think Tarzan is forgotten, but Lilo & Stitch definitely is considering how popular it used to be.

 

[Pooky]

Disagree; this may not be the case everywhere, but Stitch is an absolute marketing phenomenon here in the UK. I probably see someone wearing a Stitch T-Shirt about once a week. If anything that's an example of a film that's endured way more than I ever thought it would.

 

[Dr.Pepper]

Disagree; this may not be the case everywhere, but Stitch is an absolute marketing phenomenon here in the UK. I probably see someone wearing a Stitch T-Shirt about once a week. If anything that's an example of a film that's endured way more than I ever thought it would.

It’s like that in the US too. I work with kids and I still see them with Stitch t-shirts, face masks, etc.

 

[Darklordavaitor]

Stitch is still quite prominent at the parks, and you can still even find Angel merch occasionally. I don't think Lilo & Stitch qualifies here at all.

 

[Asa]

W.I.T.C.H. comes to mind. Despite it's cult following on the internet, there's rarely been talk about a revival. Plus the show hasn't aired on American cable TV since 2008.

 

[Red Arrow]

Disagree; this may not be the case everywhere, but Stitch is an absolute marketing phenomenon here in the UK. I probably see someone wearing a Stitch T-Shirt about once a week. If anything that's an example of a film that's endured way more than I ever thought it would.

It’s like that in the US too. I work with kids and I still see them with Stitch t-shirts, face masks, etc.

That's interesting. I wouldn't know because cartoon T-shirts aren't common where I live except for very young children.

 

[Pooky]

That's interesting. I wouldn't know because cartoon T-shirts aren't common where I live except for very young children.

That's interesting; I have family in Belgium, and when I used to go there in the late 90s and early 00s I noticed that teenagers wearing cartoon T-Shirts were a lot more common than back home. Guess we switched at some point!

 

[Mr HooPoe]

You’ll probably get more mileage out of this discussion with movies, but I’ll try TV shows too.

I’m not sure how far back one wants to go with movies, since most of us are under the age of 50 and don’t have much to go by in estimating the cultural impact of general animation back in the day. Then again, it’s probably much easier to go by a metric of stuff released during the 1980’s and later since the home media boom allowed various movies and TV shows to be remembered in big ways, including older stuff that otherwise would have been lost to time.

If Disney films tend to be forgotten, it’s probably because they didn’t seem to strike enough of a cord to last long in the cultural zeitgeist: Pocahontas, Dinosaur, and Bolt were all decent sized hits but I don’t recall them being considered classics like the other Disney films nor have I seen much influence stem outwards from any of them. In fact, I’m surprised nobody mentioned Pixar’s A Bug’s Life yet: given that it managed to surpass Antz in the box office game and spoken highly of, as Pixar made more films it seemed to have less reason to be returned to with later Pixar films finding interesting ways to stay relevant beyond technical advancements.

Some of Don Bluth’s films like An American Tail, The Land Before Time, and All Dogs Go to Heaven (probably Anastasia too) seemed to have a good life on home video but I hear little about these films anymore, not to speak of the rest of his oeuvre that tends to be less popular.

I can’t say which of DreamWorks properties that made a big splash have drifted into irrelevance. I don’t think Shrek fits this bill at all: it’s their biggest cash cow and spinoffs like the new Puss in Boots movie only serve to go along with it. DreamWorks making spinoffs that seem geared towards audiences younger than people old enough to have seen the original films when they came out–Madagascar, Kung Fu Panda, The Croods, The Boss Baby–seems to make it hard to say for sure on that front. That being said…if we’re picking on movies that have slid into becoming memes with little regard for the movie itself, Bee Movie probably fits the bill nicely. People still admire Shrek as an actual movie and I’m willing to back that up–Bee Movie was a new attempt for Jerry Seinfeld to do something with his screen persona and all we’ve seem to get out of it was “ya like jazz?”.

Maybe anything from Blue Sky Studios? Ice Age has really been struggling to milk itself past the initial film and none of the other films like Robots or Rio seem all that relevant anymore.

TV. It’s probably fair to start from the 80s and work our way forwards, as the way nostalgia has been working for animated series we’re only getting newer but we’re still mired in enough 80s nostalgia to this day to keep certain properties relevant. Most of the Disney Afternoon probably qualifies–I can’t say for sure if DuckTales and Chip n Dale Rescue Rangers are excluded because of their recent reboots, but Gummi Bears certainly have lacked that to stay relevant.

Was The Get-Along Gang popular enough in the 80s to fit the bill here or was that something people just watched because? What about that Twisted Adventures of Felix the Cat cartoon in the 90s?

Honestly, it’s not very easy to answer this question because I find it hard to measure in some way a property at the height of its popularity and its current status as suggested to be a zenith. I’m struggling to come up with reasonable answers, but the only other comment I can make is that cartoons based on popular movies probably doesn’t count. Even if they were popular enough on their own I don’t usually hear about them in accordance with the given film, unless the film was animated in which case you’d easily bring up Disney stuff like Lilo and Stitch: The Series or The Emperor’s New School; even then, were they popular enough on their own compared to the viewership of their respective movies?

 

[Ace]

A lot of these were SatAM exclusive franchises that weren't picked up or were sparsely aired on cable.

 

[harry580]

@Mr HooPoe

for don bluth, I can understand it but there's are people wanted disney to remake Anastasia in live action (which seems ironic given that don bluth film was a animated version of the 1956 live action version of Anastasia which fox made) as well as titan ae

for Dreamworks, it have to be some of Dreamworks 2d animated films, has potential but the box office flop ruin it, mostly due to its marketing

for blue sky studios, it still gathered a cult following, look at rio & robots, rio is proposed to get a third film:"Rio 3" Pre-Release News & Discussion Thread and for robots, there's is a campaign by a twitter user to release the Chris wedge cut of robots & not to mention robots has the memes like the bigweld ones (most notably: see a need, fill the need) & the aunt fanny ones & other memes like how people knew Ewan mcgregor played Rodney copperbottom


and for the disney stuff, boy there's a lot of unpack here, filmore, recess, that buzz lightyear cartoon, the weekenders & more

 

[Mr HooPoe]

...I just wrote a whole post about vague assumptions for what would qualify and added how hard it was to come up with examples, yet somehow I never considered Happy Feet, the perfect candidate for this thread. It came out in the mid-2000's at the height of penguin popularity in pop culture, used music familiar to the parents of children watching it, and was popular and well-liked. Nowadays? Nobody seems to care about it. It was very much a film that succeeded mostly because it came out at the right time, though I'd argue it's better than that and not worth being forgotten.

for don bluth, I can understand it but there's are people wanted disney to remake Anastasia in live action (which seems ironic given that don bluth film was a animated version of the 1956 live action version of Anastasia which fox made) as well as titan ae

I don't think I've heard much talk of Anastasia since it came out; it certainly didn't help that Hercules was the more popular animated film that year. It was a modest enough hit but not the kind that survives in the cultural realm–then again, I don’t think there’s a more popular version of the story so maybe you have a point. Absolutely not Titan A.E. though–even with the possibility of a remake, as a film it wasn’t even remotely successful. It was a big flop, and as a film it isn’t a very strong representation of the technical feats it aimed to produce. At least when people bring up sci-fi flops like Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, its technology is just that big of a deal no matter what one thinks of the film; only Don Bluth fans and hardcore sci-fi viewers really care about Titan A.E. and to assume it’s bigger than that is probably foolish.

for Dreamworks, it have to be some of Dreamworks 2d animated films, has potential but the box office flop ruin it, mostly due to its marketing

Were they really that popular though? The Prince of Egypt and Spirit did okay, but The Road to El Dorado and Sinbad were outright flops, and while some of these have quite a bit of popularity from their home video afterlife, it’s nowhere near the success of DreamWorks’ 3D films to consider them remotely a big pop culture splash. Maybe Antz and stop-motion efforts like Chicken Run and to a lesser extent the Wallace and Gromit movie could make cases for this, but the 2D films just weren’t on that level.